We all know Virtua fighter by now right?  The blocky weird 3D fighting game from way back.  Were you a fan of the ninja?  The lion head guy?  I've had people mistake it for Tekken at times due to the similarities between characters.  It was the first arcade fighting game to have full 3D polygon graphics and thus is one of the foundations of gaming.

Released December 1993, Virtua Fighter has just hit it's 20th birthday.  Developed by Sega-AM2 by renowned developer Yu Suzuki, known as Sega's Miyamoto who worked on Hang on, Space Harrier and of course the Shenmue series.  Designed in part with the Lockeheed Martin company which works on aerospace technology (no joke)it was a revolutionary 3D styled fighting game that is also recognized by the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History like Pac Man and Dragon's Lair as being a landmark of entertainment studies.

Each character used real world martial arts(although the floaty jumping was questionable), and even with street fighter 2's popularity, they limited it to three buttons so it would be easier to program and to force people to remember combinations rather than button mashing.  Even now it is seen as an inspiration to many fighting games.  The refusal to make it online is due to the developers feeling that any lag would ruin the gameplay as they demand absolute precision on the game.

The first game had a limited roster of characters, but the game series has had many new faces appear.  For now, here is the original cast and what style their fighting moves were based off of.

Akira Yuki was the star of the game, using a form of Kung Fu called Hakkyoku-Ken.

Sarah Bryant with her brother, was from California and uses Jeet Kun Do but mixes it with Savate and Taekwondo styles.

Jacky Bryant is a race car driver and like Bruce lee and his sister Sarah, fights using Jeet Kun Do.

Pai Chan, the daughter of Lau Chan, was the 18 year old action movie star using Ensei-Ken or Mizongyi.

Lau Chan was a master chef who also used Koen-ken and entered the tournament as he was a perfectionist by nature.  He was the big villain in the anime.

Jeffry McWild was a fisherman from Australia using Pankration, a combat sport that has boxing and wrestling.

Kage-Maru, the token ninja who fights with Hagekure-ryu Ju-jitsu

Wolf Hawkfield was a Canadian wrestler who wanted to be strong, then had nightmares about the world ending in later games.  He used professional wresting moves.

Dural is the final boss, a shiny female cyborg that uses all the characters martial arts.

While polygon counts disappeared quickly making the first game obsolete, it still stands as a fantastically made game to play, even the current ones.

Sega has a website set up to capture this event here:

Japanese Site Sega Virtua Fighter 20th Anniversary Site

Fighting game fans have a lot to thank the game for when it comes to 3D fighting games.  Go party Virtua Fighter!


Odd Facts:
Siba of Shiba is a character who was never featured in the main series. He would have been from the middle east and used Pencak Silat.  When he finally reappeared in the Fighters Megamix, his move set was closer to Bahn from the Fighting Vipers game. He wielded an unblockable blade.

There is a real life wrestler named Jim Steele who took on the name and look of Wolf Hawkfield during 1994 Japan All Pro Wrestling Tournaments.



As they used real fighting moves, the fighting styles were used for characters in the Shenmue series such as Akira Yuki's moveset was used for Ryo Hazuki, there were several other characters in the second game that you fought against that shared other movesets.

DOA5 ultimate featured Akira Yuki, Sarah Bryant, Jacky Brant and Pai Chan.

In the first game, Dural was actually Kage-Maru's kidnapped mother as a cyborg.

There was an RPG released for PS2 and Gamecube based on the series called Virtua Quest.