Virtua Fighter 5: New Hi-Res Media

High resolution screens of new character Eileen, plus all the others in 720-resolution shots for the first time. Plus - the sexy deluxe versus cabinet revealed.

Excitement is building around the launch Virtua Fighter 5. Over the weekend in Tokyo, the AOU show saw a large presence for the latest build of the sequel, which is guaranteed to be a license to print money for Sega in Japanese arcades.

New promotional and in-game shots on today's menu

However, Virtua Fighter 5 is still some way off from release, with location test feedback still being assessed and plenty of tweaking to go before its full-scale public testing phase and eventual summer rollout.

New character Eileen, who was playable at the most recent location test, is now fully unveiled as a fighter using a 'monkey fist' style of Kou Ken Kenpo, with an unsurprisingly brilliant animation set showing off the fast, dynamic movements of the style in the new AOU trailer.

The other new character unveiled last year is also proving popular, as new information out of AOU reveals him to be a Lucha Libre champion who goes in pursuit of pro wrestler Wolf to step his game up to the heavyweight stakes. Well, VF never was about its storyline after all - I mean, Sarah's been brainwashed by the bad guys for the last thirteen years or so now, and Jacky still thinks that beating her up is the way to go about fixing it after four tournaments.

Some older shots too, but now in hi-res flavour on Kikizo

Also on this page... CHECK OUT the superdeluxe sit-down dual versus cabinet, with integrated VF.TV, and also a VF Terminal around the back. Not really sure what that last bit is for, but it was probably covered in our most recent hands-on with the game. Maybe.

There are still no officially released videos anywhere in sight, which is slightly bewildering given how drop-dead gorgeous the game looks in motion. While we've been able to bring you the first trailer and a couple of shakycam clips to date, it's been tough to convince Sega to let us put any more up - even though video leaks from the latest location test look awesome. In return though, we can at least look at these first decent HD screenshots.

The fifth in the VF series joined other Sega highlights including The House of the Dead 4 Special, a souped-up mega-cabinet version of the light gun shooting title - and also the delicious looking After Burner remake, all running on the company's new Lindbergh arcade hardware.

There is still no official word in a home version, and for that matter, fresh reports suggest that a release for VF5 isn't even confirmed for western arcade markets just yet. The lack of a European release for VF4 Final Tuned doesn't bode well, but a change of heart is surely in order for arrival of the true next in the series.

Meanwhile, Sega doens't have to rush into anything. Fresh from a very pleased boardroom that toasted strong quarterly Sega-Sammy performance as a whole last week, Sega is now simply going to be looking forward to the vast cash-generating potential of VF5 as a Japanese arcade title in its own right, before any news of the inevitable console version surfaces.

For a detailed rundown of all that's new so far in Virtua Fighter 5, take a look at our two recent hands-on previews, here and here.

Kikizo Staff