I could say it was closer than VF2 on Saturn.
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Why Virtua Fighter series never became popular in the West?
- Thread starter TreasureHunterG
- Start date
I could say it was closer than VF2 on Saturn.
1-3 were released on platforms that were DOA (hurr) in the US, 3 on a platform where the killer app was a more accessible fighter, and 4 on a platform with a more accessible fighter as killer app plus during the worst time period for fighter interest vs. saturation. And didn't they completely fumble the US version of 5 too?
So it doesn't have a fanbase because it never really had the chance to grow one.
So it doesn't have a fanbase because it never really had the chance to grow one.
That bit tekken in the ass in the long run imho.. There is no single character that i find memorable while my vf main character (jacky) is very memorable for me.
I'm pretty sure that I've always been on VF's side when it comes to aesthetics in Tekken vs VF. VF1's reserved look was better than the scrappy look of the original Tekken. VF2 unquestionably stomped both Tekken and Tekken 2. I can kind of of see arguments against VF3's music when compared to Tekken 3's, but the characters and stages are so far ahead. Tekken 4's characters are actually pretty bland-looking when compared to the gorgeous models in the VF4 games, despite the more outrageous designs. Tekken 5 brings things back a bit.
I would love to see some cooler voices for the western VF characters, though.
I would love to see some cooler voices for the western VF characters, though.
It's just not as fun as Tekken. It's a fighting sim. Sims are usually boring and too technical for the masses.
edit:
Also the lack of visual flair someone mentioned is a huge minus. No shit the thing that got me on Tekken back when it was originally released in arcades was how rewarding the visual payoff was. You hit two buttons and Law would run up the opponent, jump into the air and belly flop on them. The unblockables' charging flash, the counterhit flash, Heihachi and Kazuya pulsing lightning, 10 hit strings, Yoshimitsu...
edit:
Also the lack of visual flair someone mentioned is a huge minus. No shit the thing that got me on Tekken back when it was originally released in arcades was how rewarding the visual payoff was. You hit two buttons and Law would run up the opponent, jump into the air and belly flop on them. The unblockables' charging flash, the counterhit flash, Heihachi and Kazuya pulsing lightning, 10 hit strings, Yoshimitsu...
I would tend to agree, but I may have to ask then what's the story with Gran Tourismo versus others like say........Blur or Split Second?
Blood Diamonds
Banned
If you were to talk to someone who had never seen a fighting game before, and said "Fighting games are games where two people hit each other until one falls down" they'd probably picture something that looks exactly like Virtua Fighter.
It's also not fun unless you spend a lot of time learning it, and who wants to even bother with that?
It's also not fun unless you spend a lot of time learning it, and who wants to even bother with that?
didnt used to be like that
Oh, that's a great example actually of the technical game being wildly successful in the US, though in this case I think it's partially because it's derived from something most people have to do every day: drive, and they can cut loose with either more badass cars than they have or at least the opportunity to actually PUSH those cars like you legally couldn't (typically) in real life. And since it's something people do every day, being a bit closer to the familiar could actually work better for a lot of people than arcade racers that really mess with the mechanics in exchange of playability.
That, and you don't have to learn/memorize a ton of moves, or at least it doesn't create that perception.
As for why Tekken was more successful over here... Surely the Playstation's success over the Saturn was a huge part of that. Even on the arcade front, VF2 and VF3 were way more expensive than the Tekken games on release, weren't they?
These days, I'd say that VF5 Final Showdown is way easier to get into than TTT2 for someone new to both franchises.
These days, I'd say that VF5 Final Showdown is way easier to get into than TTT2 for someone new to both franchises.
I dunno. Easier to get good at a racing game. You have accel and brake... sometimes shift if you're so inclined.
It can be a pain to master drift and avoid losing control once it's actually realistic, but that's more raw skill and again builds off foundations of what you learned for real life, albeit applied in a way you'd never use in real life.
No it didn't. VF4 really did look that bad.
VF4 Evo added a software AA filter for the PS2 version. And still that version was downgraded from the Arcade.
Karak
Member
Sort of agreed. While VF has the substance, the flash isn't there unless you look hard. It is, and will always be, my favorite fighting series of all time. But when another game has rockets, and lasers, and lighting for its ringout areas...it can be hard to compete with that instant flash.
Karak
Member
I agree with this. Your last sentence was almost uttered word for word this last weekend when my fighting fan friend came over for Christmas. It just...feels like a somewhat real fight using cool movie style martial arts.
Dont know but its such a shame.
Best fighting game there is.
