The Most Important Fighting Game Ever Made? 30 Years of Virtua Fighter.

Virtua Fighter celebrated its 30th Birthday this month, so to celebrate James and Dan have worked together to produce a Retrospective worthy of its majesty.
Where did its story start? How did Yu Suzuki realise his vision? What were the immediate and long term impacts? What is the best way to play?
Find out all this, and more, in this lovingly created video.

[@krono5el]

Seeing Virtua Fighter for the first time in the Arcade was like a paradigm shift in gaming and what i thought gaming could be. completely unforgettable moment : D

[@SEGAGuys]

It truly was, there’s never been anything like it! - Dan

[@G.G.___162]

Virtua Fighter is by far my favorite fighting game series! With my all time favorite being Fighter's Megamix on Saturn. I'll never forget playing the original Virtua Fighter at the arcade for the first time

[@Rockhead84]

Excellent reporting and video. I'll never forget seeing VF at a Super K-Mart in 1993. Hitting that trademark 4 hit combo with Lau had me hooked! It truly changed the game. There wasn't anything like it at the time.

[@liebkraft9950]

i'm one of the three guys who bought a 32x, still have it btw. when i played virtua figher for the first time, it completely blew my mind. it was so smooth and realistic. haven't seen anything like it before.

[@retrogamerdiaries]

Will be watching. I also done a 1 hour documentary on the Virtua Fighter games. We need another VF game

[@RaymondKarlVeasey75]

Experiencing Video Games Leap From 2-D To 3-D First Hand Was Magnificent. After All These Decades Later, One Of My Favorite Things About Virtua Fighter Is Its "Plainness". As I Also Love Tekken, But All The Flashy & Sparkly Particle Effects In Tekken 8 Is To Me Is Just A Distraction From What Should Have The Focus, Which Is The Fighting Of Course. That's Why I Respect Virtua Fighter So Much, It Doesn't Distract From What We Are There To Do, Which Is Fighting Of Course.

[@nit3h8wk81]

My first time playing virtua fighter was with the big screen with seats at a small arcade. It's great being able to play the original model 1 arcade version in mame after the most major graphical bugs were fixed. I also like the 10th anniversary version and yes I know it uses the VF4 game engine but I still love it. It looks great on pcsx2 with a no-interlacing patch and widescreen.

[@temjin44]

I was in Korea and Japan during the VF2 peak. I was shocked at the gaming scene. Multiply SF2 by ten.

[@losalfajoresok]

Amazing retrospective! I'm from Argentina and I clearly remember when I saw it on arcades circa 94/95 and couldn't believe it!

[@sagittariusseiya8310]

Virtua Fighter is always my favourite fighting through the entire Virtua Fighter series. I love to more of Virtua Fighter for 30th anniversary like Virtua Fighter 6, Virtua Fighter merchandise and Virtua Fighter live action.

[@NeoWave346]

Why won't sega give us modern ports of these amazing model 1,2 and 3 games.😔

[@SEGAGuys]

Tell me about, were dying for an arcade compilation of their 90s classics - Dan

[@NeoWave346]

@@SEGAGuys yeah me too I remember going to sega world back in the day with my brother.tuesday was free play night 6 till 11 there,I think it was something like a fiver for a wrist band to get in.they had it all - VF 1+2 sega rally daytona.just cracking days and I'd love like you say some sort of rerelease at this point I'd take ports from the PS3 360 versions that mostly got delisted.great show really enjoying the videos many thanks 👍

[@tpatt513]

Excellent work. Lotta things that I didnt know about fighting games in general were explained very well and eye opening. Thanks A Lot.

[@SEGAGuys]

You’re most welcome! Glad you enjoyed the video, thanks for watching. - James.

[@TheDansonT]

Just discovered your channel! LOVE the commentary, informative material, snappy music and flow. Keep it up fellas! Much love from GA, USA. Have a sub, like and bell

[@SEGAGuys]

Thanks so much mate! Glad you enjoy what we do, welcome to the SEGAGuys family! - James.

