The Best Way To Look At VF5R, VF5FS & VF5US

We had Virtua Fighter 4, then Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution (released as greatest hits) and then Virtua Fighter 4 Final Tuned ( I believe not released outside of Japan). To my knowledge these were the last Virtua Fighter games worked on by Yu Suzuki. These versions were the last versions to represent the true vision of the Virtua Fighter philosophy.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-07-14-virtua-fighter-4-evolution-retrospective

You could look at VF4 Evo, and VF4 Final Tuned as expansion packs to Virtua Fighter 4. Together VF4 + VF4 EVO + VF4 Final Tuned represent the complete game or the complete concept of Virtua Fighter to that point.

Virtua Fighter 5 was more-or-less the culmination in one package of VF4 , VF4 Evo and VF4 Final Tuned.

Now we have Virtua Fighter 5, Virtua Fighter 5R, Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown and Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown. The best way to look at VF5R, VF5FS and VF5US is as expansion packs for Virtua Fighter 5. Together VF5, + VF5R, + VF5FS + VF5US represent the complete version or the complete concept for Virtua Fighter 5 up to now. So if past is prologue Virtua Fighter 6 will be more-or-less the culmination in one package of VF5, VF5R, VF5FS, VF5US.

Clearly VF5US cannot stand-alone as is. At best its an e-sports expansion pack of Virtua Fighter 5. Sega never really knew how to market Virtua Fighter. They should have just called the version extensions expansion packs from the beginning. Clearly, RGG studios and their Dragon engine are still working out particle effects, fabric effects, weather effects, environmental effects (water, rain, snow, fire, etc.), and skin color palettes. Note that the current stages in VF5US lack the environmental nuances that VF5, VF5R, VF5FS have. And the latest customization DLC does not include any way to change skin tone. But to be fair RGG and Dragon does have the lighting effects tackled. So possibly once the RGG team gets the Dragon engine and their developers up to speed those other elements will be added back to the game. I don't remember very many environmental effects in the latest Yakuza games or Judgement games. Maybe the Dragon engine is not yet capable of certain types of environmental effects, fabric effects, or skin tone palette customization. Or perhaps the developers don't know the Dragon engine well enough

So if we look at VF5US as an expansion pack to Virtua Fighter 5 that the RGG Dragon designers/developers are using to practice , figure and port all the nuances of Virtua Fighter, then we can understand and tolerate the visual presentation bugs, jaggies, resolution down grades, mesh effect for the semi-transparent walls, the missing graphical presentation nuances, and the lack of enable/disable options under display settings. Clearly VF5US is a work in progress and probably about 1 to 2 years away from being complete. It will probably take the Dragon team that long to properly and completely build all of the software libraries, particle effects, facial models, net code improvements, etc.

Virtua Fighter 5 was the last complete VF game we had. And it largely represented Yu Suzuki's vision of Virtua Fighter. We won't have another complete version of VF until Virtua Fighter 6 which will likely represent Seiji Aoki's vision for Virtua Fighter IMO the best way to play VF5US is to play it along with and in the context of VF5, VF5R & VF5FS. That way it can be seen as a basic e-sports expansion of Virtua Fighter 5 In its current form VF5US simply cannot be seen or understood as the definitive version of Virtua Fighter that Seiji Aoki says it is

 

Whether it's one of the many that left VF because they hated VF5 FS, or those that still stuck around during VF5 FS to now VF5 US, I think we can all agree with that statement.