[Oichi]

Welcome, fellow gamers, to the Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown Official Thread. Kick back, relax and enjoy your stay!

Core gamers will often credit Street Fighter 2 with starting the fighting game boom, and with Street Fighter 4 "reviving" it, but between those two games, Sega's storied franchise evolved the genre in so many ways that you'll wonder why the hell this series is so often ignored in the West. Virtua Fighter is the series that gave birth to the 3D fighter as we know it, and is also responsible for introducing fibre optics networks to Japanese arcades, allowing players to connect to a network to update their personal data. It is also the series that introduced free customization of characters to fighting games, a trend now seen in Tekken, Soulcalibur and to an extent, Street Fighter. It is also the series that introduced a tutorial mode that has yet to be matched by any fighting game since. As you can see, to downplay VF's significance to the genre is akin to downplaying the contributions made by the Street Fighter series; you just can't do it.

Now that we have all of that preaching out of the way, time for some real, honest, info!

• Developer: Sega AM2
• Publisher: Sega
• Director: Daichi Katagiri
• Platform(s): PlayStation 3 / Xbox 360
• Release Date: June 5 (PSN), June 6 (360)
• Price: $14.99/£9.99/AUD$18.25/€12.99 (PSN) and 1200MSP (360)

VF5 Final Showdown is priced at approximately $15, but the customization items and costumes are sold separately, so you'll have to buy them if you want to customize your own character, or you want to see other player's creations (it's not locked DLC ;) )

The pricing for the DLC is an additional $15 for each of the 2 customization packs, with one pack including 9 characters, and the other 10 characters. Alternatively, you can also buy individual costume packs for $5 each, but obviously it's better to buy just the bundled character packs. All in all, VF5 Final Showdown, coupled with both customization packs comes to $45, which is a bloody steal considering what other fighting games are doing... ahem.

Hori is also selling a very nice VF5 Final Showdown arcade stick on their e-Store, but unfortunately it's not only PS3 only, but only on their e-Store as well.

• Fighting That Never Deceives You: If you're coming into this game from one of the many Capcom and Namco fighting games, consider this game your real introduction to fighting games. Yes, Street Fighter is a great game that rewards those who have amazing reflexes and impeccable timing. It's also a game that encourages you to play against the character, and not against the player. This is where Virtua Fighter differs. The VF series has always been about how well you can read another player and their habits, and it's never been about if you can pull off multiple 1 frame links for a 30% combo, or if you can fill the screen with as much nonsense as possible. There are no super meters, there are no ambigious crossups. Street Fighter is an analog type of fighting game with numerous outcomes. Virtua Fighter is a binary type of fighting game, where you can predict every outcome if you're smart enough.
  
• Beginner Friendly Without The Taint: VF5 Final Showdown picks up where VF4 Evolution left off and introduces a robust tutorial mode that will get you accustomed to the basic system, which has seen significant changes since the original Virtua Fighter 5. In addition, the new License Mode will put what you learned to the test as you battle against CPU opponents while fulfilling a variety of conditions.
  
• An Amazing Wealth of Customization: Hundreds of items have been added to each character's customization package since the original VF5, and now each character has between 500 and 1000 items that you can use to customize your favorite character. Want Taka-arashi with an afro? You got it! How about a Bruce Lee-looking Jacky? You can do that too. The possibilities are infinite!
  
• Up to 8 players via Online Play: Ranked Match is the standard mode we've seen in other fighting games. Player Match allows you to create lobbies for up to 8 players at a time. The netcode is based on the 360/PS3 port of Daytona USA, and early reports indicate that the netcode is solid.
  
• Offline and Online Replays: Yes, you can actually save replays from both offline and online matches! You mean, a fighting game dev did something that makes sense!?
  
• For Competitive Players, By Competitive Players: VF is a serious competitive fighting game, and Sega knows this. That's why they made sure to include not only button configurations at the character select screen, but a fucking button check function too! The button check function can also be used whenever you pause the game and go into the button config screen. In addition, in training mode you have the option of turning on a display that will show you all of the frame data, so you'll know exactly what you can and cannot punish without having to scour forums all day long just to find out how to punish a stupid rolling attack.
  

• VF5FS Announcement Trailer
• Reignite your Inner Fighter
• VF5FS Pre-release Party: Fuudo vs. Chibita First to 5
• Compilation of all the VF5FS Win Pose Items (MUST SEE!)
• VF5FS April Fools Video
• Oichi's YouTube Channel - Over 2 Years of VF5FS Match videos -- You can also follow me on twitter @itsumobasho for Japan VF news!
• Shirouto's YouTube Channel - Hours upon hours of high level VF play
• VF5FS for Beginners, Volume 1
• VF5FS for Beginners, Volume 2

Essential resources: Virtua Fighter Dot Com -- Don't even bother with other sites, this is the be-all end-all for VF info.

