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"There's a tower theme throughout the game's low-poly stages."
High quality, 1080p port by Sega of their arcade fighting game of pop culture tropes battling it out in a Virtua Fighter ~2.5 with large but oddly limited move sets and breakable walls and armor. Same set-up as their Virtua Fighter 2 port on PS3, but FV doesn't suffer from VF2's bizarrely unresponsive controls and ludicrous difficulty. Be warned, though: it is wacky and even tacky. |
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On PS3, playing SEGA games like or at least sort of like the five SEGA arcade games you can play in "Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name"--which I just played on PC, for comparison.
Fighting Vipers
I like the clean Model 2 look here on PS3, it's way less visually noisy than the Sega Model 3 Fighting Vipers 2 in Gaiden--fewer flashing FX on the eyeballs, too. And the Model 3 games run at slightly reduced screen size in Gaiden. Plus you've got move lists and higher difficulty settings here. And I do like that nutty, almost abstract night truck stop stage w/ the distant town that almost looks like Seattle. But I haven't seen all the stages in FV2 and I haven't played it on an arcade stick yet--so can't compare the games gameplay-wise really; on pad they both felt pretty mashing-friendly, but certainly more flashy stuff happened when mashing in FV2. I wasn't in love with FV's gameplay when I did play it on a stick.
I'm not in love with the cheesecakery in either.
Still have to try FV2 in Gaiden on a stick. |
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I like the clean Sega Model 2 look here, but while the gameplay, simplified from Virtua Fighter 2, has been spiced up a bit with breakable armor, power moves, and a couple female characters in unfortunately cheesy costumes, the smaller moves sets can end up feeling a BIT restrictive. In retrospect, the additional combos, power moves, and juggling system added in VF2 are exactly what the game needed to flesh the gameplay out and take it in its own direction; it's a little tough to come back to not having them here in the prequel, but it does make for a simpler, more streamlined game--for those who might be looking for such a thing.
I played without Guard (called Block here) like I do VF--which doesn't work great against the game's boss, who likes to rush you down, although not quite as persistently here as he does in the sequel. Definitely missed Jane's FV2 kick combo. Purely out of necessity I did learn to at least get a hit off the boss after he came down from her dfP backfist uppercut launcher.
OH I only just now while trying to type "FV2" above realized that (F)ighting (V)ipers is (V)irtua (F)ighter backwards. = ooo
After playing blonde Jane in FV2, I'd forgotten she was brunette here in FV1, where she seems based on Vasquez from the movie Aliens.
FV1's setting has GOT to be based on Seattle: the tower with the round structure on top is the Space Needle, Picky's stage is the view of Seattle from I90 coming back from Snoqualmie Pass in the Cascades, Grace's stage is the Port of Seattle just south of downtown, Tokio's stage is Boeing Field SSE of downtown, etc. The resemblance doesn't really come across in the sequel, so if you want a fighting game set in cyber-Seattle, this is the one to get.
Belatedly noticed I had the game volume set a little low; I've set it higher for next time. |
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Comparing input delay between emulated PS2 and PS3 Sega Model 2 fighting game ports of Virtua Fighter 2 (Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol.19 on PS2) and Fighting Vipers (Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol.19 on PS2), in the PCSX2 and RPCS3 emulators.
I also compared the lag in RPCS3's two renderers: the default Vulkan, and OpenGL.
I was off by one talking about delay variation: the emulated PS2 games varied in their delays by ~4 frames from punch to punch, while the emulated PS3 games varied by ~3 frames.
In past comparisons, I've found that on my set-up, PCSX2 has about the same input delay as the actual PS2. I have not done a comparison between RPCS3 and the actual PS3 because I'm just sick of worrying about the PS3 dying (it's running fine, this is just paranoia on my part) and RPCS3 seems to run be running the games well so I'm just going with RPCS3 for PS3 stuff anyway.
In RPCS3, the OpenGL renderer was *maybe* a hair slower in some cases, but not others. And thanks to accidentally testing it twice for FV, I did notice variation when using it, which could just be down to the different random backgrounds: sometimes 6 or 7 frames delay in the airport stage, with its long-range background view, and sometimes as low as 4 frames in Honey's walled-in stack with oddly projected shadows. Probably kind of a wash but I'd have to do way more testing to verify and I don't feel like doing that; I'll just stick to the default Vulkan renderer.
So overall, in emulation the PS3 games had a response about 2 frames faster than the PS3 games--which to me is pretty significant, so I'll be sticking with RPCS3 for VF2 and FV. I'll miss the funky 3:2 (1.509~) aspect ratio the PS2 ports run in by default (they claim real hard it's the "arcade" aspect ratio; but even the screens on the backs of the game cases are the straight pixel 496/384 1.29 aspect ratio, and all the photos and videos I could find of (US, not sure I found any Japanese ones) have them running at either 1.29 or 4:3 (mostly 4:3 for the actual Model 2 board videos as far as I could tell)), but I won't miss their letterboxed displays, slightly juddery framerates, and--for VF2--lack of move lists. The PS2 versions are good ports, just not as polished as the PS3 ones. (
(Curiously, although they all default to 30 second rounds, the MAX time limits you can set for 2P Vs rounds varies from game to game and port to port, except it's always 60 seconds max for VF2--but you can go up to infinite time for FV on PS2, and 90 seconds for FV on PS3.)
It's definitely emulated rather than actual PS3 for me from here on out. Unlike the PS2 though, the real PS3 is NOT going in the cupboard, 'cause it's used for dumping/ripping the games.
RPCS3 stands for "Russian Personal Computer Station 3" (https://rpcs3.net/blog/2018/01/). |
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Bahn playthrough with RPCS3 in Windows
FV just runs at the arcade square-pixels aspect ratio of 1.29 in the PS3 version--well, you can also stretch it to 16:9, but I didn't do that. : P And there's no 57.5/60fps toggle like in the PS2 version.
Man, unrelenting beatdowns from Raxel and B.M. had me going kinda nuts, imagining the framerate was going to heck, whatever excuses I could find... Played a "bad" framerate bit back frame-by-frame after recording and didn't encounter a single dropped frame, so...yeah my brain just got broken, apparently. = Pp
Finding how effective Bahn's standing jab--jabs move you FORWARD in this game, unlike in VF--was against the longer-ranged Raxel seemed like a breakthrough...but then boss B.M. would just throw me right out of them. NANalhGHAhaghgak
ALSO, jeez, the stuff you find when you have a version with a move list and actually take a peek at it. A running throw? HOW many downed attacks?? What is all this stuff??? This game is way more nuts than I'd imagined.
And extra cheats! Way more cheats than VF2... The presentation of them on GameFAQs is a bit confusing--they're all listed as Trophies, for one. Like, Kids Mode is hold L1 and R1 when you press X to start Arcade mode, from the screen where you select the difficulty--and the characters get giant super-deformed! Man I'm gonna have to give that a play. ^ _^ Probably not going to bother with Random mode (Hold Up and press Start during Arcade mode's Attract mode), which seems to randomize opponents and stage after the first stage--but I WILL try playing as Mahler--the mini, supposedly balanced version of the boss--who is always available just lurking off to the sides of the character select list.
Jeepers! Vipers everywhere! = D
Oh and yes the truck stop cafe does have a "Merry Xmas" sign on one side of the rotating UFO on its roof in the PS2 version, also (the other side has a sign saying "UFO Diner").
Unlike the PS2 version, the attract mode character intro here ISN'T video copyright claimed by Sega! ; D |
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