QCF: Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown
GeorgieBoysAXE
t one point in the medium of Video Games, Fighting games were on top of the world, overtaking screens across Living rooms and Arcades across the world. It didn’t take long for everyone to come for that piece of pugilistic pie, and while there were many who tried, a few found success, and even fewer redefined what the genre was—one of those releases was SEGA’s Virtua Fighter.
Aside from pioneering the concept of three-dimensional fighting, the series has steadily earned the reputation for being one of the most technical-minded brawlers on the market and has remained a staple where competitors measure their skill of the genre within the fighting game community. Admittedly, the series has struggled to find mainstream success outside of the dedicated niche of players that have kept up with each new installment, but the series has recently found new life in another popular SEGA franchise—Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s Yakuza.
The inclusion of SEGA’s historic fighting series may have been a fun Easter Egg at first, but players quickly took notice of the excellent handling of emulation and coding of the series by RGGS, gradually drawing in new interest for the property once more. Striking while the iron is hot, the wild minds at SEGA have paired the talented folks of AM2 and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio together for a new iteration of Virtua Fighter 5, VF5 Ultimate Showdown
Even though Viruta Fighter 5 has waned on for 14 years in its “Street Fighter II” rut of incremental additions and improvement, the super-group effort from RGGS and AM2 goes on to prove that not only is there still plenty of mileage left in the Polygonal Puncher, but they also deliver the definitive version of the game in the process.
