If you are a fan of the series, Virtua Figher 5 is a must have, it won't offer much over VF4 Evolution though.
If you are familiar with the VF series, you'll feel almost immediately at home. If you are only a casual player, though, it will take a while to get used to. This game does very little in the way of a Practice mode which is sad because 4: Evolution had the absolutely most intrusive Practice mode ever made for any fighting game in history. This game is much more difficult than it's predecessor, so that same practice mode would have been a greater help in 5 than in 4: Evo. This game's combo system has been revamped to make juggling easier by allowing the float-time of the opponent to be extended a little from the last game, but the ground moves are still either easily done by button-mashing or they are intricate, multiple-direction inputs with multiple, simultaneous button presses depending on the character, and the controller still feels awkward compared to the standard arcade joy stick. Character's move lists have been expanded upon by adding new, diverse moves, and tweaking exsisting moves, so every character is even more unique and lets you spend time trying to figure out even more new strategies with characters you've dominated with in 4: Evolution. The two new characters, El Blaze and Eileen look and play like they belong in the series, that's about all that needs to be said about them.
This is a Playstation 3 game, so everyone basically expects this game to have terrific graphics, and it does. This game is nearly photo-realistic, especially with the environments. Very, very little in the way of jaggies and awkward body shapes (completely unnoticeable unless you actually take the time to marvel at the character and background models). Snow and sand deform and water splashes around even more realistically than in 4: Evolution, which is a great step up considering how great it was in its predecessor. Even when compared to it's flawless arcade counterpart, Virtua Fighter 5 is just a great looking game, simply put. The animations to this game are even more fluid and natural looking than ever before, so moves not only look flashier, but seem more effective.
One aspect that the game has really disappointed me with is the fact that some of the hit effects sound like crap and a half, usually making me say something like "that's not supposed to sound like that", but then there are times where I say to myself "now, that's more like it!". Recycled hit effects, recycled character voices, except for the two new characters, obviously and some new dialogue of course don't make the sound any better for me than in the last game. Voice acting is either decent or cheesy as hell, depending on the character. El Blaze's voice over actor is simply hilarious, you gotta hear this guy, oh my God!!! The announcer sounds indecipherable from the last game and is still as annoying as always. What's good, though is a lot of the stage music, although still forgetable, is really fitting and not so annoying.
Now, one of the most important parts about this game, the replay value has two things that help it, and three things that just kill it. The first thing is the ability to Customize your character's looks, just like in 4: Evolution. The item count has increased immensely and is more diverse and wacky than ever! It's fun as hell and it gives your character so much personality. The second thing that helps it is the Quest Mode. Just like in VF4: Evolution you choose a character, input your name, and fight in a handful of in-game arcades to raise your ranking and earn G. The characters are ghosts taken from the top VF5 players in the Japanese arcades, so two Akira opponents won't necessarily play exactly the same, although they don't really differ that much from character to character as there is usually only a couple best ways to play with each character and they mostly likely will all use those same strategies, but it's still great to have that variety when you take into account the lack of online-play. The first thing that hurts the replay value is the fact that playing against the CPU gets boring and, in turn Quest gets tedious and seems more and more like a chore as you go on. What would help this is if you could play online, but you can't and that's the most important exclusion of the game. The thing that got me, though was the fact that if you have a friend who has the game, you have no way of loading your character on their system because of the lack of a memory peripheral of some sort, so they don't get to see your creation and the progress with it unless they come over to your place, and that is another reason why online is a much needed component for this game. Just add online multi-player and some fun and challenging achievement missions and you've got THE game Fighting enthusiasts will shell out the cash to play. Too bad.... I really don't blame Sega for the lack of online playability when they first released as Sony's Playstation Network wasn't up to par with XBOX live, but it would be worth a shot to release some sort of patch now, especially since VF5 is online for 360.
All in all, this game will please fans of Virtua Fighter just looking to play an updated versions of their favorite game and maybe get to know the two new characters, but if you are just desperate for a fighting game on the PS3 and already have Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution, then just keep playing existing fighters until Tekken 6 comes out or untill they decide to give this game online play for PS3. ; ) If you have both next-gen consoles though, the 360 version of VF5 is where it's at and is a definet must...at least for now!