The Next Generation of VF Players

There is a new generation of VF players right now in the making. Players who are not from the old days of arcade fighters and arcade sticks. Players who don't necessarily crave the pyrotechnics, combo-heavy floating, fireballs, flying, explosions, fighting kangeroos, and pandas from the arcade fighters of the 1990's and early 2000's. Players that appreciate Virtua Fighter for its beauty, elegance, sophistication, depth, diversity, simplicity, efficiency, graphics, and stages. Players who admire the fact that VF is unlike the rest of the fighting games out there.

Perhaps this new generation of VF Players will fully appreciate VF for what it is and how it works and promote it among a different new circle of players and build a different kind of VF scene based on VF5FS and previous iterations of VF. Perhaps the COVID pandemic opens opportunities for VF to be understood and played among new players with fresh ideas about martial arts simulation type games. Unfettered by addiction to paradigms of bouncing, floating, launching and frame counting. I've played some new players to VF recently that aren't burdened with all of the preconceived notions of what a fighting game should be. They were drawn to VF precisely because it is not Tekken and the game play "feels so much better". These two guys didn't even know what 2D fighting games were It was refreshing to say the least.

Its entirely possible that the real promise of the future of VF5 FS and its previous iterations will be realized by the next generation of VF players that eschew all of the shenanigans of arcade fighting games like Tekken, SF, MK, BB, etc and recognize that VF is elite, superior and the direction that FG should be moving in.

If there are future versions of VF, the next version would be well served to convert all (every single one) of the floating animations into staggers, stumbles, and crunch animations so that VF can become what it was always meant to be, and forever distance itself from the pedestrian arcade brawler that is epitomized in Tekken 7

 

Yeah, with the stinky covid still going around, sega should take advantage of this moment, and release Virtua Fighter with online play, on Switch, tablets, PC, Mac, Linux and other console platforms. Or just release a big collection with all of the VF games so we can play VF4 online.

 

I truly wonder why they didn't put a more complete arcade port in Yakuza 6 and Judgment. They could have at least allowed the player to set the number of rounds, amount of health , difficulty and Route of the Arcade Mode. Its puzzling why they didn't at least go that far once they ported the game to the PS4.

 

Yeah, other people on this forum, including myself, have wondered the same thing too.