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[PhaseJump]

Sega's been restructured a million times and the need to showcase a platform died. Their talent all aged out to retirement, bit the dust, or outright left to be useless somewhere else after PS3/360

Home ports of Final Showdown was a graphical downgrade and a vehicle for experimental DLC packs at the mobile gaming focused, trash peddling version of Sega Sammy from a decade ago.

Ultimate Showdown was a butchered, broken, training-wheels piece of shit for RGG studios to figure out how to feed the beast during Sega's 60th anniversary, while they were outsourcing IP to better indie developers, trying to celebrate the Mini console nostalgia craze.

Nobody outside of Japan gives a shit. Sega doesn't give a shit or knows what they're doing. At least they're not trying to pitch Fog gaming bullshit. They are glorified fodder for Xbox to consume and revive or shutter while assessing the value of hedgehog merchandise. Weeaboos will cry for blood the day Atlus goes with them, if ever; because Atlus, fucking ATLUS carries more pull as a brand now.

All of this considering that the fighting game scene has been buried by remasters, ports, and other bullshit nobody cares about. Street Fighter 4 popularity brought it back as a fluke. Xbox brought KI back and couldn't get people interested with a million ways to get into it that cost next to nothing, despite having the best 2D fighting game in years. Smash players are their own breed of special, and they stick to mods on dead platforms.

Virtua Fighter 6 needs to be perfection, and could easily get there if only following through with Final Showdown's mechanics, 4Evo or 5 Online's quest mode, and netcode or match making that actually functions upon release.. Throwing it on all platforms, including Steam and letting users generate cosmetic content would easily make Sega money.

 

[DForce]

To be fair that was a fan theory but Sega didn't really hint at that. They also barely pushed or promoted the game and just kind of released it with a whimper. If US was supposed to be a test then VF6 is doomed.

Maximilian Dood has covered this many times on his streams and it makes perfect sense. I would also believe him considering he's well-connected with many fighting game developers.

I don't believe they would put out a VF5 PS4 version of the game unless they wanted to see how well it would perform. You also have to consider that the game was given away for free on PS+ and they would have to determine if the player base was healthy enough to make a VF6.

Fighting games are very risky and they're ven more risky now that many players want a lot of offline content, something that's hard to do for a small low budget development

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Maximilian Dood has covered this many times on his streams and it makes perfect sense. I would also believe him considering he's well-connected with many fighting game developers.

I don't believe they would put out a VF5 PS4 version of the game unless they wanted to see how well it would perform. You also have to consider that the game was given away for free on PS+ and they would have to determine if the player base was healthy enough to make a VF6.

Fighting games are very risky and they're ven more risky now that many players want a lot of offline content, something that's hard to do for a small low budget development

Hard to do any of that without marketing, or old fans even knowing about it.

By issue for me is more that none of the older games have been mostly re-released. Which would be a better test for a VF6. But I doubt a VF6 would be that good, but remasters of the older games would be nice.

Or a remake of FMM.

 

[jigglet]

I've always liked VF but I have to admit the name holds it back. It's so generic, like "Fighting Game Simulator". It doesn't have the sex appeal of its competitors.

 

[Companion Cube]

I imagine they're looking at everyone with their GAAS money trying to work out how they can get that with VF. Free-to-play, battle pass, crossovers, tournaments...

 

[cortadew]

I don't know what Sega feels, but Virtua Fighter is the greatest fighting game series ever made imho. (Especially starting with 4/Evolution and onward.)

I sure would love another entry. I don't get those who trash Virtua Fighter or even don't appreciate it. It has such beautiful complexity layered upon a foundation of simplicity. The depth is virtually endless.

Nah Tekken is now

 

[StreetsofBeige]

VF is boring.

All the other well known fighting games are way better. Visuals, music, character set etc...

I remember having VF4 Evolution on PS2. I hadnt played VF since VF2 in arcades and I saw VF4 was greatest hits priced so I bought it. The game had hardly any new characters, most of the moves seemed the same, and VF games as a whole have hardly any moves to begin with. I googled it and Evo had a small number of new characters. But if I had bought the regular VF4 game, I'd have a whopping 3 extra characters than VF2.

