Virtua Fighter

"A decent port of the arcade classic."

Virtua Fighter was released in May of 1995 for the Sega Saturn, it was one of only 5 launch titles and is considered to be one of the best of the bunch as well as being one of the only reasons to own a Saturn when it was first released (the other being Panzer Dragoon.)

Graphics-6/10-The blocky fithers paled in comparison to the arcade game and were far overshadowed by games like Toahshinden that had been previewed for the Playstaion.
The backrounds are,for the most part, bland, the game has excellent animation that saves the game in the graphics department.

Sound-7/10-The music is rather generic, but some songs are excellent, the game's many sound effects are clear and help to convey the impact of many of the game's moves.

Controls-10/10-In a word, perfect.
The controls are very responsive with nary a hint of slugishness, the excellent control means a lot to this game because of the huge number of moves it contained.

Gameplay-10/10-This game has classic moves and combos that put it above the rest in this category.
The perfect control makes the combos and classic moves (like Kage's throw where he propels you 14 feet in the air) very easy to execute.

Overall-7/10- This game is considered a classic by many (including myself) based purely upon the game's excellent gameplay and legendary moves.
Unfortunately, the game's sub-par graphics and mostly bland music bring the score down a notch.

Rent or Buy?-Buy_Seeing as how very few places stocked Saturn games to rent when it came out, even fewer when it died out, buy it- it should only cost a few bucks and is one of the best fighting games ever.
If you buy it, you will not be disappointed, it is truly a classic and deserves to be experienced by all, if for nothing else, buy this game to show you how polygonal fighting games have evolved in a mere 5 years, it is truly remarkable.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 05/12/00, Updated 05/12/00