Feature By

Dale Weir

In the early 1990s, there was no question as to who was the king of the arcades. I'm sure we can all recall the times when we'd walk into an arcade only to see as many as five arcade cabinets drowning in a sea of arcade goers. Its appeal was clearly not limited to any particular demographic (of male arcade goers at least), ethnicity, or financial situation; players would vary from pimple-faced teenagers to sweat-stained businessmen. At one time, it seemed as if anyone who entered an arcade was there to play the game or watch others play. Boasting a unique cast of characters, a groundbreaking control scheme and graphics that were far and away better than what was seen in arcades up to that point, it's not hard to see why this game was as popular as it was. With little in the way of competition, it arrived quietly and quickly had a hold on the arcade industry that was only achieved previously by classics like Pong and Pac-Man. That game was none other than Capcom's Street Fighter II.

Since its debut, Street Fighter II saw its share of challengers in the form of SNK's Fatal Fury, Samurai Showdown and King Of Fighters. Other lesser opponents were so overmatched that they are barely worth mentioning. The point being that all of its challengers could only build on what Street Fighter II was already doing, and they could not separate themselves enough while doing so. For a game publisher to release a game that could take on Capom's Goliath, that game would have to be unlike anything that was ever seen before. That is where Sega came in. Building on its ambitious Virtua franchise (Virtua Racing being the first), Yu Suzuki and his development team AM2 created a fighting game that would be unlike anything fighting fans were expecting. In 1993, Virtua Fighter was released and we almost witnessed a changing of the guard at the local arcade. Rendered in full 3-D with a style of play focused less on flash and button mashing, and more on authentic representation of martial arts, Virtua Fighter was the anit-Street Fighter II.

However, Virtua Fighter faced a couple of problems. Based on Sega's expensive propriety, arcade hardware, a couple of rounds of Virtua Fighter cost twice what it did to play Street Fighter II. Also, though technically proficient, the game was still slow and relatively plain in appearance—definite disadvantages in an arcade filled with cabinets running Street Fighter II and its many derivatives. It was when Sega came back a year later with Virtua Fighter 2 that Street Fighters II's fate was sealed. As the popularity of Capcom's fighter began to wane, Virtua Fighter 2's combination of revolutionary graphics, tight controls, and roster of balanced yet diverse fighters were too much for arcade goers to simply overlook. Street Fighter II and games like it were now old hat, ready to cast aside. We were now in the age of the 3-D fighter, and we could not go back.

Following up on the success of the previous two Virtua Fighter releases was not easy. Though beautiful to look at, Virtua Fighter 3 was not much fun to play. It focused more on offense and a complex fighting system so, to no one's surprise, it went largely untouched in the arcades and mustered an anemic following when it was ported to Sega's Dreamcast console. This kind of failure doesn't keep the great developers down for long, so it is no surprise to see AM2 come back so strongly with Virtua Fighter 4. It has been on the receiving end of high praise from anyone that has played it and largely for doing one thing: going back to what was done in Virtua Fighter 2 and building on that.

As a third party developer for Sony, Suzuki no longer faces the limitations of cost prohibitive arcade cabinets, sub standard home console ports or the limited audience of Sega consoles and peripherals. Now, Virtua Fighter 4 can potentially be played by millions of gamers on a console with the power to do it right. More details about this eagerly anticipated game and its gameplay are available with screenshots and commentary in the following pages.

For more insight into the upcoming release of the game, don't forget to check out our Virtua Fighter 4 Art Gallery.