Early VF4 builds and different designs ? A VF4 demo on Dream Cast ?

Hello, I was literally on call and it was thankfully calm so I started watching my fav things on YouTube and of course some VF.

I came across old VF4 trailers one I managed to save is https://youtu.be/J9ORCsWMbVw

Some of the characters displayed showed smoother early textures , but in Aoi's situation I think she has a design that's closer to her VF3 ? Do we have early renders somewhere ?

Also, I remember coming across

https://youtu.be/RZEVyIqPMI8


I am fairly certain you can get this online but has anybody tried it ?

 

Yeah, I just watched it. That Aoi really looks like VF3 Aoi.

VF4 was actually built to run on the dreamcast, and was supposed to be released on the dreamcast, but then sega pulled the plug on that console, a few months later. And then the game ended up on PS2. Many sega fans were not happy, about both of those decisions.

Concerning the demo, a few people on dreamcast talk, were asking for the demo a few months ago.

 

Super cool, thanks for sharing! Aoi's hairstyle definitely does have the same "triangular" look from VF3 vs the straighter hairdo from 4. I noticed this video in the related links for that trailer, which gives us another look at that scene 35 seconds in. According to the Sega Retro page for VF4, GDS-0012C is the product code for the GD-ROM release of VF4, so I wonder if the second footage is from an older/in-progress release of an emulator? And it's definitely too bad we never got VF4 on the Dreamcast

Also I hope everything is going well on call!!

 

Yeah the 2nd video is from a pretty old version of Demul emulating the arcade version of vanilla 4.

 

Yeah beta versions of Virtua Fighter 4 had a lot of differences like win poses appearing between games like in the first 3 games, different character renders, some location test builds didn't even have Vanessa yet, and some stages had different layouts, different win poses, different voice clips (some of which had explicit language in them) like Wolf saying: "No Bullsh*t" you can hear it here: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme...5632/Synth_vo_wolf_51_vo_vfx_wolf11_2.aif.wav

I found this in a rip of Vanilla 5 X360 voices, that game has basically all the used voice lines and a good number of unused clips from VF3 to VF4 and of course VF5 (and i say a good number of unused lines because i think it's not everything someone told me that LA_Akira told him like in 2007 that in early versions of VF4 that Jacky told the opponent to eat sh*t, but i couldn't find that line), I know this was made for VF4 because it has VFX in the game which was the working title for VF4, talking about unused lines all characters also had voice lines related to prize/money matches here are some quotes from Wolf:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme...623/Synth_vo_wolf_51_vo_vf41_wolf_175.aif.wav
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme...948/Synth_vo_wolf_51_vo_vf41_wolf_179.aif.wav
It seems the idea of prize matches quotes got removed late in development because these files are labeled as VF41 which is what most VF4 voice clips are referred in Vanilla 5's files.

Also here's another interesting voice line: Akira saying "heart is more important thing, Wolf'' listen: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme...92988/Synth_vo_akira_51_vo_akira51_02.aif.wav
This seems to also be from the VFX/VF4 era since the file was between other VFX and VF4 stuff, maybe VF4 was originally intended to have quotes for certain character interactions or maybe lines like this one could have been part of a story endings or prologues which probably got scrapped early on, who knows but i think it's likely consider one of the things Yu Suzuki wanted to accomplish with VF4 was to give the characters more personality and what better to do than giving characters stuff like more interactions between each other or story in the game?

In my opinion the VF4 series seems to have been the last innovative VF in the series, it's easy to see they had a big scope for the game but they were still limited by the technology and budget they had the time, It's a shame VF5 didn't try to revisit and expand some of the concepts VF4 experimented with early on.
But that's just my opinion...

 

I think VF4 is probably the best in the series counting VF4E.

I think it was just too strong when it released and it was a technical powerhouse. I remember Lei's arena floor would break within two layers depending on the character landing.

The snow arena as well, the snow would move nicely and was probably the only game doing that at the time. So from the technical point of view it was very very strong. The female characters had better facial designs than 5.

Gameplay wise too, it was certainly less accessible than 5 and 5FS. 4 Vanilla's Akira was high level for sure.

I love 5 and FS and I mainly play 5FS these days but 4 and 4E are still as playable as 5 and has stood the test of time so well.

I wish somebody stored the early version of 4 and kept some videos and file... I am sure we have it somewhere.

Also, on the side note, VF4' Stand is probably the best fighting game's character select screen... Maybe better than VF1's.

 

Yeah, I like the VF4 games too.

 

Don't forget the best version of VF4 "Final Tuned"

 

Do you think we can find the beta early renders online anywhere ? I tried scrolling some of the Japanese sites but no luck at all.

In this video, you can clearly see that Akira and Sarah had different renders... Also Aoi's and Lion's but it's sad the scroller didn't pass by them

https://youtu.be/gLCKYrPb7-k

 

I still wish VF4 was released on dreamcast as it was supposed to. It really sucks that it got cancelled, and ended up on PS2. 20 years later and it still hurts alot of fans.