Annoying Virtua Fighter Myths

Hey everyone! A lot of people who don't play Virtua Fighter make straight up stupid myths about the game. For once, who came up with the myth that VF is a hard game to get in to. It's actually one of the simplest, most straightforward fighting games to play. What's actually challenging about the game is mastering it.

Second, quite a bit of people said that the VF move animations look terrible. This is not true, as there is plenty of awesome looking moves. Also unlike Tekken, the awesome looking moves are practical. And the stylish characters are practical.

Third, people have pointed out that the audio sucks. This is actually somewhat true. But, nearly every other fighting game out there also has lackluster audio.

Feel free to post in the comments any myths about VF that bother you. I'd be very happy to listen to whatever anyone has to say.

 

I agree with this. VF's straightforwardness is a strong plus. With most games--particularly those that have lots of different bars, I find those games to be much harder. I can't tell you the amount of times I've played other games and thought "Oh, I've got full meter! I guess I should use some of it now." or "Wait, my opponent had full bar? I didn't even notice."

I certainly don't mind those mechanics, but with VF, I don't have to worry about that. It's a breath of fresh air, honestly.

 

The core myth is that it's a mediocre boring game, missing in characters and story content. To them It's just another 3D fighter whose legacy is that it was the first.

This is the worst hurdle the franchise has to overcome.

 

Speaking of 3D fighters, video game franchises like Tekken, Dead or Alive, and very recently, even Street Fighter, have been trying (and often succeeding) to make money of of the wonderful ideas that VF's developers had used in their games.

P.S. Virtua Fighter's story is very deep for a fighting game. Jacky and Sarah's storys in particular are very well written.

 

Also, no fighting game acknowledges that the ideas used in the game were largely influenced by Virtua Fighter.

 

Reminds me of apple in the 2000s being thought to be the innovators of everything cool back then. Rather they waited till technology matured before integrating it into an expensive product. Thanks to marketing it made good returns

 

There are more than a few interviews with fighting game producers and fighting game directors that would impeach your statement. For example:

https://www.phantomriverstone.com/2016/12/yu-suzuki-interview-part-1.html

In this interview and many others you will find statements like:

"Katsuhiro Harada. Famous for the popular Tekken fighting games and more recently Summer Lesson on PS VR, as a child Harada was hooked on ride-on games like Out Run and Space Harrier, and relates that for a long time Tekken took its inspiration from Virtua Fighter."

 

Good point, but maybe they could show that they had inspiration from Virtua Fighter.

 

Prior to Virtua Fighter all other Arcade fighting games were 2D VF came with 3D and influenced other developers to create 3D arcade fighting games

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtua_Fighter_(video_game)

 

Virtua Fighter was somewhat forgotten for a very long time though. And so very few people actually acknowledged the influence of Virtua Fighter in their games. Street Fighter 6 stealing VF's idea for a drunken meter with their new character Jamie being a prime example.
Thankfully though, Virtua Fighter is back on its feet with Ultimate Showdown and people truly care about and respect the game. It's not a great VF game on paper, but the gameplay is still fairly good.

 

Good observation. Also, vf5 vanilla commentaries on replays idea has been reused in sf6 in some way (live on sf6).

 

Very interesting!

 

I believe VF was the first 3D arcade fighter to introduce customization items, player profiles (with performance stats), ability to name your fighter, trainable AI, in game real time announcer, and ring outs

Yes, other games have gone on to do some of this stuff much better than Virtua Fighter e.g (Soul Calibur customization is second to none) But VF put that on the map.

 

I see this has been mentioned above already...
But speaking of VF influences, when I took my time and watched early SF6 vids carefully, a day after its reveal and a few leaked vids as well, I was surprised to see hints, of Virtua Fighters influence in that SF6 game. Jamie having a drink/drunk meter, and the Shenmue looking open world mode, literally sold it out. Also, something about the way Ryu parries and deflects attacks in SF6, reminds me of the way Jean Kujo does it in VF5.

 

So it seems like people do honor VF. As Yoshinori Ono, the producer of Street Fighter 4 said: "It's no exageration to say that Virtua Fighter is the game by which all fighting games are measured." Most fighting games truly stand out after a game or two, such as Tekken with Tekken 3 and Street Fighter with Street Fighter 2. But Virtua Fighter is one of the few to make it's mark at Virtua Fighter 1. Until very recently though, it didn't really get the respect it truly deserved.