If you're a fan of 3D fighting games and own a 360, this is a must have for your collection.
User Rating: 9 | Virtua Fighter 5 Online X360
I've actually never played another VF before this one, and so I'm going to speak about the game the only way I know how, which is comparing it to DOA and Tekken. Let's start off by saying one thing...no one does ninjas like team ninja. Neither Kage from VF nor Raven from Tekken can even touch the ninjas from DOA. In Kage's case, it's just a matter of him feeling like any other fighter, which is probably the truth to what ninjas really were, but I don't want that type of ninja, I want a superninja. With Kage, you need to do a million perfectly timed button presses to perform a relatively, not spectacularly, cool move. With that being said, the rest of the fighters feel a lot more organic to me. It's easier to mix things up if you ever get good enough to do it. The movelist is much deeper, affording you a lot more options to confuse your oppponent with. The fighting mechanic other than that doesn't seem to be anything special...it's your standard 3d fighter. Don't get me wrong either though, that's a good thing, as it does an excellent job at being such. Character customization...I can't emphasize this enough, DOA needs to implement a similar system. As for the environments, and evironmental interaction, this is where Virtua Fighter and Tekken fall way behind. Tekken has become a little better at this, learning their lesson from DOA's style, but they still don't have it quite right. In the meantime, VF has stuck to fenced in rings and ring outs...It's a shame. There's these beautiful backgrounds and no way to explore them more deeply and interact with them with your opponent like in DOA. By the same token, I believe DOA should implement their own ring out system. It really changes the gameplay when you have to be worried about being at a huge advantage, making one stupid move and losing for it. I think however that, unlike in VF,there should be a reason for a ring out other than falling 1 foot onto the ground below. It should be more like danger zone where you simply couldn't return to the ring, ie. on a floating dock platform which one of the VF sages. I also believe that these stages shouldn't simply start on such a situation but instead be a part of a multi-tiered level that you have to get to and activate. Anyways, it's definitely worth a buy if you're into fighters. ESPECIALLY if you like the idea of costume customization. I've spent hours on just one person in quest mode trying to get every item.
As for online, I never understood the big deal personally, but I can understand why people find it important. I've never been a big fan of taking fighters online. I've had the opportunity to do so with DOA since the last generation. I actually did take DOA4 online but I just am not a big fan. Any sort of lag can just ruin the gameplay completely, and no matter what you do, at least in this stage of the game, there's always going to be connectivity issues. With that being said, it is an important note to mention that this is the first game in the VF series which can go online, and that can significantly increase the replay value if that's something you're looking for. There is at least the simple enjoyment of Achievements and the associated online functionality thereof if you decide to not actually fight online.
