The Return of Virtua Fighter, final part

In the previous blog I talked about how important Virtua Fighter, and the 3D revolution was for the gaming industry. I highlighted the precursors from the ‘80s including Karate Champ, and Yie Ar Kung-Fu that set the stage for the modern fighting game. I also talked about the mortality of the pioneers, and how it was important to pass the torch to new directors, and producers. This would help ensure their survival in the long-run. I was extremely happy with the announcement at the 2024 Game Awards about seeing a new Virtua Fighter. There were however a few problems for Sega. First off if you weren’t a 50-year-old Generation-Xer like me then it wasn’t really a major announcement. Millennials, and Gen-Zers didn’t grow up in the arcades, nor did their kids. To them fighters were always on home consoles, and in 3D. They had always had online matchmaking, frame data, and rollback code. Players today had countless choices on every platform imaginable. How could you make a fighting game rooted in realistic arts more interesting than Street Fighter, Guilty Gear, Tekken, or Mortal Kombat? The answer might lay in making a new Virtua Fighter a modern fast-tempo modern experience. I would argue the opposite.

It was crucial, and necessary that the developers at Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio would slow down the game. I don't mean the fighting itself, but everything surrounding the build up to the fight. Adventure titles had slowed down the action, but not the difficulty or challenge in the past 20 years. The biggest studios were creating living, breathing worlds that you could spend 40+ hours exploring. The evolution of the From Software “Souls” games, Sony’s God of War titles, or Rockstar’s GTA, and Red Dead Redemption had all changed the pacing of AAA titles. The latest Street Fighter, and Mortal Kombat games also slowed down the experience so you could savor the worlds they were set in. I had no doubt that Virtua Fighter would also get the same treatment. Yet unlike the aforementioned games it was actually part of Yu Suzuki’s long term vision. I didn’t understand it when I was younger, and could only now appreciate what he had been trying to do for the past 30 years.

Yu Suzuki had poured tremendous insight into every game he created for Sega. The thing about his fighters was how much he appreciated, and almost mythologized the Chinese martial arts. It was evident in the styles he assigned Akira, Lau, and Pai in the original VF. It was why even though Akira was younger, and stronger than most of the characters, at the end of the first tournament it was Lau Chan that was victorious. Akira still had a ways to go before he could topple the older master. Upon hearing the news that Lau Chan had bested the new crop of fighters the even older Shun Di decided to throw his hat into the ring. Seeing the bearded master do his thing in the opening animation of VF2 surprised the arcade visitors. Only in Mr. Suzuki's world did it make sense that two elderly Chinese fighters could beat people half their age. As the sequels came out he would incorporate other arts from around the world. Such as sumo, judo, and aikido from Japan. Lucha libre from Mexico, Muay Thai from Thailand, and Vale-Tudo from Brazil. He would always return to China for the most colorful techniques, including Praying Mantis, Drunken Fist, Shaolin, and Monkey Kung-Fu. 

There was no escaping the impact of the Chinese martial arts with the birth of fighting games. Everything from legendary kung-fu masters, to the more popular Hong Kong cinema influenced a great number of fighting game designers that came from Capcom, as well as SNK, but also the team at Midway that created Mortal Kombat in the USA. It was almost impossible to create any sort of martial arts title without featuring a number of classic Chinese elements. The fighting styles, fashion, and history had been sprinkled throughout Japanese history. Even in pop culture, kung-fu heroes had always been a part of manga, and anime. The early ‘80s featured a lot of the fashion, and arts from China including the Himalayas. Iron Fist Chimi debuted in 1983, Genma Wars Harmagedon was an animated movie from 1983. Which was created from an older manga which began in 1967. One of the characters in Harmagedon named Tao inspired the creation of Chun-Li. 3x3 Eyes, and Ranma 1/2 first appeared in 1987, around the time that Mr. Suzuki was crafting the greatest hits for Sega. Chinese backdrops had always been a part of Japanese pop culture.

Virtua Fighter looked, and played different from every other title out there, not just because it was in 3D. It was because Mr. Suzuki had a genuine belief in the mythology of the Chinese arts. It was evident in his series. He was doing everything he could to not only promote the classic arts, but to keep them from fading out of existence. Any other fighting game developer would stick to the generic karate, boxing, kung-fu archetypes for their title. Yet Mr. Suzuki made sure to show the world that kung-fu wasn’t one catch-all style from China. There were distinct forms, and some of the most beautiful like bajiquan, huyanquan, and mizongquan all deserved to be featured. In doing so he was exposing new generations to these beautiful forms of combat. Whether they were functional in an actual fight was a conversation for a different blog. Mr. Suzuki was helping preserve their reputation.

