Virtua Fighter 5: Hot New Hands-On!

We've played a new build of VF5, and bring you the very first lowdown on new gameplay changes and playing as the new female fighter, Eileen. Also: PS3 NOT confirmed.

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The final stage is actually Eileen's stage, although we're not too sure how that ties into the character. Each stage is wonderfully rendered, and the high res display used with the Lindbergh hardware really makes the image quality leap over any other fighting game out now -- yes, even compared with Dead or Alive 4.

While the arenas in Tecmo's fighter are definitely bigger, the one thing that makes VF5's stages much more impressive is the use of lighting. Shun's stage, for example uses an extreme amount of light, as if you were looking directly into the sun as it rises early in the morning. In the new city stage, lights adorn the arena from all sides, giving you multiple shadows and reflections. It looks amazing, and while screenshots can give you some indication of what to expect, to see this in person would convince anyone of the graphical prowess of the game.

One of the biggest advancements made in VF4 -- and this was something that lead to several innovative titles by Sega afterwards -- was the use of an online network to track player records and customize characters. VF.net has been an influential tool in Sega's arcade efforts, and VF5 is going to take that concept a little bit further. At the location test was VF Terminal, which is essentially a console where you can insert your character card and customize it to your liking for the price of 100 yen.

When you insert your card and some money, you'll get a set amount of time in which you can do anything from creating your ring name and ring comments, to dressing up your character. You can also set it up so that your character will default to a certain costume instead of the typical 1st player or 2nd player costume.

There were several other options not available at this time, but it looks like Sega is really trying to make VF.net much more accessible to the gaming public than before.

Currently in its second day of testing, there will obviously be more information popping up as players really dig into the game and explore the changes made. However, it seems that the game is really coming together in terms of control and accessibility.

The fact that the location test is spanning three locations is a good sign that Sega is trying to get as much data as possible in order to tweak and balance the game as much as possible before its release, which is rumoured to be sometime in the summer.

PlayStation 3

Editor's Note.: While we're here, can we just clear up this nonsense about Virtua Fighter 5 being "confirmed" for PS3. Everyone thinks it's confirmed for PS3. It isn't. EGM magazine printed a tiny snippet casually mentioning (not even reporting as such) that VF5, "which Sega has confirmed for the PS3", and "might even end up exclusive to the console", is a "technically savvy" fighter and that players enjoyed the game's "new Dodge button" at last year's location test.

Because EGM is a magazine printed on paper etc, everyone ASSUMED IT MUST BE TRUE but in fact, they were mistaken. One could maybe argue that they just sort of made it up, because they didn't know what else to say about it. It will inevitably end up on console at some point, and PS3 is a near certainty. But Sega has not confirmed - nor decided on - any home console version of VF5 yet.

Kikizo will have new VF5 stuff from the AOU show next week.

Andrew Alfonso
Contributor, Kikizo.com

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