As with the previous games, Virtua Fighter 5 is superficially light on the story, with next to no inkling of the drama behind each character's entrance into the tournament. However, if you have a gander at the game's manual and the brief bios laid out for each character, you'll be able to catch up on what's been going on with your favorite fighters since the last game. At the center of the tournament is a global organization named Judgement 6 (J6 for short), made up of six corporations with a hand in everything from weapons development to international politics. Though it's a little tough to follow, the organization is working on a subtle form of world domination that apparently involves the World Fighting Tournament. We're not entirely sure how that actually works, but it's as good an excuse as any to fight a bunch of people, so we're rolling with it.
It seems J6 is eager to test a new model of its cybernetic fighter--the game's traditional end boss, Dural--who has been loaded up with combat data taken from Vanessa. The evil corporation had designs on making Vanessa a cyborg, but she escaped before she suffered the same fight as Kage Maru's mother, who had been Borg-ified into Dural for the last few games in the series. Sadly, all this backstory continues to be lost from any prominent mention as you play through the game's various modes, requiring you to read about it, which is a shame.
