Virtua Fighter 4

[JunkerSeed]

I just rented this yesterday and goddamn it is awesome.  After spending a lot of time with the INSANE number of lessons in the training tutorial and generally playing the hell out of it I can say this is the best fighting game I've played since soul caliber, easily.  Love it because it's pretty accesible to button mashers and new people, but holy god damn there is so much depth to this game I'm convinced that mastering a character completely in this game is probably more complicated that mastering a real martial art...  You can block, evade, or reverse most attacks, and most of the time you can input the defense move for throws and strikes at the same moment to protetc yourself from both...  There is an insane number of ways to counterattack, and there's a million different ways to offensively plan for when your opponent tries to evade, block, or reverse, and a huge number of ways to plan agianst a counter attack... For god's sake theres a dozen ways to get off the ground.  Other than that the game looks great, with some of the best character animation I've ever seen, and has perfect control.  This might be my first 50 dollar PS2 game....

[The NZA]

Ive heard nothin but good bout that game.

While i usually go more for Tekken than VF - despite Suzuki's badass job on Shenmue - I might havta give that one a try.  Good to hear all the complicated counters dont take away from the button-mashin technique.

Here's Penny Arcade's thoughts on it.

[arc]

i disagree it's not that hot especially when tekken 4, and dead or alive 3 are taken into acount this game moves like doa3 but the graphics of va4 are still a bit behind them and way behind t4.

[JunkerSeed]

Ha!  Dead or Alive's gameplay is like playing bad dudes after playing VF3.... its so.... simplistic... That series has always been about style and graphics over substance.  Graphics are just fine, I'm sure tekken 4 and DOA's are a bit better, but at this point the difference is negligable.  I'm talking about the pure depth of gameplay.  VF is simply king in this department.  Tekken is alright, I used to love parts 2 and 3 but I think it got kinda stale.  I dont like the clunky controlls where you enter the entire combo during the first punch and he just keeps on going.  Tekken's more about knowing certain moves and combos for each character.  In VF, once you have the "basics" (evading, countering, blocking, attacking at different levels) down, it's all about skill.  I still say it's king because of the ultra-tight, responsive controlls and insane depth.

[arc]

depth? yeah you're right fighting games are know for their depth....this game is a button smashing affair nothing more.

 

man i've been playing it all weekend and it still sucks i am not seeing what your saying and in addition to this they don't have any fucking endings this game aside from that its just like any other game out except all the characters and styles are cut and pasted on from others games with the exception of the monk guy they are all just a bunch of cheap imitations with no story behind them fuck man they're in 4 now and i still don't know why that blue thing is hosting this fight what.

in addition to test this depth in fighting i put my 3year old brother to play in the practice mode and he was doing all sorts of combos then i put him in the game at medium and he beat the first few guys before i lowered it down in skill level not because he lost mind you but because i wanted to make the matches longer and i wanted him to go further than i thaught he would man that later still i let him play on the hardest setting when i was on the phone this time he had no cheap character in fact he had jacky which is pretty hard to maintain but he beat that ass and when he did lose it was pretty damn close to close for there to be a differance between button smashing and me trying to use some of their actual moves and combos.

 

at last in tekken you get better as you play and there's always more for you to learn yeah there are combos that can kill some one easy but their pretty long and can you do them and it think a guy that plays non stop should have the right to kick my ass with out it coming close it's only fair cause what's the point you practice this game day in day out and after years of practice you mastered it all and you still lose to my 3year old brother yeah that's fair.

 

doa3 was just like v4 fighting but in some fancy long ass arenas have you played it cause it's the same thing but with bigger better levels man their it's a place in that game you don't fight in fact i was hopeing for v4 to be just like that but it came short of it in doa3 you smack someone through glass after a hard hit they go screaming down the building and your guy jumps right after him to beat that ass in v4 you beat the shit out of someone right next to the breakable wall and it never fucking breaks i beat the shit out of the cuputer right up against the same fucking wall and it broke right after he died the second time that's bullshit but aside from the from that when you do knock em through that wall is there an elaborate death or anything fuck no "ring out" you don't even see him fall down the side of the building and sence you mentioned details why the hell are these people fighting in the snow shirt less it's fucking cold fuck it even if the shirtless guy wins he still dies of screen of frost bite.

