Virtua Quest / VF Cyber Generation

Sega's Virtua Quest kicks up a storm on US shores next month. We offer an in-depth verdict along with a generous helping of new direct feed videos.

	Version PS2, GameCube	Developer Sega-AM2	Publisher SEGA	Genre Adventure

By Joseph Jackson

The Virtua Fighter series is possibly the most elite fighting franchise on the market, and has been since the revolutionary 1993 original. Although the series' deep, somewhat complex fighting system managed to scare off casual gamers, VF has always been incredibly popular in Japan, where the Saturn version of Virtua Fighter 2 remains the best selling 3D fighter. Similarly VF4, along with its various upgrades like Final Tuned, is still the most played arcade videogame.

There have been various VF spin-offs over the years, including VF Kids, Fighters Megamix, CG Portrait discs and much more, but perhaps the biggest news about the series during the Dreamcas era was that an RPG was in the works headed up by Yu Suzuki. What subsequently became know as Project Berkley was crafted it into Shenmue - but it didn't feature the VF characters and in fact, had nothing to do with the fighting series at all.

Somewhere between Virtua Fighter RPG and Project Berkley, Yu Suzuki and the rest of AM2 apparently decided to take the project into another direction. But what happened to the original plans for an RPG based on the Virtua Fighter characters? At first it seemed as if those plans died with the creation of Shenmue, however that wasn't entirely the case as AM2 announced back in March 2002 that Virtua Fighter Quest was to be their "Virtua Fighter 10th Anniversary Special Project".

Despite something of an anti-climax when it was first revealed last December, with many followers expecting a fully-fledged, mature-style Virtua Fighter role-playing game and instead getting what seemed to be an unrelated game for a young audience, Virtua Fighter: Cyber Generation, as is known in Japan, steadily won back support from much of Sega's admiring fan base, as we reported bit by bit each new cool detail we found out about the game, culminating in an excited preview.

By the time this year's E3 rolled around, a North American release had been confirmed. And although a European announcement remains unlikely for the time being, based on various converations with Sega, there was enough in there by then to keep our interest peaked. Virtua Quest, as it was now known, had Virtua Fighter characters, VF's moves, graphical style and sound effects. And palm trees. Oh, and now it was coming to both GameCube and PlayStation 2.

Virtua Quest is a 3rd person action-adventure-RPG that puts players in the role of Sei, a young boy, whose special abilities allow him to tap into the fighting knowledge of the highly skilled Virtua Fighter combatants. Unlike Shenmue, which was originally rumored to be Sega's Virtua Fighter RPG but eventually had no real tie to the Virtua Fighter series, Virtua Quest actually makes ample use of its relationship with Sega's venerable fighting series.

While not an RPG in the traditional sense, VFQ is a 3rd person action-RPG that places heavy emphasis on action and exploration while also featuring platforming elements, puzzles, problem solving as well as basic RPG elements such as character development, all of which come together quite well to provide the gameplay with enough diversity to set it apart from other similar titles (and Shenmue for that matter).

The game takes place sometime in the future, when incredible technological advances have been made in the areas of Virtual Reality. Players assume the role of Sei, a 14-year-old boy who resides in Acropolis, a small sea city that floats above the ocean. Sei's father is one of the software engineers of a virtual reality simulation application known as Nexus. Because Acropolis is quite small and overcrowded, the inhabitants of the city tend to dwell within the vast virtual worlds of the Nexus - kind of like jacking into the Matrix.

As time passes the network system of the Nexus eventually becomes unstable due to data management errors and many treasures are lost. With that, Sei becomes a treasure hunter in hopes of recovering the lost data scattered throughout the VR worlds. However, all is not as easy as it seems. With the help of his mysterious new friend - a 15 year old girl named Toka - Sei uncovers a conspiracy formed within the realms of cyber space, one that not only threatens the virtual world but the real world as well.

In order to stop this insidious plot from becoming realized, Sei will need to harness the power of the 'Virtua Souls' - hidden data clusters that have been scattered throughout the data streams of the Nexus. What makes the Virtua Souls unique is that they contain fighting data on the legendary Virtua Fighters, providing those with the power to unlock them with access to the wealth of fighting knowledge held by these legendary fighters. What's more, it is said that the Virtua Souls also have the power to break through any type of security that exists within the cyberspace realm.

With that, Sei finds himself caught between a virtual rock and a hard place when Judgment Six (J6), the evil syndicate responsible for the creation of Dural, the mechanical menace from the Virtua Fighter series, focuses its attention on him. Judgment Six wants the power of the Virtua Souls and because Sei is the only one capable of harnessing that power they plan to use him to collapse the infrastructure of the virtual world. When that happens, the line that separates both realms will cease to exist and anarchy will reign in the real world as the arbiters of justice and power will be no more. As the only one capable of stopping them, Sei must do all that he can to remain strong and not succumb to the will of the Judgment Six. Got all that?

