Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown Reviews

This is an Achievement website so this review will look at the game and it's relation to the Achievements.

But don't worry I'll try to cover the overall game too.

This XBLA game is very similar to the 2007 retail game of Virtua Fighter 5.

I must begin by saying I'm a Huge Virtua Fighter fan. I had Virtua Fighter 1 and 2 on the Sega Saturn when I was a kiddo along with Fighters Megamix and then Virtua Fighter 3 on the Dreamcast and Finally Virtua Fighter 5 on Xbox 360. I GET Virtua Fighter.

The Big difference between Virtua Fighter 5 2007 and Virtua Fighter 5 XBLA 2012 is they've trimmed the fat. The 2007 release had a long drawn out Quest mode that was pretty silly in my opinion. You had to pick ONE character and stick with them for the ENTIRE Quest game, which tried to sugar coat the fact that basically they wanted you to beat OVER 1000 fights and I think it was closer to 1500 Fights!!! This was a Major drag and it was a true grind to get the 1000G.

Luckily VF5 XBLA scraps this mode and brings the game closer towards it's arcade roots. It also adds 2 new characters. Fat Sumo guy from Virtua Fighter 3 returns and a new face in Jean Kujo who's style is Karate.

I do Martial Arts in real life. I'm a Black Belt in Aikido and a Brown Belt in Karate... So naturally I went straight for the new Karate Style character Kujo, who I spent most of my time with this game playing as. He's a slightly slower but still powerful character. Think Strong single strikes Akira rather than speedy kicks Jacky.

That's another thing, the Martial Arts presented in this game are AMAZING and each character and their style represent the ABSOLUTE PINNACLE of their respective Martial style. It's a video game and obviously over the top compared to real life fighting and sparring but it's fictionalized video game representation of Martial Arts is EXCELLENT... if that makes sense

Aoi Umenokoji is the character that uses Aikido (as well as Ju Jitsu to make her character work within the frame of the game) so I naturally tried her out to see what Aikido moves they used for her.
EXCELLENT, truly excellent use of Aikido moves. But this characters style is mostly throws and counters which isn't my style of play so I quickly went back to my staple character Jean Kujo and have fun checking out his Karate.
Again EXCELLENT. The moves are over the top compared to reality but he always Chambered his returning fist after a punch which is a classic characteristic of Karate and the kicks are very very cool versions of classic Karate kicks.

Anyway I better get onto the Achievements.

Before I begin let me give the game a huge thumbs up in terms of the game itself. It's my Favorite fighting game PERIOD. It has endless depth, Amazing graphics, sound, online play, perfectly balanced, and it's fans probably already know this stuff. So the game itself 10/10, 5/5, 5 Stars, 100% etc etc etc.

Now...

What is it with XBLA games!!!???!!! Their Achievements are either too hard and time consuming compared to their size and offerings and more like the time required for full retail... OR... As we have here, INSULTINGLY EASY!!! Daytona USA suffered from this as did PAC MAN CE DX.. It's nice to have a quick 100% but you're left feeling like you wasted your money.

Virtua Fighter 5 FS suffers from this. Perhaps it's an over reaction to VF5 retails silly Single Player One Character ONLY Achievement Quest Grind, which made a bore out of an otherwise Amazing game. Or some other reason. Who knows.

I got the 100% Full 400G's done and dusted within a few hours... And I was taking my time, trying out different characters and just all round playing pretty badly by my own standards so I'm sure others would do it in 2 hours easy.

There's Arcade Achievements for completing it (too easy by turning it to Very Easy and 1 round wins). Winning without being hit once, (easily done by accident on the previous achievement) getting the opponent to fall out of the ring, (easy) Tutorial (Super Easy) do a combo in score attack (Easy after doing Tutorial) play 10 ranked online games (that's PLAY, you can stand there and just lose immediately each time)

The only thing that was really quite cool was the 'Complete ten tests in License Challenge Mode.'

This was actually quite fun, relatively challenging and made you often think more than just actually winning by beating your opponent into a pulp.
The AI was set so you had to step up to the challenge after I was wimping out with the very easy arcade mode

You had to win by doing things like block 5 times before winning, get in a throw before winning or the final 10th one which was win 6 fights in a row. More challenging than I was at first expecting and much more fun than the boring quest mode from VF5 Retail.

