SEGA’s premier fighting series is finally coming to a Nintendo system.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/preview/73007/virtua-fighter-5-revo-switch-2-hands-on-preview
The first Virtua Fighter may be one of the most important titles in gaming history. Along with setting the template for the 3D fighting genre, its success helped push Sony to make the original PlayStation a polygonal powerhouse as opposed to a 2D machine. Surprisingly, no true Virtua Fighter has ever appeared on a Nintendo system (the Genesis port of Virtua Fighter 2 doesn’t count). Thankfully the Nintendo Switch 2 will finally buck this trend when Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O: World Stage debuts this winter.
Virtua Fighter 5 has had numerous iterations on game consoles. A few years ago, Team RGG in collaboration with original VF developer SEGA AM2 completely remade Virtua Fighter 5 in the Dragon Engine (the graphic engine used in the recent Yakuza titles). The new graphical underpinnings allowed the developers to greatly enhance the visuals, notably the lighting and textures, compared to the 2006 arcade original. The introduction of a modern game engine also laid the framework for further improvements. You could argue the first of these major changes came earlier this year when Virtual Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. released on PC with rollback netcode and support for 4K visuals.
I’ve been playing R.E.V.O. on PC all year, and it’s been a super addictive experience when fighting online. However, the single player has been a bit bare bones, but SEGA hopes to bolster solo play with the new World Stage mode where players compete in a globe-spanning tournament against a slew of virtual foes. The developers were greatly inspired by the Quest mode that originated in Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution on the PlayStation 2. Just like in VF 4’s Quest mode, many of the opponents you face in World Stage will be based on actual real-life Virtual Fighter players. By collecting player data directly from arcade cabinets, SEGA is able to create AI fighters that accurately mimic their real-life counterparts.
Another nice thing about World Stage mode is that you can unlock costumes and items as you complete challenges and defeat opponents in it. Specifically, it appears that the Virtua Fighter 5 Type E costumes are unlockable. A number of additional costumes will also be available as DLC. I got to very briefly play the World Stage mode at a recent SEGA event (on a PlayStation 5). All the opponents I faced were quite easy to defeat, but it was the very first tier of opponents. It’s clear the challenge will ramp up as you face more opponents and you can also increase the overall difficulty for the entire tournament if you wish. It’ll be awesome if World Stage can recapture some of the magic of Evo’s extensive quest mode. The varied playstyles of that game’s AI proved to be a great way to learn new fighting techniques and kept the game engaging when human opponents weren’t available.
The Nintendo Switch 2 version will also have full crossplay support. I inquired if there might be a way to login into some sort of VF account on each platform so you could easily transfer game progress and content, but sadly all progress is locked to each unique version. While you won’t be able to transfer save data, the promised crossplay support is a good indicator that the game will run at 60fps on Nintendo Switch 2 so that players on all systems will have a level playing field when fighting online. Overall, I strongly hope the first real Virtual Fighter on a Nintendo console will be worth the very long wait.
Topic: Virtua Fighter 5: R.E.V.O. (Switch 2) Hands-On Preview (Read 76 times)