So what's different between this and the last console version of VF?
A lot actually, even if it doesn't look like it. Yes, graphically it might look the same, but 60% of the animations have been redone or tweaked, all of the stages have received heavy graphical makeovers, and there are a lot of new stun animations and splash effects that accentuate the action on the screen.

The fighting system has also been heavily revamped and has been made a lot more beginner-friendly, but not enough that it's actually insulting to players. Multiple throw escapes that were in VF4 and VF5 have been replaced with a 3 way throw escape system. In VF4/5, you could buffer multiple throw escapes to cover several throws, but in Final Showdown, you can only buffer in one direction to escape a throw. Other than that, side blocking that was introduced in VF5R is back in Final Showdown, making it easier to defend when you're in a side-turned position. Bounds have also been reanimated and tweaked so that there are now 2 types of bounds instead of one. Every character has a big bound move that allows you to score big damage, while smaller bounds exist to extend combos to optimize your damage output off smaller launchers. Every character in the game has been given a wealth of new attacks so that you can really create an offense that suits your playing style. And with two new characters in Jean Kujo and Taka-arashi, the character roster is now up to 19 characters, the biggest it's ever been in the series! You'll find that even if you were proficient with a character in VF5 that there are so many different ways to mount an offense that it's like playing a totally new character.

Even the arenas have been changed drastically! Lion and Lei-Fei's stages are now rectangular shapes, meaning you're one back dash away from getting smacked into a 50% wall combo. Wolf and Jean's stages alternate between walled and no walls with each round, and then you have super enclosed rings like Vanessa's octogon.

But Virtua Fighter is supposedly the hardest fighting game to get into!
That is totally, positively untrue! How can a game with 3 buttons be so hard? Moreover, how can a game that requires ZERO just frame timing on combos be hard? In Virtua Fighter, you're not limited by the execution of your hands, you're limited by the amount of knowledge you can process in your mind. Yes, response time and good reactions will win you matches in VF, but more often than not you're going to win because you're just flat out smarter than the other person. Once you get your hands on the game, you'll see that combos are actually very, very easy to pull off in this game.


Achievements/Trophies

• You Win: Win a match in Arcade Mode without losing a round (any difficulty level)
• Ring Out: Win a round by knocking your opponent out of the ring in Arcade Mode (any difficulty level)
• Excellent: Win a round without taking any damage in Arcade Mode (any difficulty level)
• VS Dural: Face off against Dural in Arcade Mode (any difficulty level)
• Score Attacker: Play Score Attack Mode
• 5 Hit Combo: Perform a five-hit combo in Score Attack Mode
• Test Complete: Complete a test in License Challenge Mode
• Five Tests Complete: Complete five tests in License Challenge Mode
• Ten Tests Complete: Complete ten tests in License Challenge Mode
• Up and Coming: Play one ranked match
• Challenger: Play ten ranked matches
• Student: Play any training session in Tutorial Mode

• Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown – An Incredibly Deep 3D Fighter (Shoryuken.com)

Gamertags/Profiles
PSN:
Reno (Japan only)
OnslaughtDOA
Gods_Beard
Hunter04200(EastUS)
AAK0924 (East Canada)
PhoenixAzure
MightKAC (Japan)
MoodyShuffle
ArchdukeAlstein
Skillzilla81
Edgeward34 US West Coast
onem1c
soakrates
Reigun16
Ivaylo_7 - living in Europe, but mostly using US acc.
Zieghardt
ShinobiFist
hikarutimitt
MikeProtagonist
TheLoveCook
adversity1
lyteedge
ElzaWalker
Caj814
Dragon17013
djplaeskool
pandacraft
Cheeky-Tachikoma - UK
Nitty2580
genoun
FallingEdge
Noisepurge (state you're from gaf when adding)
Pirateben
De-mon
Spiros_1978 (Europe)
akuma001 
JovialCharacter
SD_Burton
Atcha
benny_a (EU)
GhaleonQ
MrMephistoX
RADRAD1985 (South Pennsylvania)
Heavenly_Hammer
Anastacio
Christor8
Chromax
biscuit5001
Ryandg82
OchiChernye
RoryDropkick
onem1c
lyteedge2
SteakJuice
SYSTEM Turn A
Ogni-XR21 (Germany)
hiro_nl (Europe)
RustyTachikoma
RavensmashSK
TomcatTheLion
Cirrus-X
Elgar-I
Xater
BronsonLeeK
Frostu
Cyclonus (East Coast Canada)
Eraptura
JerkY
puggernaut (Asia region)
NoahSteam

