There is no game series out there that means more to me than Virtua Fighter. I spent my weekly allowance to play VF and VF2 in arcades, cavorted cross-country in search of rare Virtua Fighter 3 cabinets, and eventually connected with overseas friends by playing VF4 Evolution and Final Tuned in Japan. So when I see a new–or new-ish, in this case–Virtua Fighter game get released, I want it to be the best it can possibly be. Not just for myself, but so others can pick it up and understand why we longtime Virtua Fighter players adore these games so much.
Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown–released a few years back on PS4–was a solid attempt at this, bringing the much-loved VF5 Final Showdown to PS4 with a fresh coat of paint. However, it fumbled in some key areas–particularly the netcode, which was a bizarre delay-based system in an era when fighting game developers were quickly and vocally embracing superior rollback systems. Now, with a new Virtua Fighter in active development and people talking about the series again, Sega has given us Virtua Fighter 5 REVO: another revision exclusively for PCs with the much-longed-for and player-demanded rollback netcode.
The rollback netcode is clearly the major selling point here, as much of the game is still built upon the foundation of VF5 Ultimate Showdown: The menu graphics, interface, and character models are largely the same, with a bit of extra polish and visual flair if you’ve got solid graphics hardware. But that’s fine–those areas didn’t need much improvement, so why fix what isn’t broken?
So yes, it’s (almost) all about the netcode this time around, and thankfully, Sega has nailed it… mostly. It’s absolutely the best netcode a Virtua Fighter game has ever had, which makes it far more playable and appealing. In my sessions, I’ve had smooth matches with folks as far away as Japan, the Philippines, and the UK from my home in the US Pacific Northwest. Some bouts required adjusting the amount of rollback frames slightly, but many were just fine on default settings. When conditions are ideal, playing online is practically indistinguishable from playing against an opponent locally–aside from the occasional odd side effect of rollback, such as hearing a counter hit noise only to realize that no, the rollback kicked in and that wasn’t actually a counter, whoops.
But that’s when conditions are ideal. For an “old” fighting game, Virtua Fighter 5 REVO is surprisingly demanding on its default graphics settings. So if you get the game and just jump right into online play without fiddling around with the settings first, odds are your frame rate is going to start dipping under 60fps. That’s a big problem, because when someone’s frame rate is inconsistent, the netcode has to work extra hard, and it results in a choppy, stuttering experience for both sides, even if the other player’s setup is running fine. A benchmark test before going online to make sure everyone has a consistent 60fps would do wonders in smoothing out the experience, but for now, the only thing that can be done is to ask players to spend time adjusting graphics settings from the get-go.
This release also marks the first major revision of the core gameplay in roughly 12 years, with attacks from older games added back in, the properties of many existing moves changed, and character’s weights adjusted, among other things. These aren’t really changes that make for major selling points, but they do affect the moment-to-moment fighting gameplay in ways that are both subtle and drastic: Characters like Jacky and Taka-Arashi, considered very strong in the previous version, have been knocked down a couple pegs with some of the (now less) lightweight characters like Pai feeling much improved. This is probably the most balanced this game has ever been. (It’s worth noting that these gameplay changes have also been patched into VF5 Final Showdown.)
The fact that these small changes can shake things up so drastically is part of what makes Virtua Fighter 5, in all its incarnations, so great to play competitively. Learning Virtua Fighter is a long, challenging, and incredibly satisfying journey. VF’s skill ceiling is extremely high: You can play for years and still discover new, exciting, and fascinating aspects of the combat each time you dive in. Combat is lightning-fast and involves constant decision-making, with almost every situation having numerous possible answers. It feels like learning a new language, with the fights themselves being your canvas for expression.
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Of course, not everyone wants to play competitively, and unfortunately VF5 REVO still suffers from the dearth of single-player content that Ultimate Showdown did. There’s still a severe lack of character customization options as well: The PS3 and Xbox 360 release of VF5 Final Showdown had a wealth of weird and wild items to deck characters out with for combat, and both REVO and VF5US have only a fraction of that–and much of it is currently locked behind DLC. There’s always a chance there’s more customization coming, however.
As it is now, VF5 REVO is the best currently available version of an all-time great 3D fighting game. If you’re willing to put the effort into it, Virtua Fighter will reward you with some of the most intense fighting out there. Just please, make sure your PC runs it at a proper frame rate before you do anything else.
