Virtua Fighter 5 is downright incredible. Its a near perfect port from the Arcades and features some of the most engrossing gameplay and visuals ever to grace a home console. With a stick or Sixaxis in hand youll grow to know a huge variety of combos and be introduced to huge cast of 17 characters. So lets travel to the Sega arcades of Japan and enter battles we cant possibly win in order to improve our tactics!
Vanessa VS Sarah
The gameplay of Virtua Fighter 5 is both easy to pickup and incredibly complex. With a huge new move list, new gameplay elements like offensive movement, and two new characters, gamers will be playing this for years before all the tricks and strategies are known. Im not going to pretend to be a VF expert but from what Ive seen its both a marginal update and a huge update from VF4 at the same time. Then again if you dont like Fighters this one wont change anyones mind but if you do then you must own it if you own a PS3. The huge amount of moves and combos to master as well as the insane amount of unlockables will keep you occupied for months and maybe years.
The quest world map.
The Quest mode of Virtua Fighter 5 is a nice change of pace in that it breaks from the Fighter norm. Instead of playing through a tournament on each fighter to unlock goodies and possibly FMVs, in VF5 you travel to Sega Arcades across Japan. From the main Quest menu you choose one of several arcades to visit from which you can challenge one of three competitors. They make the whole thing feel like youre some random dude heading around to local arcades to challenge the people who are there. Each player has their own screen name as well as a personal message that kind of defines their personality. Some of the personal messages are downright random and hilarious like one guy who I recently encountered whose PM said, Beees!, and nothing else.
It's a ranking match.
Each arcade has players of different skill levels. You start at 10th Kyu and work your way up to 1st Kyu and then on to 1st Dan. From there you fight your way to the top at 10th Dan. Any CPU level Kyu player is a pushover and can be beaten by basically hitting the kick button over and over. As you defeat players youll gain a kind of experience that eventually raises your ranking. When entering a match that will provide enough experience to raise your rank a graphic will come on screen letting you know its a Ranking Match. After a few hours of playing youll most likely be into the early Dans after which it takes quite a long time to level up. After about 2nd to 3rd Dan the fighters start to actually use moves and block and become much tougher opponents. Needless to say it will take you thousands of fights to hit 10th Dan and to do that on all 17 characters would take an insane amount of time. So if you like what youre getting here, there is nearly endless playtime available for leveling up.
The Event Square where official tournaments are held.
Occasionally tournaments will be held and youll be able to break out of your current fight to go check them out. Tournaments can be held at small arcades for item prizes and at the main VF5 arena. The main tournaments provide more experience as well as kind of define a main quest. New tournaments in the VF5 arena only appear once you hit a certain Dan so if you never get good enough to take out top competitors youll never really get to the end of the game.
