Why I Dropped Tekken 3 for Virtua Fighter 4

I had seen Street Fighter in the arcades and it was just too cartoony for me. Although I'm into anime and manga, I just couldn't stomach fire balls, flying and the other whacky stuff that was going on in Street Fighter. When I seen Mortal Kombat's photo realistic characters and their somewhat realistic kung fu moves, I jumped on it. I played Mortal Kombat I, & II for a while. But me and the fam got Tekken 2 and a PS1 for Christmas and that was it

Tekken 2's 3D combat, realistic stages, tough ass martial arts presentation sold me. Tekken 2 had far more realism than Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. The roster was tight(mostly), and I was down with Lei Wulong. Five Animal Kung Fu all day long against family and friends. The immersion was great. Tekken 3 came out and I immediately jumped on it. The graphics were even nicer, the martial arts moves even smoother. The TaeKwonDo, KungFu, Karate, etc., all nice, very nice and awesome stages. In my own mind I was a Tekken beast

But when I eventually saw an advertisement for Virtua Fighter in a game magazine I couldn't believe my eyes. One of my mates invited me to check it out. The beauty, the simplicity, the stages, the realistic flow of movement and body contact, the totally believable Jujitsu, kungFu, Jeet KunDo, Wrestling, Pankration, Bajiquan, Drunken KungFu, Praying Mantis, etc we're all beautiful and immersive beyond belief. And to top it off Virtua Fighter had none of the things I hated from Tekken

Although Mortal Kombat had more realism than Street Fighter, and Tekken had more realism than Mortal Kombat, I couldn't get with the fighting bears, kangeroos, the hit sparks, and the whirlwinds, I think there was a fighting dinosaur in there somewhere But I tolerated all of that nonsense because the martial arts that were in the game were on point. However, in comes Virtua Fighter 4 with none of those shenanigans, no flying, no floating halfway across the stage, no hit sparks, no fighting pandas, no fighting grizzly bears, no Devils with ray beams, just clean, beautiful, believable, immersive , fun martial arts combat. Virtua Fighter 4 was bliss. Kumite Mode, Train your own AI partner, Customization (Tekken had none at that time).


I dropped Tekken 3 for Virtua Fighter 4 and Virtua Fighter became a game that I have put thousands of hours into. Sure I would pick up Tekken and play here and there (mostly on holidays with fam), but VF was my game. It was so clean, so focused on martial arts styles and totally no nonsense. Beautiful animations, legit representations of all kinds of martial arts, a totally valid roster, beautiful stages, and balanced! Virtua Fighter just felt fair. It felt like you could just as easy win with any character as you could lose with any character. It was the perfect fighting game.

I am very worried about the Virtua Fighter Reboot. RGG and Seiji Aoki worship the ground that Tekken and Street fighter is played on. The first thing Seiji Aoki did when he was handed the reigns of Virtua Fighter was to deface its graphics by adding those hideous hit sparks. Then he added those abominable Tekken Skins, and Tekken UI. Now he wants to redesign Virtua Fighter with a modern look and feel I fear for the worse

It seems RGG and Seiji Aoki want to take Virtua Fighter in the direction of explosions, kangeroos, flying, floating, blast-offs, weapons, dematerializing - rematerializing, hit sparks, glowing, power ups, super moves, unblockable, unstoppable bulls#it, gimmicks, color flashes, rage art, come-back mechanics, fireworks for the spectators. In fact, of all the improvements, RGG and Seiji Aoki mentioned for the game, martial and genuine fighting styles were not in the list

Sure I still have and play VF4, V4EVO, VF5, and VF5FS. But I left Tekken for VF's realism, now it seems there will no longer be a difference between realism in Tekken and the realism in Virtua Fighter Put another way, it seems that Virtua Fighter 6 will be just as fake and phony as Tekken 7, and Tekken 8. If that turns out to be true it will be
a sad day for Arcade Fighter games and great loss martial arts representation in video games

If I had known Virtua Fighter would eventually devolve into Tekken, I might have switched to the UFC games a long time ago