Virtua Fighter

Typical of Sega Arcade, the addictive nature of Virtua Fighter will be the reason you'll want to play it again so badly

User Rating: 8 | Virtua Fighter SAT

By loopy_101 | Review Date: December 6, 2008

Even a year after being originally unveiled, Virtua Fighter looked unbelievably dated as it sat next to the Sega Saturn back on launch day of the 22nd November 1994. The visuals definitely aren't the best on Saturn – with a primitive use of colours, polygons and just about every other resource on the system. Yet, Virtua Fighter is, without a doubt, a high quality fighting experience, with fluid fighting and a unique take on the one-on-one combat formula.

This port is almost spot on. You have your classic arcade mode, Vs mode, Ranking mode and Option mode. Arcade mode plays how you would expect it. It is a 3 button fighter: Punch, Kick, and Guard; this suits well to the placement of the Saturn controller's 6 face buttons. You can win by ring out, time out and KO – ring out being the unique one in particular since Virtua Fighter was literally the first decent 3D fighting game that had this feature in its gameplay.

The fighting itself is very smooth, especially compared to Tekken and Battle Arena Toshinden and fortunately is a lot slower paced which allows for strategic play and swift combat. The moves are also a lot simpler to perform which is good for more casual fighting fans. Grabs can be performed by pressing punch or kick with certain directions on the D-Pad when close to the enemy, combos are done with realistic combinations and every character works the way you'd expect them to play (e.g. Jacky is fast, Jeffery is strong, etc).

Perhaps the best part of Virtua Fighter is the actual music of the game which is very well suited to the atmosphere of play and feels much higher in quality than in the arcade version. It is just a shame the same can't be said about the actual voices in the game which are very poor.

Sadly, Virtua Fighter on Sega Saturn is quite a short game. There are no real reasons to re-play the game besides beating old times and improving skills. Unlike Tekken – there are no endings, unlockable characters or easter eggs. This game also has a few bugs like clipping errors that could've been straightened out given the developers had a little more development time.

Typical of Sega arcade games, the addictive nature of Virtua Fighter will be the reason you'll want to play it again and again so badly. And whether you want to try it out now as a new fan of Virtua Fighter, a nostalgic fan of the arcade game during the early 90s or as a bargain hunter – you're bound to at-least enjoy the game for what it represents.

Other Helpful Reviews for Virtua Fighter

• Rating:5.5

  Virtua Fighter is the most disappointing launch title of all time.

  By anton10000 | Review Date: Jul 07, 2008 | SAT

  First impressions are often the most important, and this sentiment lingered with the Saturn until its death in 1998. Virtua Fighter sold a great many Saturn in Japan on namesake alone, but the same didn't happen in the W... Read Full Review

  5 of 9 users found the following review helpful
• Rating:8

  This blocky, horrendous-looking fighter comes to life when you pick up the controller.

  By E-123Wario54 | Review Date: Jun 05, 2010 | SAT

  Comparing Virtua Figher to other fighting games of the time, graphics-wise, is senseless; there is no competition. Virtua Fighter, although getting the achievement of first 3D fighting game, looks like a bunch of polygon... Read Full Review

  2 of 5 users found the following review helpful