Tekken is so much better. More fun and splashy, way better soundtrack, more moves, lots of bone crunching hits, way more characters

 

[PhaseJump]

The thing about Virtua Fighter is that the zealots are right. It has become as close to perfection as you can get in a fighting game. No tiers to worry about. Universal balance.
You can't surpass it mechanically. They made it uglier and stripped it of features over the past 15 years and it's overdue for a sequel.


More Tekken? We need more retarded degenerates buying janky games in the world?

 

[Griffon]

Im tired of Street Fighter, Tekken and Virtua Fighter.

Maybe thats the problem. The genre is obsolete with no innovations.

Yup, it's a very stagnant genre and I too am kinda sick of the same usual suspects again and again with barely a few tweaks and no deep innovation.

 

[Bernkastel]

Nice, but

Akane >>>> Nabiki

Ranma >>>> Akane

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Idk, maybe you'll find a newspaper article claiming that as proof they do, lol. For once you ask rather than proclaim, gg.

Naturally you won't acknowledge anything going against your narrative and pretend people are hating on you, not your bs.

They've tried to make it a success time and time again since the arcades where it reigned supreme (in Japan) died. It didn't work.

Whether they added meaty single player, training, customization or whatever other series copied from them and it actually worked then.

They still showed they care about the IP alongside others that aren't good to invest into by including it in various Yakuza and Judgment games.

Also by having Virtua Fighter characters in a series that trucked along despite being essentially a Virtua Fighter clone surpassing it via softcore porn.

A complete visual remake in a new engine by their most successful studio offered for free is hardly lukewarm. Response was so it didn't lead to more (yet).


That's more than enough to make it look modern considering the original already animated better than competition that still uses janky 90s moves with no issues.

So, what do they do if a great, free (since the offer ended cheap with bundled collab packs of popular IP), slick game doesn't succeed to show they care, pay folks to play?

Not that they've always handled things well, though that goes for many IP from companies you don't bother making up bs about, but no, there's no hater manager sabotage, lol.

I think a new Virtua Fighter would do very well long as the game is technical enough for the hardcore but innovates with enough QoL and new features to attract the less hardcore and new players.

However, Sega have GOT to put some real effort into the story, making the characters have more three-dimensional personalities and stories of their own, and be flashier. VF4 Evo is still the peak for the franchise in terms of style, technicality and gameplay, and it came out at the right time (Tekken 4 was good but dropped the ball in a lot of areas). VF5 was kind of a regression in certain ways.

Oh and they need to make sure it's got a lot of single-player content. Maybe get the Yakuza team to flesh out the story and some of the Persona & SMT artists to pitch in for some character designs and stage designs alongside members of the Yakuza team. And the people who do music for the Sonic games on the soundtrack.

You can still keep the true-to-life (ish) martial arts but spice it up some and make sure it's got enough side content & great netcode. It'd do very well IMO.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[Drew1440]

Honestly I much preferred their other fighting games like Last Bronx and Fighting Vipers.

 

[Mephisto40]

I remember everybody thinking the graphics were amazing when the first game arrived, but i can't think of a single person I've ever heard say "I like virtua fighter"

 

[anothertech]

Well, there was a war see. Sega lost.

It seems all proper sense died as well. There a hundred sega ips that could be kicking regular successful releases and remakes but it will never happen.

 

[theclaw135]

Sega of America tries to block VF projects, resentful that Sega of Japan strong armed them to push VF as the flagship Saturn franchise over Sonic.

 

[NeverYouMind]

I remember everybody thinking the graphics were amazing when the first game arrived, but i can't think of a single person I've ever heard say "I like virtua fighter"

That is because they love it!

The thing about Virtua Fighter is that the zealots are right. It has become as close to perfection as you can get in a fighting game. No tiers to worry about. Universal balance.
You can't surpass it mechanically. They made it uglier and stripped it of features over the past 15 years and it's overdue for a sequel.


More Tekken? We need more retarded degenerates buying janky games in the world?

It was perfectly balanced around VF4 ver. C but they added some things after that which created some imbalance. VF5 ver. C accomplished a similar feat in the offense department, but weight dependent juggles and side turned states added in ver. R completely changed the matchups to be lopsided. Every other revision kept that lopsidedness with minor tweaks.

