Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. Review - Your Dad’s 3D Fighter

When SEGA and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios announced the development of a new Virtua Fighter title, they also announced a game to tide us over and build hype - Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. Being the fifth and likely final refresh of Virtua Fighter 5, VF5 R.E.V.O. brings the beloved 3D fighter to the Steam crowd with game balance changes, 4K visuals, and rollback netcode. But will these features be enough for new players and old fans to get hooked onto a decades-old fighting game once again? From what the current build of the game has shown us, the answer may be rougher than Jeffrey McWild’s beard.

Like a Fighter

Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. is a rebalanced version of Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown (or Virtua Fighter 5 E-Sports in Japan), which is itself a remastered version of Virtua Fighter 5, released on Japanese arcades and on PS Plus/PS4 back in June 2021. Thanks to Like a Dragon devs RGG Studios, the game has been remastered with a fresh coat of paint using their very own Dragon Engine, which was used to great effect in the Like a Dragon games. It is one of the faster, more grounded 3D fighting games, which I can only describe as easy to get into but deceptively hard to master. 

The game uses a 3-button format where you fight with PUNCH, KICK and GUARD buttons, then perform a plethora of actions using combinations of these 3 buttons, such as throws, hard hitting complex attacks, and defensive moves such as blocking, throw breaks, and sidestepping via tapping up or down. The game guarantees that whichever character you use, their move list is massive and as deep as your favorite Tekken brawler. Learning a character and getting through their move list in Training Mode will take around 30 minutes. Applying those skills in matches and getting comfortable with them will take months to master.

Everybody was Kung-Fu Fighting

Speaking of the game’s diverse cast of characters, each martial artist in Virtua Fighter 5 uses fighting styles you’ve seen before. You’ve got characters using real-life martial arts, like Jacky Bryant repping Jeet Kune Do or Jean Kujo using straight-up Karate. There’s also wacky outliers, characters like Kage-Mari using Ninjutstu, or Wolf and El Blaze representing the art of pro wrestling. Players new to the game might find that the characters and the overall presentation of the game looks and feels a bit weird and outdated. It may be a bit corny or too colorful for some. Nonetheless, that is the charm of Virtua Fighter and most of SEGA AM2’s games. The characters sound funny and generic when they talk, which is doubled up for some who sport very normal-sounding names, like Jacky, Vanessa, Sarah, or Brad. On the other end of the spectrum are cool cats like Australian fisherman Jeffrey McWild, as well as luchador short king El Blaze, who hilariously has the deepest voice in the game.

Ten Years Too Early

While the game’s outdated vibe and presentation may be an acquired taste, its core gameplay has aged like fine wine. With each round set to 30 seconds by default, Virtua Fighter 5 is one of the fastest 3D fighters you’ll ever play. Every attack hits fast and hard, so it’s a race to either knock out or ring out your opponent. The game follows a simple rock-paper-scissors approach to prioritizing which type of action beats another: guarding beats strikes, throwing beats guard, and striking beats throws. Virtua Fighter strictly follows these sets of rules. 

Blocking correctly will always keep you alive, unless you fall victim to a guard stagger or guard break move. Turtling will give your opponent an invitation to throw you. And no matter how fast you think you can throw your opponent, be it a special command throw or a throw with longer range, a strike will always beat it. With its speed, precision, and mind-games, and a focus towards providing a competitive online multiplayer experience, Virtua Fighter 5 is simply a game ahead of its time, so it is a bit of a shame that this version leaves a lot to be desired.

Not really an Online Revolution

VF5 R.E.V.O. only features a few modes for both single player and multiplayer. You get an Arcade mode, Training Mode, and a VS. CPU mode to get your feet wet and learn more about the game’s mechanics. Then if you're brave enough to venture forth in your Virtua quest to be the best, there is the game’s competitive Ranked Mode for you to grind to the top against players from around the world. There’s also a mode for lobby/private matches where you can play with strangers or friends without the pressure of rank promotion/demotion getting in your way. You can also set up private tournaments in this mode, which is a fun way to start your online community weeklies for friends and mutuals alike. Then finally, there's the actual Tournament mode where every weekend official online tournaments open up to all players to get that online validation and shout “this game is real and I’m good at it” until they get beaten by the next online warrior the weekend after.

