After all these years, we can finally fight the Virtua again.
Virtua Fighter, not Super Smash Bros., not Tekken, not Dead or Alive, is the originator of the 3D fighting game. AM2’s groundbreaking title jumped on the hype train for fighting games and virtual reality with the promise of a realistic martial arts experience that had never been seen before.
31 years later, we can properly see that some of that hype was a bit exaggerated. Virtua Fighter wasn’t really a VR game, and while it had full 3D polygonal characters squaring off, they didn’t really have full movement across a 3D plane. Newer gamers may even find the game’s title and design to be quaint.
When you talk to fighting game fans today, they will say that Virtua Fighter is important because it’s the reason Tekken exists, to compete against it. But that’s totally underselling it. Virtua Fighter, which was playable …