Virtua Fighter is hella anime. I made a Jagi outfit for Wolf and Lau into GAL-O SENGEN. Eileen is hella moe uguu. Sarah has a Lum outfit and Samurai X for Jean.
Well, I stand corrected.
Virtua Fighter is made by Sega. Is therefore anime as fuck.
indeed, a Jamaican fisherman practicing Pankration is more anime than a Kenyan tribe princess practicing Capoeira
it’s one of the most popular old FGs in Japan and has been for years. still has active tournaments with good turnouts across the US and in parts of Europe. has one of the largest facebook groups for old games as far as I’m aware. check the view totals on youtube footage of old important 3s matches or stuff with Kuroda in it, and it’s comparable to any modern event for current FGC games.
don’t know when you visited GGPO or Fightcade but 99% of the time 3s is the third most active room behind KOF 98 and 2002. generally more players on at any time than ST or anything non-KOF. this is in addition to two other active and mostly separate playerbases playing the game on XBL and PSN.
I can’t say for certain, but I suspect 3s is Capcom’s most popular fighting game (in terms of worldwide active playerbase) except for current FGC games. I wouldn’t be surprised to see 3s have more players than SF4 or Marvel 3 in 3-4 years. it seems to have a pretty good longevity for a variety of reasons (maybe one being that 3s players aren’t usually interested in other fighting games).
really hard to see how there’d be any argument on whether it was/is popular. whether we’re talking interest from the game’s main stage days, or the playerbase now that the game is in its twilight, either way it’s still doing pretty well for itself.
I think the reference to 3s popularity is more how most people haven’t ever heard of it, rather than its active playerbase. When SF4 came out, many people were confused since they never knew there was an SF3.
Anyways who cares about popularity? If you enjoy the game and it has at least enough people to play, then play it.
This
the original claim was that 3s is a perfect example of a game being dead on arrival (at least in America) and then building momentum over time. to which Monster637 said 3s was never popular. this is a pretty silly claim that’s easily falsifiable, so I did that.
a game doesn’t have to be popular from the get go or have the approval of the general FGC to have a strong scene in the long term. that’s the point.
Back then I though SF3 was Street Fighter Alpha 3 instead of Third Strike. Only after SFIV did I learn that 3S was referred as SFIII. Probably because New Generation and Second Impact were too obscure