Mythology was very important in spreading the reputation of great martial artists. People didn’t have film, or pictures of the masters from the early 1900’s. Even the records of the champions that came up in the 1940’s, and 1950’s seemed too good to be true. Would you believe the stories of martial artists that killed a bear, a bull, or a tiger with their bare hands? It was word of mouth, not pictures or video that turned regular people into immortal legends. There was a tremendous amount of mythology used in the creation of many fighting games, especially in the weapons-based titles like Samurai Shodown, and Soul Calibur. Virtua Fighter was more than a game. It was a way of holding onto the truth behind the myths. Mr. Suzuki asked what if the last of the Chinese masters was still alive? How would they actually hold up against a modern style of fighting? The seed was planted with the apocryphal story of a young Mas Oyama (the real-life inspiration behind Ryu). When he was traveling the world he was humbled by a master named "Mr. Chen" it was then that he decided to give everything to becoming the best fighter. Mr. Suzuki believed so much in the mythology of the lost arts that he wanted to explore it in an entirely new type of game.

Shenmue was a precursor to the modern adventure game. Released in 1999 it set a template that would influence AAA releases over the next 20+ years, including the Last of Us, and Drake’s Fortune. The game revolved around a hero named Ryo Hazuki trying to avenge the death of his father Iwao Hazuki at the hands of the Chinese martial arts master Lan Di. It was unlike other games of the era, not quite role-playing, not quite fighting game, not quite sim, but instead something in between all three. Yu Suzuki wanted to tell a cinematic adventure across multiple sequels. His project was ambitious to say the least. It took years, and millions of dollars to produce. Mr. Suzuki had underestimated what it would take to bring his vision to life. The finished game was good, but seemed lacking. Fans could tell that he wanted to have an immersive experience that you could lose yourself in. Unfortunately is was lacking in some regards. Since no one had ever attempted anything remotely close to it Sega didn’t realize that it would take double the team size, and at least double the budget to make it fulfill Yu Suzuki’s vision. Little did we know that he had predicted the most popular types of AAA adventures by 20 years.

Shenmue was a commercial flop, but a hit with audiences, and critics. Sega had already invested a considerable amount in a sequel so they had to see it through to completion, the third part in the story was dead in the water. It would take a crowdfunding effort from 2020 to get the trilogy finished. The big publishers learned that titles this ambitious were a risky gamble. We wouldn’t see anything remotely close to it for many years. In the decades following Sega downsized, and a number of their internal teams were consolidated, or closed down. A lot of talent was lost in the 2000’s. There was one person however that had worked under Mr. Suzuki and learned the art of game design. His name was Toshihiro Nagoshi. He started with Sega in the late-80s and learned from Mr. Suzuki, and also the best people at the company.

Mr. Nagoshi had an ambitious idea for a brawling game. He thought the classic 2D format used in Double Dragon, Final Fight, and countless Konami hits were too limiting. He wanted to take everything he learned from the Virtua Fighter team, and set it in an open 3D world. The 1998 title SpikeOut was an important game in the evolution to the brawler genre, it was also rarely seen in arcades. Sometimes I think that my brothers, and I were the only ones that ever played it in Southern California. It was fast paced, violent, and extremely difficult. It featured networked cabinets making it easier for multiplayer action without having to share one screen. It was not without its flaws as the difficulty, and camera angles seemed to work against the action.

Mr. Nagoshi learned an important lesson about combat balance from SpikeOut. He also picked up other things while working at Amusement Vision, alongside the Jet Set Radio designers at Smilebit. It was possible to create a fun, accessible, original game that featured stylized graphics. More important it could respect street culture, while simultaneously exposing it to audiences. I considered the 2002 title Jet Set Radio Future the greatest Hip Hop game ever made. When Sega wanted a skateboarding arcade game with the JSRF feel in 2004, that was also a spiritual successor to the 1997 classic Top Skater Ollie King was created. When Sega wanted an Xbox exclusive they revisited the world of SpikeOut, and dropped the much improved SpikeOut Battle Street in 2005. To be fair DIMPS did most of the programming for it. The team at Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio was galvanized by everything they experienced at AM2, and Amusement Vision. That was why they were able to slide into the development of Virtua Fighter V Ultimate Showdown so easily. 

