For this Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown review, the PS4 version was played on PS5.
Sega’s Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown for PS4 arrived free on PlayStation Plus this week – nearly 15 years after the original first appeared in arcades. For those unaware, Virtua Fighter 5 is considered an all time great fighting game. Long time fans praise its “deep combat system” as both innovative and incomparably fluid. And that claim alone made me – someone new to the series – want to give this current-gen remake a try. Unfortunately, while it might appeal to diehard Virtua Fighter loyalists, it’s difficult to see it holding any newcomers.
Most gamers have one fighting game series they love and stick with. Whether it’s Tekken, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, or indeed Virtua Fighter, your brain becomes hardwired to the way the combat works and feels. Not only that, but you know the pros and cons of all the different fighters, as well as their often wacky and entrancing backstories. For a different fighting game to convert a player, it needs to demonstrate uniqueness in its combat and inspire fascination in its characters. I know this myself as a longtime Tekken fan who fell in love with 2011’s Mortal Kombat reboot. Ultimate Showdown, while offering glimmers of fun, does none of that.
After a decade and a half without a new mainline entry in the series, it’s a shame Sega opted to remake VF5 with Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown rather than invest in Virtua Fighter 6. Because while the visuals have been updated, everything else feels years behind the more recent releases from Virtua Fighter‘s competitors.
Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown Review: Gameplay
So, let’s start with the nuts and bolts. How does Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown play on PS4 and PS5? At its core, the combat is creative and fun. Each character feels and plays differently, and comes with their own unique command list of combos. There is quite literally pages of moves to learn for each fighter. And while that does justify the “deep combat” many attribute to Virtua Fighter, it is daunting as a new player.
Nonetheless, jumping into a training session and testing out the different fighters and practising their moves should help get you started. Even if the game often doesn’t seem to recognise your controller input. Not sure if this was my inexperience with Virtua Fighter or a problem with the game, but the input test worked fine and I simply couldn’t execute certain moves no matter how hard I tried. It was frustrating, but ultimately didn’t deter me from jumping into the Arcade mode after a few practice sessions.
One thing I can say with certainty is that if you put the time into learning Virtua Fighter‘s combos it will be immensely rewarding. Unfortunately, many players won’t feel enticed to do so. That’s owing to a command list that isn’t user friendly and lack of any story to hold your attention.
Game Modes
Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown feels thin. Don’t get me wrong, the minimum you’d expect is in there. But, it all feels pretty rudimentary for 2021. Offline, there’s an Arcade mode, 2 player Versus mode (a big plus), and a Training mode. Online, there’s two modes: Ranked Match and Room Match.
Offline Play
Arcade mode will be where most players spend a considerable amount of their time. It’s your classic fighting game mode where you battle through stages against different fighters of increasing difficulty. Disappointingly, there’s no story attached to it. This is one of the big downsides of Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown – more on it later in this review.
On the other hand, there is a welcome Offline Versus mode that you play locally with 2 players. It’s a throwback to everyone’s childhood when you spent afternoons huddled around a small TV playing “winner stays on” with your pals. It should make for great fun when hanging out with friends and is something I’m glad they included – even if it was totally expected.
Online Play
For those wanting to test their skills on Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown against real opponents, the two online modes should suffice. Ranked Match mode is basic. You enter a queue based on criteria you set for an opponent, get matched, have a fight, and get included on the global rankings. That’s it.
Room Match is more interesting and adds a nice sense of community to the game. Much like the nostalgia that comes with the Offline Versus mode, Room Match channels that into its format with “winner stays on” matches, chat room lobbies and the option to spectate fights. I can see it as a good way to test your skills while building a competitive friendship with other players. Thankfully, Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown‘s servers were nice and strong when I played the game for this review and I didn’t experience any lag or downtime. Hopefully it stays that way.
Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown Review: Graphics
Graphically, Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown is meh. While Sega, AM2 and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios have touted it as an improvement from 2012’s Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown (and it is), it certainly isn’t up to the standard expected of modern games. Yes, the shading/lighting is nicer and there’s a bit more depth to the character models. But they still look plasticky and distinctly seventh-generation. It doesn’t look modern and that contributes to the overall feeling of playing a remaster rather than a remake (like Resident Evil 2, for example).
Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown Review: Sound Design
I’ll be frank – the sound design in Ultimate Showdown is below par and outdated. Combat sound effects have a cartoony quality to them and their loudness is inconsistent. It’s a shame because it detracts from the overall polish of the great combat system. For die hard fans, it might not be an issue. But for anyone picking up Virtua Fighter for the first time, it’s likely to be off putting and reminiscent of older games.
The voice over work is equally poor. The painfully cheesy and cliched writing is a big contributor to that, but the delivery is equally generic. Honestly, it’s laughable. And not in a good way. Wrestler Wolf has some of the worst, too: “Here comes my suplex!” and “Wrestling is the ultimate sport!” are prime examples. Maybe if there was some semblance of story (with its own quirky style) it might not be so bad – but there isn’t, so it is.
Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown Review: Story
One question many fans will have before booting up the game is: does Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown have a story mode? No, it doesn’t. And it’s a huge negative.
OK – I’m aware that this is nothing new to the Virtua Fighter series. But in 2021, it’s baffling that a AAA developer would release a game with no real plot or story. Yes, it’s a remaster of a classic for new audiences. But how is it going to attract new fans without anything resembling a story. This isn’t the 90s. We don’t have in-box manuals to fill in the blanks. Loyalists will say the story can be gleamed from Wiki pages – but who is actually going to seek that out? Ultimately, it leaves Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown feeling incredibly hollow.
Characters
Because of the absence of story, the already generic fighters are simply sprites without clear motivation or backstory. I cannot emphasise enough how uninspiring I found these fighters when looking at the character select screen for the first time. Again, this might not be an issue for long-term fans, but it won’t entice anyone new. From “Akira Yuki” – a generic looking karate man – to “Jeffry McWild” – a generic looking big guy – everyone feels so cookie cutter. The awful voice over work and scripting doesn’t help matters, and makes the characters seem like they forgot how to be humans.
Below is the list of characters available to play in Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown:
Akira Yuki
Pai Chan
Lau Chan
Wolf Hawkfield
Jeffry McWild
Kage-Maru
Sarah Bryant
Jacky Bryant
Shun Di
Lion Rafale
Aoi Umenokoji
Taka-Arashi
Lei-Fei
Vanessa Lewis
Brad Burns
Goh HinogamiEileen
El Blaze
Jean Kujo
Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown Review: Is it worth your time?
Virtua Fighter 5 might be an all-time classic fighting game. And on the PlayStation 3 and Arcade, I’m sure it was great. As a new comer, playing it for the first time with the PlayStation 4 version (on a PS5) in 2021, it feels tired. Much like a once great fighter past their prime, Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown has been carted out for one last underwhelming run. Think Randy “The Ram” Robinson in 2008’s The Wrestler.
While there’s fun to be had with the deep combat and competitive multiplayer, Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown is let down by underwhelming graphics, poor sound design and the critical lack of any story. If Sega wanted to bring the series to modern audiences, a brand new Virtua Fighter 6 would’ve been the way to go.
Overall Rating: 5.5/10
Version played: PS4
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