Japanese Import Review: This is the one we've been waiting for. The Big Daddy. Never mind Gran Turismo HD - that's just a pretty demo.
This is a true technical marvel of a PS3 title, a game that defines what 'next-gen' should stand for. And it's all thanks to the arcade work of Sega's AM-2 division that we have this picture-perfect PS3 conversion to talk about. But enough gushing (for now); on with the fighting talk!
To begin with, in single-player you'll spend most of your time/credits in Quest Mode. There was a Quest Mode in VF4: Evo, of course, but this time around the format is completely different. From a city map (which sort of looks like, and may actually represent, Tokyo), you can access virtual Sega arcades such as Club Sega and Sega World, wherein AI-controlled players can be challenged just as you would suggest a (virtual) fight to a real-life Tokyo youth. Each player you meet has a tag comment, such as AndySwat's excellent "Not in the face!" quip. (Most of the comments were submitted to Sega from hardcore Japanese VF players, which explains some of the bizarreness.)
Players are generally grouped in arcades according to their skill levels and you can enter arcades in any order, so there are always plenty of fighters in waiting. There are even tournaments that begin from time to time while you're in Quest Mode, and you can choose to enter these competitions (in which case you'll lose your current winning streak) or continue with your own arcade play.
Unfortunately, this seems to be Sega's roundabout way of saying, "Why do you need online play?" Although the AI here is excellent and the format caters particularly well to Sega fans, Quest Mode is no substitute for proper human competition and we can't help but wish there was at least some sort of PlayStation Network feature in VF5. There isn't, though but we're still going to gush.
Happily for any VF virgins out there (yes, both of you), Virtua Fighter 5 is slightly more forgiving than its immediate predecessors. You quickly work through Arcade Mode, for example, to reach mighty 10th Dan opponents (Kyu and Dan rankings are VF's way of telling you how tough a fighter is, and what skill level he/she is at) and still be in with at least a chance of earning a victory. It depends largely on knowing your own character's strengths and playing to them, but imaginative use of standard and combo moves - because opponents at higher levels will see your attacks coming and quickly move to block them - can defeat a rival, no matter what level you're each playing at.
In Arcade Mode, Versus Mode and Quest Mode, you can take your fighter into an arena and find that there's an incentive of some sort (other than personal pride) to ensure that you give 100 percent - whether it's an orb for your orb ring, a new costume or accessory, money to spend in VF5's item shop, or a rank up (you begin at 10 Kyu and go through to 1 Kyu, before attempting to progress from 1st Dan to 10th Dan). So in that sense, there are no meaningless fights in Virtua Fighter 5. And because it is your character, complete with personal fight data and an individually assembled wardrobe, there's a great sense of personal involvement.
The AI of opponents in Virtua Fighter 5 is, as we've established, commensurate with their skill level. But there are no stupids on this disc. Pai Chan instinctively knows that her kicks are more effective than her punches, for instance, and her AI-controlled self will rely on them just as much as you will.
The Offensive Move System also adds something for human-controlled and CPU characters, enabling you to segue defensive moves such as evasions and blocks into counters. In fact, movement in 3D has never been more important (or more successfully implemented, with a quick double-tap of up/down now resulting in a lightning quick dodge) in the series as it is here in VF5, and as a result it's the small and light characters such as Shun and Kage who appear to have gained the greatest advantage. Although the redesign of characters such as Jeffry (who has become even bigger and scarier in VF5) also shifts the balance of power slightly.
Technical improvements have a bearing on how VF5 plays, as well. Character animation is smoother and more finely captured than ever before, while collision detection between character models is perfect, which combined gives the impression that Virtua Fighter 5 is paced slightly slower than VF4. We were a little surprised by this at first, but after a few hours of play, it began to feel perfectly natural and somehow more mature and well balanced than VF4.
The two new fighters here add some variation to the game's line-up (which totals 17 playable characters, with Dural also appearing in Dojo Mode). El Blaze is a Mexican wrestler who looks like an extra from Nacho Libre, but fights like a middleweight boxer. And Eileen, who is as agile and quick as a chimp, is appropriately a Chinese mistress of Monkey Kung-Fu. Design-wise both of these characters fit in well with Akira, Sarah, Jacky and rest of the VF old school, while they also bring unique fighting styles to the mix.
Level design, although not as significant as it is in Dead or Alive 4, where environments are destructible and ostensibly boundary-less, is still excellent. There are no cardboard backdrops or stretched photograph horizons: VF5 is 3D to its core. There are priests sweeping the ground while you fight in the Kyoto-based Shrine stage, and locals have gathered on the Great Wall of China just to see you knock Shun off it. No matter where you go in VF5, its locations have been developed to make you say "wow". That's the one non-word we kept repeating while playing Virtua Fighter 5 on PS3.