When he began his career at Sega Toshihiro Nagoshi ran headlong into his work like Akira Yuki. The older he got the more he understood the deliberate pace of Lau Chan, or should I say Yu Suzuki. Mr. Nagoshi took the entirety of what he learned since joining Sega, and put it into the Yakuza series. He featured the detailed world building of Shenmue, added the street vibes of Ollie King, included the arcade classics from his mentor, built easy to learn mini games, and improved the 3D combat of SpikeOut. With nine main Yakuza games in the series (23 including spin-offs) his team was the best equipped to bring back Virtua Fighter. This was a world where the last descendants of ancient kung-fu masters were ready to pass on their forbidden techniques, or die protecting them. After 30 years of following in the footsteps of his master it was time for Akira Yuki, I mean Toshihiro Nagoshi to take over. I was eager to immerse myself in his world. What about you? Did you think this was the right time, and the right team for a Virtua Fighter reboot? I’d like to hear about it in the comments section. As always if you enjoyed this blog, and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

The Return of Virtua Fighter, part 2...

The announcement of a new Virtua Fighter at the 2024 Game Awards was a pleasant surprise. The only reveal I was more excited about was a new game from Fumito Ueda, and his team at gen DESIGN. These were the people formerly on Team Ico at Sony Studios Japan. Both ICO, and Shadow of the Colossus were a revelation for me. The game reveals were also a little melancholy for me. A long time had indeed passed between titles. I’m talking about major life changes; new jobs, getting married, raising a kid before I saw another sequel. I began thinking of how much history I had with the games. I began thinking of how much the industry had changed throughout the decades. I especially began to focus on how my love of Sega games went back a few generations.

There was another reason why the game reveals made me reflect. You see in November of 2024 I celebrated my 50th birthday. It was a bittersweet time. A relative came down with a medical emergency in the fall of 2024. My wife sprung into action, and moved in to help take care of this person. The original plan was for a few days, maybe a week. That had turned into almost 4 months and counting. We were apart for our wedding anniversary, Halloween, my birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the New Year. The time, and distance had been heavy for us, especially with no reunion in sight. This health issue made me think of my own life, and mortality as well.

I realized that I’d been a fan of video games, and specifically fighting genre for almost as long as I’d been alive. Yet at no point did I ever think that it was time wasted. My first fighting game memory went back years before the creation of Street Fighter. It was the extremely rare Warrior by Vectorbeam. I was five-years-old when it came out. The innovative top-down view, sword combat, and painted background of the arcade cabinet sparked my imagination. It also made me realize that fighting games could be more than a boxing sim. They could be about knights, karate masters, and even dinosaurs! I would argue that 1984 was the most important year for the development of the fighting genre. This was two years before the original Street Fighter, and the template of the brawler was revealed through Renegade.

Punch-Out!!, Karate Champ, Yie Ar Kung-Fu, and Kung-Fu Master all came out in ’84. Each influenced the studios, and developers that would create the modern fighting game. I was grateful that I had a chance to play through them when they debuted. In fact I was born at the perfect time to experience the peak years of the arcade revolution. The memories I had of the dozens of arcades I frequented, and hundreds of games that I’d played were irreplaceable to me. I would not have changed one thing about the time I spent playing video games. Especially not after I discovered fighting games. I was grateful for each, and every title that I enjoyed over my time on Earth. Knowing that Virtua Fighter was getting a reboot, and celebrating 30 years made me realize that I first played the game when I was 20-years-old. This also meant that the architects of the genre were getting old too.

The masterminds behind Street Fighter, Fatal Fury, the King of Fighters, Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct, Tekken, Samurai Shodown, Virtua Fighter, and more were now in their 50’s, and 60’s. A few of them were retired, if not considering retirement. This meant that some games, and entire genres could potentially die off. It was important for the publishers to have younger talent take over the projects. New directors, and producers to be just as passionate about the genre as their mentors. This ensured that the games would continue to grow, evolve, and remain fresh. I wasn’t a fan of Yoshinori Ono as the producer of Street Fighter IV, and V. I did appreciate his enthusiasm, and how he pushed Capcom to bring the franchise back after almost a decade after SFIII had been released. I believe that his eye would have worked better on a series like Vampire / Darkstalkers.