360:
itsumobasho (Japan only)
saelz8
krokounleashed (Germany)
ViolentBREED
Imperfecto
PepsimanVsJoe
illegalwiretap
grap3fruitman
MoodyShuffle
Skillzilla81
Pookmunki
Goddamn56KModem
Rorydropkick
DaPheenom
ShinobiFist
hikarutilmitt
The Love Cook
adversity1
lyte edge
Gustavo83
Caj814
Daigoro
FallingEdge
C0untZer0
Shinobi VF5gr (Europe)
cutitupfresh
IPWLive
BronsonLee
SegaManAU
Therealbookey
SteffK
SpamAge
doc wily
CoolGuy4Life
FairlySadPanda (UK)
DreWz12000 (Australia)
BLACK L A C x
SG Kazo
xT1GERSTYLEx (Australia)
AtchaSama
grifter 181 (Western NY)
VariantX7
SYSTEM Turn A
dokterrhouse
nocturnedelight
gekijmo5
ThundR
Calibrated
Philishave

[Pupi18]

Very cool! Awesome OT

[DR2K]

Planning on buying a $50 PSN card just for this.

PSN: OnslaughtDOA

[Chavelo]

Getting this just for the training mode. Heard a lot of good things about it.

[Tguy]

I really cannot wait to get back into this game.

[SolarPowered]

Definitely a day one purchase for me. I've never gotten into VF, but this is as good a time as any to try new things.

[Cloudius12]

Day 1 :3

[dezzy8]

I shall purchase this for any system it's released on. No gems, comeback mechanics, damage scaling. Just pure 1 v 1 fighting.

[LongDongJunon]

I look forward to my next bout.

[Atcha]

Beautiful OT

[Rickenslacker]

I really can't wait to get in hard on this game. Gonna get the item packs too because even still it ends up being cheaper than a full priced game and it seems ridiculous in terms of the amount of customization you get.

Getting this just for the training mode. Heard a lot of good things about it.

There was a video floating about for training mode. It has a frame advantage/disadvantage counter when you're attacking and defending, it's amazing.

[remist]

Not sure if I'll be into it, but for 15$ no reason to not try it out. I'm really glad they went for 15$ instead of 30$ like AH3.

PSN: Hunter04200(EastUS)

["God's Beard!"]

I love me some Virtua Fighter. Gods_Beard on PSN if anyone wants to get hit by Beat Knuckle a lot.


I'm not impressed by the condescending nonsense towards Capcom games in the OT, though.

[corporate cheerleader]

The trophies look fairly easy, I don't see one for online 10-win streaks. Sega's making it attractive for the hunters, haha.

[saelz8]

GT - saelz8. Add me, if you want to play a lot of VF.

This is all I'll be playing, apart from Diablo III.

Fighting Game of The Forever.

[Tizoc]

Oh yeah forgot this is coming out next week.
Where can one purchase UK PSN Cash cards & HAVE The code sent to your e-mail?

[AAK]

PSN:
AAK0924

Region: East Coast; ON, Canada

I will support this game.

[Atolm]

Fuck yeah. My last VF game was 4 Evo, never played vanilla VF5. I need this.

[benzy]

Getting all of the DLC for this. Love the new animations they improved on since vanilla VF5.

[FrenchMovieTheme]

will buy!

[Muchi Muchi Pink]

Subscribed.

krokounleashed on xbox 360.
I'm playing from Germany. If the netcode is good I can play americans without almost no lag.
I have no problems on GGPO or 3s:oe.

[SpiderJerusalem]

awesome, gonna buy it all

[The Antitype]

Cannot freaking wait.

gamertag is ViolentBREED. Haven't played VF seriously since I 1000/1000ed VF5. It's still in the fighting game rotation for when friends come over, but I'm looking forward to playing it regularly again.

What's the official release for this in NA?

[SykoTech]

Top tier pricing, indeed.

Already got the credit ready and waiting on my account.

[AAK]

Huge props to the VF community, they made an awesome guide to the VF system. Everyone that's new to the game should check it out:

http://virtuafighter.com/wiki/doku.php?id=vf5:system

[Muchi Muchi Pink]

What's the official release for this in NA?

5.6.

[GekigangerV]

My brother has my PS3 since I moved to Atlanta I am now in the market for a 360 and I will get this game as soon as I can.

I am excited to finally play VF against other people again. I think Tempe Gameworks still has VF3 up, but I don't think I have played against anyone on that in about 4 or 5 years. Only got the PS3 version of VF5 so no online for me. It will be great to also finally talk about the game with people and understand what is going on. That was always the big thing that kept me as a lurker on VFDC for the last 10 or so years. It is hard for me to join the conversation when I have no access to arcade versions or live opponents.