Playing VF5 R.E.V.O. online in general at the moment is a mixed bag. Since the game features rollback netcode, you get a few settings to tweak enough to make sure you’ll have a good time online without lag. However, during this time the netcode and matchmaking doesn’t work as smoothly as you’d expect. Matchmaking settings will almost always reset to default, making it a hassle to set up your previous choices of only getting matched with players with the best connection. And even then, the game will still give you matches that have horrible connection, be it on WiFi or wired. This is probably the most frustrating issue I have with the game, where it tells you that you got matched with an opponent with a green connection, only to be informed that they’re on the red during the match with 7f rollback. And yes, rollback in 3D fighting games isn’t really the best compared to rollback in 2D fighting games, but Virtua Fighter 5 REVO’s rollback netcode is just laughably bad when compared to its direct competitor at this time, which is Tekken 8. There will be rare moments where you get paired with someone online in ranked and the game just gives you an immaculate experience. But risking to expect that while having to deal with matches with wonky net connection most of the time will definitely sour anybody’s experience.

Also, as of this review, there’s a bug in the game where if you cancel matchmaking search, you’re just stuck on a black screen and the only way to get out of it is to reset the game.

Another thing that baffled me during my time with VF5 R.E.V.O. is its approach to player and item customization. Customizing your characters in VF5 R.E.V.O. was handled differently compared to its previous versions: it now requires you to buy them as DLC. Yep, that’s about it. You cannot unlock customization items in the game at all. I actually got worried while reviewing our copy to learn that somehow the customization mode was GREYED OUT. How can a feature that Virtua Fighter pioneered in arcades be unavailable at launch? Then, for some reason, after a week of time with the game, the customization mode is accessible, but unsurprisingly doesn’t have anything. If you didn’t get any of the DLCs, you can only do so much, like… removing Akira’s wristbands or headband? Or getting rid of Brad’s tattoos? That’s customization by default, I guess. In order to get the full experience of making your virtual normies unique and wacky looking, you need to shell out dough and at least buy the Yakuza Series Collaboration DLC pack, where you’ll get over 650 customization items (most including recolors of the same items), some full on character costumes, and a few Yakuza series-related costumes. Even though it is a fairly-priced DLC, it is disappointing how VF5 R.E.V.O. handled customization when compared to other versions of the game.

Wild Vision, Sloppy Execution

Even with a few fumbles on the game’s online netcode and matchmaking, Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. still delivers an excellent fighting game for newcomers and Virtua Fighter fans alike. And with this being an online-focused endeavor, it can only get better through patch updates. If you like 3D fighting games in general or if you have been waiting for the franchise to finally get its second (or third?) life thanks to the wonders of rollback netcode, Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. is something to keep an eye on and add to your list of games you’d probably buy once it goes on sale.

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Verdict: 3.5 / 5 (Great)

PROS

• Arguably one of the best 3D fighting games ever made

• Charmingly outdated audio and visual style that feels pretty much like a SEGA game

• Very unique cast of characters that are rewarding to master, if you can get into it

CONS

• Charmingly outdated audio and visual style that feels pretty much like a SEGA game.

• Matchmaking and rollback netcode quality ranges from mediocre to outright horrible.

• Customization options can only be unlocked once you buy DLC

• Not too many modes to check out other than online.

What I’ve Played 

• Managed to get to 3rd Dan in Ranked

• Cleared Arcade Mode 3 times but failed to beat Dural in all attempts

• Spent hours in Training Mode

*This review is based on a Steam review copy provided to the reviewer

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