 

it seems to me that all fighting games are starting to suck and not since tekken 2 has there been a decent story where i could say that seems logical enough of a reason to host a contest like this and not since tekken 3 has their been a decent animated ending and i just don't see why

[JunkerSeed]

If you want to see what I'm talking about depth wise, get to the later parts of the tutorial stuff in the training mode.  A button masher will simply not be able to touch you if you know how to evade and reverse his moves.  When you button mash you usually use the same combos over and over, so if you know the combo, you know how to defend against it.

And actually, I thought teh monk was the worst character, he's alright in teh beginning, because he has flashy moves, but all of his different stances stop him from being able to block and evade stuff so it makes him useless after certain moves.  And the game's AI gets utterly insane on the later guys, the first few are cake, the later ones (I think Akira was the last, hardest before dural) do some of the best AI fighting I've seen.  And I said I liked it because of the gameplay, I couldn't give a damn about each character's ending, I saw those once in tekken, thought they were nice, and then played the volleyball mode again.  VF4 is not about bells and whistles and crap like that, it's about gameplay.  The levels in DOA are just plain distracting, you'd rather knock the guy through the wall, or watch him fall than actually fight him, which is cool, but like I said, it's more style over substance, mindless eye candy.  In VF, you don't explore the levels, you fight in them, they have nice subtle touches like tiles breaking, snow getting pushed around, etc, but none of it interferes with the fight.  I never minded ring outs, they add more strategy to it, you can't block at the edge of the ring because you'll be pushed out, you have to evade to the sides or reverse stuff.  

If you think VF has no depth, that's because you define depth as knowing the moves.  That's not depth, depth is the strategies you use to beat your opponent once you're both familiar with your characters' moves.  I'd rather beat someone because I anticipated what they'd do, reversed it, then hit them with the right move while they were slightly stunned than beat them because I know king's 7 hit combo and they dont.

[arc]

hmm that sounds a lot like doa3 are you sure you've played it?

[JunkerSeed]

Well, yeah, i know you can reverse stuff in DOA, but it's easy as hell to do.  DOA is like, 90% reversals for me.  I only have part 2 (meaning I do like the game, but for its more mindless appeal, not, nearly on the level of VF4) but I've played 3.  Oh, and VF3 had those DOA style huge levels, and they just took it out because it was too distracting.  I consider DOA virtua fighter-lite with added eye candy.  Um, best analogy I can give is something like "Virtua fighter is to DOA as Nine inch nails is to stabbing westward."

[arc]

it's funny that you compare a game with no original characters as the original huge levels in vf3 i don't recall anything like doa3 nothing doa doesn't have a wide spectrum of original charaters but they did vary a little bit here the bruce lee imitation isn't some guy that is him under a differant name but rather a fan of his the ninja's are fucking the badest ones out there right now aside from that there are just character modifications vf4 along with their unorignial cast goes by the slant eye rule if your eyes are slanted then you'll be a badass it plays like doa3 but doa3 has more moves and a larger viraity in moves

[arc]

well it looks like i've got the last word so far people and i would just like to say that for the most part fighting games are the same the characters the styles too too similar and as far as the combo situation goes and i bring this up simply because it is constantly reffered to as unfair or stupid but no one ever takes into account the fact that everyone else has a similar type of combo king's combo is look at as cheap because it's grappling rather than punching in tekken most if not all have a set of combos that can kill an opponent with out giving him a chance to make it out at all but the same can be said about vf4 to which i add on the fact that i have learned a combo that takes away about 70% of an opponent's but it is the norm in these types of games

[JunkerSeed]

I really don't see what the big deal is over the originality of the characters.  They're not exceptionally original or unoriginal, but I'd definately say that VF's characters are  more original than DOA's ninjas and girls with big boobies.  I don't really care if they're original, as long as they're significantly different from each other, well balanced, and suitable for different skill levels of players, which VFs are.  And if there's a combo that take off most of your life, well, the other player should remember the first few hits in it so they can counter/interrupt/evade/block it accordingly, then the attacker would have to delay or charge a few hits in the combo (really usefull features, give more strategy to teh combos than simply memorizing them) or cancel a move completely to catch the other guy off guard.  Then the defender would have to anticipate that and defend accordingly etc etc etc ad nauseum.  Also, most of your complaints against VF are about it's presentation and eye candy.  Sure, it's nice if the game has a good reason for them to fight in a tournament, elaborate endings for each character, and big ass levels that can be explored, but those are all things that you get tired of after seeing a couple of times.  After you fall into a cavern for the third time or so, you don't really care about it anymore, and the time they could have used to balance the characters out more, or refine the moves, they used to make something that won't matter to you a week after you buy the game.  When I'm fighting, I care about whether I can block the next hit or not, and what i can do to hit him back, not if he's gonna fall through the glass or if the character's motivations for fighting are clear.  It seems that VF is stripped of the stuff that loses it's novelty and replaces it with stuff that adds strategy.  Staggering someone against the walls adds a bit more depth to it, and plain old ring outs add a whole new dimension to the game.  Sure, good presentation and eye candy can make a game fun, but that stuff dissapears when you're concentrating on how to beat the hell out of someone, and eventually, it all boils down to the gameplay.

