Released in 1995

Available in

Genre: Fighting

Virtua Fighter was originally released in the arcades in 1993. Developed by AM2 (who's other works include Daytona USA and Virtua Cop), Virtua Fighter is a 3D fighting game which revolutionized the genre. Featuring 9 fighters and hundreds of moves and techniques, the game was well-received (particularly in Japan) and is seen as one of SEGA's best franchises, and one of the few they haven't ruined yet.

The 32X port of Virtua Fighter was released in 1995, and is one of the best games for the system. Whilst the graphics and sound have a taken a hit, all of the characters and moves are present and it plays as well as you could hope for. The single player mode can become frustrating due to the cheap A.I. -you are going to get beaten up, although there are a few ways around it, as you can see here. Playing a human opponent is how to get the most out of this game, and the tournament mode is a great for that. Out of all of the fighting games released for the 32X, Virtua Fighter is much better than any of the others.

Virtua Fighter lets you pick from 9 characters (one of which is a secret character) and then fight it out in a variety of game modes. The single player arcade mode will have you fight against each character in the game, in a best of 3 rounds format. Use your character's special moves and combos to win each round and make it to the final stage: a fight against the hidden character, Dural. The controls are simple, with just three buttons used: one for guarding, one for punching and one for kicking.

Versus mode lets 2 players fight against each other. Ranking mode is a slight spin on the regular single player mode, as you cannot continue if you lose. However, you are given a grade afterwards and are also shown some advice on how to get a better ranking next time.

The tournament mode lets you enter a number of fighters and then go through a eight person tournament -a great mode if you have plenty of extra friends, however you can fight CPU opponents as well if you want to. This mode lets you select from some new costume colors for each character, colors which weren't in the arcade version.

Play as Dural
At the character selection screen, highlight Akira and quickly press left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right. Dural should appear between Akira and Jacky.

Extra Options
At the title screen, quickly input three clockwise full-circles on the d-pad, then two counter clockwise full-circles. Each time you do one of these, a punch sound effect will play. After doing the last circle, press start. If done correctly, the announcer will say "K.O.". Go into the options menu and keep pressing down until the extra options appear. The extra options add a stage, time and life bar selections.

Extra camera options
In the options menu, highlight the "Camera" selection. Press right until the "Backside 1P" and "Backside 2P" options appear.

There are currently eight prototypes of this game available, read about them here.

-In America, a "special training pack" was released as a tie in for the 32X version of Virtua Fighter. The pack didn't actually contain the game, however -what you got was a T-shirt, a video, and a coupon for a $20 discount off the 32X version. There was also a chance to enter a competition to win an arcade machine. The video tape contained tips for the game, and also featured previews for other SEGA titles.