I assume its because its so daunting to any regular player , i mean just vanessa alone has something like 13 pages of moves , its insane.
Watching 2 good players fight can be really something in this game though
Final Showdown brought the ceiling level down a bit imo , which is great for newbs.
However i now am no longer as good as i was with Goh
Best fighting game there is.
I assume its because its so daunting to any regular player , i mean just vanessa alone has something like 13 pages of moves , its insane.
Watching 2 good players fight can be really something in this game though
Final Showdown brought the ceiling level down a bit imo , which is great for newbs.
However i now am no longer as good as i was with Goh
Nightstick11
Banned
VF never gained traction for me, simply because the first game seemed like such a bland, half-assed attempt at a fighting game. Even the name, Virtua Fighter, came in an age when Sega was tacking Virtua in front of bunch of genres for their Model 2 games.
The characters lack any sort of charisma whatsoever, and was just generally inferior to Tekken for its entire inception.
The characters lack any sort of charisma whatsoever, and was just generally inferior to Tekken for its entire inception.
U n i o n 0015
Member
Virtua Fighter is like the Lotus of fighting games, it lacks all those creature comforts that attract most people; it's just a raw fighting experience. Back in the day, it was always a graphical marvel and that drew a lot of people in, but nowadays the graphical edge isn't there any more and the game doesn't have any other exciting features to extend the longevity. Compare MK9 and VF5 and MK schools it in terms of sheer "fun" beyond the core mechanics.
I hope that doesn't come across as a dig on VF, because I love the series. But it's hard for it not to feel stale in this day and age.
I hope that doesn't come across as a dig on VF, because I love the series. But it's hard for it not to feel stale in this day and age.
Goldenroad
Member
It was popular around here in the early-mid '90's in the arcades, then it basically became less popular for the same reason that every fighting game did; Arcades went away.
Virtua Fighter 4 never saw a port on Xbox. It would have been much closer to the arcade version if it was ported, that's for sure.
Zuhzuhzombie!!
Member
What?
When I was a kid VF was pretty popular and is where I cut my fighting game teeth. Not as popular as SF.
I imagine it's place in "gaming culture" though has more to do with it's home console being the Saturn and Dreamcast where as Tekken had the good nature of appearing on Playstation.
DoA supplanted VF for a while. I initially really liked it too due to the more robust counter system (Akira is a favorite VF fighter of mine).
When I was a kid VF was pretty popular and is where I cut my fighting game teeth. Not as popular as SF.
I imagine it's place in "gaming culture" though has more to do with it's home console being the Saturn and Dreamcast where as Tekken had the good nature of appearing on Playstation.
DoA supplanted VF for a while. I initially really liked it too due to the more robust counter system (Akira is a favorite VF fighter of mine).
another thought ... Tekken fanfare increased as the PlayStation systems flourished. VF interest decreased with the irrelevancy of Sega consoles. Those Tekken console ports were fantastic. Still play Tekken 3 to this day. VF3 for me was a mistake and having it just on the Dreamcast killed all momentum.
Karak
Member
It is weird I have never met anyone who considered VF hard to get into. Hard to master yes. But its p,p,p,k and variations for a basic player and escalates from there. I never hear that from anyone. It must be a big deal but it is strange it has never come up in our circles. I just hear a lot of people say they like it because it doesn't have as many moves like Street Fighter back, back down and then forward and A. Kind of stuff.
Zuhzuhzombie!!
Member
This.
Well, minus the SF comparision. VF is very very easy to get into and doesn't necessitate remembering long lines of combos.
It depends on if you want to do something cool looking. it would require something the lines of ..
p,p,k, hold down-right for 1.5 seconds, up, up, k+p+b x 2
now do that in-game against wicked CPU/Dural
I would agree with this generally. Concerning VF5, the first console release came out before SF4 reinvigorated the genre outside of Japanese arcades, and Final Showdown ended up coming along a little late, and as a digital release to boot.
Personally, I've wanted to get into VF, but never had the time to do so along with maintaining my skills in Soul Calibur and SF. Still thinking about grabbing VF5FS while it's on sale though.
MrCunningham
Member
Yeah, I remember seeing Virtua Fighter 1 in arcades all over the place way back in the day. It was pretty common as far as arcade machines went in the mid 90's. Finding a Virtua Fighter 2 cab was a much rarer occasion. I think I have only ever seen one or two in my life.
