Sega Ages: Virtua Fighter 2

By Spencer . September 28, 2005 . 3:22am

Purchase at Play-Asia

 

Purchase at Lik-Sang

 

Sega’s Virtua Fighter series has come along way. Four games in the making, with the most recent one hailed by some as the best fighting game ever. However, our focus is on the Sega Ages re-release of the second installation of the series.

 

Sega claims that this version is an arcade perfect version of the once popular arcade game. It’s not too hard to believe, after all the PS2 should be able to handle a game of this complexity. I haven’t played the arcade version in sometime, but I have noticed some "differences". First of all during battles there is ever present slowdown. It usually happens when background effects, like lightning and a fast frame move occurs at the same time. This is a pretty severe problem because during quick moves you need to be able to block in a split second. The slowdown also makes this version of Virtua Fighter 2 feel more unresponsive than the Saturn version. The VF series has always depended on precise button presses at the appropriate second. The blips of slowdown break the fluidity of control and you will end up doing other moves than you expected.

 

Virtua Fighter 2 has the basic set of ten characters, plus one hidden character for you to play with. All of these characters appear in future installments, but if you haven’t heard of them before here’s a small rundown. Kage fights with his ninjitsu training, there is the slow and powerful Akira, the quick Sarah, and everyone’s favorite drunken boxer Shun. The cast of characters represent a wide range of fighting style, which was one of Sega’s goals when designing the game. Virtua Fighter 2 also has realistic moves, just like the rest of the series. Even though you might not be throwing glowing balls of energy, there are a decent amount of time sensitive punch and kick combos to master. Once you learn those you’ll have to understand how to throw an enemy, perform a ground attack and learn some signature moves for each character. The system works very well for using only three buttons: punch, kick and guard.

 

Although the fighting system that is present in the game is notably dated. You can move around freely. Instead you move and attack in a very rigid, blocky fashion. You’ll throw a punch, then the animation will break and the next move will start up. Speaking of moves, the entire move set for each character isn’t that large compared to say any other 3D game on the PS2. You were probably expecting that, since Virtua Fighter 2 is now a classic game. Side steeping is also a slow affair. If you’re used to running circles around an enemy, you can’t do that here either.

 

The game’s presentation deteriorated with time too. The graphics look really cubodial on the PS2 and the background textures don’t look that great either. The textures look really pixilated and washed out, not arcade perfect. The characters themselves look OK. The in game audio doesn’t use the quality of the PS2 sound processing to its fullest. Virtua Fighter 2 has a great soundtrack. So, Sega should have added in the option to use digital audio instead of rom emulated audio. If you just remember that this is a port of a classic game you can probably let the weak graphics and MIDI quality music slide.

 

Something else that will distract players from this fighter is the lack of single player challenge in the game. The computer AI is pretty good. You won’t be able to reach Dural instantly, which is a good thing. However, you’ll always fight characters in the same order over and over again. A little variation in the battle order would have gone a long way. The single player mode can be finished in a matter of minutes. Even with all of the in game difficulty levels, it just isn’t fun to play alone.

 

Ten years ago Sega released Virtua Fighter 2 in arcades around the world. People were amazed at the "lifelike" characters, vast array of moves, complete 3D motion and an excellent soundtrack. Back then, people’s standards of video games were held much lower than today. Virtua Fighter 2 just can’t stand up to King of Fighters: Maximum Impact, Soul Calibur 2 and especially not Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution.

 

Import Friendly? Literacy Level: 1

Menus and the limited voices are in English. So, you shouldn’t have a problem playing this from beginning to end.

 

US Bound?

There has been no announcement of Sega bringing this game over to the US yet. Although, it seems like there is a good chance because Sega has been into packaging the Sega Ages games into compilations for a US audience.

 

+ Pros: A close to arcade translation of a classic 3D fighter.

 

- Cons: Way too simple and not enough depth to make this anything more than trip down memory lane.

 

Overall: Sega Ages Virtua Fighter 2 is at the same price point as some great fighters like Soul Calibur 2, Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution and Tekken Tag. Honestly, your money is better spent on any of the other listed titles instead of this.

 

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