I was much happier with the team putting together Street Fighter 6. Mr. Nakayma, Mr. Matsumoto, and Mr. Tsuchiya had been with Capcom for years. They were ready to slide into their new roles, and take over the franchise. They managed to honor the legacy of Street Fighter, Final Fight, and bring in elements from 40 years of Capcom games without breaking the continuity of the series. They were able to update the game play, the elements that modern audiences expected from a video game, and even help bring new players up to speed. Most important they were also young. They would be able to carry their passion, and insight to SF for years to come. Not every classic series had these types of directors. Many of those games faded away from relevancy once their creators left the studio.

It may seem hard to believe but Virtua Fighter was such an important game that it changed the direction of the industry. In 1991 Capcom already created a global phenomenon with Street Fighter II. This made every studio in Japan, and the US start developing their own fighting games. A few years later Sega demonstrated that 3D would be the next step in the process. Companies that weren’t already developing their own 3D engines were at a loss. They could however license the work from Sega for their own titles. Some gamers may not know this but the original Dead or Alive arcade game was built on the Model 2 engine, the same one that powered Virtua Fighter 2. The game’s creator Tomonobu Itagaki had been described as a creep. It was no surprise that the girls in his fighting game had very bouncy breast physics applied to their models. He left Tecmo with many of his Team Ninja developers to strike out on his own. He eventually closed his studio in 2024. Dead or Alive managed to make it to DOA 6 which was released in 2019, with no word on another sequel.

That was not to say that Virtua Fighter was a superior experience to Street Fighter II, or many other sprite-based fighting games from the early ‘90s. The game play was not as quick, or as intuitive as audiences were used to from 2D fighters. Visually however Sega was offering something that was unlike anything else in the arcade. When you saw a Sega 3D engine in a racing game, air combat, or Star Wars title then you immediately took notice. The visuals were so unlike anything else in the arcade that players were instantly drawn to them. In the early 1990’s 3D human models were still in their infancy. People were so blocky that the team at Sega referred to them as robots. They looked embarrassingly like somebody wearing cardboard boxes. To my knowledge the only fictional style in the original game was given to the ninja Kage-Maru. Yet it was still inspired my elements of actual ninjitsu.

Series creator Yu Suzuki knew what he was doing. Smooth, perfect 3D characters were not his goal. The team at AM2 were using every trick at their disposal to create a solid engine that they could improve upon. Knowing that people would look more realistic in every future iteration. The team also focused on creating a library of characters that represented a broad spectrum of fighting arts. Each sequel would introduce another fighting style. The brother, and sister team of Jacky, and Sarah Bryant used Bruce Lee’s very own Jeet Kun Do aka the Way of the Intercepting Fist. They were fast, flashy, and designed to appeal to western audiences. They were not the only relatives in the game.

The Chinese father, and daughter pair of Lau, and Pai Chan were central to the story as well. They were a sort of classic martial arts cinema archetype that was universally understood. Anyone that approached the game could tell that they used some form of kung-fu. Then there were the two heavy hitters in the game, the ones that I favored. The Native character Wolf Hawkfield, and the Caribbean Jeffry McWild. Although Wolf was light skinned it was nice to see some form of Native representation in a game. The same applied to Jeffry. The duo were so popular that they would appear in future pro wrestling games as well.

With a cast, and engine in place it was only a matter of time before the rival studios would have an answer to VF. The first would be Tekken. Namco had been going back-and-forth with Sega on everything they released. Just because they went from 2D sprites to 3D polygons didn’t mean the rivalry would end. There was not one genre where the two publishers did not have direct competition. Tekken floored audiences with their textured polygons. These stood apart from Sega's flat shaded polygons. Visually Tekken looked like the superior game, even if the frame rate or other elements weren’t as well done as VF. Each sequel from the two companies felt like a call, and answer.

The differences between the two games were tiny, but their impact to the community was tremendous. The four years from the release of the first VF in 1993 to Tekken 3 in 1997 was a technological leap. The improvement on textures, engine, animation, and frame-rate was apparent in the Virtua Fighter 2 arcade intro. Virtua Fighter was focused on realism rather than the more fantastic Tekken. By the time Sega released VF 3 the characters could not only turn their heads to follow opponents, but even turn their eyes as well. Not to mention when they stepped in sand, or snow they left tracks. Doing tiny things like having head tracking, showing damage, and even breathing was an unheard detail in any other game. Suddenly Capcom’s reputation as the best fighting game developer was in doubt.