VFDC has a couple of interviews from the Level Up/I am 8bit show

The first one is with Patrick Riley of SEGA with some interesting tidbits

Interview 1

Some things of note

Will pre-fight intros be included in the game? No. Any plans to further support FS after EVO? Yes! Is DLC like VF5R stages a possibility? No current plans, but "never say never". These enhancements are usually left out as a result of a trade-off on filesize due to digital title limitations.

He also mentions that there will be Xbox Avatar stuff and PSN avatars as well.

There was also a nice little interview with "Virtua God" Chibita and Fuudo

Interview 2

[djplaeskool]

Watching some matches on shirouto's channel.
God damn, these are some swag skills.
Shouts out to 95%-life Jeffry wall combos.

[Ninjimbo]

GT: Imperfecto

I'm going to main Pai once again. She'll look good and kick ass real good.

[PepsimanVsJoe]

GT: PepsimanVsJoe

No plans for doing ranked so I'll be down for whoever wants to start up a bunch of GAF lobbies.

[BadWolf]

I'm in right after I hear positive netcode impressions.

[Phoenixazure]

PSN: PhoenixAzure.

I'm in this 100 percent. I'm curious to see if there are local players in the NJ/NYC area that want to meet up weekly at Local Battles for a stream of casuals/ranbats soon after the game comes out (similar to what we're doing with Drive Cancel for KOF XIII). Either way, I'm completely stoked for playing Kage again and giving Jean a shot

[Bob Coffee]

Sega, shut up and take my monies. day one.

[GotchaForce]

Godlike OT.

One thing the opening paragraph made me think about is how it can't be stated enough: VF1-3 were on the bleeding edge of graphics back in the day. Arcades had much better looking games than consoles then, and the VF series was Sega's tentpole release for their new arcade models. VF1 introduced fluidly moving polygonal characters, 2 added much more detail to them via textures and 3 made everything smoother but way more detailed still. I remember marveling that you could see individual teeth rendered, dirt and water stuck to clothing, Jacky had a level where the camera could see you through glass underneath, ect. Insane stuff back in the day.

[SDBurton]

Haven't played a VF in ages. But what the hell, at that price I'll bite.

[Dragoon En Regalia]

Godlike OT. One thing the opening paragraph made me think about is how it can't be stated enough: VF1-3 were on the bleeding edge of graphics back in the day. Arcades had much better looking games than consoles then, and the VF series was Sega's tentpole release for their new arcade models. VF1 introduced fluidly moving polygonal characters, 2 added much more detail to them via textures and 3 made everything smoother but way more detailed still. I remember marveling that you could see individual teeth rendered, dirt and water stuck to clothing, Jacky had a level where the camera could see you through glass underneath, ect. Insane stuff back in the day.

SEGA was leading the pack for the longest time (though Konami outdid them with the Cobra PCB—nevertheless, the game they packed with it was a shit fighter). It's really impressive to think how much influence SEGA's had in the arcade industry, and that they're still ahead of Namco after all these years.

Gorgeous OT. One of the best I've seen in a while.

[Adam Prime]

OP sold me on this, played it a bit on PS2 but I think I'll enjoy this more with a TE stick.

[Barkley's Justice]

did they tweak/beef-up the engine?

[TheSeks]

Day one.

[Muchi Muchi Pink]

did they tweak/beef-up the engine?

They did new animations for FS.

[corporate cheerleader]

It's annoying that XBL filesize limitations are preventing them from including everything in the game, though. :|

[sechsterangriff]

Day one!

[MightyKAC]

I'll be going in hard on this one.

Been a long ass wait and the 5th can't come soon enough.

Psn: MightKAC (Japan)

Hit me up.

[ElFly]

Bah the official thread being posted made me thought that it was already out :(

[SDBurton]

It's annoying that XBL filesize limitations are preventing them from including everything in the game, though. :|

Wait what? What's being left out?

[bob_arctor]

I'm there day one. Between this and Dragon's Dogma, my gaming life is set for a good long while.

360: illegalwiretap

[GekigangerV]

Wait what? What's being left out?

I think he is just talking about the costume items being separate downloads

[ipitydatfu]

so whats does the 3-button layout look like?

[corporate cheerleader]

Wait what? What's being left out?

Scroll up a little for the interview, extra pre-fight intros. Also, the fact that they had to sell the DLC separately on XBL forced them to do the same thing for PSN, even though there are no file size limits on there.

I think he is just talking about the costume items being separate downloads

That too. Ah well.

[GrayFoxPL]

Day one. I'll buy us psn card just to get it day earlier.