Power to the People: A Virtua Fighter 32X Retrospective 

Stellar Assault/Shadow Squadron and Doom are no jokes either. Star Wars Arcade is a decent action game and stunning technical showpiece for the 32x but it's way too difficult. I ordered a reproduction copy of Knuckles Chaotix. I'm curious to see how that game will play since Sonic fans have divided opinions on it.

Was it a good system?

That's a damn good buy. Thanks for watching.

$30 for me but same bundle, worth every penny at that price.

There's a remastered version for Virtua Fighter 2 on PS3 and XBOX 360 that was sold digitally too. I think it was on Steam?

@@MacUser2-il2cx No, it's only the Genesis/Mega Drive version of VF2 on Steam. There is an actual PC version, but it's abandonware, and it can be difficult to get running properly on modern PC setups.

@@DonnyK17 Ok yeah we need the arcade version back asap!

@@DonnyK17 no that person is correct there is an arcade perfect PS2 port of VF2, it was part of the Sega Ages 2500 collection. They then used that version as the base for the PSN/XBLA version. Too bad it's not on Steam though, only the Genesis version.

It is, it's a very elegant game with simple yet hard to master movesets. It does many things in reverse compared to the other more bombastic and popular fighting games. To me it is unmatched.

Sega CD came much earlier. 32X was destined to fail because its entire POINT was to upgrade your Genesis at a lower cost than a brand new console. That’s why it was made. They were already launching the Saturn, which was to be the true next gen 32-bit console that brings the arcade home. Releasing the 32X as a standalone console just a year before the Saturn was only going to eat into both consoles’ sales even more, because why would people want to buy two new Sega consoles in such a short amount of time, especially when one of them was underpowered compared to the Jaguar and 3DO, let alone the upcoming PlayStation and Nintendo 64? The 32X should’ve just never released, full stop. Sega of America’s insistence on releasing an upgrade to extend the Genesis, when they knew full well that Sega of Japan was developing a more powerful, true successor confused the audience and ate heavily into Sega’s R&D funds.

@@neko_samurai I unfortunately owned both the Sega CD and the 32x. They should have released the Saturn with 6 meg ram standard and never released the CD or 32x add ons. They should have focused on sprite scaler arcade games as well. The launch lineup needed Outrunners/Racing Hero/TMNT Arcade/MK 1+2/SF2 etc.

@@Jolly-Green-SteveThe CD add on was a decision taken by SOJ, and could have worked had the system been engineered to be more cost efficient, and SOA was cooperated with. Seeing how the CD add on allowed for far larger and more dynamic games, it was understandable. The real failure was with 32X.

@@theobserver4214 Well with Sega CD they should have just waited till late 1993 to release it in all regions but made it stand-alone and backwards compatible to the Genesis(16mhz 68000 down-clocked when running Genesis carts).... made it 15-bit(32,768 color capable) with 2X-speed cd-rom and increased the video ram/system ram 2X(512kb/2MB) and also focused on arcade ports instead of crappy FMV games and it would have done amazing. The pack in game would be Virtua Racing CD with 15 tracks and career mode. This system spec would have been possible by late 93 for 299.99 because original Sega CD was launched in 1991 in Japan.

@@Jolly-Green-Steve As a standalone “Genesis Pro” with backwards compatibility and a CD drive it could’ve done better for sure, since it wouldn’t be restricted by the Genesis. 15-bit color wouldn’t even be needed compared to 12-bit palette (or not upgrading it at all), the main issue with the Genesis color wise is that it can only display 64 colors on screen easily compared to the TG-16 which can easily go higher than 256 colors on screen. 2X drive would’ve been too expensive

That's interesting and it makes sense. Is it VF Evo specifically you don't like or Virtua Fighter 4 as a whole? Thanks for watching.

You can hook the video cable directly to the Genesis AV out to see what it is producing, or play with layers in an emulator. I played VF4 and Evo quite a bit on PS2. I was referring to the VF1 esque flat shaded mode of Evo mostly. It still plays like VF4, not like the original VF, but I've seen it referred to as "the best way to play VF1" many many times. As for PS2 VF, my first gripe is the backgrounds and texture detail are a huge step back from VF3 in the Arcades or Dreamcast, not to mention the aliasing. Naomi 2 VF4 had super sharp textures for cloth on the characters, and the floors, and the backgrounds. All of these are glossed over in the glowing reviews that essentially marketed the PS2 versions as "arcade perfect." Meanwhile the actually nearly Arcade perfect VF3tb was utterly thrashed by the media, and subsequently people who like to repeat what they read on the internet. Gameplay wise, I also came to understand VF4 and VF5 as a digression to button masher friendly gamers. Especially with Akira, if you mess up a combo, he just continues doing other moves, rather than being immediatly open to a counter combo. I'm sure they are still very balanced, but I never appreciated seeing my character just keep punching and kicking, but not the moves I intended. That said, I still play VF4 PS2 and VF5 on 360 from time to time, but nowhere near as often as VF3tb or VF2 on Saturn. That is mainly due to the shift in gameplay focus.

Yeah I had the Japanese "10th anniversary" game and it most definitely wasn't Virtua Fighter 1! I also had a Sega Naomi 2 hooked up with a Raspberry Pi SD loader at one time and I really regret selling it now! It was definitely superior to the PS2 version although I think they did a good job capturing the aesthetic on PS2 considering the Naomi 2 was essentially 2 Naomis bolted together. Yes Dreamcast Virtua Fighter 3tb is a very good port, albeit bare bones. I have a (short) comparison of it on my Virtua Fighter 3 arcade retrospective (unfortunately my board is the original version, not "TB," so it's not entirely fair, but you can see that they're actually very close.) I'm not as interested in 4-5 mainly because of the aesthetic shift from the original 3 games. The blue, blue sky era Sega stuff is my jam, and the soundtracks also are a huge part of the experience. They're still excellent games though of course.

It's the replay music from Virtua Racing on the 32X. Awesome isn't it? Thanks for watching.

It's the replay music from Virtua Racing on the 32X.

Yeah the prototype versions had an arab character called "Shiba," and some of the names were changed too. He later appeared as a playable character in Fighters Megamix on the Saturn. I think they dropped him pretty close to the final release of VF1, but I don't know the exact details. Thanks for watching.

Yes I did have VF Remix (bought it a few months after I got this one) and it was really good although to me it feels subtly different to the original arcade (and the 32X version) and I find it very slightly less enjoyable to play. I'll probably do a vid on it at some point. Thanks for watching.