Virtua Fighter 5

"The best fighting game ever made is back for another round"

First of all, I'd like to say that the reviewer who gave this game a 4 either doesn't know what he's talking about or was being sarcastic. The "glitches" he discussed that resulted in no damage when he tried to throw opponents or hit them simply resulted from throw escapes and sabakis. With that said, here comes the review.

Graphics: 9/10
The graphics are simply astounding, especially if you run it in its native resolution or upscale it. The character models are incredibly detailed and the textures are extremely well done. If it weren't for VF's artistic style, the character models would look incredibly realistic. Instead, they opted to make them more shiny, which results in the action figure comments that some people have had. The stages are beautiful with superb lighting effects. The rippling of the water in some of the water stages is extremely well done as well and looks very realistic. The stages each have a distinct feel to them, which is an impressive feat. The only gripe I have about the graphics are that I have noticed occasional pixelation of the shadows, especially during the intro sequences. Most people would not notice it, but this kept me from giving it a full 10/10.

Sound: 8/10
Obviously, if you've ever played Virtua Fighter before, you know that the sounds aren't very realistic. There are different types of noises for different types of attacks: ie a heavy sound for a staggering blow and a sweeping sound for circular attacks. They're not very realistic, but they're not unpleasant either. I'm not saying that the lack of realism is a bad thing though, because audio cues are actually very useful in gameplay because they tip you off to what's happening on the screen even if you can't follow it. The music is pretty good in this game as well, with a variety of tunes for the different stages. All in all, it was very well done.

Gameplay: 10/10
The gameplay mechanics are arguably the best for any 3d fighter. Fights unfold somewhat like an extremely rapid series of rock paper scissors games. Strikes beat throws, Guard beats strikes, Throws beat guard. Of course, it's much more complex than that because there are throw cancels, multiple throw cancels, evades, sabakis (reversals) as well. The characters are also extremely well balanced with special playing styles. The great thing about Virtua Fighter is that you can't transfer your knowledge of the game from one character to another because they all fight very differently and have different strengths. There are tiers, just like any fighting game, but they're so clsoe together in VF that it doesn't matter as much as other games until you get to an extremely high level of play. FYI, Shun and Pai are regarded as top tier by the Japanese while characters like Jeffry and Blaze are bottom tier.

Replayability: Really depends on what kind of person you are
As a VF fan: 9/10
As a casual player: 6/10
VF5 is a bit bare bones in regards to its features. There's really only the quest mode to hold you over, where you play match after match to earn items for your characters. If you're a diehard Virtua Fighter fan, this will be sufficient for you, but this will be a bit borign to casual players. Also, many features that were in older VFs are not in this one. The most important one, in my opinion, is the tutorial mode from VF4Evo. The tutorial is the best done of any fighting game, and really helps newer players ease into the experience. Many people gripe about the lack of online matches, but this is because VF is frame based, so even the least bit of lag can throw an entire match, which just isn't fun. However, Sega really screwed up by not offering any online features at all. Furthermore, my biggest gripe about the game is that you can't transfer character saves to another system to play your friends, which is ridiculous because it's not that hard of a feature to implement.

Conclusion: If you like fighting games, you owe it to yourself to check out Virtua Fighter 5. If you're a VF fan already, you didn't need this review to know that VF5 would be amazing anyways. However, if you're a casual gamer, or not that into VF, I would rent it first. Enjoy.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/26/07