The Final Word game review

Virtua Fighter 2 -- Sega

Sega presents Virtua Fighter 2 for the Sega Saturn. The sequal to the popular 3-D fighting game Virtua Fighter, now you can fight with all of your past favorites plus new combatants in all new arenas with new moves.

Ferrari Man
This is what I've been waiting for on the Saturn. Unlike its earlier counterpart Virtua Fighter, VF2 really shows off what the Saturn can do. From clean introduction cinemas, to a high speed, precise control scheme -- VF2 is a real winner. This is a fighting fan must have title. A wonderful arcade translation.

E.Phoenix
Although I didn't find VF2 that fun to play, this fighter has the absolute greatest character animation of any game in this genre on the market. What sets VF2 apart from the rest of the pack is -- along with incredible animation -- the feeling of real, logical, and performable defensive and offensive movements. My favorite character is Pai because she moves with a mix of slow, methodical Aikido-style movements and a mish-mash of quick, deliberate offenses. Graphically, it seems that Sega had to sacrifice the backgrounds for the unreal charater movement, if this is the case it was well worth it. What's with the crappy voices?

R.I.P.
I would say this is a prefect translation of the arcade game, but then I look at the backgrounds and about puke. Play control is really good. Also, character animations are clean and are in many ways far superior to Tekken (ie: no poly drops). The intro animations are great, and I loved the way that they clearly showed the graphical difference between VF and VF2 character graphics. Sound is ok, except for the character voices... what happened here? The character voices sound like they were recorded on TalkBoy microphone! In any event, if you're a VF2 fan, you should probably check this out, but if you're expecting a pixel perfect translation, forget it... the bridge is gone... sigh.

Salamander
Next to Sega Rally, Virtua Fighter 2 is one of the best arcade-to-home translations on the Saturn to date. While the backgrounds and frame rate may not be perfect to the arcade, this title is remarkably close. An excellent fighter, this is the type of game I have been waiting for on the Saturn.

>>>>> 86.0/100 <<<<<		Ferrari Man	E.Phoenix	R.I.P.	Salamander
Graphics		4.5	4.5	4.5	5.0
Sound		4.5	4.0	3.0	4.0
Gameplay/Control		5.0	4.0	5.0	4.5
Longevity/Playability		4.5	3.0	4.0	4.5
Overall		4.5	4.0	4.0	5.0
Total		23.0	19.5	20.5	23.0

(12/95)