In defense of Virtua Fighter 3: Debunking the myths of Sega's arcade titan

Sometimes you can’t help but sit back and recline that a legacy is secure. The mark one VW Golf gti for instance, or the George Foreman grill. Some things just are, and always will be, and it is common knowledge.

Or you think it is, but oftentimes, in our personal legacy list, things that you left in someone else took out. And it can take years to sort one from the other. For instance, The Black Crowes album Amorica; I had assumed its position in culture was certain, given that it was harder than grunge and oh so lightning with whimsy.

It turns out that after so long of thinking it was general legacy, it was just one for me.

Same thing with Virtua Fighter 3, because behind the back of my attention, question marks appear circling for carrion. Well not on my watch. Not now that I have come to my attention and turned to see what’s going on. Besmirching, that’s what. Hold my pint, this needs seeing too.

Virtua Fighter has always been a game that some unfortunate terms have been hung upon. Technical, clunky, floaty and other general misunderstandings do circle it, but I never thought for a moment that Virtua Fighter 3 was going to be written up as anything less than a titan of its time.

The last word from a series of games that defined polygon people with the first entry, cranked up all the textual faders for the second and went hitherto unknown for fidelity with the third.

In terms of tech, no one came near to what Sega’s arcade teams were developing with, and running on the fresh Model 3 board, Virtua Fighter 3 cleared off over the horizon.

Tekken 3? Amazing when it arrived on PlayStation, but out in the wild of the arcades, parked up next to Virtua Fighter 3? Entirely different weight divisions, but Virtua Fighter always was really. Sharper at the front end but looser at the grip than all the competition. I think some of those misunderstandings are simply a matter of timing.

Virtua Fighter 3 was sharper at the front end but looser at the grip than all the competition.