Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. Review (Ryuurokuni)
JUST TO BE CLEAR! VF5 in itself is an excellent game, always has been, and the fact that we not only have a balance patch more than 15 years later, but also the addition of Rollback, should be a reason to celebrate, and is going to make it the premier way to play it from now on, even after the next one comes out...
But boy... is this package terrible, to the point that some aspects even suffer from false advertisement.
Just a quick list of the most important issues:
- Customization: This is the part that is straight up false advertisement, In the description it clearly states
"Custom Combatants: Enter the ring with one of 19 playable characters. Master each of their unique fighting styles and customize them with distinctive costumes and items."
That part is completely false, since ALL of the customization is part of the 30th Anniv. Edition. I was expecting having at least the base customization (or a paired down version of the PS3 VF5) but... there's nothing. And I'm not exaggerating, there's ZERO customization if you don't pay the extra.
They might as well not advertised having customization at all... They should've hidden the Customization button if that was going to be the case.
- Game modes: there's a clear lack of game modes compared to previous versions.
While it is normal for modern fighting games to not include all content from previous entries, and mainly focus on online, there's NOTHING here to compensate for the loss of them.
For example, while Tekken 8 doesn't feature a Treasure Battle like recent entries, it's still full of singleplayer content: Story Mode (including for DLCs even if you don't have them), Arcade Quest (in which you can grind the main online cosmetics), Tekken Ball, etc.
In this one you lose Quest Mode (and all the customization items attached to it), and you gain... Rollback netcode? Well, let's address that too.
- Matchmaking: It has been absolutely horrible.
I play plenty of other fighting games online, so of course I have the bare minimum in terms of connection. Wired internet, stable 300mbps speeds; and netcode on every recent game I played has been flawless, we really are in the best moment possible to play these games online.
But with this one, even if I choose to only accept five bar connections, only receiving Best connection matches, and having Rollback settings set to Performance, every single match has been an unplayable 300ping 5-20F of rollback. I know matchmaking tends to be the first thing to fail on the launch of a fighting game *ehemkofxv*, but when the only thing you can do is play online, and it is broken, there's then no reason to play.
And no:
"The PS4 version was the same thing, no reason to complain".
1) They're not advertising REVO as the SAME version.
2) Ultimate Showdown came free with PS Plus, and because PS Plus is needed to play other fighting games, more than likely you was already paying for it, so not having customization there was another different issue. This one is only available as a paid game.
So all in all, this seems to be an incomplete version of a game I love very much.
Not going to refund it, I will keep it so I can play it online once Matchmaking is fixed, and it wasn't that expensive,
but I DO NOT recommend it to anyone that seeks the experience they remember from games like VF4 or VF5 on PS3 (which is understandable since not everyone is terminally online).
I was eagerly waiting for this port, but it has been a disappointment. Hope VF6 launches in a much much better state.
(Of course I will change the rating and edit this review if they at least fix the matchmaking issues, but until then, a negative one it stays)