Virtua Fighter

Arcade Video game published 31 years ago by SEGA Enterprises, Ltd.

Listed in MAME

Info

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

Click to enlarge
(members only)

TECHNICAL/MACHINE PICT.

Runs on the Sega "Model 1" Hardware.

Screen Orientation: Horizontal

Players: 2
Control: 8-Way Joystick
Buttons: 3
=> Punch, Kick Guard

TRIVIA

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 move sets 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:
[JP] March 23, 1994; Virtua Fighter - Saikyou no Senshi [TYCY-5386]

Literatures:
[JP] June 10, 1994; Gamest No.117: Virtua Fighter
[JP] August 24, 1994; Virtua Fighter Maniax [ISBN4-89366-264-3]
[JP] December 6, 1994; Virtua Fighter Maniax Replays [ISBN4-89366-300-3]
[JP] January 10, 1995; Virtua Fighter - Ougi no Sho [No. 147]
[JP] January 30, 1995; Virtua Fighter Maniax for Windows [ISBN4-89366-315-1]

Click to see more
(members only)

TIPS AND TRICKS

* 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.

SERIES

1. Virtua Fighter (1993)
2. Virtua Fighter 2 (1994)
3. Virtua Fighter Remix [Model 610-0373-02] (1995)
4. Virtua Fighter Kids [Model 610-0373-14] (1996)
5. Virtua Fighter 3 (1996)
6. Virtua Fighter 3 Team Battle (1997)
7. Virtua Fighter 4 [GDS-0012] (2001)
8. Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution (2002)
9. Virtua Fighter 4 Final Tuned (2004)
10. Virtua Fighter 5 (2006)
11. Virtua Fighter 5 Version B (2006)
12. Virtua Fighter 5 Version C (2006)
13. Virtua Fighter 5 Version D (2006)
14. Virtua Fighter 5 R (2008)
15. Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown (2010)

STAFF

Coordinator & Main designer : Seiichi Ishii
Main programmer : Toru Ikebuchi
Programmers : Shin Kimura, Takeshi Suzuki, Eisuke Miura, Kazuhiko Yamada, Masahiko Kobayashi, Naomi Ota, F.Y. Bertrand, Tetsuya Kaku
Designers : Kunihiko Nakata, Youji Kato, Toshiya Inoue, Yoshinao Asako, Masataka Aochi, Tomohiro Ishii, Jeffery Buchanan, Mika Kojima
Program supports : Keiji Okayasu, Hiroaki Shoji
Music composer : Takayuki Nakamura
Planning support : Manabu Tsukamoto
Producer & Director : Yu Suzuki

PORTS

CONSOLES:
japan Sega Saturn (nov.22, 1994) "Virtua Fighter [Model GS-9001]"
brazil Sega Mega 32X (1995) by Tec Toy
usa Sega Saturn (may.11, 1995) "Virtua Fighter [Model 81005]"
europe Sega Saturn (jul.8, 1995) "Virtua Fighter [Model MK81005-50]"
usa Sega Genesis 32X (oct.1995) "Virtua Fighter [Model 84701]"
japan Sega Super 32X (oct.20, 1995) "Virtua Fighter [Model GM-4013]"
europe Sega Mega Drive 32X (nov.30, 1995) "Virtua Fighter [Model MK84701-50]"
japan Sony PS2 (nov.28, 2003) "Virtua Fighter - 10th Anniversary [Model SLPM-68018]"

COMPUTERS:
usa PC [MS Windows, CD-ROM] (aug.31, 1996)

OTHERS:
usa Tiger R-Zone (1995)

SOURCES

Game's manual.
Game's picture.
Game's ROM.
Game's screenshots.
See goodies section.