[@MisterBigMack]

Tremendous - my absolute first memories of VF was VF2 so I missed out on the early early days of Saturn The video production quality is fantastic chaps and you collaborate very well. This is up there with pandas videos in terms of quality 👏

[@SEGAGuys]

Thank you Andy! It's a special game so we just had to give it the love it deserves! - Dan

[@chrisducati26]

That music on the character selection made nostalgia! I still play it on my Saturn and the remix pc version on my diamond edge 3d

[@TheRetroMartin]

I'm actually getting to watch a premiere for once. Super excited!

[@SEGAGuys]

Hope you enjoyed it Martin - Dan

[@TheRetroMartin]

@@SEGAGuys I did, really interesting and full of info. Cracking job lads.

[@retrogamerdiaries]

Spot on again

[@SEGAGuys]

Cheers mate, appreciate the kind words and you taking the time to watch. Glad you enjoyed it! - James.

[@user-dm6gv7so4t]

There is a port of Virtua Fighter on the PS2 you could consider. And it runs at 60fps .Virtua Fighter - 10th Anniversary Edition.

[@SEGAGuys]

Yeah, that one is a VF1 skinned version of VF4 Evolution. Close but still not that arcade perfect vanilla VF1 port. Cheers for watching! - James.

[@Nightscrawler]

I first experienced Virtua Fighter on the Saturn that first Christmas. To say my head exploded is an understatement 😂 My tiny little mind could barely comprehend seeing three-dimensional polygons displayed magically within my two-dimensional CRT TV... It was a beautiful moment in gaming, and although I'm old, and everything hurts for no reason, I'm glad I was there for it 😎

[@tay850dakid6]

And you would think they would've made a Virtua Fighter 6 by now

[@jmartin1885]

Hi guys, I am obsessed with Virtua Fighter! I've loved it since day-1... Do you know how they got it to look so smooth on the Astro-City-Mini? I've played-around with Retroarch, and loads of resolutions and shaders & filters... No matter what I try, it doesn't look as good as thge Astro-City-Mini output!!! Can you please suggest how I might proceed to improve the look of my fave game on the PC? Thanks 😁

[@MadsonOnTheWeb]

I think the 32x port was impressive on its own. I still think some songs are even better there

[@SEGAGuys]

Agree, on its own merits the 32X port is very impressive, though I can't get on with the music personally - Dan

[@Grandmastergav86]

Final Showdown is still the best 3D Fighting game, without question. I never could stand Tekken's gimmicky nonsense, VF has one gimmicky character in Dural but I love it's comparatively grounded style. It's grounded in the same way old school HK Kung Fu movies were, the movements are unrealistic and hyper-exaggerated but goddamn is the combat enjoyable and incredibly deeply layered. Nothing comes close. The only Fighting game in recent years that has really impressed me is the weapons based fighter, Hellish Quart - which is outstanding. Great video, guys.

[@andrewinfosec]

Surely the Astro City Mini is the best way to play Virtua Fighter 1 today?

[@SEGAGuys]

We state as much in the video: “An emulated version did make its way to the Astro City Mini. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get my hands on one yet but there have been various reports of slowdown to varying degrees. For the closest arcade experience, that may be the way to go, but by all accounts, 30 years on, playing Virtua Fighter in its arcade perfect form is still not a reality.” Cheers - James.

[@andrewinfosec]

@@SEGAGuys My apologies, I somehow missed that.

[@G.G.___162]

Though I haven't tried VF1 arcade emulated; VF2 on the Model 2 emulator is absolutely fantastic; especially with a Saturn controller

[@EagerArcade-dk5ov]

Joel Perez use Akira Yuki virtua fighter 6 story

[@sintupoy8428]

Hello guys I am trying to find a funny relic of Virtua Fighter it was a video of a match showcase with 2 different characters, most notably one is drawing circles around with funny whoosh sound and other one teleports around or turns into a humanoid jet and fly around. On 2nd match it was a game between a regular character with funny character that grapples the woman and squeezes the testicles. does anyone remember the name or provide the link of this video?

[@ektran4205]

do a video on seiichi ishii

[@OfficialGaminGuys]

Whilst I did think of this game as groundbreaking at the time, the input lag was pretty terrible and put me right off the game at the time. You could time the input controls on Super Street Fighter Turbo so it worked acceptably, but I didn't feel like it was ever achievable with Virtua. Felt more like a polygon test than an outright game for me. Carried by the absolutely noisy sound card to some degree that pricked ears up.