I honestly blame the Sega Saturn for the obscurity of the Virtua Fighter series in the west. Most fighting games really don't reach their stride in mainstream appeal until a console version hits. Mortal Kombat 1 was a huge deal on the Sega Genesis, Street Fighter II was big on the SNES, and the Tekken series was carried rather well by the popularity of the Playstation console. The Sega Saturn just didn't catch on in North America very well and fell into obscurity near the end of its life cycle. This didn't really give the series much of a platform to stand on in the home gaming market.
Virtua Fighter 1 never really aged well with its floaty physics and slow combat, but I absolutely loved the technical aspect of Virtua Fighter 2. It was one of my favorite fighters of the 32bit generation.
SpinningBirdKick
Banned
VF requires too much skill and practice to play well. Even core gamers are unwilling to put in the time necessary to perfect their game.
The instant gratification from playing a button masher like Tekken is much more mass market friendly.
The instant gratification from playing a button masher like Tekken is much more mass market friendly.
michaelius
Banned
Boring fighters and hard learning curve even compared to BB/GG.
Karak
Member
Well this weekend when we played. The players were happy as clams doing punch combos and unique spin kicks, jump kicks and so forth. Which don't require that and look cool. Those kinds of moves are pretty advanced(that you indicate above).
Even if you limited yourself to tap tap button special moves, in addition to just the normal button presses and hold direction and button press moves, there are an insane amount of moves per character really.
Then if you add that most console pads have at least 3 other buttons with PK, PKG, and or some other grouping...thats a good deal of stuff, including towards towards throws, towards away throws, and sidestepping(a bit advanced).
I fuckin hate Dural. Just the name makes me want to rage.
Teknopathetic
Member
Because of braindead gamers who need a game that looks like skittles are pouring out of the screen.
Such a silly thing to say. Actually, when you consider the customization the game gives players, it's a pretty stupid thing to say.
Modernizing the aesthetics wouldn't hold the game's core gameplay. Look at DOA5's VF models FFS.
DOA5's look over VF5FS's gameplay would be an instant hit.
I didn't know this was a Darkened Skye topic! Or at least that Darkened Skye was a fighting game.
The AI in Virtua Fighter 2 Arcade/Saturn was broken.
You could beat Dural with a throw/recovery/throw loop.
I would take VF5FS' IQ over DOA5 though.
SkylineRKR
Member
Tekken had lots of cutscenes giving the characters some sort of a personality. Dead or Alive did the same, along with lots of eye candy.
I remember VF3 and Tekken 3 standing next to eachother in our local Arcade around 1997, really everyone jumped on Tekken 3. Everyone wanted to try Eddy Gordo out. VF3 looked stellar ofcourse, but it just had much less appeal to the average crowd. Ofcourse Tekken being a Playstation series, which was the console to have at the time, helped too. Gamers knew Tekken from home.
I remember VF3 and Tekken 3 standing next to eachother in our local Arcade around 1997, really everyone jumped on Tekken 3. Everyone wanted to try Eddy Gordo out. VF3 looked stellar ofcourse, but it just had much less appeal to the average crowd. Ofcourse Tekken being a Playstation series, which was the console to have at the time, helped too. Gamers knew Tekken from home.
Everything in VF5FS is vastly superior to DOA5 EXCEPT its look and that's a damn shame because in all honestly that gameplay is perfection.
I hope Next Gen will usher in a much needed polishing.
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
I had the same experience. I've been playing VF with casual gamers since VF2 on the Saturn.
VF was shackled to Sega's hardware for years so that had to slow its adoption. 3D fighting games in general have been on the wane in the West so VF has an uphill battle there.
Beats me. I'm a huge fan of VF. It's the most fair fighting system I've ever encountered.
People talk about the skill ceiling, but I started playing when I was 13 on VF4 for PS2. I wasn't really into fighters either and I ended up grasping the system pretty easily. It's just three buttons. You pick a character, do command training and go experiment in Quest mode or fight people at your level. The problem is that people don't do this. They pick a character and immediately jump online, get their asses rocked by experts and complain about the game being hard. No, the game isn't hard. Those people just don't know what they're doing. They spam an attack, the superior player spams the counter and an easy victory is the result. Like any other good fighting game, you're only as good as the investment you're willing to make.
People complain about the lack of personality and style. I don't get it. I look at the costumes in VF4 and VF5, the crazy customizations, the character specific items, and I wonder where the hell people get off saying the game has no personality. Then I look at the characters' fighting styles and how well-they're animated. They're so damn specific that you would never confuse them with one another. There are no palette swaps. No recycled move sets. Every character owns their specific style and they are flashy as hell. Eileen rocks the monkey style. Shun does drunken boxing. Jacky owns Jeet Kun Do (flash sword kick is amazing). Where the hell is the game lacking in style?