Sega, and Namco had turned the fighting game community upside down in the mid-‘90s. This made every major publisher increase funding into 3D R&D, helping push the entire entertainment industry forward. What many people didn’t realize was that Sega, and Namco relied on outside contractors to help create next generation 3D graphics. Namco built their System-22 engine on simulator tech from Evans & Sutherland. Sega developed the Model 3 board with military-level technology from General Electric Aerospace Simulation & Control Systems. The two publishers created an arms race. This applied equally to arcade, and console developers. Whichever company could bring 3D graphics home for a reasonable price would win the war.

Sega was able to bring some 3D games home. They made a decent 16-bit adaptation of VF using the 32-X add-on for the Sega Genesis. A closer arcade-quality version would appear on the 32-bit Sega Saturn as well. Not to be outdone Namco partnered with Sony to create an arcade-perfect version of Tekken for the new Playstation console. Fighting games were not the only titles to help move consoles, but they certainly helped. The shift from 2D to 3D was pushed along thanks to Sega and Namco. More than 30 years had now passed. Mr. Harada, and his team were still keeping Tekken alive. Sega had drifted away from many of their biggest hits through the 2000's and 2010’s. How would Virtua Fighter become relevant once more, and especially with Mr. Suzuki talking about retirement? We’ll talk about it in the next blog. Were you a fan of 2D fighters, 3D fighters? How long had you been playing video games? I’d like to hear about it in the comments section. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

The Return of Virtua Fighter, part 1...

On December 12, 2024 the fighting game community was given an early Christmas present. During the annual game awards Sega revealed that there would be a new Virtua Fighter (VF). Sega would once again return to their roots in honor of the 30th Anniversary of the first 3D fighter. Needless to say this announcement made me, and millions of fans around the world extremely happy. The first details of the project would be revealed during a stream immediately following the awards show.

For those keeping track the last numbered VF entry was Virtua Fighter V in 2006. There were however various remixes for different platforms as recently as 2021. For long-time fans it seemed surreal that going into 2025 we might see the next evolution in the franchise that many of us thought was dead. In fact the idea of a resurrected game was more than coincidence.

The VF stream began with two lines from the poem Morning Has Broken by Eleanor Farjeon. This almost 100-year-old poem was designed to be a celebration of the Christian faith, without it necessarily calling out a specific Bible passage, or parable. The last part of the poem was particularly important considering they were reintroducing Virtua Fighter. 

Mine is the sunlight,

Mine is the morning,

Born of the one light Eden saw play;

Praise with elation,

Praise every morning,

God’s re-creation Of the new day.

After the poem the new developers were revealed. Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio aka Like A Dragon Studio would be doing the heavy lifting. The company was founded in 2011, however their core team went back to 1998 when they were known as Sega’s internal team AM11. Dragon Studio founder Toshihiro Nagoshi was the guy that created Super Monkey Ball, but he was also the mastermind behind the Yakuza series. Mr. Nagoshi had been with Sega for decades. He first joined the company in 1989, and helped bring Daytona USA to arcades. His insight to the series, his team of programmers, and artists were easily the best choice to reintroduce VF. I’ll talk more about the studio, and Mr. Nagoshi shortly.

The teaser for the game showed a mysterious figure in a back-alley fight. We only caught glimpses of the figure in a window reflection, or in a pool of water. Even without a clear look at the guy the eagle-eyed fans could identify him based solely on his attacks. The dashing elbow, and tetsuzanko (which was used to throw his opponent through a wall) were trademark moves for Akira Yuki. Yet this didn’t look like the character that we had come to expect. His jacket, hat, and uniform looked tattered. A good amount of time must had passed since we last saw him.

Akira was traditionally presented in the VF games as a young master with spiky hair, and a white headband. The martial artist was the star of the series, not unlike Ryu was for Street Fighter, or Terry was for Fatal Fury. This new presentation was shocking

The studio went out of their way to build up the dramatic tension with the mysterious fighter. We never got a clear look at him during any of the footage. Instead he was presented in shadow. We could see tears in his hat, and even what appeared to be bullet holes in his jacket. This acted as both a storytelling device, to let us know that our mystery man had been in some dangerous battles, but also to show off the next generation rendering of the characters. The realistic cut of his coat, faded colors, and wrinkles were a far cry from his earlier crispy white uniform. This was a more grounded, more experienced fighter.

After Akira threw the unknown opponent through a wall the teaser reveals the official return of the Virtua Fighter franchise.