So to sum up, an EXCELLENT PERFECTLY BALANCED 10/10 fighting game... with silly phoned in easy Achievements.

Is it still worth buying??? ABSOLUTELY!!!

(One tiny thing, whatever they've done to tweak the game or AI I found it much harder to rush in and perform a throw compared to other Virtua Fighter games. Did anyone else notice this or was it just me?)

Amazing VF 5 FS....
Virtua Fighter 5 is getting pretty long in the tooth. The original version hit Japanese arcades in the summer of 2006. Console versions came home worldwide less than a year later.
Now, Sega offers to sell us a mildly upgraded version of a product that’s more than five years old. It’s a testament to what a solid fighting game this is that they can just about get away with it.
Two new characters are also introduced, with sumo wrestler Taka-arashi returning after an extended absence and the exhaustive, charged karate of Jean Kujo making its series debut. More enclosed arenas make for fights that are more mindful of their environment - it's long been possible to bounce players between a fist and a wall, but it's now a more pronounced tactic, with different arenas explicitly imposing different approaches. Some new moves make the most of this, and throws executed whilst perched atop a half-wall or athletic wall-runs will now be a bigger part of a fighter's vocabulary.

There are also more defensive options, and importantly more readily available lines of defence for upstart players. On the flipside, each character's been kitted out with a suite of new attacks to bring the balance back. As a result, after an initial period of recalibration, the fighting simply feels broader, rather than skewed in any one direction. And balance is something that Final Showdown boasts in excess, an unlikely and artful symmetry having been struck between its extended roster.
Virtua Fighter's always been a series of slow, considered steps, one that's happy to admit that it deals in evolution rather than revolution with each iteration being only a double-tap of the stick away from its predecessors. But evolution's a wonderful thing, and in Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown we've got the fittest, most wily and intelligent of fighters, and one that's adapted in tune to its small, dedicated community.
Like previous installments, Final Showdown does its very best to open its intricacies up to newcomers. The Dojo's a perfect training ground where you're guided through each and every command and there's a more proactive form of education in the License Mode, wherein a slog through the character list is supplemented with various challenges: block five punches, say, or work a handful of counters into your attack. As a primer for the deeper, wider world of Virtua Fighter it's indispensable, though it still requires severe dedication to bridge the huge rift between mere competence and being a half-decent fighter. It's a rift that tears through much of this port of Final Showdown.
Online, the rift is not so easy to cross, and goes to show the large gap that exists between the casual and the committed. The fundamentals of networked play are solid and surprisingly forward-thinking, with character select being locked down before you come up against an opponent and control settings being placed front and centre of pre-match screens, rather than being ferretted away in some menu.
Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown is as capable a fighting game as you'll find on the system and pays respect to the martial arts on offer and rewards those who are prepared to put in the time mastering their chosen brawler without resorting to the gimmicks of other fighting games. Newcomers may find the price a little off-putting and fans will already own the disc version of the game which makes buying Final Showdown something of a waste of time and money although you'll be more likely to find an online match on this version.

Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown- contains the definitive version of VF5, refined over the years since its original arcade debut. This new release also adds a significant list of features not previously seen on consoles. Showdown contains a complete overhaul of Virtua Fighter 5's mechanics, balance and animations, along with new game modes, new dynamic fighting arenas, a large collection of customizable character items and new characters added to the roster.
Two additional fighters have joined the roster from the original VF5: Jean Kujo and Taka-Arashi, whose fighting styles fill gaps in the existing selection nicely. Jean’s expertise in karate lets him strike out with chops and kicks from his shifting stance, and many of his follow-up attacks can be charged for extra damage and fake-out opportunities. Taka-Arashi, who was last seen in Virtua Fighter 3 on Dreamcast, returns from his 13 year hiatus to bring sumo back in style. His easily-comboed palm strikes will have you feeling like E. Honda, but playing him to his full potential means knowing which crouched or standing stance to use and when.
This is the best fighting game ! Online game is great ! Price is awesome ! The gameplay want to be "realistic" so don't look after fireball or dummy things ; here it's Skill Only and mind game. People who don't understand the gameplay simply don't have/use their brain :] Thx SEGA