Despite being a flawed port , Virtua Fighter 3tb is still one of the best fighting games on the dreamcast.
Story- Just like pretty much any arcade based fighting game, VF3 , has little to no story, so little that its not noticable.
Gameplay- The gameplay in VF3 is similar to other entries in the series . There are 3 main buttons to use, block , punch , and kick . This deceptively simple system is in fact very deep and can take many hours to grasp. And since every character is completly different, the replay value to excel at more than a few characters is there. Two major additions have been added from VF2 , to make VF3 worthy. The first is the side step, making the game a true 3D fighting game, as opposed to VF2 which was essentially a 2D fighting game with 3D characters and backgrounds. The side step actually makes the game different from VF2 quite a bit. Also added are the variable surfaces. many stages in the game take place in such places such as an angled rooftop, a desert and other places with variable surfaces. This too can make a difference as it forces the player to think more about high and low attacks. The Dreamcast version runs at an overall smooth frame rate , though at some points the frame rate does drop. Overall though, VF3 has fun and deep gameplay , and the DC port does the game justice.
Graphics and Sound - When it first arrived in arcades in late 96, VF3 was the most visually stunning game up to that point . Two years on, it still looked great though the Dreamcast version is flawed. Sega had handed over the porting job to Genki , rather then their own AM2 division, who were too busy working on a Saturn port of VF3 which never saw the light of day. As such, the DC version does not look as good as the arcade, and the characters are blockier. Also present are some visual glitches such problems with the shadows and flags, as well as some clipping errors which really shouldnt have been there, given the Dreamcast hardware. That said, VF3 on the DC is still a good looking game for the time.
From a sound perspective , the game fares much better, the voices are all clear and so are the sound effects. The music in VF3 is some of the best in the series. Stages such as Sarah's underground train station, Pai's rooftop and Lau's Wall , have some of the best music in the VF series, and in any fighting game ever made.
In conclusion VF3 on the Dreamcast is not a perfect port, in fact , it is a very flawed port from a graphical perspective. With all that, the gameplay and music in VF3 are more then enough to compensate for the flawed graphics, and as such, make VF3 a worth purchase for all fighting game fans.