Editorial

What should you do when you are not 100% sure if your opponent will attempt a throw? A good option is to input/buffer a throw escape! In Final and Ultimate Showdown, you can only choose to escape one throw direction at a time. In "Chanchai's Throw Escape Theory", Chanchai gives his opinion on what throw escape direction you should choose. You can read his article on his Evernote Blog and discussed the topic here or in his VFDC thread.

Hey guys, It's Jed. At the request of @MadeManG74 , i'll be writing a short post on something major that happened to VF recently.

Some new advancements in Naomi 2 emulation have recently been made by Flyinghead, the same guy who brought rollback netcode to VF3tb last year. VF4, VF4EVO, and VF4FT are now all supported by Flycast which has built in Rollback Netcode, Training Mode, and some nice QOL features that make getting into VF4 much easier and more fun in 2022.

Kurita and kbj had a lengthy Dengeki Online interview with Seiji Aoki, producer of VF5US (VFes in Japan). This was posted at the end of last year, December 28, 2021. It covers a wide range of topics related to Virtua Fighter. The original article is in Japanese, but there is also a good twitter thread translation by GSK. Below is a full translation of the interview:

According to SankeiBiz news article, it was revealed on October 14th and published in an "integrated report" by Sega Sammy Holdings, that the cumulative sales of the Virtua Fighter series is over 18 million units.

Which characters are being played the most? How many people are playing the game online? Those are some of the questions I tried to address by collecting and summarizing data from the in-game PSN ladders. This article is divided into three parts: 1) Survey of the characters used; 2) Survey of the player accounts; and 3) Now that free PS+ period has ended, what is next?

For veterans of the VF series this is going down memory lane; and for a new generation of VF fans, a story worth telling. This is about the Tetsujins in the 1990s before the internet and the term "esports" was commonly known. Sega officially named Shinjuku Jacky, Kashiwa Jeffry, K.K. Yukikaze, Ikebukuro Sarah, Bunbunmaru, and Kyasao as Tetsujins. The latter 3 had a roundtable discussion with Den Faminico Gamer (in Japanese) about a week after the release of Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown (Virtua Fighter esports in Japan).

You look at the online ranking ladders in Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown and majority of the top ranking players are from Japan. For those of us who do not follow the Japan VF scene, those names might lack any meaning to you. On twitter, Hima Jean started a series to introduce the people behind those names.

In this final episode on Harada's Bar series with VF5US/VFes producer Seiji Aoki, Aoki-san shares his thoughts on how practicing Martial Arts gives one a different outlook on life, reveals a couple of his (many) interesting hobbies, seeing ghosts and, as teased in the opening, his favourite kusoge!

You have downloaded Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown and not sure how to play or get better at the game? Recently joined VFDC member Shenshun documents his "journey in this thread to hopefully help other newcomers get into the series."

In this episode of Harada's Bar, Harada continues his interview with VF5US/VFes producer Seiji Aoki where they talk about SEGA's marketing, how VF fans had given up hope like "people who have grown afraid of love", Aoki-san's commitment to developing the community within eSports, admission that the game wasn't 100% ready upon release and, oh, you know, a little thing like a Team Battle feature in an upcoming update! Also, did he just drop a cheeky hint at VF6 with the takoyaki!?