Virtua Fighter™ 2

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Virtua Fighter 2 Genesis on Sega Genesis. Or Virtua Fighter 2 Mega Drive, subtitle depends on region. Original VF2, a 3D fighting game, came out on Arcade in 1994, made by Sega AM2. And this 2D “demake” was released right at the end of console's life in the beginning of 1997, only in the West. It's believed that it was ported by Gaibrain, published by Sega. Maybe some more outsourcing. And it's actually much more like the first Virtua Fighter too, lacking two new characters from VF2 and some moves as well. 32 Megabit ROM, maximum one that console can handle at a time.
This is where I talk about other versions but Genesis port is the black sheep here. Saturn, Arcade, PC, they all are good “proper” versions.

The game that you have here is nothing more than emulation of Sega Genesis version.


Now, technical part about Sega's emulation here:
The Sega Classic games that you purchase on Steam count as DLCs for "Sega Mega Drive & Genesis Classics" game that should appear in your library.
It has Bedroom HUB which is the one with many features yet lags for many and Simply Launcher which lacks Workshop and Online but at least it works just fine for everybody.
However, Simple Launcher has it's fair share of glitches as well. It can crash. And it does the second time you go to main menu, so always quit after saving there so it doesn't crash when you want to save next time!
Emulation itself, mostly sound, isn't that good but it does it's job. Also, yes, emulator supports quick saves.
As alternative, you can use external emulator to run games that you purchased. Sega kindly placed in all games that you purchased in "uncompressed ROMs" folder that program itself doesn't use. The file for this one being "VIRTUAFIGHTER2.bin".
I also demand you to read digital manual of this game first. You can find it here on store page or go to "manuals" folder of game root and open "VF2_PC_MG_EFIGS_US.pdf".

Has online (in Bedroom HUB only) and local multiplayer.

You should look up at original manual or on Gamefaqs for movelist for fighters.

Game uses 6-button gamepad there, you have to set controls in key assign menu at in-game options to “Type 3”. Uses those additional 3 buttons for shortcuts like “Guard+Punch”.


This is the second World Fighting Tournament, held one year after the last one. Lau Chan had won that one.
There.
You want more lore?
Sarah Bryant has blood type AB. I guess she can donate blood only to herself in this game. Because mirror matches.
Well, apparently in Japan there is a belief in cutlure that people with certain blood types have certain personality, so here is that.

Yea, devs at a time didn't want to create a good lore for this fighting game, wanting players to associate better with characters. And in this version you get no endings, just credits scrolls.

So, Virtua Fighter 2 Genesis. A 3D fighting game turned into 2D. It actually isn't as big of a loss. Original didn't make much use of the third axis. There was a roll to the side when you was down and some moves would knock enemy down to the side. I guess there was feet aligment, but it's not Tekken where you have “right punch” and “left punch”, it just meant that it was easier to throw sometimes. What 3D brought to Virtua Fighter was the way that 3D animates: Smooth animation so you can have high FPS to see the attack coming. And skeleton animation so you don't have to create reaction animation individually, albeit a bit later on, as VF1 didn't have it.

But even then, Genesis is still able to keep the brutal fast close-ranged combat going there. VF is more on realistic side compared to others, there are no fireballs or such. You got only three buttons. Guard, Punch and Kick. Most characters have simple combos where they do three punches at much and then strong kick. And I think you can Guard sometimes inbetween these two parts.. Fast yet high damage without making me study the input, so I can get to “outplay” part of game instead of “learn 100 hit combo”. A bit of juggling too. There are not only low and high but middle attacks too. Double tap direction for a quick step. Got throws as moves too, they always work on blocking enemies otherwise it depends on whether character is crouching.

But then there is old VF problem of moon jumping. The early VF games had gravity set low. You don't jump in these VF games like you would do in others. Genesis also cuts moves and few features. There is not a single move to punch in air. Very few features come from VF2, making it feel like the first one. There is a thing where if you press G+P as soon as opponent presses own G+P, which is universal throw move for all characters, character will escape the throw, pushing each other away. Doesn't work with other throws. And there are reversal moves that you press as opponent is about to attack. Here only Pai Chan and Akira get them, leaving the slow grabbers that are Wolf and Jeffery very sad. They do feel the hardest to play in this game. Though Akira's moves were hard to pull off on gamepad too for me. Furthermore, for reversal you kinda have to guess if opponent is about to attack, there aren't enough frames before attacks made in this game. You also can't trick opponent by guarding almost as soon as you input a move.

Iit's fast and personal compared to other fighting games. The health of characters is lower than usual, time limit is small so time out is a legit tactic, there are ring outs too and you can use it to advantage as well. The game is also slower than actual VF2 however yet choppier, not the best combination.

As for modes, it's all sad. There is only single-player arcade and multiplayer versus mode. That's all. Usually devs make up more modes when they port games to weaker consoles but not here. Furthermore, opponents you fight in ladder aren't randomized. You always start with easy Lau Chan and go up to Akira. It was like this in early VF games too, here it just adds salt to the wound. And yep, only 8 characters from VF1. Plus Dural that you can play with a cheat, a legit non-cheap character. That's a final boss and you play at half-speed at her stage. She counts as bonus stage that you get only one try at, you get credits any way so it doesn't matter whether you win or lose.

There are options. You can actually adjuct life meter of each player, even make them take no damage. Yes, works for single-player. You can adjuct time limit or remove it. Can set amount of wins required per match, up to three. I guess these settings make up for lacking modes. And can set difficulty of computer AI. Plus, controls and sound test.

And graphics. When I started game my main reaction was “where did those 32 Megabits go?!”. Yep. It looks rather poor. Instead of using such occasion to draw some awesome 2D animation they just seemingly screenshotted all the 3D stuff and downgrated it to Genesis limitations. And even then that did a poor job, there are only five arenas palette swapped, with ugly repeated tiles. Especially the final Dural underwater arena, it looks like it got Windows XP jpeg'd and not a single water special effect was applied.
And voice samples are all as scratchy as it gets. At least music is more or less fine, even if it's not that good.

Overall, it's not a bad game on it's own. After all, you got all the hot core gameplay of Virtua Figther on your Genesis. But it could use more frames of animation, badly. And it just could be so much better. SNES Killer Instinct it's not. Shame that it's the only version that Sega bothers to rerelease all time.

I recommend that you not buy this game. It's the Genesis version, NOT the Saturn one. Don't bother with it.

If you have played this game on Sega Genesis, then you'll feel at home. But if you had the PC version, you better find it, 'cause it ain't the same game. There is no 3D and the new characters (Lion Rafale and Shun-Di) are missing. Also, only Arcade and Versus modes, major drawback from original PC version.

As a previous PC version owner, I do not recommend.