We could grumble about the lack of online play, but offline versus will suffice so long as our friends love the game as much as we do. We could complain that the SixAxis doesn't do Virtua Fighter 5 true justice, but then we bought Sega's awesome High Grade Virtua Sticks. And we could whine about the ten-second loading times that occur between fights, even though we've installed 2.35GB of Virtua Fighter 5 game data to our PS3's hard disk, but... oh, what's the point? As an intelligent and masterful 3D beat 'em up experience, this is as pure as it gets.
The best-looking beat-'em up ever seen on a home console, with gameplay that's solid as Rocky Balboa. Essential.
Uppers
Response feels perfect Great replay value Offensive Move System adds more depth Looks incredible Plenty of variation in stage design Compatible with Sega's High Grade Virtua Stick
Downers
No online play Not best suited to the SixAxis No online play Loading/saving times are frequent and a bit long No online play
You know I'm serious cos I'm using loads of exclams.
I haven't even played this game but I know it's easily a 10 out of 10. My 12 reader reviews on Amazon say as much and if you don't believe me you must me a stupid, LOL! Cos this is the real thing!!!!
Seriously, though, no online play is the right move. It keeps the integrity of the game intact, which is something that should be commended in today's gaming climate, not criticised. It's all too easy to make a game from a marketing checklist. I can't wait to play this game when my copy arrives, which is less than a week BUT STILL TOO LONG.
You know I'm serious cos I'm using loads of exclams.
I haven't even played this game but I know it's easily a 10 out of 10. My 12 reader reviews on Amazon say as much and if you don't believe me you must me a stupid, LOL! Cos this is the real thing!!!!
Seriously, though, no online play is the right move. It keeps the integrity of the game intact, which is something that should be commended in today's gaming climate, not criticised. It's all too easy to make a game from a marketing checklist. I can't wait to play this game when my copy arrives, which is less than a week BUT STILL TOO LONG.
strange that they mentioned 'No online Play' thrice in the 'downers'. i guess thats a new way of balancing +ve with -ve points
this game is SUPERB, and computerandvideogame staff dont have a clue.
"no online play", geez, the authors sound like little girls whining because they cant have the latest barbie accessory.
"BUT MUMMEEE, I REEEEALY WANT IT!, SUZIE NEXT DOOR PLAYS ONLINE!"
grow up, online isnt the be all or end all. i'd rather have vf5 and motorstorm without online play, than online halo3 filled with immature people who think constant swearing constitutes as sentient communication. not to mention halo isnt actually fun.
thank god sony isnt supporting online play as much as microsoft, i hate all the "live anywhere", "seamless integration" of xbox live to everything microsoft.
theres no way vf5 would work well online. too much frame-perfect timing would be messed with.
Seriously, though, no online play is the right move. It keeps the integrity of the game intact, which is something that should be commended in today's gaming climate, not criticised.
Live will be a part of the 360 version as every 360 game is live aware & I cant see sega not including it considering the extra time they have to develope the 360 version.
this game is SUPERB, and computerandvideogame staff dont have a clue.
"no online play", geez, the authors sound like little girls whining because they cant have the latest barbie accessory.
"BUT MUMMEEE, I REEEEALY WANT IT!, SUZIE NEXT DOOR PLAYS ONLINE!"
grow up, online isnt the be all or end all. i'd rather have vf5 and motorstorm without online play, than online halo3 filled with immature people who think constant swearing constitutes as sentient communication. not to mention halo isnt actually fun.
thank god sony isnt supporting online play as much as microsoft, i hate all the "live anywhere", "seamless integration" of xbox live to everything microsoft.
theres no way vf5 would work well online. too much frame-perfect timing would be messed with.
Playing online is all part of next-generation gaming which the PS3 is supposed to be. So 9.1 isn’t a bad score for an offline game in this day and age.
Its not online because the internet is not fast enough yet. Virtua Fighter is all about timing and pure fighting. Lag goes against the whole purpose of the game
It has already been stated by Sega that neither the X360 version will have online play ...they tried with both versions but lag was too evident and ruined the gameplay so decided to keep the game pure in its original form .
Online would have been great ,but if it isnt possible it isnt possible .
Its not online because the internet is not fast enough yet. Virtua Fighter is all about timing and pure fighting. Lag goes against the whole purpose of the game
I could have sworn DOA4 was online on the 360. And that game was a launch title. Just aswell the next generation did actually start before Sony said so or we'd be waiting quite sometime.
I could have sworn DOA4 was online on the 360. And that game was a launch title. Just aswell the next generation did actually start before Sony said so or we'd be waiting quite sometime.
My experience in DOA4 was almost entirely online, as playing against people is far more enjoyable than the CPU, which often felt really cheap. I don't know about the additional features in VF5 but the lack of the ability to play friends on the net is a big problem for me, and may be enough to stop me buying it. With regards to the no online play element of the game; I do know, that online FPS's cheat by not showing you what is actually happening in the game, but rather what they think will happen based on the last set of data they received. That's why in a laggy game you'll see characters warping around when the game updates the players' positions.
