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The Virtua Fighter franchise hits the PS3. Virtua Fighter 5, like its predecessors before it, won’t hold your hand. It isn’t going to make things easy for you at first and will challenge you from the very first round. While this is certainly a plus, it may nonetheless be daunting for beginners when they begin playing. Nonetheless, thanks to arguably the deepest fighting system ever and great graphics, Virtua Fighter 5 proves to be amongst the best games on the PS3.
Virtua Fighter 5 includes the expected gameplay modes. You still have Arcade (a series a matches), Versus (to compete with a friend), Dojo (training), and Virtua Fighter TV (where you can watch two A.I. controlled fighters take each other on in any stage). VF5 lacks an online mode. The game also features the Quest mode, which is quite similar to the same mode found in VF4. In this mode, the game tries to mimic the experience one would gain from real-life arcade play. You go to various in-game arcades fighting numerous AI-controlled fighters that have been customized to look like player-edited fighters. These fighters even have stats attached to them like number of times they have fought (and won) and their rank. You are never really fooled but it is a cute diversion nonetheless.
The actual fighting in VF5 is as intense and precise as it has ever been. The core fighting revolves around punching, kicking, and guarding, each of which is mapped to a specific button on the controller. The game’s various fighters have many different moves and abilities and it’s certainly a challenge to become proficient with any of them and much less master a character. There are big, powerful characters like Wolf and Jeffry, nimbler more agile martial arts characters like Pai and Eileen, and even wrestling in the form of El Blaze. Other series favorites like Jacky, Sarah, Lau and Lion are also in the game. The characters are fairly similar to what they have been in the past, although the developers have included a few new moves too.
Virtua Fighter 5 is very impressive and certainly one of the best looking fighting games currently available. The character models, while not having a Fight Night Round 3 level of detail, are still exquisitely detailed and animate very well. All of the different moves are great to look at. The environments share a similar level of detail and also look great. It looks great in SD, but running the game in 720p really lets it shine. The game does feature lengthy load times and installs a 2GB file on your hard-drive, though.
The sound effects, while adequate, are less impressive. The soundtrack is comprised of the typical electronic rock that the series is known for. The voice acting in the game is okay though somewhat repetitive and less crisp than we would have liked. The sound effects when fighting are pretty good if standard.
Series veterans will be glad to know that Virtua Fighter 5 doesn’t disappoint. It’s still quite tough on beginners, though, if you’re willing to give it a chance this is PS3’s first (time limited) exclusive third-party killer app. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Mar 15, 2007
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