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- Nov 26, 2019
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- Shenmue
I'd like to get everyone's side by side thoughts and first impressions on these two versions of the game. My first impression after spending only one evening playing Ultimate Showdown: Final Showdown is far better overall.
I actually regret purchasing Ultimate for $30 rather than just getting it through PS Plus or Now. Here are some pros & cons for Ultimate upon first impression as well as some preferences between the two. I feel like releasing this to PS Plus/Now is the right step for Sega to generate some interest, but this game won't hold interest of the majority of customers after the summer is over. People still playing Tekken 7 years later and even MK 11, but DOA 6 online died quickly and people went back to DOA 5 shortly after, and DOA is a bigger franchise than VF (and DOA 6 is definitely better than Ultimate Showdown), so I don't suspect this is going to take off for the long term, but at least with it being free for subscribers hopefully Sega can generate interest in demand for Virtua Fighter 6. I am playing this on PlayStation 5 for reference. Ultimate Showdown feels really dated, even more than Final Showdown. There's something crisp and fresh about Final that Ultimate doesn't offer, with the exception to some graphical upgrades and adding the music from all previous titles, there isn't much reason to upgrade...other than it's free. And if you're like me and can't stand the PlayStation d-pad and you have Final on Xbox, stick with that.
I am curious, how do you PlayStation users tolerate the d-pad on the Dualsense (or even worse the older Dualshocks) when playing fighting games? Absolute worst part of this experience was having to play it on the Dualsense controller with the separated sticky janky Sony d-pad. A brutal deal breaker in most cases for me. The best feature (and really the only good one) about the PS5 dualsense is the haptic feedback, and this game doesn't even have rumble features.
Ultimate PROS:
-Better graphics...technically?? (worse character models and faces than Final). The graphics aren't as impressive as they came across on the youtube videos.
-The music from all previous titles is a great addition and I love it! I enjoyed listening to Sarah's VF2 music again with the modern graphics
-Aoi's level is beautiful and better than Final
-Lei Fei's level is nicer than Final
-Kage's level is beautiful and I'm not sure if it's better than Final, but it has a different feel and I enjoy them both
-The 1990's retro graphics are cool...sorta (see CONS)
-Hopefully it will generate enough interest in the general public to bring about a VF6, but that is doubtful unless the online sustains for the long haul. If Tekken, DOA or even Street Fighter release another title within the next year, there's no way people will keep going back to this
-It's FREE!!...sorta.
Ultimate CONS:
-Having to play it on the PS5. Even if it comes to Xbox at some point, that'll only fix the d-pad issue, but the other issues would still stand.
-The character models and faces are worse than Final Showdown. Better graphics are a big deal for me, but not when the characters look worse overall.
-From a moves stand point, Akira is still the worst character in the game. I forgot about how unplayable Akira really is with his move set. From a character personality stand point Akira is also really weak which is sad because the lead character of most of the other fighting franchises are some of the strongest characters in those franchises, but Akira needs a lot of work with personality, visually and especially when it comes to moves. Liu Kang, Kasumi, Jin Kazama, Ryu and others are much stronger as lead characters for their franchises. VF in general feels like it lacking in that department with strong lead characters, especially the one the franchise is based around. I can see visually how Akira evolved into Ryo Hazuki, but I don't see the connection otherwise. Ryo may be stoic and dry in his personality, but he doesn't lack charisma like Akira.
-Dural still has a terrible visual character design, although the general concept is cool.
-Dural's level is different and worse than Final Showdown.
-The 1990's retro graphics are cool, except that you cannot set the entire game to look that way. There's only one retro level and even your opponents can't be put in retro mode. This defeats the purpose and takes the enjoyment down a few notches on this feature.
-The character creation suite isn't very good, and is far worse than the one on Final Showdown, which isn't exactly the most amazing but FS has a lot more features added than US does. Why didn't they just bring the FS creation suite over?
-After a few hours of playing it, I don't feel any craving to keep playing it. Whereas with Final Showdown I kept coming back for more over the last month.
-Overall, Ultimate feels like a free game you'd expect on Game Pass/PS Plus. I understand this is a refresh of a game from 15 years ago, but somehow it *feels* stale compared to the game it's supposed to be refreshing. This has nothing to do with my opinion on the PS5 controller either, or the fact that the graphics are overall better on Ultimate, there's just something that doesn't feel like this is the 'Ultimate' version of VF5, rather Final Showdown feels like the ultimate. Perhaps they should have skipped this and went on to Virtua Fighter 6.
Ultimate Showdown itself isn't bad, but it doesn't do much to incentivize players to switch from Final Showdown, unless they're looking for a hot online community for the next few months until players find themselves returning to Tekken 7. I enjoyed recently reconnecting with Final Showdown a lot in this last month, but after playing Ultimate Showdown for the first evening, I'm quickly reminded why I prefer Dead or Alive and even Tekken over Virtua Fighter in most cases as a whole: they never feel stale, underwhelming, awkward and outdated.
I'm going to spend a few more days with Ultimate Showdown until Ninja Gaiden comes out to give it a further look and see if my feelings or thoughts change beyond the first evening and first impressions. If not, I can't imagine I'll be playing much more of it going forward after the first week or two, but I will continue to visit Final Showdown when I need my Virtua Fighter fix, or just play DOA 5 since my favorite VF characters are in that game. If you're on PlayStation and you haven't bought this already, save yourself $30 and just get it free with the game pass subscription, or if you're on Xbox spend $15 and pick up Final Showdown.
