Virtua Fighter is the game that launched the genre of 3D fighting games. As a revolutionary arcade game, it showed the world what the next generation would bring and was the launch system seller for the Sega Saturn.
It was the game that made you realise you had to upgrade from the Mega Drive to Sega’s 32-bit hardware. It’s obvious to say that the Mega Drive owners therefore wouldn’t get Virtua Fighter to play on the aging 16-bit workhorse. So, how is it that Virtua Fighter 2 found its way to the Mega Drive? And more importantly, is it any good?
I’ve recently looked at the Sega Game Gear Virtua Fighter game, which is known either as Virtua Fighter Mini or Virtua Fighter Animation, and was made to tie into an anime based on the arcade game. Virtua Fighter was the big new Sega franchise, and it made sense to put a game on the Game Gear to build the brand and scratch that Virtua Fighter itch for players when they couldn’t play it at home or in the arcades.
More surprising than a Game Gear spin off, is the straight up demake of Virtua Fighter 2 on the Mega Drive. Whilst this may not be as good as the Saturn release of Virtua Fighter 2, I can say that in the late 90s when I got this, I was beyond satisfied to have the latest Saturn fighting game also on the Mega Drive.
Just like Virtua Fighter Mini, Sega have worked hard to be creative to give the illusion that this is still a 3D fighting game as the original is and retain the game gameplay. The stage you fight on looked 3D with its ground level moving to give the sense that this game still takes place in a 3D stage like the arcade and Saturn games.
The trees and objects in the background also add to this illusion and they really do retain the look of the janky old texture mapped 3D objects of day. The way the ground shakes and changes perspective slightly was impressive for the hardware.
The characters though, are of course not created in 3D and are 2D sprites that can only fight in a 2D plane and can’t be viewed from other angles or rotated around. This actually puts the game in weird territory as many look at early 3D games and say that they haven’t aged as well as the 2D games that came before them. The likes of Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat 1-3 are generally seen as being easier on the eye in a modern context compared to their first 3D iterations like Street Fighter Ex Plus Alpha and Mortal Kombat 4.
In the case of Virtua Fighter, it’s the game that originated the 3D fighting genre and although there was artwork of the characters that was traditionally drawn, the only way people have memories of playing as the characters was in their 3D form. This demake arguably has aged better graphically than the more advanced versions of Virtua Fighter at the arcade and especially the 32X and Saturn versions of Virtua Fighter 1.
I wouldn’t say the sprite work in Virtua Fighter 2 on the Genesis is awesome compared to the likes of Street Fighter 2 but does the job to replicate the more detailed look of the characters from the arcade version.
The game features a slightly smaller roster than the arcade and Saturn games, and basically cuts the new roster additions that were brought in to Virtua Fighter 2. Apparently, this game was originally in development as a Mega Drive version of Virtua Fighter Animation that launched on the Game Gear, and so would probably have been something more of a adaptation of that, and more of a version of the first game as Virtua Fighter Animation/Virtua Fighter Mini is.
In the game you can play as Akira, Pai, Lau, Wolf, Jeffrey, Kage, Jacky, Sarah and the unlockae final boss Dural. Lion and Shun Di from the arcade and Saturn versions are cut, but like I said these were the new characters introduced in Virtua Fighter 2, and they were probably less cut as never considered for inclusion. If this was to be a version of Virtua Fighter Animation, they weren’t going to be included, and I suspect that at some point Sega decided that the game would do better being named Virtua Fighter 2 and seem like a full release rather than a spin off. This probably explains why they cut the story screens from Virtua Fighter Animation, and why it is presented closer to being like the arcade game.
Gameplay wise, this still very much feels like Virtua Fighter 2, but with cut down move sets. The moves you can pull off still play the same, but the animation is a bit jerky looking as you pull out wrestling style moves like power bombs or the big swing.
As a sign of the chaos that was Sega during the transitional period between the 16-bit and 32-bit generations, gamers could play Virtua Fighter 1 on either the Saturn or Mega Drive 32X, but if they fell on the Mega Drive owner side, they would go from the full 3D original to the 2D demake of the sequel which ironically had more detailed graphics on the characters and stages as a result of being 2D.
Let us know what you’d rate this game?
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