The fighting game genre is definitely one of the most prolific in video games within recent times. Successful or not, a few new franchises have thrown their hand into the ring alongside more installments in the already large pool of existing series, all based around two people beating the crap out of one another. One of the earliest franchises that still exists today is the Virtua Fighter series, which came out with its fifth installment around five years ago. While I have played my fair share of fighters, I never had the chance to experience this particular fighting system, until now. Five years after initial release, a second revision, Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown, has shown up on PSN and Xbox Live. So, does this old fighting game still hold up to today’s standards? Allow me to tell you.

At its base level, the most important thing to any fighting game is how the system plays and flows. I can confidently say that Final Showdown delivers wholly and completely in that respect. When asking around about Virtua Fighter, the keyword I kept hearing was how it was the most “technical” fighting series there is. After playing through many matches, both online and off, I understand what those people meant.

Final Showdown is a very deliberate game in that every hit you land and blow you take feels like it was solely on your shoulders. The core mechanics of the system are knowing when to guard, whether to hit high or low, and being able to juggle your opponent after you’ve landed your hit. There is nothing overly flashy to distract from that core and, as such, the overall fighting feels very fair and balanced. There are some characters that seem to have unfair advantages at first glance, but every character has some kind of quality that makes them just about equally difficult to deal with. It all comes down to being able to predict your opponent’s moves and hitting them when their guard is dropped. I have to say that, after playing an innumerable amount of games where things can get extremely crazy and exploitable, a simple, yet deep fighting system like this one is a wonderful breath of fresh air.

All the regular modes one would expect from a fighter are present here. You have arcade mode, score attack, a mission-based series of fights with special conditions, and the standard verses. Also of note is the training mode, which will run through all the possible attacks for every character in addition to teaching the basics of the fighting system. Again, after having certain fighting games with lackluster or underdeveloped tutorials, it’s good to see a clear and helpful one. After going through the Dojo, I had a good grasp of the game’s mechanics. There is also a special match mode with custom characters provided you download all the customization packs, but I’ll get to that later. All the modes work exactly as well as you would suspect them to and fill their purpose well.

Low blow Akira. Low blow

Despite the full gamut of modes working just fine, I have to bring some special attention to the online component of the game. While playing online, you can have the standard player matches and ranked matches, in addition to making rooms to play with a group of other people consistently. Of note however, is the connection for the games. Even though my online connection is not the best, the game runs very smoothly in online matches and I’ve only ever had one instance of the slightest bit of slowdown. It’s a lovely thing to have consistently clean matches when playing online, and I’d be willing to say that, out of all the online fighting games I’ve ever played, this one had the smallest amount of connection problems.

Although the original Virtua Fighter 5 is five years old, the graphics on Final Showdown still look quite good. While not the best out there, the character models are appealing and the movement as you fight is very fluid. The fluidity is most evident on characters who have longer, flowing clothes, as the clothes move smoothly and rather realistically despite the quick movements. The environments also look pretty good, with some nice effects present depending on the stage, such as sand constantly getting moved around on a desert stage and splashes being kicked up with nearly every movement on a water-covered stage. On the whole, the visuals in Final Showdown aren’t going to blow anybody away, but they serve their purpose more than adequately.

The sounds design can be given a similar judgment. The punches and kicks sound substantial and believable regardless of whether they make impact with the opponent or not, and the music playing through the stages and menus gets you in the mood for a throwdown. However, that’s all that can be said about it, as nothing really pops out about the soundtrack in any significant way. I probably won’t remember a single track from this game after I put it down for a day or two. Still, even without the same amount of detail, the music is just as fitting as the visuals are, and, although it doesn’t stand out, I have no significant complaints about the sound design.

Even though he's new to VF5, El Blaze still knows what they did.

Despite all the praise I’ve been giving the game’s systems, there are still a couple problems that need to be addressed. Probably the most notable is the custom fighter mode mentioned previously. To access that mode, you must have all the different customization packs for the characters which cost $5 for each character, or $15 each for two separate packs that contain all the character customization. This means, while you can buy the game at $15, you need to spend $45 in all if you want to unlock the custom fighter mode mentioned. For many, this isn’t a big deal and they simply won’t get it, but having gotten all those packs for this review and playing through the mode, I would honestly say that it is not worth the price and it seems a tad unfair to charge that much to get a full experience.

Also, although the game is definitely rock-solid in its systems, it doesn’t really bring anything new to the table. It seems like they focused so much on perfecting what was already laid down, that they forgot to expand on anything. Perhaps a specific story mode for each individual character would have worked, because each fighter has different reasons for coming to the tournament. However, the only reason I know that is because I looked it up, as these various stories are barely referenced at all in the actual game. I understand that this is a revision of an already existing game, but it’s been 5 years and they could have expanded so much more on the groundwork they already laid down.

Despite what could have been, Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown sticks to its guns and does what it does extremely well. With one of the best fighting systems I’ve ever experienced throughout the entire genre, I would definitely say that this is a must buy for both fighting game enthusiasts and casual fans. I can guarantee that you won’t regret the purchase. Just make sure to only spend the initial $15, unless you seriously want to customize your favorite characters.

A PSN code for the game was provided for review purposes. The game was played for about 4 hours on single player and another 4 hours online. While downloadable on both PSN and Xbox Live, there was also a Japanese arcade release of the game.

Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown Review

By Robert H.

How does a revision of a five year old game hold up? Rather well.