Finely honed gameplay... it's damn good
For those of you that have played the previous games on the PS2, Virtua Fighter 5 works hard to make something of the PS3’s improved power. For a start the backdrops, mostly rendered in 3D, look superb. You can a nice little intro sequence before each bout where you get to see the area in which you’re fighting finishing with the obligatory opening dance by your opponent. Eileen’s is particularly impressive if only for the fact she looks like she’s doing a meerkat impression at the end.Anyways, once that stuff is over you can get on with the fight itself and this is where Virtua Fighter 5 becomes an absolute joy. You see, in amongst all that frantic button pounding and, in my case, extremely frequent swearing, is a fighting game so finely tuned that if it were an engine, it’d purr. If it were a girl it’d be Kiera Knightley desperate for some horizontal jogging. If Virtua Fighter 5’s gameplay was a spaceship, it’d be the Millennium Falcon, replete with a gold bikini clad Princess Leia. Seriously, this is a game so well balanced that it’s near perfect... note the ‘ near’ because there are faults, but these are so small as to not be noticeable.
Click for larger imageBesides the nice visuals, the first thing you’ll notice with Virtua Fighter 5 is the fluidity of the gameplay. Sure, the characters all have a set animation sequence for each move by it feels much more real than in previous outings in the Virtua Fighter series. From the timing and clipping, if you happen to grapple an opponent it really looks and feels like you’ve got a grip on them... then same when you make contact with a kick or a punch.
Combo moves feel much more fluid and realistic too. So although you can go from a crouching punch combo up to a high kick flurry, there will be a tiny pause between the two as your character sets themselves up. This makes for a more exciting battle as your opponent can use that pause to mount a counter-attack. New to the game is the ‘break-grapple’ feature, so if you do get caught you no longer have to just sit there and watch your guy get beaten to mush. Obviously to make things easier on the new player, breaking a hold is dead easy and, if you’re quick, you can even mount a counter attack, taking advantage of the fact your opponent will temporarily be off balance, so give ‘em a quick kick in the fork!
Click for larger imageAnd this is the key to the fighting in Virtua Fighter 5, blocking really does block all but the strongest attacks and unless you’re stunned you can counter attack straight away, preventing a better player from dominating the match. No doubt a new player will have their ass handed to them every time but they’ll still manage to land a good few blows and perhaps even knock the other over a few times... The point is, that although there’s simply tons of stuff here to learn to get really good, you can just wade in with no idea and still get plenty of fun out of Virtua Fighter 5.
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