At the start of the game Sei materializes in what at first appears to be an uninhabited city within cyber space. Serving as a prelude of sorts, playing through this extremely short segment of the first level helps players quickly familiarize themselves with the basic control scheme of the game. Sei's moves are extremely limited at this point as he can only jump, double jump, hang from ledges and pull himself up as well as whip out his energy wire which can later be used to swing to and from different points as well as help rack up some major combo hits during battle.

Our young hero accesses an electronic gauntlet on his right arm and downloads some basic fighting moves. Added to his arsenal of moves is the ability to block, perform throws, and indulge his enemies with a series of combos he can perform on the ground and in mid-air, chaining his normal attacks and special attack moves together in order to do some real damage. While Sei is equipped with a handful of default special attack moves to start off with, they can be replaced by new moves he'll acquire from the Virtua Souls later on.

With each use of his special attacks, a portion of Sei's SP meter gets depleted. Once fully depleted he isn't able to perform any special attacks until the meter has fully regenerated itself. While the process is automatic it's still too slow on its own. Fortunately you can speed things up by attacking enemies or collecting purple power-up capsules that replenish portions of your SP at a faster rate. These capsules can be obtained by smashing open destructible objects found throughout the environments as well as from enemies who leave them behind after being destroyed.

The action portion of the game plays like a standard beat-em-up and features a combo system quite similar to that of Ninja Gaiden. Every time you attack an enemy a hit counter appears onscreen, registering each successful hit. By attacking multiple enemies in quick succession before the counter completely fades away you'll be able to build up high-hit combos.

While players can string together different attack combos and juggle enemies repeatedly, the most effective weapon for accumulating lengthy combos happens to be the energy wire that shoots out from Sei's gauntlet. Even though used primarily during the platforming portions of the game to latch onto energy sparks and swing towards hard-to-reach places, the energy wire is also an effective combat weapon. By sending enemies flying into the air with your attacks you can use the energy wire to latch onto them and pull yourself up towards them, or yank them back down into another one of your combo flurries, continuously repeating the process to increase your combo count.

Unfortunately the game's combo system isn't without its limitations, and while players can keep a seemingly infinite juggle going with a single enemy, the hit counter maxes out at 99 hits, putting a damper on the of those looking to build incredibly high, record breaking combo counts.

Sei soon gets called out of the Nexus program and back to reality where his friend Hayame is waiting. During the cut-scene players are taken on a brief visual tour of the Nexus, before Sei plunges back into cyberspace and materializes into a sort of Virtual Lobby for Treasure Hunters.

The virtual lobby of the Nexus serves a variety of important functions, most notably a game save terminal. The same type of save terminals are also conveniently located throughout all the of action levels and allows players to not only save their progress but also fully replenish their HP and SP meters before engaging in any upcoming major battles.

At the Hunter's Shop, players can purchase power-ups for increasing his max HP and SP levels, or adding useful moves like an escape technique. After power-ups are purchased you'll need to activate them - once the power-ups are in your inventory you'll need to enter a sub-menu where you'll be able to enable them by using your Tetris skills to shift and fit different groups of cubes together within a small 3D window. It makes a nice diversion.

The most important area of the lobby is the access terminal used to transport Sei to the VR worlds throughout the Nexus. But before he can begin, he'll need to obtain a Hunter License by first completing the Hunter Test - which is a series of timed lessons and challenges set up to test his skills in surviving the VR worlds.

After transporting out of the virtual lobby and materializing in the game's first VR world, Sei will be accompanied by a floating blue companion that reminds us of a Sonic Chao. There are 13 of these little floating buddies available, each serving some type of special function and all taking the form of animals. When starting out Sei will be accompanied by a flying rabbit - yes, a flying rabbit - that alerts him of any hidden treasures nearby. Some of the ideas incorporated into the game are certainly quite interesting to say the least.

As players work their way through nine levels they'll take on everything that Judgment Six can throw at them. Similar in a way to Ninja Gaiden, many areas throughout the cyber worlds will be blocked off by energy fields and digital barriers, some of which can be neutralized by killing off all of the enemies that appear, and other times requiring the use of special program keys to bring down the digital walls. Amazingly, I found the exploration parts of the game really enjoyable. Thanks to the game's clever level designs I had no complaints whatsoever with having to explore, solve puzzles, and uncover hidden data chips. Good times.

The point of the game comes in finding the lost Virtua Souls, hidden throughout the levels. With each Virtua Soul acquired Sei is transported to some type of virtual combat zone where he meets up with one of the Virtua Fighters. After their brief introduction Sei finds himself battling against these legendary fighters in order to unlock the secrets contained within the Virtua Souls. Our first encounter was with Hakkyouken master Akira Yuki, who after defeating in a single round teacher vs. student test of skill, teaches Sei a new special attack move - a double palm strike technique.

One of the coolest aspects of the game is that the entire Virtua Fighter 4 roster is present and accounted for and by collecting all of the Virtua Souls players will be able to unlock over 45 moves throughout the course of the game. Every time new moves are unlocked they appear in a special moves list that can be accessed through the menu screen. It's here that players can customize Sei's fighting moves to incorporate the newly unlocked moves into his arsenal.

