30. Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown (PS5)
The Virtua Fighter series holds a very special place in my heart. I fell in love with the pioneering 3D fighter in the mid 90s, particularly on the Saturn which I played at friends' houses since I wouldn't own my own Saturn until the 2000s. I particularly loved the first two Virtua Fighter games which just oozed with 90s Sega specialness. Still to this day, Virtua Fighter and Virtua Fighter 2 are among my most nostalgic video games I've ever played. While I've played some of the newer Virtua Fighter games over the years, none of them left the same impression on me that the first two did despite better graphics and much more refined, tight gameplay. The newest entry, Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown has been on my list of games to play for a very long time, and recently I bought it on sale on PSN. After playing it for several hours and beating it multiple times with multiple characters, I must say that I was surprised by VF5:US, both in good ways and not so good ways.
I'll start with VF5:US's strongest asset, its gameplay. I mean, holy crap! I have only ever played a handful of fighting games with more polished, refined and just near perfect gameplay and controls, and they all belong to more well known franchises. Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown's gameplay is the definition of deep and refined, while also being engaging and fun. It's almost unreal playing this game given how well it controls. I have to also mention that being used to the far more over the top gameplay style of games like King of Fighters and Tekken, I had to pretty much retrain myself to be more strategic and focus on my opponents timing versus going all out like I typically do in fighting games. But yes, VF5:US's gameplay is freakin unreal with how good it is. The visuals are also top notch with some amazing character models, stages, and various other effects which really make this an impressive looking game. My only gripe is many of the stages feel somewhat uninspired and just aren't as memorable as stages you see in other fighting games. Still, many of them are pretty and scenic at the very least. Audio is unfortunately nothing to write home about, but it's good enough and fits well with the style of game this is. Characters are all voice acted, and while none are stellar at delivering their lines, they're still entertaining to say the least. With all that said, you might be wondering what the big deal is and why I'm not throwing VF5:US into the elite group of best fighting games I've ever played. Well, the main thing that holds it back from that in my book, is well, me.
Objectively, yes, Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown is one of the best fighting games I've played in a long time, particularly due to its gameplay. However, while I did enjoy myself mostly while playing this game, I found myself kinda wishing I was playing another modern fighting game I like more, such as the newer Mortal Kombat games. While this probably sounds like slander to some, newer VF such doesn't do it for me the way that the older games do despite those games being objectively worse. I just feel like I've moved on from the Virtua Fighter series to an extent and found other franchises that I enjoy playing more. It's much more grounded, realistic gameplay just don't gel with me more over the top fighting games, both newer and older titles. So what really brought my score of VF5:US down was my own personal enjoyment of the game despite how great it is in many ways. Had I taken to this games commendable traits more it would have scored higher, but at is my scores are 40% my own subjective enjoyment of a game and 60% how good the game is from a more objective point of view. With all that said, if someone said Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown was one of the best fighting games ever made, I'd completely respect that opinion and even sympathize with it, but for me personally, it's just not as fun or memorable as so many other fighting games I've played, including some of the older VF titles. (6/26/23) [36/50]