The last few seconds of footage showed off what appeared to be Akira fighting with another star of the game. The blonde woman with a blue skin suit was assumed to be Sarah Bryant. However it was later revealed to be a character called Stella.

The stages were highly detailed, but they lacked any pedestrians or other people in the background. I don’t know if this was because it was very early in production, or if it was a design choice. In either case this was one of the most detailed environments that I had ever seen in a fighting game.

The few seconds of footage between Akira and Stella were among the most impressive of any modern fighting game. I mean more than just in terms of graphics, and animation. The way the moves, countermoves, blocks, and angles flowed between the two were dazzling. They were unlike the combat in Tekken, the nearest contemporary to the 3D franchise. The moves almost seemed choreographed the way the two traded strikes. They skirted the line between the realistic and the fantastic battle you might see in an action movie.

The weathered environment was stunning. It signaled a change in tone, and direction for the series. Yet at the same time it honored the legacy that came before. The world of Virtua Fighter had always been grounded in realism, and not necessary reality. The stages were often set around the world, and were often pristine environments. Now we were seeing a more subdued area, some place that might have been arounds for decades, possibly centuries. It was dirty, worn down, and essentially lived in.

The first high resolution shots of the featured characters were unveiled. Akira was rightfully labeled “The Legend is Back.” This was when most of us found out that the blonde in the early footage was named Stella. She was described as the “Bridge Between Worlds.” This gave fans of the franchise two possible ideas. The first that it was a mistranslation of Sarah. The other was that the youthful character was actually the daughter of Sarah Bryant. Her looks, and moves were spot-on for the iconic character. To many it didn’t make sense that she would be replaced.

The idea of a daughter being featured in a reboot of a franchise was not a new concept. The most recent example of that was with the character Cassie Cage from Mortal Kombat X in 2015. Cassie was a special forces agent that combined the moves of her parents, Sonya Blade, and the martial arts star Johnny Cage.

Sonya Blade was an icon in the fighting game community. She was the first notable western blonde in fighting game. Her military-inspired look actually predated Cammy in Super Street Fighter II by a year. I would argue that the Mount Rushmore of fighting game female characters should include her as well as Chun-Li, Mai Shiranui, and Nina Williams. The first few games of Mortal Kombat were sprite based, and not in 3D. It didn’t matter because Mortal Kombat gave the world a taste of western aesthetics, and confirmed to the Virtua Fighter, and Tekken teams that a strong blonde female character could be a star in their fighters as well.

Looking back at the history of the fighting game genre made me think about how unique Virtua Fighter was. It also made me realize that not a lot of people knew what it meant in context. The gaming industry was different 10 years ago, 20 years ago, and especially 30 years ago. High resolution 3D gaming was available today on every console, handheld, mobile, and even web browser. If you go back three decades high resolution 3D gaming wasn’t even possible. Back then the 2D sprites were the standard in the graphics department. This was not a bad thing, in many instances sprites were superior to 3D models when a studio was trying to capture a certain aesthetic.

Many arcade firsts came from Namco. At the start of the ‘80s their breakout racing hit was Pole Position. Yet the company knew that sprite graphics had a technological limit. So they started development on 3D engines while also cranking out arcade, and console hits. This investment in polygon rendering would pay off before the end of the decade. Winning Run came out in 1988. It was the first 3D racing game. Sega started development on 3D technology not too long after. Sega’s Virtua Racing would blow the genre wide open in 1992. The back-and-forth would lead to Sega and Namco having an amazing rivalry.

Sega had developed a number of racing video games in the late 1970’s that set the standard for the arcade. When Namco released Pole Position in 1982, and claimed the racing crown a friendly rivalry in the genre was launched. Both Sega, and Namco would try to beat each other every year in genre. The part that people tend to forget was who helped keep Sega one step ahead of their rivals.

The game designer / director / producer Yu Suzuki was a major reason why Sega succeeded in the arcade, and console markets. I had talked about Mr. Suzuki previously on the blog, calling him the racing fan that started a revolution. The thing that I did not realize was how much his passion, his insight helped make every game that he worked on into something truly special. Mr. Suzuki was a huge fan of motorsports, movies, pop culture, anime, and the like. The things that influenced him helped color the games he produced. The majority of Sega’s earliest arcade hits were created under his direction. To say that he was a brilliant game designer would be a severe understatement.