Within the moves list all of the unlocked moves are divided into subgroups pertaining to the types of attacks they are. For example, throws such as Sei's default shoulder throw and Pai's DDT move are grouped together, as are aerial attack moves such as Wolf's drop kick, Aoi's jumping side kick, and Lei-Fei's double leg hopkick. Power hits like Akira's Body Check and Stun Palm of Doom are also grouped together. Unfortunately with so many cool moves included in the game players are limited to using only 1 move from each group, and while all of the special techniques learned from the Virtua Souls can be very effective during combat, the power of each attack varies quite a bit - with single star moves being the weakest and triple star moves being the strongest.

Incorporating a bunch of 3-star techniques into your moves arsenal might seem like the way to go, but there's a little more to it. Some item boxes can only be destroyed using certain star level techniques, and some of the puzzles work in a similar fashion.

As one of, if not the most powerful of all of his abilities, the Synapse break skill provides Sei with momentary invincibility as well as slows down the movement of enemy characters whenever he attacks them, allowing him to inflict a lot more damage by unleashing a devastating set of combos before the SP meter empties out. Aside from producing a damn cool effect, the implementation of the Synapse Break skill goes a long way in helping to balance out the play mechanics of the game and serves as an integral part of player combat strategy. Enemies will become more challenging the further you progress into the game, almost reaching Ninja Gaiden's level of toughness at times.

The end level bosses provide various types of challenge to overcome, requiring the use of different battle strategies against each boss in order to survive their onslaught. Some of the more memorable boss encounters include going up against what we like to jokingly refer to as the Siamese Triplets, battling a young Dural, and squaring off against VF ninja master, Kage-Maru, who interestingly enough appeared as a boss but never as a corresponding Virtua Soul during the times we replayed through the entire game.

Sei isn't the only one with VF fighting techniques in his arsenal; some of the J6 brutes often grab a hold of Sei even while he's blocking, slamming him to the ground and performing moves like Jeffry's body splash. Other characters, while not as strong, are quite fast and have a tendency of ganging up on you, pounding away at you with Virtua Fighter styled combos like Pai's effective PPPK.

The final level in particular had us swearing up a storm as we faced off against wave after wave of tough enemy groups and bosses, one right after the other, with no save point in sight - forcing us to start all over again at the beginning of the level if we died during any of the encounters, thus making one's mastery of blocking, evading and utilizing the Synapse break skill and special attacks all the more important.

There's a lot to do and uncover throughout the cyber worlds of Virtua Quest, and even after completing the game there's enough incentive to play through it again in order to uncover the hidden items and Virtua souls missed the first time through, adding some decent replay value.

Visually, while Cyber Generations isn't exactly going to blow gamers away, it sports a typically Sega visual style, with cartooney characters in some well-realized 3D worlds. The level designs feature solid and detailed environments that look clean and well-organized in design. Even more impressive are the outdoor environments in levels like that of the ancient ruins and level 2's tropical setting, both of which showcase some of the nicer textures, lighting and particle effects. While the environments are certainly nice to look at, the character designs and animations on the other hand are a mixed bag. Characters like Sei, Toka, and the Virtua Fighter characters feature the best character designs in the game while most of the enemy characters - including some of the bosses - look pretty average at best.

However if there's one area where Virtua Quest truly shines it's in the audio department. This game features one of if not the best soundtrack I've heard all year. I honestly can't think of a single bad or average track throughout the entire game. Everything from the incredibly catchy, funk-a-delic first level theme, to the beautiful Japanese village theme, to the hard rocking 5th level boss fight theme, to the magical fantasy theme of the Nexus Hunter lobby, all are excellent and very memorable themes. And in case you didn't notice, many of the Virtual Soul encounters are accompanied by arranged versions of VF2 music (as found in the Saturn conversion) plus a few VF4 tracks as well.

The sound effects are pretty good, featuring a variety of crisp sounds that include crates being smashed open, bottles and glass breaking, enemies crashing through tables, and the ever-changing sounds of Sei's footsteps as he's running over different types of surfaces. Fortunately the voice acting hasn't been overlooked and has received the proper treatment from the game's obviously skilled sound designers. While the voice acting is generally good throughout the game I must admit that I always get a feeling of déjà vu during some of the cinematic moments in the game which seem to have been directed similarly to the cinematic scenes found in Shenmue. Coincidence? Who knows!

All of the audio elements such as the music, sound effects, and voice-acting - all highlighted by Dolby Pro Logic II - have come together in great fashion to make for one of the best audio presentations I've heard in ages. We'll be first in line for an OST release.

Virtua Quest isn't without its flaws; the lack of an adjustable camera sticks out like a sore thumb at times, especially when one wants to scan their surroundings for hidden items or to appreciate some of the environments. While you can always re-center the camera by simply clicking the L trigger, it's hardly the same. It's an immersive experience though, combining addictive gameplay and nice audio and video. Take a gander at the direct-feed gameplay videos we've provided and get ready for the ultimate ride through cyberspace.