Calling All Who Played Virtua Fighter 1 Back In the Day!

Hi, all. My name is Khanage, and you might have seen that Myke posted my 'Complete History of Virtua Fighter 5' video on the front page of VFDC a short while ago. The positive reception to that video inspired me to make another video regarding Virtua Fighter, but this time, I'll be discussing the first game in the series' graphics and how impactful they were on critics, consumers and the industry at large both back in the 90's and in the modern day.

If you were around back then and played/saw VF1 either in arcades or on the Sega Saturn at home, please post your thoughts about the game from back then in this thread. If you don't mind, I'll be collecting everyone's quotes to use in my video. Finding quotes online about the game is good, but I want to go the next step and collect personal, individual thoughts from VF fans who experienced the game during the 90's to add some credibility to my video.

Thank you!

TLDR: If you played VF1 back in the day and had any thoughts about the graphics, please post them here so I can use them for a video I'm working on about the game

 

Ha, passed by to see if there was any news after a year or so and stumbled upon something I might have something to add to. Long winded memory lane stuff, here we go!

Ok, disclaimer up front: VF2 was the first one in the series I ever saw live on a cabinet and that thing blew me away. I come from a mid sized town in the Netherlands, there was no arcade scene to speak of. The only arcade I know of shut down in the mid nineties, right in the middle of the fighting game boom, so I don't think fighting games were ever a thing. I saw that VF2 Cab in France somewhere, La Rochelle perhaps?


But my first exposure to VF was not long after the release on the Saturn and seeing it being played on tv. People obviously not knowing what buttons to press, but even with crappy gameplay my early teen ass was already dreaming up scenarios of how cool it would actually look with proper players. I was definately in that group of kids who already imagined seeing sidestepping in VF before it was ever implemented.

I got my hands on the game for the first time years later when my parents got a pc that weirdly came with an extra card that fitted a pair of provided Saturn controllers. Two games were supplied with it and I played them to death. Panzer Dragoon and Virtua Fighter Remix (that's VF1 with a bit polished up graphics and the ability to play as Dural).

So in between matches of Counter-Strike and Team Fortress Classic I kept my interest in fighting games alive by replaying arcade mode on my own with every character again and again and again. This must have been around 1997, and even after all these years (digital era years are loooooong) VF1 was still being used as a showcase of what graphics could look like and it absolutely worked on me.

It took me some time to get used to the controls and find a movelist. I couldn't reliably reproduce many of the moves (Akira's slide by move was my unicorn [bk][df][p] I believe) and even with the small moveset the various characters absolutely had their own fighting styles. With the low kick and punch always being among the most useful tools in every ones arsenal of course.


So yeah, even years after its release VF was still graphically impressive. And its been in the back of my mind ever since. When I picked up fighting games again years later VF4Evo was my game of choice and the release of VF5 got me stoked to actually challenge other people in any kind of competitive sense. In many ways it all started with those glimpses on tv and that one time I saw an actual cabinet and seeing my imagination exploded into reality.

 

I remember seeing Virtua Fighter as a kid at seaside arcades. It was really impressive to see human characters built from polygons, since most of the prior 3D arcade games were racing or space themed, but the thing that struck me the most was the animation of the fighters. The way they moved just seemed so much more lifelike than any other game, and even if I didn't have any coins left I'd just stare at the attract mode.

Of course, if I did have money then I'd try to play as Akira, because he fit the image of a martial artist that I had from going to karate classes. Between my young age and Akira's beginner-unfriendly nature, I totally sucked, and that's why I grew up into a Jacky player.

 

The first time I saw VF1 was in a gaming magazine, that also covered MK3, the sega saturn, and the PS1. At that time, I wasn't impressed by the blocky 3d characters, and being someone who liked 2d fighting games like Street Fighter 2, Samsho, Fatal Fury, Fighters History and World Heroes, I thought 3d graphics were a gimmick, to hype up the Saturn and Playstation 1 consoles.

A few years later, I saw the arcade version of VF1, and VF2, and despite the blocky graphics in VF1, it looked more impressive, and played way better, than the Tekken 1, 2 and 3 games close to it. And it looked more impressive, than how it looked in the gaming magazine I read years ago. And by watching the gameplay, and playing it for a few minutes, it was easy to see, VF1 was not a basic arcadey gimmicky fighting game, like tekken and the other 3d copycats out there, and it was not as gimmicky as I thought, when I saw it in that game magazine years ago.

The first character I ever played was Sarah. I didn't know her moves though, but the game felt solid in contrast to Tekken 3 which was unfortunately, my first 3d fighting game.

By that time when I first played VF1, VF3 was already out in arcades, but not in certain parts of my country. And both the dreamcast and VF3tb, were going to be released in a few months in the west.

The only reason why I hardly played VF1, was because I had pre final exams and that game might have interfered with my school work. It was easy to play tekken and do school stuff, because tekken's gameplay even to this day, is a no brainer. But VF, in this case VF1, was a martial arts fighting game, and if I played it too much, I might have been thinking up stategies to defeat the cpu and opponents, instead of doing home work, or school work.

After seeing it in person for the first time, and playing it for a while, did I begin to appreciate VF1, and the VF series. And I realised this game was quite an achievement, and a trend setter, for the world of video games, fighting games, and 3d fighting games.

Unfortunately, I have never played it on saturn.

But after completing school many years ago, I started playing VF4 Evo and VF3tb alot, and never stopped. "Oh my Gosh, does this mean I'm a VF addict? Say it isn't so? Ahhhhhhhh!!!!"

 

I first saw VF1 on the TV and was impressed with it. All I knew up to that point was 2d fighters but I was longing for something more realistic and grounded like a martial arts movie. VF1 and the introduction of 3d fighters looked like they could be that. I never got to play it as it didn't seem to be a commonplace arcade like SF2, Mortal Kombat and SNK games. Those were everywhere, especially SF2. Tekken and Killer Instinct were also games I didn't find but would later play on console. I never had or knew anyone with a Saturn so I never played VF1 or 2 on console either.

VF3 was the first VF I actually played when on a trip into the city where the big arcades were. That game had the best graphics of anything I'd ever seen on any system. I got it on Dreamcast a few years later. I really liked the feel of the game and the fact they had added a dodge button (which I wish they'd never taken away).