Virtua Fighter 2 for Genesis

Image: MobyGames

Virtua Fighter 2

Turn off damage. It's more fun that way

Genre: fighting - 1v1

Publisher: Sega

Year: 1997

System: Genesis

Gameplay Score: 2

Gameplay Notes:

This is a bit of an oddity. I was expecting some sort of pseudo 3D effect but there's nothing. Nothing. It's just a straight up 2D fighting game. You can win by either hitting an enemy until their life bar is gone or pushing them out of the ring. Controls are incredibly simple. There's only three buttons. A punch, a kick and a guard. There's little nuance to the controls otherwise. So you basically just have to mash on one or both of the attack buttons and guard when an enemy's trying to attack you. I played the arcade game many many years ago and I don't remember it much, but I think the controls were similarly simple. Extremely difficult. Someone forgot to program the final boss fight. Up to that point. Point the game performs well but in that fight it's like you're in an underwater stage. I seriously thought that that's what was going on. It has kind of a blue tint to it but the movement is so horrible in that level. The slowdown seriously slows the game to about a third the normal speed. It's like they didn't expect anyone to actually get to that stage.

Level Design Score: 2

Level Design Notes:

Like most of these fighting games there's only the two standard modes, story and vs. however, this one lets you set the difficulty to easy but also give yourself more health and even take no damage. It's almost like they knew the game was too difficult and let you just practice and play around to your heart's content.

Theme Score: 1

Theme Notes:

No story that I can find. I like the fighting ring setup, but there's nothing going on other than the two opponents.

Art Style Score: 3

Art Style Notes:

Impressive sprites and animation. Crazy number of frames of animation, in fact. The backgrounds are terribly underwhelming tho. They're a blocky mess and decide of much detail.

Audio Score: 4

Audio Notes:

Great arcade sounds.

Overall Score: 45

Review ID: 1371