PS2

Virtua Fighter 4

Virtua Fighter 4 is a 2001 fighting video game developed by Sega AM2 and published by Sega for arcades. It is the fourth game installment in the Virtua Fighter series.

Fighting

Time to beat: about 0.5 hours

Overview

Virtua Fighter 4 is a 2001 fighting video game developed by Sega AM2 and published by Sega for arcades. It is the fourth game installment in the Virtua Fighter series. It was first released in arcades on the NAOMI 2 board followed by a console port as well as Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution on the PlayStation 2 under the budget-priced "Greatest Hits" label in 2002 and 2003, respectively. The sequel, Virtua Fighter 5, was released in 2006.

Virtua Fighter 4 became much more streamlined and user friendly than its predecessors, while expanding on old ideas and adding new techniques. The evasion system was revamped from Virtua Fighter 3, the evade button was removed, and evades were split into two types, successful and unsuccessful. When evades were not performed with the proper timing, they were unsuccessful leaving the fighter vulnerable. The evade + throw escape option select, which was an advanced technique discovered in Virtua Fighter 3, was expanded upon. Virtua Fighter 4 allowed the player to escape as many throws as they could, and lengthened the window for performing a successful throw escape during an [unsuccessful] evade.

Virtua Fighter 4 and Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution have a two-part storyline. VF4 started out with thirteen fighters entering the tournament for their own personal reasons, while Judgement Six used them for gathering data for Dural. Evolution adds two more fighters to the mix, one of them works for Judgement Six who is ordered to kill everyone in the tournament.

Like previous Virtua Fighter titles, the game's development was led by Yu Suzuki.

In Japan, Game Machine listed Virtua Fighter 4 on their September 15, 2001 issue as being the most-successful arcade game of the month.