VIRTUA FIGHTER 4



[Virtua Fighter 4 Gallery]
          GAME STATISTICS
A.K.A.: N/A
Release Date:  March 17, 2002
 January 31, 2002
 May 10, 2002
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sega
Genre: Fighting
# of Players: 1-2
ESRB Rating: T
Our Score: 9.5 out of 10
Our Reviews: Ape - Review below.
To submit one, click here!
Systems: Playstation 2

9.5 out of 10
         
     When Virtua Fighter 4 first came out, I honestly wasn’t looking forward to it. Yeah, I loved Virtua Fighter 2 on Saturn, but the Dreamcast’s version of Virtua Fighter 3 just plain didn’t ‘wow’ me like I was hoping that it would. I had moved on to thinking that Tekken was the series to turn to for great 3D fighting. After popping in Virtua Fighter 4, I strongly felt that Virtua Fighter was once again atop the 3D fighting world, a world that the Virtua Fighter series originated.

     I suppose I should begin by talking about why the game is so great. Well, most 3D fighting games of today have evolved since the day Virtua Fighter 4 was released, but for its time, Virtua Fighter 4 was a step forward from where the 3d fighting genre was. Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution was then a leap forward from the original version of Virtua Fighter 4...But I’ll get into that in another review. But anyway, Virtua Fighter 4 is a great 3D fighting game because it feels more like you’re actually fighting than other games. In other games, you can mash buttons to survive, but that feels more like a frantic slap fight than anything fun. Button mashing in Virtua Fighter 4 is likely a good way to lose quickly. Virtua Fighter 4 is about precise movements and button inputs....Reading your opponent and reacting. It’s almost like a fighting game version of rock-paper-scissors; you’ve only got three buttons (punch, kick, and block) and you’ve got to decide which button to press at the right time to win. It’s not necessarily a game that most folks can pick up and immediately start winning in, but when you beat an opponent in Virtua Fighter 4, it just feels more rewarding for some reason, when in comparison to a victory in Tekken or Dead or Alive.

     Part of the reason for how enjoyable the gameplay is, is the game’s A.I. The computer-controlled opponents are smart. Yeah, if you put the game at the lowest difficulty, they’ll occasionally just stand there and take a whoopin’ from you...But on higher difficulties, the game feels less like you’re playing against the computer and more like you’ve got a skilled friend in the room playing with you. This makes the game very fun to play as you won’t get bored from dominating each match...And some matches you may win with just a sliver of health left in your bar. That’s part of why I mentioned that winning in the Virtua Fighter 4 feels rewarding...You actually feel as if you earned the victory with skill; not luck through button mashing.

     While the fighting itself is rewarding, challenging, and fun, there are also a bunch of gameplay modes to ensure that the game disk stays put in your Playstation 2 for quite a while. First off is your basic arcade mode. Anyone who has played a fighting game already knows what arcade mode is all about, so I won’t even go into that. I’ll just say that Arcade mode in Virtua Fighter 4 doesn’t really offer any replay value. You don’t get anything for completing it and you don’t get individual endings for each character. There’s also training mode, which is good for learning the ropes for folks who are new to the game...But again, no explanation needed there. Versus mode, no explanation needed. There’s also an A.I. mode, which is a unique feature that has you train and condition a character to be controlled by the computer (in other words, setting its A.I.) And then you can set said character loose in Kumite or Versus mode and watch how well you trained your fighter. But the mode that really puts this game over the top, and that separated it from the rest of the pack at the time, is Kumite mode.
     Kumite mode is essentially a simulation of the Japanese arcade scene. In Kumite mode you battle through Japanese arcades, facing off against A.I. based off of actual players in Japan. As you battle through the arcades, you move up the rankings. But it doesn’t end there, you can also collect items (over 400 in the game to collect) and basically customize your fighter to your liking...Which seems to have become a regular feature in fighting games since. Kumite mode is seemingly infinite, and the difficulty slope is done so well that through this mode, you’ll gradually become better at the game without realizing it. The first opponents you’ll face are easy, but as you move up the ranks, you’ll gradually fight tougher and tougher opponents...But you may also be learning new tactics and strategies for fights along the way...And before you know it, you could be pulling off upset victories against A.I. versions of Japan’s best Virtua Fighter 4 players. Kumite mode also collects a win-loss record from your battles as well as a win percentage, so you can see your successes or failures as you play.

     Graphically, Virtua Fighter 4 looked pretty beautiful for its time and it still looks pretty nice today. Yeah, it paled in comparison to games like Dead or Alive 3 in the graphics department, but being on a different system with less-powerful graphical capabilities, I’d say that Virtua Fighter 4 looks mighty good. The backgrounds of the stages that you fight in look beautiful. It’s one of the best-looking fighters that you’ll find on the system. The audio is done quite well, too. The soundtrack isn’t the amongst the greatest of all-time, however the diversity here really help give more character to each stage that you battle on. There are also neat little touches added in, like each character speaks in the language of their origin. It’s not a huge deal that they do, but I feel that it’s an interesting and neat little touch. So yup, the visual and audio presentation of Virtua Fighter 4 is top-notch.

     Virtua Fighter 4 was a game that really raised the bar for the 3D fighting genre. The fighting system is a simple, yet deep, game of strategic fighting; button mashing will only get you so far. The game modes range from the quick-to-play arcade mode and versus mode to the seemingly-endless Kumite mode, which really make this a great fighting game for both someone who just wants to play a quick match here and there and for someone who wants to have a lot of replay value in their fighting games. It was arguably the best 3D fighting game of its generation for its time...And honestly, aside from Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution (which is an expanded version of this game), I don’t know if there was another 3D fighter of that console generation that could compare even several years after the game was released. With that said, if you love fighting games, but have never played Virtua Fighter 4, you need to go out and get it. A copy goes for less than five dollars these days, but gameplay like this is well worth the fifty dollar price tag that it originally came out with. - Ape