Maybe if the game had fireballs? But that doesn't save Fatal Fury and BlazBlue from their status as obscure fighting games.
I could never figure out why SF4 got as popular as it did. In my opinion, it's the toughest fighting game to master with its demanding precision. But then I look at Smash Bros.' wild popularity. Maybe people just go for nostalgia. Hell, it's the only reason I could think of why Tekken sticks around on top of the charts. Tekken was a lot of people's first 3-d fighter. It has a popular legacy. Why does Mortal Kombat outsell everything else? Because of Scorpion and SubZero. Those damn characters have been around too long and are too loved for people to just ignore.
That's how SF, Tekken, and MK do it. They sold their characters to millions of people a long time ago and the new iterations continue to bank on it. They came out on the most popular systems (SNES and PS1) and cultivated mindshare. VF could've done the same if the Saturn and Dreamcast weren't complete failures.
That's my dumb theory.
People talk about the skill ceiling, but I started playing when I was 13 on VF4 for PS2. I wasn't really into fighters either and I ended up grasping the system pretty easily. It's just three buttons. You pick a character, do command training and go experiment in Quest mode or fight people at your level. The problem is that people don't do this. They pick a character and immediately jump online, get their asses rocked by experts and complain about the game being hard. No, the game isn't hard. Those people just don't know what they're doing. They spam an attack, the superior player spams the counter and an easy victory is the result. Like any other good fighting game, you're only as good as the investment you're willing to make.
People complain about the lack of personality and style. I don't get it. I look at the costumes in VF4 and VF5, the crazy customizations, the character specific items, and I wonder where the hell people get off saying the game has no personality. Then I look at the characters' fighting styles and how well-they're animated. They're so damn specific that you would never confuse them with one another. There are no palette swaps. No recycled move sets. Every character owns their specific style and they are flashy as hell. Eileen rocks the monkey style. Shun does drunken boxing. Jacky owns Jeet Kun Do (flash sword kick is amazing). Where the hell is the game lacking in style?
Maybe if the game had fireballs? But that doesn't save Fatal Fury and BlazBlue from their status as obscure fighting games.
I could never figure out why SF4 got as popular as it did. In my opinion, it's the toughest fighting game to master with its demanding precision. But then I look at Smash Bros.' wild popularity. Maybe people just go for nostalgia. Hell, it's the only reason I could think of why Tekken sticks around on top of the charts. Tekken was a lot of people's first 3-d fighter. It has a popular legacy. Why does Mortal Kombat outsell everything else? Because of Scorpion and SubZero. Those damn characters have been around too long and are too loved for people to just ignore.
That's how SF, Tekken, and MK do it. They sold their characters to millions of people a long time ago and the new iterations continue to bank on it. They came out on the most popular systems (SNES and PS1) and cultivated mindshare. VF could've done the same if the Saturn and Dreamcast weren't complete failures.
That's my dumb theory.
Because the characters look boring, the moves, for the most part, look very realistic, and the characters look boring.
I love VF, but the character designs make me zzzzzzzzzzzz.
Also, the game isn't hard. People who want to make themselves feel better about lots of people not playing VF say it's hard and that that's the reason nobody plays it. Outside of 1 or 2 of Akira's moves, the execution is simple.
Making one of the most difficult characters the posterboy of the series probably doesn't help it much either.
I shouldn't have to customize my characters to make them look interesting. I fucking hate customization.
Also fighting style doesn't make them unique. Every game has characters with different fighting styles that you can instantly tell apart.
Your theory on other fighters is totally ignoring the fact that the games play well on top of appealing to nostalgia. People don't play a fighting game for damn near 4 years now just because Ryu was cool when they were 12.
I love VF, but the character designs make me zzzzzzzzzzzz.
Also, the game isn't hard. People who want to make themselves feel better about lots of people not playing VF say it's hard and that that's the reason nobody plays it. Outside of 1 or 2 of Akira's moves, the execution is simple.
Making one of the most difficult characters the posterboy of the series probably doesn't help it much either.
I shouldn't have to customize my characters to make them look interesting. I fucking hate customization.
Also fighting style doesn't make them unique. Every game has characters with different fighting styles that you can instantly tell apart.
Your theory on other fighters is totally ignoring the fact that the games play well on top of appealing to nostalgia. People don't play a fighting game for damn near 4 years now just because Ryu was cool when they were 12.