What is Virtua Fighter 5R?
Today's the official release day for VF5R, an "Evolution" style upgrade for Virtua Fighter 5, which was released for the arcades about two years ago in Japan. Depending on who you talk to, VF5 is either a minimal upgrade to VF4 Final Tuned, or a complete step backwards to what made VF4 fun. Personally I don't mind VF5 all that much but I have more love for VF4. Final Tuned was faster, had less bullshit and was overall a better balanced game. R stands for many things... Rival, Return, Revolution, Retuned, etc.
So what's new?
A Returnee, and one new character!
Jean Kujo: A childhood friend of Lion's who trained together when they were kids, but got taken in by J6 one day and vanished completely. Through J6's ahem, questionable practices, Jean, like Goh, was trained in assassination. Since Goh didn't get the job done in VF4, Jean has been asked to provide support. But as he observes some of the matches for the 5th tournament, he sees someone his age using mantis style... that looks familiar... and thoughts start to stir about who this person is...
Jean Kujo fights specializes in traditional karate and as a result a lot of his moves seem similar in motion to Jin from Tekken. However, that's where all comparisons can end. Unlike Jin, Jean is a much deeper character that is filled with potential. Many of his attacks are cancellable and chargable, making reading his movements very difficult. While his throw game seems to be a bit below average right now, he more than makes up for this in pure striking power.
Taka Arashi: Having entered the 3rd World Tournament (VF3) and facing the strongest fighters in the world, Taka Arashi faced utter defeat and knew that he had to train even harder if he wanted to prove his might. Seeking solitude in a mountain village, Taka Arashi trained endlessly, and as a result, earned competed and won nine straight tournaments. One day, after returning to his stable, Taka Arashi found a letter... or more like an invitation to the 5th World Tournament.
Taka's game is all about getting in close to your opponent and overwhelming them with his power. He's particularly bad at long or mid-range, but once he's in close he's like a shotgun to the face. Because of his size, a lot of throws very differently when executed on him, and many combos need to be revised if you want to hit him. Knocking him down is also a bit of a struggle as many times he won't be knocked back as far as normal characters.
A Retuning of the System
Over the past two years AM2 has reworked and retuned the engine of Virtua Fighter. The end result is an overhauled system that has gotten a lot of new players and old high-level players interested in the game again.
Side block: For the first time in well, just about any fighting game, whenever you are not facing your opponent, you can still block attacks. So, if you take a hit from a roundhouse kick that turns you off-axis, you still have the ability to block, albeit with some drawbacks. Side block means you can't counterattack like normal, and you are in stun block for a lot longer too.
In VF5 this would've been bad news for Eileen, with her side exposed to Akira. In VF5R, it's not a problem with side block. But it does come with drawbacks
Stages: Every stage in the game has been remixed, and we're not talking about a simple day -> night change. We're talking about complete transformations! No longer are rings just simple squares. Some are elongated rectangles where fighters start off with a wall to their back (no backdashing now, suckers!) and full-on octagons for MMA fans. Also, stages that were formerly open rings with ring out potential now have walls, and those with walls have had them removed.... but that's not all. Rings now change after each round! Walls will drop or pop up before the round starts, changing the dynamic of a fight entirely! Not only that, but breakable walls, which premiered in VF4 are now back, so even if you are fighting in an enclosed arena, that doesn't mean you're safe from a ring out!
List of stages and stage types
Open (16x16) - Shun's River, Taka's Sumo Ring
Low Fence (16x16) - Aoi's Shrine, Kage's Temple
Half Fence (12x12) - Brad's Terrace, Akira's Statues
Half Fence Breakable (12x12) - Sarah's Park, Jeffry's Island
Full Fence (10x10) - Eileen's Ruins, Jacky's City
Full Fence Breakable (12x12) - Pai's Stone Forest, Goh's Broken House
Full and Open (16x16) - Wolf's Snowstorm, Jean's Training Room
Octagon (10x10) - Vanessa's Waterfall, Blaze's Arena
Rectangle (16x6) - Lion's Palace, Lei's Deep Mountain
Single Wall (16x16) - Lau's Great Wall
El Blaze's stage has changed from a simple square to a menacing octagon.
Lau's stage is a 3-sided open ring, with one side featuring a wall that cannot be broken
Offensive Move: Attacks from OM have been removed so that it's now being used more for positioning and terrain control than for attack purposes.
Low Punch: The bane of online scrubby players will be happy to hear that low punch has been weakened slightly. The animation has been changed to accomodate for hit boxes, and frame data has been changed apparently too.
New animations, new moves, new tweaks: The usual move additions and tweaking are still there, and with it comes a ton of new animations. Not only for new and existing moves, but also when you are hit. Wall hits were usually all animated in the same fashion, but now there are at least three different ways for characters to animate when smacked against the wall, depending on the attack.
The pupil system (Japan arcades only): As you play your matches, you will also be training a cpu-controlled pupil who will appear when players enter the single player mode Knockout Trial. The better you play, the more the pupil remembers and the higher rank it will get.
New Item System: Now, instead of having to buy the same jacket in different colors, players will now be able to purchase a base item and then select from a variety of different colors. You can then buy "extra" items, which are items created the base item, and color them to your liking. Much better than having to shell out 11,000 gold for each color jacket you want.
Gameplay impressions/Links:
I played a couple of matches yesterday (Kyoto had a location test machine) and I gotta say, this game is fucking fantastic. It fixes so much of what was funky about VF5, like the overall speed and hitbox detection. Still, even though VF5 was kind of a letdown compared to VF4, it was a fun game, and R is basically 5 on steroids, so it's even more fun now. I only got three matches in before I had to leave but I'm so jonesing for another go at it tonight. I played two matches with Lion and one match with Goh, and they're both really really different. Even staple moves that they've had for so long (Goh's f+P, P and Lion's f+P, P) have been totally changed and have to be relearned again.
sekaijin's location test impressions: http://virtuafighter.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/212416#Post212416
Official VF5R site: http://www.virtuafighter.jp/
VFDC (strats,movies,etc): http://www.virtuafighter.com
Match Videos:
VF5R Promotional Move: http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=71Ydf5o3-OU
Joseph (Akira) vs. Hissa (Shun): http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=m4z-Y4i_0GU
Souryuu (Jean) vs. Baamu (Pai): http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=LWIMaAes92U
High Kick Radio (Jeffry) vs. Eileen: http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=ILXb37C7phQ
Nakagawa (Lei-Fei) vs. Tsuna (Blaze): http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=O2GFialtQRU
Taka vs. Brad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gCNDRz99SU
Aoi vs. Wolf (Taka's stage): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkyPuBJLf64
Goh's new moves: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP9TEh
Many, many more videos here:
http://jp.youtube.com/user/ogikage
http://jp.youtube.com/user/highkickradio
Rumors
So the word on the street is that a PS3 version of VF5R may be hitting in the winter.... with online play. No idea if this is true or not though. If I get more info on this I'll post up again.
Lion is also my main and aside from Taka-Arashi I spent the most time with him in matches, so this is gonna get very technical.
