Has it really been 14 years since Virtua Fighter 5 graced the Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles? Debuting in the arcade in 2006, Virtua Fighter 5 built on the significant shift in gameplay and tone that Virtua Fighter 4 presented over the previous games, fine tuning and adding features that would make it one of the finest fighters ever created.
The PS3 port included a wonderful “Quest” mode which, rather than centre on the series bare bones plot, focussed on your journey around a cluster of arcades to become the king of Virtua Fighter. Indeed it was virtual eSports before eSports was a massive thing.
As a 360 owner, for a while I was jealous of the new (and outrageously expensive) PlayStation consoles Virtua Fighter 5 port, but mere months later, Akira and co finally set foot on Xbox hardware. Not only was this port based on the updated “Revision C” version of the game, it had a far more important and essential feature: Online.
5 years later a port of Final Showdown appeared on both systems, which saw sumo titan Taka Arashi return, along with a slew of other improvements.
And that was that.
While Final Showdown was an upgrade, Virtua Fighter 5 collectively is in my top 10 fighting games of all time, in a list I compiled on Twitter back in 2018. Unable to choose between the finely tuned Final Showdown or the vanilla version’s superlative Quest mode, I still maintain that you can go wrong with neither.
It has been nearly nine years since Final Showdown, but finally, the series has returned. Virtua Fighter 5 specifically has been given the charge of bringing the series to a modern audience, and embodying the competitive nature of that quest mode but made real through a more robust online front end.
The Virtua Fighter x eSports project was announced last year and met with a great deal of excitement from long time fans. Whilst this remake (and I do class this as a remake) may not be the Virtua Fighter 6 we dreamed of, Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown does indeed succeed in bringing the series to a modern audience.
Before we talk about what has changed, let’s talk about what hasn’t. The biggest thing here is the gameplay, and believe me when I say that is a good thing. Virtua Fighter 5 is still perceived as one of the greatest fighters of all time, a merit entirely earned due to how its gameplay and roster has been nurtured to near perfection. A perfect balance that remains intact in this upgrade, accessible, yet with depth its genre stablemates could only dream of.
Training modes are all present and correct too. When it comes to showing you the basics, they’re essential for VF newcomers. These too are lifted straight from the console release of Final Showdown, with text and activities that are identical to the 2012 release.
At a fundamental level, for solo players this is the same basic game that you can play today on PS3, or on any Xbox console thanks to backwards compatibility. In fact, for solo players, there is even content missing. Gone is the interesting License mode and exciting Score Attack mode of the seventh gen versions.
And you’re out of luck if you want to play as Dural.
But these omissions feel like a decent trade off for what you get in return.
The most notable change is the visuals. Going between the two versions, the leap in visual quality is apparent. The original game ran on the Pentium 4 powered Lindbergh board and ran at 720p natively. It was a very early PS3 and 360 title, and while it looked impressive in 2006, even smashing records around the complexity of it’s character geometry, now it looks a little aged by modern standards.
Powered by the same Dragon Engine behind the most recent Yakuza games, Ultimate Showdown is a crisp 1080p on PS4. What’s more, the models of the areas and characters have undergone a face lift. While the trailer modestly states “remastered” this game has been remade in the new engine and it looks drop dead gorgeous.
Its not flawless. Some of the facial designs of the new characters miss the mark. If you’ve been looking at Akira Yuki’s face for as long as we have (yes, I know that sounds creepy, but we’ve seen a lot of victory screens!), you might find the changes jarring. Similarly, the specular lighting of VF5 has been replaced by a more realistic model. Again, consensus is that this is an improvement, while James and I do prefer elements of the old model.
Sometimes backgrounds are simply different. Occasionally there will be more life and complexity in Final Showdown, while other stages provide a level of detail and clarity that makes Final Showdown look old hat. Ultimately how much of an improvement you see will depend greatly on your personal preference.
Hitflashes are also included for the first time in the series history. It’s not quite Tekken level pyrotechnics when fighters clash, but it’s an interesting design choice. Seeing screenshots, I was initially concerned about how intrusive they would be, but overall they’re not jarring at all, and perhaps the increased effects will attract a new audience.
Wolf’s stage in Final 
Wolf’s stage in Ultimate 
Lau’s stage in Final 
Lau’s stage in Ultimate
Overall, the game looks tremendous. Virtua Fighter was once the benchmark for gaming visuals, and while VF5US doesn’t regain the crown in the way the original three games did when they broke barriers in the nineties, it demonstrates why the series was so renowned in its day.
The meat of the new release is the online aspect. It is here that the game really shines. Netcode seems pretty much the same delay based solution as the seventh gen release, which was largely fine. James and I played a few matches on Final Showdown for comparison and it holds up, so there isn’t much new in that sense.
But there are improvements to finding players, either through service improvements or the larger population owing to the game being free on PS+ and PSNow. Lobbies are larger and the UI feels so much fresher and cleaner, it feels a lot more dynamic and approachable, which will hopefully attract both lapsed fans and newcomers to the ranks.
I haven’t spoken about the sound design yet. New music tracks have been composed for this game, though so far, I’ve found them largely forgettable. The mix is off as well, with some samples seeming quieter and muffled. It’s a little niggle but worth highlighting.
This, however, is remedied with the games DLC, the “Legendary Pack”. This includes 180 music tracks from across the series entire history, so if the new tracks don’t do it for you, you have your pick from the classics, allowing you to “Ride the Tiger” once again.
The DLC is a little bit of a red herring. The free version on PlayStation subscription services is the barebones base game, but to purchase Final Showdown, you can only buy the bundled pack for £25/$30. That’s a decent price for what you get, with 2,000 clothing items, Virtua Fighter 1 skins and 180 music tracks. Even the DLC upgrade itself is a tenner, half of what was asked for on the seventh gen version.
Overall Virtua Fighter is back and it feels so good to say that! For your subscription on PlayStation or the bundled asking price, you get one of the greatest fighting games ever made, and it remains so today. It may lack in terms of single player content without a Quest mode or even the Score Attack and Licence modes of Final Showdown, but the online feels robust and ready to thrive.
That said, it’s not quite perfect (what is?) and Xbox owners shouldn’t feel too disappointed as the version of Final Showdown available on modern Xbox consoles is still excellent. If you can’t play Ultimate Showdown, do yourself a favour and get that sublime 360 version.
Either way, the game is an undeniable classic and should be savoured by as many as possible, until Virtua Fighter 6 finally makes its way to our hallowed consoles.
Dan “The Mega” Driver
Special thanks to the amazing Danny Russell of Sega for providing the SegaGuys with codes to review!
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