[Satcha]

I played the game, and didn't see anything that was that amazing.  And what is th edeal with th efighters constantly falling flat on their faces with their arms staright down at their sides like a board.  They are doing these elaborate moves, then they get smacked once and BAM!!  on th efloor in the same stupid position everytime!  It is so annoying.  These people need some more balance and they should fall in weird positions, not always a stiff corpse.

[JunkerSeed]

Well, if you play for more than like 5 seconds you see that when you press punch kick and guard at the same time (or L2) right when your body hits the ground you can recover from a fall without lying on the ground, either just spring up or roll to the sides.  And I've never seen fighters fall much differently in tekken or anything like that.  I never thought I'd see much arguement about how good this game is, reviews all pretty much seem to agree.  You certainly have to play for a little while to judge it, can't play a round or two then walk away.

[arc]

fuck junker speed you suck as a game reviewer just the fact that you say the ninjas in doa aren't that creative or original shows you really don't know shit about fighting games do you have any idea who that fucking ninja is no you don't he is one of the orignal ninja characters in video games more than likely he is the first ninja character in video game history and he may have also been the first ninja and or character to cross from a side scroll game into a fighting game in addition to this fact every ninja you see my have been a spawn of him fuck it let me end this conversation you like soul caliber right well there's a fucking you lose combo there too you see i used nightmare and if i knocked you down once the games was over because weather you got up or not i would knock you down before you had a chance to get up and yeah you think then i could roll but no you couldn't the flaw was that at the exact moment you need to move nightmare would swing to where you're moveing fuck man you know so damn much about fighting games that you cann't even figure out that they all have a you die combo just because the game doesn't tell you about it doesn't mean it ain't there someone that likes the game will find one they always do always i told you eairlier the i found a combe with jacky that will that 70% of you life but you don't listen 70% and thats cause i don't know the rest of it but no it can be listen guy the game ain't special and i relly think you should take a look around before you start talking like you know shit cause me and satcha played the shit out of this game and it still ain't shit so stop coming here with your half assed reasoning before i start calling you out on more miss conceptions about fighting games and for everyone else look at the up coming mortal combat picture

[The NZA]

 

PS

[JunkerSeed]

 blah blah blah, yeah, I get the point. um, whatever.  I'm not exactly that passionate about the fact that it's a great game, it just is.  Just been defending it and explaining it as best i could, being the point of the thread, I'm not in the mood for stream of conciousness flaming this time o' night.  I can't really argue about fighting games with someone who's saying soul calibur is bad.  You liked Mortal Kombat 4... didn't you!? I know somebody bought that game.  Go ahead and piss on the critically acclaimed games that have been praised by countless people who've played more fighting games than you ever will just because you found a cheap move or two that work against newbies.  Oh, and I know the Ninja is the guy from ninja gaiden... I dont care.  Ninja gaiden is great and classic and all, but a stereotypical ninja still aint an original character.  hell, even if he's the first ninja that ever looked like that (which he obviously wasn't) it still doesnt make him any different now.  In DoA he's just another ninja.  Not that i'm trying to bash DoA that much, I like the game, I have part 2, I'm just saying it doesnt touch VF in terms of depth.

