I may have made this rant before, but I feel the need to make it again.
Let me say first that I LOVE fighting games. I've probably played most of them out there, so that's not part of the issue.
Yes, the Virtua Fighter series is a very good fighter with its share of balanced characters and nice variety of moves. The problem is, the characters are very boring. Their personalities are so cookie cutter it hurts, and they're voiced by terrible voice acting. There's no soul to their movements, and while the animation is good and gets the job done, it just seems so...bland. I have to pull off a complicated button combination just to plain headbutt a guy?
So yes, that's the main thing...no personality. Hell, even the story mode of 4 was going to different arcades and playing the actual game. That's incredibly lame.
On the flipside, you have fighters like Tekken and Soul Calibur. The characters have back stories, different personalities, and yes, it shows in their fighting styles and movements. I can't wait to just do a regular throw with a new character to see what he does for this very reason, and usually what they do has a "wow" factor to it, where as VF's moves are just...there. No, they're not the best storylines, but it actually makes me care about the characters in a different way, thus making the whole experience that much more enjoyable.
In the end, VF is kinda like watching UFC and Tekken/Soul Calibur is like watching a Yuen Woo Ping movie. It may not be as fundamentally sound and authentic, but it sure is a hell of a lot more enjoyable.
Let me say first that I LOVE fighting games. I've probably played most of them out there, so that's not part of the issue.
Yes, the Virtua Fighter series is a very good fighter with its share of balanced characters and nice variety of moves. The problem is, the characters are very boring. Their personalities are so cookie cutter it hurts, and they're voiced by terrible voice acting. There's no soul to their movements, and while the animation is good and gets the job done, it just seems so...bland. I have to pull off a complicated button combination just to plain headbutt a guy?
So yes, that's the main thing...no personality. Hell, even the story mode of 4 was going to different arcades and playing the actual game. That's incredibly lame.
On the flipside, you have fighters like Tekken and Soul Calibur. The characters have back stories, different personalities, and yes, it shows in their fighting styles and movements. I can't wait to just do a regular throw with a new character to see what he does for this very reason, and usually what they do has a "wow" factor to it, where as VF's moves are just...there. No, they're not the best storylines, but it actually makes me care about the characters in a different way, thus making the whole experience that much more enjoyable.
In the end, VF is kinda like watching UFC and Tekken/Soul Calibur is like watching a Yuen Woo Ping movie. It may not be as fundamentally sound and authentic, but it sure is a hell of a lot more enjoyable.
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