Final Showdown had some great animation added at the cost of flow and decided to increase juggling and add extra risk to movement.

The one department Virtua Fighter has really dropped the ball is the sound design.

 

[Fat Frog]

No, people hate virtua fighter. It was always second banana to tekken and tekken 8 will only bring that fact to even more light if the last 20 years of the franchise's dominance didn't make that clear already. Pointless franchise

Dude...

A part of Virtua Fighter team created/directed Tekken, Tobal...
https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,57007/

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Honestly I much preferred their other fighting games like Last Bronx and Fighting Vipers.

Fighting Vipers outside one time for the first game hasn't been re-released either. Don't know about Last Bronx

Funny thing is Fighting Vipers was made for the western market. Never got another game after the DC.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Great post. But I don't agree with that. Seiichi Ishii, which is credited for Tekken came out of Sega. He worked on Virtua Fighter and Virtua Racing. Also, legend says that Ken Kutaragi was inspired by Virtua Fighter to make the PS1 focused on 3D technology. So while I highly respect Tekken, I believe you are undermining VF a little.

I'm not undermining anything, I said that with the same advantage in content, characters, flash, and other factors Tekken was always going to be a more popular fighting game than it was always going to sell more to the masses than the more stale VF.

(Granted the PS1 story contradicts another account, and it wouldn't make sense for Sony to go with a 2D consoles when everyone including Sony's biggest domestic rival were in 3D, and PS couldn't have possibly whipped up that custom processor in 5 minutes so..)

We already see that with pretty much most fighters that came out along with VF even before the Saturn started falling very far behind worldwide. VF is admittedly probably one of the most basic and generic fighting franchises out there that used to have any form of real popularity. The characters are just kind of there, the last bosses are also kind of thrown in, and in a couple games isn't even required to beat to get to the credits, no special effects, no powers, stale sound effects , no story just some hints of one in the manual or elsewhere. Heck, until VF4 I didn't even know the cyber boss thing was the mother or used to be the mother of one of the characters. Then you have the lack of content. In the early games graphics were a major part of the appeal, from TB onward that little advantage was removed.

In the west Virtua Fighter was competing with Toshinden. I mean there's not much more to say there.

 

[Tiamat2san]

They lack balls this days.
So many great ips unused , so sad…

 

[SmokedMeat]

Sega has forgotten everything that isn’t Sonic or Yakuza.

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

just make a new fighting IP, sega.

make a new console too.

 

[RetroAV]

They hate Eternal Champions even more! And (IMO), Eternal Champions has a WAY better story, roster, final boss, and overall content (which just happens to be what Virtua Fighter is lacking)! At the very least, the Eternal Champions should be included in a Fighters Megamix 2!

 

[Agent_Nobody]

Fighting games have died down the same way as RTS...it will come back eventually but as a retro genre like platformers. /raises flameshield.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[Spyxos]

I don't think the new parts have sold. But even earlier in the arcades Tekken and Street Fighter machines had partial queues. Virtua Fighter have played 2-3 people. It was always way too complicated for most.

 

[bender]

Tekken is so much better.

 

[Kyo]

They still haven't even bothered to give that latest port PS4 Pro support, much less a PS5 patch - and given the image quality and the poor implementation of reflections in the base PS4 version, the game could've really used all that. I've been putting off playing it more until they fix this, but I guess they really don't give a crap.

 

[I Love Rock 'n' Roll]

Former SEGA we all loved is long gone and day. It's time to move on.
VF and others will never come back.

But we can still play SegaSaturn, at least!

 

[PhaseJump]

It's sort of a bad joke that VF5 Online never made it into the back compat program. If they wanted to put the least amount of effort into getting more people to even look at VF, they could have pushed that button and let us players keep playing the 360 game and it's quest mode on new hardware.

Final Showdown isn't as good.

 

[Nocturno999]

Sega needs to rebrand the series. Keep same gameplay and most characters, but with a new AAA presentation, cast, modes, decent voice actors, etc.

Like Yakuza evolved from Shenmue.