Virtua Fighter 2

Let's with what really makes any fighting worth anybody's time, the gameplay.
And on that front this game really delivers with some very deep and complex fighting mechanics, especially for its time. Even though the game at first glance might not seem that complex with it having only a punch, kick and guard buttons. But in fact, every character has a relatively big list of moves that are very easy to perform but it's the way you use them is what needs some getting used to. And that was the case even with the first game, which was a breath of fresh air from all the lackluster fighting games we used to get in terms of gameplay like Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct, and many other fighting games that are highly regarded but are really not that compelling beyond a few interesting things they include, obviously like the fatalities in these games. So yeah, the combat in this game is very exciting and fun to get into, being a fighting games fan. Definitely holds a lot of weight in the grander scheme of things.

The characters in here are balanced, what with them sharing a lot of basic moves and even combos. And what I find impressive about that is that they managed to make every character play and feel different, despite the fact that they share a lot of moves. However, there are some exceptions to this balance between characters which I'll get into next.

The combat seems pretty reliant on punishing an opponent's mistake, you have to read your opponent and know his next move in order to successfully punish him for a wrong move, which requires a lot of practice and discipline. the health bar is very quick to deplenish which leads to matches in this game ending very brutally quick, what with some of the simplest combos taking half or more from the enemy's health. One of the examples of an annoying enemy taking all your health away is the character Jeffry. Who is so incredibly annoying with his throws, some of them even take more than 70% of your health, and that damage is achieved in a single throw, which is so unfair and annoying. making him (and other characters with annoying moves and throws like Wolf and Kage) especially a pain to go through in arcade mode.

One aspect of the gameplay I disliked was the ridiculous moon jump this game has and it makes jumping and performing attacks while jumping very clunky as well as being very easily punished from it by the enemy which makes them basically useless.

Some of these problems really just stem from the horrible AI this game has. And I mean it's not surprising for its time but still, if you get really invested in this game and you start losing to some annoying AI that has the best responses to all the moves you pull then this game might break you a little bit mentally. Yes, I started losing it a few times when playing the arcade mode, when I'm fighting Kage and I've already used like 30 continues and I started wondering why I even played this game in the first place, but that's alright. All in all, I can't really judge this game too much for its shitty AI in context of the time that it came out in.

Visually, this game looks like shit now in today's standards. And the game really makes it clear to you in the player selection screen, where it proudly shows its shitty early 3D character models. However, I can't really deny the amazing and charming presentation this game has, like yeah, the characters might look like shit but it's early 3D and these polygonal mfers look really funny and of their time. So again, I can't really judge it too much on that front. Oh, and also this game runs at 60 frames per second so yeah that is pretty great.

The animation in this game is very excellent. It uses motion capture, which is pretty prominent these days but to see it being used all that time ago goes to show just how ahead of the curve this game was in many regards not just gameplay.

This game, and Virtua Fighter 1 are undoubtedly THE MOST important games to the 3D fighting games genre and it would influence games like Tekken and SoulCalibur. The former being my personal favorite fighting game franchise of all time. So, it should come as no surprise that I really enjoyed this game and delving into the complex nature of its gameplay was really fun and rewarding.

In terms of bugs, I have noticed some of the attacks don't seem to hit the opponent when i perform them. Like the consistently broken move of one of the characters, Lion (Down-Right, Punch, Punch), the second punch doesn't seem to hit the enemy even when the first punch hits, But I might be using it incorrectly. But it still happens in the case of other character with different moves on rare occasions.

So, yeah. Pretty fun game. Aged very well in some respects. Definitely play this with a real person though, that AI is though.

Oh, and the music is fucking amazing.

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Virtua Fighter 2