Virtua Fighter 5
Score: 85% ESRB: Teen Publisher: Sega Developer: Sega Media: Blu-ray/1 Players: 1 - 2 Genre: Fighting
Graphics & Sound: Virtua Fighter 5 is one of the first fighters to show up on the PS3, but instead of being a game that any PS3 owner is likely to pick up, it is definitely geared towards long-time gamers who have followed the series for at least a couple of iterations. Visually, the system struts its stuff. Characters and arenas look wonderful and detailed. With the wide assortment of locations, clothing and characters all flying across the screen at break-neck speeds, I was downright impressed with the PS3's performance. Virtua Fighter's background music wasn't all that bad either. I found them to be energetic and really got me involved in the fight. The only times I really had a problem with the audio aspect of this game was the somewhat clipped sounding voice-clips played after a battle. I can't put my finger on any one thing, but for some reason those post-fight taunts just didn't feel right.
Gameplay: With the exception of a few new characters and fighting styles, Virtua Fighter 5 doesn't bring a whole lot of new features to the table. The new characters include Eileen and El Blaze who use Monkey Kung Fu and Mexican Wrestling respectfully. These two new fighters round out the game's 17 total characters with returning characters like Lion, Pai, Wolf Halkfield and of course Akira all appearing in glorious 720p detail. The gameplay modes include Arcade, Vs, Quest, Dojo and VF.TV. The first few are obvious to anyone who has played a fighter or two. Arcade has you going up against a series of computer-controlled opponents in order to get to a big boss and Versus mode lets you try your skills against a local human opponent (notice I said local, there is no online component to this game so you can't knock around against someone who isn't sitting right next to you on the couch). Quest mode is the game's story and lets you collect money for your won matches and unlock various characters and clothing. This mode, like in the previous titles, takes you through a series of smaller tournaments in order to customize your personal character and increase his or her rank and skill so that you can be invited to the Fifth World Fighting Tournament. The Dojo is your training arena. Here you will practice the dozen or so combos each character can perform. Unfortunately, this is also an area where Virtua Fighter 5 is lacking. Because of the control scheme of the series (see Game Mechanics), it was hard for me to get the timing and button combos down well enough to do well in the game early on. I spent a lot of time in this mode at first and would have loved explanations and visual aids to help me learn these combos. Whether you are a new comer to the series or a veteran, I would definitely recommend spending some time in this mode with the manual opened up to the characters' various moves. The last mode, VF.TV, lets you replay matches and stick A.I. characters in what are essentially zero-player matches. As much as I enjoyed Virtua Fighter 5, one of the bigger hassles with the game were the excessive load times. Not only were they lengthy, they occurred all too frequently and really hindered the flow and feel of the overall game.
Difficulty: Virtua Fighter 5 is a game for the fans of the series. If you haven't played a Virtua Fighter game in a while (like me) and you are out of practice, then you will probably find this title a bit of a challenge (I know I did). I found myself losing battles early on, far more times than I was winning. And until I got my VF-legs back (again it has been a while since I put any time into one of these games), I just had to take the abuse. If, on the other hand, you have been playing the previous installments (or you have been dumping a lot of quarters into arcades), then VF5 should be a simple game to just pick up, play and win.
Game Mechanics: Virtua Fighter 5's controls are just like they were in 4. Punching is done with the X and Triangle buttons, while Circle and Square are kick and guard respectfully. This game doesn't use the analog sticks, but instead you control your character with the D-pad. Though these controls sound simple, I have always found myself stumbling over them when I get into a new VF title (or back into one if I haven't played in a long time). Since the controls are laid out like they are and the combos have to be fairly precisely timed, it gets hard to tap multiple buttons at the same time on a gamepad (arcade cabinets aren't as much of a problem since you can have a finger on each button). Having to tap the guard and kick buttons at the same time just gets too cumbersome with a controller. I'm not sure if it is the lack of analog control or the 2D mixed with 3D feeling of the game, but for some reason it just isn't the same as other fighters. I'm not saying the style is bad. It has worked for the game for many years now and if they suddenly changed the way it worked, I'm sure a lot of die-hard fans would have problems. I am only pointing this out to say VF isn't like other fighters and if you haven't been around the game before, you might find it a little hard to get used to. As I said at the beginning of this review, VF5 is really for fans of the series who already have a handle on how the game behaves and are used to the controls. If you are new to the fighting genre, then I would start with another game, or rent this one before you decide to purchase.
-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications AKA Chris Meyer
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