Mr. Suzuki seemed unrivaled with everything he created whether it was air combat, racing, shooting, and sci-fi titles. His games were all groundbreaking. It was his passion for racing, and his love of the Ferrari badge that really elevated the genre. One of his greatest hits was OutRun from 1986. It made everyone forget about Pole Position in the arcade. OutRun introduced a branching path, and rally narrative to arcade visitors. Each year the racing games he produced got better and better. His entry into 3D with Virtua Racing in 1992 made everyone forget about Namco’s Winning Run, and Driver’s Eyes.

I would argue that the tracks in Daytona and Super GT set a standard by which all racing games in the arcade would be measured. The peak of Mr. Suzuki’s influence came at the end of the ‘90s with the brilliant Scud Race aka Super GT. Visually the last 3D racing games he created were cinematic masterpieces, compared to the very simple pixel racing games that he started off with a decade earlier. The question was whether his vision could put Sega on the map for fighting games. Through the ‘80s, and of course early ‘90s Capcom had few peers. Sega needed a hit just to get noticed. Would Virtua Fighter be enough? We will talk a little bit more about it on the next blog (Saturday). Are you excited with the announcement? Will this be a game you get on Day 1, or will you wait and see? What do you think the series needs to really hit with the modern fighting game community?  I’d like to hear about it in the comments section. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

What about touch-based fighting games? - A 1UP Classic from April 7, 2011

Since fighting games are on the mind right now and the GDC had recently past I was reminded of an arcade fighter that came and went. SegaNerds covered Yu Suzuki talking about a cancelled fighting game project called Psy Phi. The veteran game designer and godfather of 3D fighters was trying to bring entirely new mechanics to the arcade with a touch screen based fighter. 

I mentioned this game years ago here and was not impressed when 1UP declared it the best game of the 2005 JAMMA show. I have tremendous respect for Mr. Suzuki but the game did not have groundbreaking gameplay elements. The idea of warriors with awesome psychic powers, or at the very least fighters that could fly are nothing new in gaming. These genres were done before the Dragon Ball Z series went 3D. The two best console standouts in the genre were Bastard! on the Super Famicom and Psychic Force on the Dreamcast.

 

I was never sold on the concept of a fighting game using touch screen controls. Requiring gamers to move and activate special moves by sliding their hands all over the screen seemed to make the game more complex than it had to be. Yu was trying to make a fighting game more accessible to gamers but I felt his control scheme was far too cumbersome. It would be easy to lose an opponent if they moved behind an arm as it crossed the screen. Plus most fighting games require quick reflexes and reaction times, having to move by clicking the corners of the screen would have slowed down the gameplay tremendously. Who wants to play a sluggish fighter after all?

   

What do you think of touch based gaming? Does it work on the small screen of the DS or iPad but lose it's practicality on a larger scale? I know my wife would love a MS Surface but what types of games work best on touch-based TV-sized displays? Perhaps a strategy game, StarCraft or the like would make more sense than a fighter. I know a Dawn of War on a table-sized monitor would be mad fun. What do you think? As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

A glimpse at the psychic fighting games

I had originally posted a blog on this topic on my old 1UP page, but sadly couldn’t save the HTML before the site was disabled. I did however have the images, and will try to put together the topic as best as I can remember. If you’re a regular on this blog you know that I like to talk about different types of fighting games, and bring back some little known titles. One of my favorites was based on the manga, and anime BASTARD!! Ankoku no Hakaishin (The Dark God of Destruction). My brothers, and I enjoyed playing import games in the early ‘90s. One of the benefits of living in the southland was being able to visit Little Tokyo where they had import games for a reasonable markup. We were literally watching Dragon Ball Z on VHS a month after they aired in Japan. Plus we were playing DBZ fighting game on the Super Nintendo while kids were waiting for Super Street Fighter II to come to come out on the same console.

The manga was high fantasy, with lots of violence, and nudity thrown in for good measure. It predated Berserk by years, and is owed its flowers. What separated it from other violent fantasy titles was that the characters had magic, and psychic attacks, in addition to their traditional swordplay. Adapting the series to a game format was Cobra Team, and SETA Corporation. They actually did a fantastic job recreating the flying/fighting mechanics on the 16-bit console. Most games based on a property were platform titles, you would follow the main character from stage to stage fighting the various bosses, in a Castlevania-tyope quest. Sometimes a licensed game would be a fighter, but those were sloppily done. But this was different. It was actually a brilliant game with a lot of originality.

