It's hard to believe that the most hallowed, the most hardcore, and at one point the most overpopulated of all gaming genres -- the fighting game -- is now a skeleton operation, supported by the final four pillars of Soul Calibur, Dead or Alive, Tekken, and of course, Virtua Fighter. While Sega's Virtua Fighter series helped steer the genre away from the 2D dominance of Capcom's Street Fighter and into the third dimension, it's rarely been the most popular 3D brawler. With the release of Virtua Fighter 5, however, that may begin to change.
Virtua Fighter has been, historically, a little bit tougher to get into than its closest rivals. The tap-tap friendliness of Tekken and the free-swinging mayhem of Soul Calibur, with cooler character rosters and harsher physics, had an edginess the more polite VF series could not provide. That all changed with Virtua Fighter 4 and VF4: Evolution, which came complete with great graphics, nimbler and more accessible controls, and a new realm of customization options that were closely tied to the new ranking system that carried over from the arcades and into the eventual PlayStation ports.
Now, instead of a rote selection of arcade, versus, training, and time attack modes, players could feel an actual sense of progress as they made their way through hundreds of increasingly difficult "rivals" in both games' Kumite/Quest modes. [Click the image above to check out all Virtua Fighter 5 screens.] That very same addictive quality arrives intact in Virtua Fighter 5, whether you're striving to unlock every last item for every one of the game's 17 fighters (good luck) via the Quest mode, which pits you against a half-dozen arcade's worth of competitiors, or if you're playing against human opponents.
The controls, as ever, are rapid-fire and responsive -- at least when the PS3's Sixaxis Bluetooth controllers aren't having data-transfer farts. The Sixaxis, it should be said, is just not up to to the task of letting players input the required motions to pull off some of the game's most powerful moves. If you have the means, absolutely do import either the Hori Real Arcade Pro stick for PS3, or Sega's own High Grade arcade stick (at least, once Sega of Japan has ironed out the stick's technical issues). VF5 definitely controls better with an arcade stick. While it's true that VF is a game of finesse, it's also now a game of pick-up-and-play, since every character has more than enough moves that are flashy, fun, and simple enough to bust out. But they still offer more powerful and complicated moves for those that have the dexterity and desire to discover them. Any concerns that the learning curve is too steep are quickly extinguished with a little time spent in VF5's comprehensive Dojo mode, which not only provides a virtual "Danger Room" for players to try out and master every move their character's capable of in nearly any conceivable situation, but also shows you how to perform the game's toughest moves.
The game is not handcuffed by its animations either. Players can always pull themselves out of a charged attack, ripping loose with rapid-fire jab interrupts and stagger moves and crumples. All of the familiar faces, save for VF3's Taka-Arashi, return, invigorated by new moves and balance tweaks. Players familiar with Pai, for example, will find some of her bread-and-butter combos adjusted, with the speed of some of her attacks increased while others are slowed down. This gives the roster a fresh feel instead of the stale same ol' same ol' that afflicts most of the competition. More significant are the new fighters, Eileen and El Blaze, two compact and speedy characters who offer more distinct and original playforbidden>
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