Me Likey Virtua Fighter

Crap I love virtua fighter so much i don't even know what to write here. Give me a minute I'll think of something...

Well i can't think of anything silly at the moment and i also don't feel like it, so i'm gonna use my other secret weapon, just writing from the heart and not overthinkin it, bro. 

There's something special about Virtua Fighter and i can't put my finger on it. Some kind of weird timelessness. It was the first 3d fighting game and even all this time later it still feels like the quintessential 3d fighter, at least to me. 

It's not overly complex, or edgy, or flashy like other series, so pea-brained zoomers might be tempted to call it basic, but that's missing the point. Virtua Fighter is deliberately basic, that's what makes it iconic, and a goddamn perfect fighting game. It's not trying to be edgy and violent like Mortal Kombat, or scary and weird like Tekken, or rad as hell and ready to rock like Guilty Gear, or cool as heck and hella fresh like Street Fighter, or butt ugly and brutal like Killer Instinct, or silly wacky juggalo shit like Clayfighter, or gleefully chaotic like Smash Bros, or... totally fuckin gay like Soul Calibur. 

In contrast to its contemporaries, Virtua Fighter strives to simply be itself, a pure, straightforward fighting experience, as if to say "Hell yeah I'm basic, basic is cool." It's not trying to impress anyone, or catch anyone's attention. Its not trying to stand out, and that's what makes it stand out. 

Virtua Fighter is down to earth, just a cool guy everyone loves. The ultimate normie, and the only fighting game series that isn't in some way a tryhard. Virtua fighter doesn't need to try, it's just naturally charismatic. You know that kid in high school who didn't belong to any clique, but was somehow friends with everybody? That's Virtua Fighter. 

There's no bells and whistles. No fancy fuckin bullshit. Virtua Fighter shows up to the party in a white t-shirt and jeans, drinking a bottled water and standing by the honeydew melon tray all night like "hey what you see is what you get, nigga." Virtua Fighter has an n word pass. He got it from saving the life of a black guy, but you don't really know the story cause he doesn't make a big deal about it. 

If you need a designated driver, Virtua Fighter is your guy, and if you run into your ex-girlfriend and feel shitty, Virtua Fighter will hang out with you away from everybody until you feel better. Virtua Fighter once had sex with that girl you like, but he's not a dick about it. He didn't even know you liked her. Virtua Fighter is like,  just this guy, you know?

The games, even newer ones, evoke a certain nostalgic feeling, probably because they've managed to stay true to what they always were. As fighting games get sequel after sequel they slowly acquire mechanical bloat. Super moves, and super duper moves, bigger combos, a stretching of the core aesthetics to the point of shark jumping, increasingly convoluted canon, and failed attempts at new characters that lack the simple appeal of the original roster. 

Virtua Fighter has none of that. It's essentially the same game mechanically that it was 25 years ago. The basic mechanics have always been very simple, with animations designed to smoothly transition into each other, as opposed to rigidly complex dial in combos. Control wise it's the definition of easy to learn and difficult to master. 

Without the projectiles, specials, combos and supers that slowly take over other fighting franchises, Virtua Fighter remains something pure that anyone can pick up and play. The challenge lies not in learning every in and out of a specific character, but rather in the moment to moment action and movement. 

You don't have to overthink a Virtua Fighter match, just hit the other guy and don't let him hit you. That's the core of what fighting games are all about and Virtua Fighter more than any other franchise has consistently remained tightly focused on it. 

Aesthetically Virtua Fighter seems frozen in time. Even with more modern graphics and better hardware, something about the look and feel of Virtua Fighter remains totally stuck in the 90s. Everything from the voice acting to the menus just feels like it could still be on the Sega Saturn, even now with the Saturn long since dead and buried, it's spirit lives on. You ever watch those youtube videos of some 90s ass looking mall with some music in the background? It's like the video game equivalent of that, comfy.

As for story... what story? I like story, and i like lore, and a few fighting games do it well, even if most become pretty convoluted by game number 17. Mortal Kombat in particular puts a lot of effort into its single player story mode, and that's pretty cool. But let's be honest, nobody really cares about the story in Soul Caliber, or Street Fighter, or Dead or Alive. 

Virtua Fighter stands apart from the others story-wise by the simple fact that it seems to care as little about it's own story as the player does. It doesn't try to make you care about the story. It doesn't even seem to have one. I'm sure there's some reason somewhere why these people are fighting, and I'm sure the characters have some rudimentary background information, but Virtua Fighter is a series that knows you don't care and is perfectly fine with that. There's no cutscenes or overblown cinematic intro to try and make it all seem important, it's just a game, and it's happy to be just a game. The more every other fighting series tries to seem important, the more refreshing it is that Virtua Fighter still just doesn't give a fuck. 

This kind of who gives a fuck simplicity is reflected in the characters as well. The core roster from the original game have barely changed their outfits. Sub-Zero and Scorpion get a redesign with every game and not once have they managed to look as cool as they did in MK2. But Jeffry and Kage still look as cool and iconic as they did in Virtua Fighter 2. Those are great designs, why the hell should they change? Change isn't always bad, but it's cool that Virtua Fighter doesn't consider it a priority. 

Again, it's made cooler by the fact that it's so unique among its contemporaries. Look at the redesigns in each new Soul Calibur, the characters just seem to look stupider and shittier with each game. Not in Virtua Fighter. The characters, like the franchise itself, is smoother and prettier but nonetheless largely unchanged from 1996. Timeless.

Granted, some of the newer characters are a little silly looking, and a bit too anime. They don't really gel with the original roster. Also the simplicity of the original designs is a bit of a double edged sword in some cases. It works for the majority of characters, but not all of them. The worst is Akira, who i've never been able to see as anything more than a bland, uninspired Ryu clone, and i'll even admit Wolf has always been a little stupid looking. 

So no, the roster isn't perfect, but no roster is, Virtua Fighter comes a lot closer to nailing this aspect than most. Tekken has 79 characters and maybe 10 of them are actually cool. Most fighting game series have an excellent cast of fighters in the first couple of games, and then rapidly begin running out of ideas, leading to increasingly goofy additions with each subsequent game. Virtua Fighter at least shows a little restraint in this area. 

That's all i got to say for now. Virtua Fighter rules. Someone tell Sega to stop making bad sonic games for 5 minutes and get to work on Virtua Fighter 6, then tell all my friends from high school to get back in touch so i have someone to play it with.