You had a sort of behind the back mechanic where you could see your opponents in the distance, flying over the various kingdoms. You could circle each other, fly at each other, and change elevation slightly. As fresh as the gameplay was, it also made a clever use of the special attacks. In order to perform a special move you would use button combinations, and these were inspired by the magical seal attacks from the manga. You know, where the main character draws a sort of spell over a pentagram? These were things that had been seen several times in manga, and anime. Most notably in Fullmetal Alchemist. I was lucky to have picked up an issue of V-Jump magazine which let me know all the magical seal combinations of the main characters. It became intuitive after a few rounds of battles with my brothers.

This mechanic of drawing special attacks would pop up in RPGs, and other titles some years later, when touchscreens had entered the mainstream. But the idea for creating spell patterns with button combinations? That was all thanks to Bastard!!. Speaking of which, the manga, and game ended up setting a sort of standard that would predate the evolution of the Dragon Ball Z fighting games. The downside was that 3D flying, and fighting mechanics were difficult to present accurately using 2D sprites.

While Dragon Ball was known for its impressive fight scenes, there were other manga, and anime shows that showed combat that was equally unique. One of those was X / 1999, a series by CLAMP. The main characters looked like typical high school teenagers, however they fought using awesome psychic powers. Think about how Tatsumaki from One Punch Man, or Mob from Mob Psycho 100 fight in their respective shows. They’re able to fold buildings, and turn cities into rubble with just a glance. Mind you these archetypes were made popular in the early 1990’s. It was about that time when 3D models were replacing sprites in arcade games.

Taito took a chance on free floating 3D psychic combat in their cult hit Psychic Force. The arcade game from 1995 was a breath of fresh air. In a sea of 2D fighting games this one truly stood out. The characters had a heavy anime design to them, and players battled within psychic cubes, this contained the force of their attacks, and prevented innocent civilians from getting hurt. You could float in three dimensions, and direct close, and ranged attacks at your opponent. It was an even more polished version of the Bastard!!, and Dragon Ball flying mechanics. Its sequel Psychic Force 2012 came out in 1998, and was published on multiple consoles including the Sega Dreamcast. I urge you to track down a copy if you have a DC, or play on an emulator. It’s still a fresh game.

With the exception of the more recent Dragon Ball games the free-floating fighting game genre seemed to hit a dead-end at the end of the 20th century. That was until Psy-Phi was announced by Sega, and actually demoed in 2005. It was the first new fighting game designed by Yu Suzuki, the legendary mind behind many of Sega’s biggest hits, including Virtua Fighter. His goal was to completely rewrite the fighting genre, while at the same time making it more accessible to audiences. He saw the limitations of gamers using frame data, and other gameplay nuances to take the creativity out of fighting. So he designed a touch screen interface. And rather than rely on quick reactions like a martial arts game would demand, his characters had psychic powers, so there was more strategy involved in each battle.

It was a good idea in theory, but for more than a decade I worked in a computer lab. I knew how reliable touch screen technology could be. Not only that, I knew how filthy monitors would get after a few hours of playing. There was no way you would have convinced me, or my brothers to put our fingerprints all over a display, and pick up some nasty germs. I had no idea how Sega was going to handle that question, or how much it would cost arcade operators to buy touch screen games. What would the maintenance have been on these screens, or whether the technology was even viable in the arcade.

The character designs in Psy-Phi were nice, but not memorable. They didn’t seem to break any new ground as far as influences went. I’m glad that Mr. Suzuki, and Sega were willing to try out new ideas, but it seemed so far out of left field I couldn’t help but wonder if the studio was simply trying to see if their technology was even viable. Shortly after this demo Sega, and a number of other studios started releasing card-based games in the arcade. Where you could play your physical cards on screen, these included sports games, as well as RPGs. In futbol / soccer games you could actually field your players, and choose what formation you wanted to use based on the card placement on the screen. This allowed you to change formations in the middle of the game, as a good manager would be able to do in real life. These mid 2000’s games seemed to last a while, but never took off outside of Japan. I think it had something to do with relying on the technology.

Psy-Phi would be hard to bring to consoles without touch displays as well, or some sort of new controller. For anybody that has a stack of unused guitars, conga drums, and dance pads in their collection could tell you that games with peripherals did not usually last very long. What do you think? Would you have liked a chance to play a touch screen fighting game? Were you a fan of psychic characters in games, or pop culture? Did you ever play any rare import games at home, or in the arcade? Tell me about it in the comments section. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!