[arc]

alright here we go i have played a shit load of fighting games in fact that's all that i used to play till recently i also used to go on the internet and look up information ao any and every fighting games there was i have played and beaten vf1-4 and it is ordinary you call these combos that every game has cheap then you are a fool regardless of the game there is a why to be cheap and win everytime but no you wish to be ignorant of this fact i tell you about a few combos that i have already found but no you think i'm making this shit up yeah junker all you want to hear is that it's a great game worth of purchase cause of the depth it doesn't have they all fight the fucking same way it looks like a jeet kon doo contest and you don't see any of this o and you bring up the fact that people who have played far more games than me are praiseing this game well you ignorant little man no shit there giving it praise when you go to the va websites shit man their giving mk5 praise right now at their web site but you know what for everyone that gives it praise there is at least other person saying it sucks ass open your mind junker and quite assume you know more than you do cause you take no other factors into account maybe some of these people hypeing it are getting payed for it but no that has nothing to do with it in your one way world no it greats because they loved it too and not because they are trying to sell a good you know another factor you totally ignor is the fact that you can't ever play like the computer does in va when the computer has a hold of a character for example akira all of a sudden he is fast as hell and out of control and dural is faster than anyone else in the game and almost unbeatable because it's cheap but i forget you love that shit you think it's fair till some kid that knows a combo or two beats your ass at the game i don't know junk but maybe i'll look up some of these combos for you.

[arc]

o and another junk i like all fighting games if i didn't i wouldn't know so much about them now would i i know the only to end this conversation is by beating your ass with some combos but i won't because i'm not going to buy vf4 unless it's the last vf of all time and it's being sold for less than $20.

[The NZA]

Went to lunch with Junker today, he was tellin me the tutorial mode is massive, and that any & all combos can be countered/avoided, which is the depth of the gameplay i think he was referrin to...havent actually played the game as of yet, so i cant really say either way, but artistic - did you sit through the tutorial? I hear it was long as hell.  

 

PS

             

[JunkerSeed]

Yeah, that's all I can suggest you do if you want to give the game one last chance, it's what sold me.  I'll tell you now, the first half or so of the massive thing is just plain dumb as hell, but once you get into evading and throw reversals everything I talked about comes into play.  And if you still don't see the appeal... well, you could just say that you're not a VF fan for whatever reason.  These profanity laden run on sentances will get you nowhere.  I'm not fuming mad that you don't like the game, I'm just responding to your criticisms.  Oh, and as for the comment about the magazines loving it because it was hyped, that's just dumb.  Every single magazine/fan site/web site is not going to give the game a good score if it sucks.  Sure, some hyped games wil get 10s from a mag or two even if tehy suck... but not every damned one.  MK5 is getting "praised" because previews are typically not negative.  I've never seen a preview that wasn't optomistic.  It's the policy of most magazines to suspend criticizm untill a game is done.  Now, it could be because they get better coverage if they promise to say nothing but good, but regardless, you rarely see a preview that shows a game in a negative light at all.  Once they review it, then they let loose on how bad it is.

[JunkerSeed]

Tekken 4 Vs. Virtua Fighter 4

 

Boo-ya! Doesn't get much clearer than this. One thing that they mention that i forgot to talk about was the great kumite mode, it's a cool single player mode where you fight harder and harder enemies and the further up you go in rankings, the more accessorries and costumes you get, pretty cool, specially when you see pai wearing a pig costume. So, rather than throwing in some gimmicky minigames, ala tekken, it gives you a deep, addictive single player mode. :P

[The NZA]

Whoah! The IGN editors liked your lame fighting game better! Did you know they also have favorite extreme sports, WWF wrestlers, and Survivor contestants? Youd better hurry on back and make sure yours score up, my friend!

Its preference. I think "gimmicks" like additional moves, character & level design, special features & such add replay value to a genre notorious for not havin much of it, and was really unimpressed by your VF4 despite Yu Suzuki's handwork. This game would only addict me if my PS2 tray was sodered closed with it inside. Controls felt clunky and it overall just didnt seem fun, but i admit it's my tastes.

I mean, Tekken doesnt need mini-games. Super Smash Bros didnt need those fun 1 player levels. Fuck, Super Monkey Ball 2 doesnt need monkeys, but im glad it has em!

Anyway, Tekken sold better, but that dont prove anythin either - if someone's into fighting games, id just say buy a PS2 and rent em both; hell grab Dead or Alive 3 while youre at it. Decide for yourself.

[Take Me To Your Lizard]

So I bought this yesterday. I've been meaning to for a while anyway, and I was in town picking up an extra pad so me and MLB can duke it out when I saw it fairly cheap. We had a quick go last night, and it does look nice. I'll have to explore the tutorial and stuff when I get a mo.

[MyLeakyBucket]

Just to say, I whooped Lizard's ass at this game. :P

[Take Me To Your Lizard]

Just to say, the little girl in pink has some cheap-ass sweeps and I'll be returning that ass-whooping in due course