In a fighting game you simply can't do that, and high-level techniques require 1/60th of a second precision, so even the slightest lag can mess up someone's strategy. It doesn't matter in casual play of course, because only a few players can employ these top tier moves with consistency, but a lot of "real" fighting gamers are snobs and will bitch and moan if an online mode isn't 100% arcade perfect.
And, of course you have to consider that Virtua Fighter is somewhat of a phenomenon. There are lots and lots of people who play this game religiously - in Japanese arcades. Elsewhere, sales of the game are insignificant compared to something like the latest Mortal Kombat or Tekken. So Sega can either release an offline-only, arcade perfect version of the game that the fighting game community will sneer at but accept nonetheless, or alienate the hardcore audience by putting an online mode into the game. So to sum it up, as long as the arcades are the real VF cash cow, there will be no online mode.
But with Sony's 'wonder machine' and all this extra disc space thanks to Blu-ray and all the other bulls**t they keep spouting off, why is it not possible to include an arcade perfect offline mode aswell as some sort of online mode to keep the more casual gamers amongst us happy? There's absolutely no reason whatsoever. It's better to have and not need than need and not have.
In a fighting game you simply can't do that, and high-level techniques require 1/60th of a second precision, so even the slightest lag can mess up someone's strategy.
I don't know which moves I are talking about. I've spend a lot of my time playing VF4: Evo but I never experienced anything of that order of precision.
So Sega can either release an offline-only, arcade perfect version of the game that the fighting game community will sneer at but accept nonetheless, or alienate the hardcore audience by putting an online mode into the game.
Now there's something I fail to understand. The hardcore audience isn't forced to use the not-so-arcade-perfect online mode should sega include it and lot's of casual and less demanding gamers would be happy to play their beat'm up online against real people.
But with Sony's 'wonder machine' and all this extra disc space thanks to Blu-ray and all the other bulls**t they keep spouting off, why is it not possible to include an arcade perfect offline mode aswell as some sort of online mode to keep the more casual gamers amongst us happy? There's absolutely no reason whatsoever. It's better to have and not need than need and not have.
I'll give you an example why frames are important, and as such why VF wouldn't really be doable online. Let's say an opponent does a big, risky launcher move, which you block. We know this move leaves the opponent vulnerable to counterattack for 14 frames, so we can do anything up to an elbow attack (which takes 14 frames from input to hit) and it will definitely land, giving us decent damage as punishment. If we introduce even 1 frame lag into proceedings, it severely limits our counterattack options, as quicker moves are generally less powerful and less plentiful, and makes big risky moves much much safer. This destroys the concept of risk and reward and so it scuppers the game's balance.
DOA can get away with it because you can fall back on counter moves which have nice big timing windows, but VF's counter moves can only be done by certain characters and even then have much tighter timing. You could get around this, but it would probably take a complete reprogramming of the engine to accept lag and a rebalance of the game to exaggerate the risky moves, which would make the offline game handle differently.
The concept of frames is not a purely high level thing, once you get past the 'p**sing about' stage it becomes massively important. Remember the talking about 'guaranteed throws' in VF4's training modes? That is any situation where the opponent does a move which leaves themselves at 18 frames' disadvantage (the time for a grab throw to connect) or higher.
See you just posted a load of stuff that only the hardcore would know. Therefore, they could stick to the arcade perfect offline mode. There's no reason there couldn't be an online mode.
And the counter windows on DOA4 aren't as big as you'd think and I've never had any bother pulling them off online.
Without online play this game won't ever be a purchase for me. I'm not a massive fighting game fan, but I do enjoy playing DOA4 online with friends and I was intending on getting this for the same reason.
Hmmm. Proper online VF would be simply excellent. A gift from the heavens. But I just don't think it will happen anytime soon because Suzuki is not willing to compromise the gameplay. Besides if they do get it up and running, a revised or 'patchable' version B could be released.
Let's say an opponent does a big, risky launcher move, which you block. We know this move leaves the opponent vulnerable to counterattack for 14 frames, so we can do anything up to an elbow attack (which takes 14 frames from input to hit) and it will definitely land, giving us decent damage as punishment. If we introduce even 1 frame lag into proceedings, it severely limits our counterattack options, as quicker moves are generally less powerful and less plentiful, and makes big risky moves much much safer. This destroys the concept of risk and reward and so it scuppers the game's balance.
Doesn't seem impossible to me. They could calculate the amount of lag for both players based on the connection speed and add a few frames (15 instead of 14) to balance the timing.
I love the fact that there is no online. This might sound strange but it forces you to invite your mates over and have battles like the good old days with halo etc.
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Response feels perfect
