Revisiting the Virtual On Franchise?

Classic Fighting Games Other Games
1

Story time!

I’m not sure if a fair amount of people played this game as a kid, but I sure as hell did. And what’s funny was that it wasn’t that great of a game. Yet nonetheless, I would spend hours and hours flying around, shooting rockets and lazers at dozens of badly pixelated robots over and over again, never actually being able to beat the last boss. Most who played it will recall their experience being similar, probably.

However, as bad and unbalanced as it may have been , it was indeed a fighting game by all means. It lacked traditional combos, and I’m not even sure if I remember there being anything similar to what most would consider “supers”, but regardless of the things that were wrong with it what made it stand out to me was that it was still fun for hours on end. Why was that?

For me, it would be things like:
-The characters were EXTREMELY diverse and unique in every way(the ones that weren’t total clones)
-Stages were interesting for the most part
-The 3D models were exciting to look at (at the time)
-Combat was more focused on being fun than practical
-The music was fun and exciting

But my **favorite **factor:
-The gameplay was fast as fuck and chaotic

This is the type of fighter we’re lacking these days. Yes, ok, we have MC3,but that game is fast paced in a sense that is totally different than this. Honestly I think it’d be cool if they were to bring this franchise back with super awesome graphics, diverse and new bots, and an actual combo system. Maybe balance the characters out, update the music, and we could have something really special here. It’d be the first fighter of it’s kind to have all around, full area,cinematic, total freedom combat.

I dunno, it was just a thought I had when I noticed that I had this game sitting on the bottom of my games list for like, 2 years untouched. Here’s some gameplay btw, for those of you who never played it:
[media=youtube]1MUyELN05GU[/media]

What do you guys think?

EDIT:Oh yeah, and fully destructable and realistic environments. That’d be cool too. :tup:

2

Played this bit later, it didn’t come out til I was 18-19. So unbalanced I could complete it in less than 8 minutes with Raiden, repeatedly.
Was awesome game though.

3

Does this game have split screen multiplayer?

4

I think so.

5

On Saturn you could choose between horizontal and vertical.

6

Arcades had dual cockpit-style cabinets for head-to-head.
I don’t think I ever want to play this at home just because of the awesomeness those cabinets provided
By the way, I think there already exists a virtual on thread somewhere on this site.

7

Gonna have to figure out something for the controls, though. I tried playing it on dual analog sticks, and it just felt very wrong. Not saying it’s impossible to do Virtua On right with dual analog sticks, but the current approach doesn’t feel right. Would be willing to buy a decent arcade-style rig for it if needed and it worked properly.

Haven’t had a chance to play VO competitively, but I would be delighted to see a new game in the series that is tuned for that environment.

8

I didn’t see one, so I made this.

Yeah, it was built for that arcade cabinet so they’d probably have to revamp the entire control system to accommodate consoles.

9

I remember the cabinets. They even had this nice sit-down model and I seem to recall the twin sticks were very nicely placed. Been a long time since I played on one, but it’s why the analog sticks felt so wrong when I tried console versions of the franchise. Any controls on the console would need to play nice with how those sticks behave differently from the cabinet ones…

10

I’ve always wanted to build my own custom twin sticks (if such a thing were possible) for use on my Saturn/DC. Definitely two, I think this would be the perfect game to play when I have a few friends over.

11

i had a demo of this on the sega saturn and i played the shit out of it all the time even though there was only like 3 characters to play as and 2 battles to do.

never did own a full version of the game though. do people still play this on XBL?

12

Few, but yes there are some people. Most of them from different countries.

13

Looks like they’re actually doing something with this:

Skip towards the end. Thanks to Sonichuman for the find. :tup:

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Everybody better get some of these for a low convenient price

15

You must be insane if you think I’ma drop over 500 bucks on a stick. :rofl:

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Virtual On isn’t unbalance. Some characters are much more difficult to use then others. Almost all the characters have potential to win tournaments except 10/80 Special (think DAN). A huge variety of characters win Japanese tournaments.

The most beginner mistake when people play Virtual On is to not Jump Cancel. People often try to play it like a FPS which is wrong. You don’t turn to look for your opponent. You do a jump cancel to lock on! Jump Cancel is done by pulling both sticks out (jump) then immediately inwards (crouch).

Another common misconception is that VO is only playable on twin sticks. The game is played on pad by many in Japan. Playing on a pad in VO is not like playing Street Fighter on pad which is like a handicap lol. Some of the top Japanese players are on pad.

Here are some matches with Japanese players.
[media=youtube]hG92PcgJij8 [/media]

[media=youtube]6sWJtRb6NP0[/media]

[media=youtube]02taykXWfzE[/media]

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neoKEN, can you tell us more about playing Virtua On with a pad? What sort of control setup are people using for it? I tried using the analog sticks as substitutes for the normal twin sticks and it just didn’t seem to respond right. If there’s a pad setup that works, I’d be glad to consider reinstalling the XBLA version and giving it another try.

18

Holy fuck! Those fights are ridiculous. I had no idea people took this game seriously.

19

No other game use Virtual On’s control so it won’t seem to “respond right” at first even with real twinsticks. Use whatever works best for you, but every setup will take some time before it becomes muscle reflex. I use to use double analog, but now I use standard setup (analog for movement). Double analog and standard each has their own benefits. There is a wider range of control with double analog. For example, moving left can be either be 1 stick left (slow walk) or both stick left (faster walk). On standard, moving the analog left counts as both stick left (faster walk). Losing slow walk on standard, I feel is no big loss. Getting a neutral crouch attack is near impossible with double analog so you will have to use the face buttons to set crouch (I use A). The benefits of double analog is that rotating feels more natural and will immediately become accustomed to the actual arcade machine. On standard setup, I use the 2nd analog for rotation which I feel is slightly slower reaction time due to moving my fingers from face button to analog. Despite that I have no problem rotating to hit someone with a prediction laser on standard setup :P. Mastering rotation is not a mandatory skill for many characters anyways. Jump cancels are less tiring to do with standard setup because the actual movement is less, just press Y (jump) then A (crouch).

20

There is an existing Virtual-On thread here Virtual-On

The hardcore Virtual-On forum is here http://www.oratan.com/forum/index.php
There is a lot of helpful advice and advance techniques on Oratan.com forums