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Virtua Fighter

[Coin-Op] Arcade Video Game by Sega Enterprises, Ltd. [Tokyo, Japan]

Type of the game: [Coin-Op] Arcade Video Game
Virtua Fighter © 1993 Sega.

In this 3-D fighting game, the game's battle system is simple, yet complex. There are 3 buttons : Punch, Kick and Guard. Movement is strictly confined to a horizontal plane.

Battles are won by draining the energy bar of your opponent or by pushing your opponent off the edges of the ring (known as a 'Ring-out').

When a 'Draw' is declared (timer reaches zero with both fighters having an equal amount of energy), a Sudden Death match is held on a very small platform, making a win by Ring-out that much more probable.

The game favours tactical play over mindless button bashing, and the gameplay is balanced accordingly to reflect this.

PICTURE :

Click to enlarge (members only)

Sega Model 1 hardware

Main CPU : V60 (@ 16 Mhz), 68000 (@ 10 Mhz)
Sound Chips : YM3438 (@ 8 Mhz), (2x) MultiPCM (@ 8 Mhz)

Control : 8-way joystick
Buttons : 3

Virtua Fighter was released in December 1993. An instant success in Japanese arcades, Virtua Fighter (or VF for short) brought the versus beat 'em up kicking and screaming into the next generation. Like "Street Fighter II - The World Warrior", a substantial number of clones ("Toshinden", "Tekken", "Dead or Alive") would follow in its wake, each with their own tweaks to the formula.

Among the game's many innovations, the most profound were the true-to-life animation (all the more impressive considering no motion capture technology was used) and the realistic movesets of the game's eight characters.

Virtua Fighter serves 180,000 polygons per second. This is the first 3-D polygonal one-on-one fighting game.

During Virtua Fighter's development, the game featured an Arabian fighter named 'Siba'. He was replaced later on in the final prototypes by Akira, as the developers felt that the game needed a karate fighter similar to Street Fighter's Ryu. Siba was brought back an unlockable character in the Saturn game 'Fighter's Megamix', in all his VF1 style glory.

Soundtrack releases:
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Mar. 23, 1994; Virtua Fighter - Saikyou no Senshi [TYCY-5386]

Literatures:
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June 10, 1994; Gamest No.117: Virtua Fighter
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Aug. 24, 1994; Virtua Fighter Maniax [ISBN4-89366-264-3]
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Dec. 06, 1994; Virtua Fighter Maniax Replays [ISBN4-89366-300-3]
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Jan. 10, 1995; Virtua Fighter - Ougi no Sho [No. 147]
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Jan. 30, 1995; Virtua Fighter Maniax for Windows [ISBN4-89366-315-1]

* Play as Dural : First, you must beat the computer Dural and have 2 games worth of credits in the machine ready to go. After beating the game, have one player press Start and pick a character. As soon as that character finishes smiling, but before the game actually starts, player 2 should press Start to interrupt the process. If your timing is perfect, and the stars are perfectly aligned, and you've been a good boy or girl, player 2 may come in as Dural.

* See Credits : You can get the credits of the programmers to come up on the screen by holding down a Start button during the demo. When it comes to the standard demo w/ Sarah kicking Kage, the credits will come up. Keep holding the Start button to keep the credits coming or else they will freeze.

* Kage's Face Mask : It seems that after about 3,000 plays, the mask on Kage falls off instead of just his headband. You can see his teeth and a scar on his cheek.