What is your first impressions and experiences??
I actually regret purchasing Ultimate for $30 rather than just getting it through PS Plus or Now. Here are some pros & cons for Ultimate upon first impression as well as some preferences between the two. I feel like releasing this to PS Plus/Now is the right step for Sega to generate some interest, but this game won't hold interest of the majority of customers after the summer is over. People still playing Tekken 7 years later and even MK 11, but DOA 6 online died quickly and people went back to DOA 5 shortly after, and DOA is a bigger franchise than VF (and DOA 6 is definitely better than Ultimate Showdown), so I don't suspect this is going to take off for the long term, but at least with it being free for subscribers hopefully Sega can generate interest in demand for Virtua Fighter 6. I am playing this on PlayStation 5 for reference. Ultimate Showdown feels really dated, even more than Final Showdown. There's something crisp and fresh about Final that Ultimate doesn't offer, with the exception to some graphical upgrades and adding the music from all previous titles, there isn't much reason to upgrade...other than it's free. And if you're like me and can't stand the PlayStation d-pad and you have Final on Xbox, stick with that.
I am curious, how do you PlayStation users tolerate the d-pad on the Dualsense (or even worse the older Dualshocks) when playing fighting games? Absolute worst part of this experience was having to play it on the Dualsense controller with the separated sticky janky Sony d-pad. A brutal deal breaker in most cases for me. The best feature (and really the only good one) about the PS5 dualsense is the haptic feedback, and this game doesn't even have rumble features.
Ultimate PROS:
-Better graphics...technically?? (worse character models and faces than Final). The graphics aren't as impressive as they came across on the youtube videos.
-The music from all previous titles is a great addition and I love it! I enjoyed listening to Sarah's VF2 music again with the modern graphics
-Aoi's level is beautiful and better than Final
-Lei Fei's level is nicer than Final
-Kage's level is beautiful and I'm not sure if it's better than Final, but it has a different feel and I enjoy them both
-The 1990's retro graphics are cool...sorta (see CONS)
-Hopefully it will generate enough interest in the general public to bring about a VF6, but that is doubtful unless the online sustains for the long haul. If Tekken, DOA or even Street Fighter release another title within the next year, there's no way people will keep going back to this
-It's FREE!!...sorta.
Ultimate CONS:
-Having to play it on the PS5. Even if it comes to Xbox at some point, that'll only fix the d-pad issue, but the other issues would still stand.
-The character models and faces are worse than Final Showdown. Better graphics are a big deal for me, but not when the characters look worse overall.
-From a moves stand point, Akira is still the worst character in the game. I forgot about how unplayable Akira really is with his move set. From a character personality stand point Akira is also really weak which is sad because the lead character of most of the other fighting franchises are some of the strongest characters in those franchises, but Akira needs a lot of work with personality, visually and especially when it comes to moves. Liu Kang, Kasumi, Jin Kazama, Ryu and others are much stronger as lead characters for their franchises. VF in general feels like it lacking in that department with strong lead characters, especially the one the franchise is based around. I can see visually how Akira evolved into Ryo Hazuki, but I don't see the connection otherwise. Ryo may be stoic and dry in his personality, but he doesn't lack charisma like Akira.
-Dural still has a terrible visual character design, although the general concept is cool.
-Dural's level is different and worse than Final Showdown.
-The 1990's retro graphics are cool, except that you cannot set the entire game to look that way. There's only one retro level and even your opponents can't be put in retro mode. This defeats the purpose and takes the enjoyment down a few notches on this feature.
-The character creation suite isn't very good, and is far worse than the one on Final Showdown, which isn't exactly the most amazing but FS has a lot more features added than US does. Why didn't they just bring the FS creation suite over?
-After a few hours of playing it, I don't feel any craving to keep playing it. Whereas with Final Showdown I kept coming back for more over the last month.
-Overall, Ultimate feels like a free game you'd expect on Game Pass/PS Plus. I understand this is a refresh of a game from 15 years ago, but somehow it *feels* stale compared to the game it's supposed to be refreshing. This has nothing to do with my opinion on the PS5 controller either, or the fact that the graphics are overall better on Ultimate, there's just something that doesn't feel like this is the 'Ultimate' version of VF5, rather Final Showdown feels like the ultimate. Perhaps they should have skipped this and went on to Virtua Fighter 6.
Ultimate Showdown itself isn't bad, but it doesn't do much to incentivize players to switch from Final Showdown, unless they're looking for a hot online community for the next few months until players find themselves returning to Tekken 7. I enjoyed recently reconnecting with Final Showdown a lot in this last month, but after playing Ultimate Showdown for the first evening, I'm quickly reminded why I prefer Dead or Alive and even Tekken over Virtua Fighter in most cases as a whole: they never feel stale, underwhelming, awkward and outdated.
I'm going to spend a few more days with Ultimate Showdown until Ninja Gaiden comes out to give it a further look and see if my feelings or thoughts change beyond the first evening and first impressions. If not, I can't imagine I'll be playing much more of it going forward after the first week or two, but I will continue to visit Final Showdown when I need my Virtua Fighter fix, or just play DOA 5 since my favorite VF characters are in that game. If you're on PlayStation and you haven't bought this already, save yourself $30 and just get it free with the game pass subscription, or if you're on Xbox spend $15 and pick up Final Showdown.
What is your first impressions and experiences??
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