[@SEGAGuys]

I've never thought it had input lag personally, from standing starting positions there's no perceptible lag, but there is a delay when moving throught animations making combos a matter of different timing, so I put it down to just behaving differently from 2D fighters at the time - Dan

[@SEGAGuys]

To echo what Dan said, I think what’s simply different timing mechanics are what’s being perceived as lag. I mean, I can’t time SF2 combos to save myself, but if someone blocks my shoulder dash with Akira I can feel and time the animations for when I can input away, down-diagonal forward + P&G to execute the dash behind and shoulder smash to the back, which opens up a double kick from behind. - James.

[@OfficialGaminGuys]

@@SEGAGuys yeah thats what I mean, the motion controls carry weight. When you come from Mario it can feel strange when you are young and hadn't experienced it before. Bear in mind, I came from games like Defender and Asteroids, Mario in 3D was pretty much the same as Virtua Fighter with its slow to fast movement.

[@SEGAGuys]

Great point on SM64, that took some adjusting too - Dan

[@OfficialGaminGuys]

@@SEGAGuys and took a new cameraman. Half the time it got stuck lol. Meh history of gaming innit. Nobody will remember it soon enough, nobody will know SNES or Mega Drive and we'll all be forgotten. We'll just become the 2000's like we see the 1800's. Still reckon both SEGA and Nintendo will be bought by Xbox but we'll see.

[@copyrightstrike6910]

i love virtua fighter. and played it in the arcades when it came out. but here in america, it made almost no impact, same with virtua fighter 2. tekken on the other hand, and dead or alive both made a much better impact in arcades, and home consoles. i know virtua fighter had a big impact, but that didn't make it successful here. none of my friends played virtua fighter. i stuck with it until virtua fighter 2. i only played 3,4 much much later. and got an xbox 360 just for 5. but at that point no one else was playing it either.

[@duman5596]

_I still remember how the playstation's compared VF with so called tohshinden. Of how they downgraded VF's blocky characters than tohshinden's characters._

[@michaelromeo9567]

Virtua Fighter 2 came out Same Year as Tekken 1 Befor Toshiden was even a thing . VF1 is a bad port , SEGA Saturn VF2 proved it. Not as gorgeous as the arcade (impossible to match US Army hardware Model 1 and 2 modded by SEGA ) but still is a prowess PS1 never did: Full textured mapped 3D 60 fps in High resolution in 1995! Even in 1998 with the latest Andromeda new dev Kit Sony never did such a prowess So imagine if SEGA didn't dropped the machine. Too bad it was a mess to develop on.. 😰

[@wordsshackles441]

NIce

[@user-tp3lc3yl8k]

Joel Perez joined virtua fighter 6

[@6arcsn1sky]

@user-tp3lc3yl8k Do you bear something to Sega Japan that will make you their latest fighter?

[@UKDazarusUK]

NICE. I still prefer SF 2 lol

[@SEGAGuys]

If I'm honest, so do I, but as the first 3D fighting, it plays amazingly well. It's closer between VF2 and SF2 though - Dan

[@SEGAGuys]

Yeah, preference is a different discussion altogether (although VF1’s impact on me is such that I’d still chose it above all others), but both games have had monumental impacts on the industry. SF2 revived and revolutionised the arcade scene. VF1 turned the entire industry‘s head and set gaming on the 3D path. Two giants. - James.

[@Longlostpuss]

Yes....to everything said in this video. Virtua Fighter literally is the grand daddy of fighting games and 3D. Even though Sega fell off the horse decades ago, Virtual Fighter 5 Final Showdown is still the best 3D fighter on the market. It doesn't matter if Namco release Tekken 16x at this point and Sega don't produce another Virtua Fighter ever again, Namco cannot make fighters the way Sega can. This is also considering that Sega was on its way down at the time of making VF5 too, Yu Suzuki had nothing to do with the game. Let that sink in. If Sega had continued on their original trajectory and tradition of using the NASA supercomputer technology to bring us new arcade releases, it is frightening to imagine what a modern Virtua Fighter would have looked and played like today.