As we circled around the Sega booth, the distinctive sounds “Hooh-Ah!” of Virtua Fighter’s Jackie Bryant performing his signature flip kicks immediately entered my ears and perked them towards that direction. I came across the latest project to be released in the series, Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown, and had the opportunity to have a hands-on preview and discuss details of Final Showdown to find out whether or not this updated version of the game would be worth your time.
Sega of Japan and AM2 have been hard at work refining the design of Virtua Fighter 5 long after we received the most recent North American re-release for the Xbox 360 back in 2009. Final Showdown updates the recently improved Virtua Fighter 5 R, and because of the nature of these updates, Sega and AM2 have made it a point to make Virtua Fighter 5 relevant again in North America.
First and foremost, the visual design and fighting animations were completely overhauled, and play a much larger role than being just flashy and frenetic. The reworked animations play a central role of analysis for fighting, as there are additional frames of movement per second which give away the position of your opponent in order to signify what nature of attack they intend to strike against you. This very subtle addition to the core gameplay completely changes the dynamic of strategy and its execution is surprisingly intuitive. The slightest shift of stance -- be it a bend in the knee or a corked-torso -- will give you the information you need to successfully fight in ways that have never felt this immersive. There are other touches as well for multiplayer and dedicated play that are, again, subtle in its implementation but crucial in making the experience feel more seamless.
The Lobbying system for online fighting promises to be much more accurate in its matchmaking than previous console iterations of VF5, creating more accessibility for new players to join the fray without being intimidated by dedicated veterans. The Lobby will also have more community touches for spectator modes, and more to accommodate cross chat amongst the players in quarter feed lines. Like Street Fighter IV, this helps emulate the arcade experience even more. Other touches have been added as well, including a controller layout change out which can now be done during the character select screen along with practice runs of combinations, and Kumite character imports.
For those who don’t know, the Kumite mode is an addictive single player mode added back on the console iteration of VF4. Kumite allowed you to customize your favorite fighter aesthetically, and build up experience points to defeat countless A.I. opponents for more points to level up your rank and even more cool swag to customize your Kumite character. This mode makes a return, but when explored, simply came across as an afterthought in comparison to all the other efforts of finetuning the VF5 formula. Overall, there were no improvements or additions to Kumite design. Worst yet, all swag that you would have normally collected is now being planned for bundled DLC content requiring purchase, and will not be available in-game at all, which greatly gimps any interest for visiting the mode (let alone angering any serious fan of it).
Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown is set to release on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network at the affordable price of fifteen bones, and will not require any physical copy of previous Virtua Fighter 5 in order to run. Be sure to keep it on your radar with the way it’s playing, as it’s sure to give you more than what you bargained for.