[Sega Saturn] Kids Jacky cheeses his way through Ranking Mode (Virtua Fighter Kids)
4Virtua Fighter Kids!... You remember this one, right?
The Saturn was home to several entries of the Virtua Fighter franchise, all of which (for better or for worse) have one reason or another to be remembered. Other than just being a weird little game, not this one!
A 1996 release both for the Sega Titan Video (aka ST-V) arcade board and the Saturn, Virtua Fighter Kids is, in short, a sped up and chibified version of Virtua Fighter 2. All of the characters have been shrunken down into tiny people with big heads and expressive little anime faces. Both them and the announcer have super squeaky voices, too, so it's safe to assume they also overdosed on helium as they became small. They also come with a set of completely redrawn cartoony stages based off the originals and remixes of music from the old game that sound far more upbeat and cutesy. Most of the same modes of play are present here as well.
On face value, the changes between Virtua Fighter Kids and Virtua Fighter 2 end there. But the effect these changes have on the gameplay and presentation of the game compared to the original are night and day. It's really not that fair to say this is nothing but Virtua Fighter 2 with a grotesquely out-of-date moe makeover. By all means, this is a complete reinterpretation of the same basic game idea of the original. You get the same 10 characters + Dural from the parent game, with their movesets and broader game mechanics completely intact. Their massive heads and stubby arms make a very real difference in how combat flows: everyone does indeed have really short range, making spacing a little more ambiguous, throws even more difficult to land and hitboxes can be a little more finicky to connect (try guessing Mid from High when half your body is your head!). The drastically ramped up speed of the game changes things further: more moves are now safe on block and lots more combos are available. In my brief little review of VF2, I said that the game, while still being very good, arguably shows its age in several areas when compared to our current standards. By comparison, while VFK's faster pace will arguably feel more comfortable to a modern audience, the awkward combat caused by the blobby proportion of the characters really relegates this game to the status of a novelty. Thankfully, the game's art style and presentation exist outside of battles where it only serves to make this an awkward game to play. The game completely embraces its silly and cutesy art style. All the menus follow this style and have the presence of the silly little chibi fighters front and centre. The game is also full of FMVs as each of the 11 fighters gets one to call their own upon finishing Ranking or Arcade Mode (as long as your Options are set at least somewhat close to stock settings) and, of course, the opening FMV being somewhat of a classic, always there for you every time you boot up the game. Although this art style is a far cry from how chibi and moe media from Japan are styled nowadays and arguably hasn't aged the best, as it can be somewhat unappealing to modern fans of these styles, I, for one, really find it charming to see this game go all in on it as personally unappealing as it is for me.
Strangely, in the middle of all this, you have the "Combo Maker" mode. ...A a tool for making macros! Why in this game of all games?! If you're not intrinsically familiar with how fighting games work, with registering inputs and frame data and all that, this is of absolutely no use to you and you'll probably be at a complete loss trying to use it. I am, and I still had to pull up the manual to figure out what I had to do. First, make an input, then, input how many frames that input will be registered for (quite how you're supposed to figure out the frame data of your fighter so you can actually make an useful macro, I don't know). Do this until you got your macro ready, save it to a slot and then manually bind this slot to a button via the Key Config. Have you ever wanted to make a 60% combo or consistent 1-frame links with the press of a button? You can, now! Following logically from this, I guess Virtua Fighter Kids 2 will come with built in TAS tools. You're allowed to use these macros in Arcade and Versus, but not Ranking Mode. I'm really not aware of any other fighting game that has something of the sorts?... I mean, for good reason! But it's still a neat curiosity.
Ultimately, Virtua Fighter Kids is just that. A neat curiosity. A Japanese copy of the game really doesn't cost much at all these days so if you like Virtua Fighter 2 a lot and never played this, I'd recommend picking it up just to see a different spin on a game you practiced touch-of-death combos for hundreds of hours since 1995. If you're a fan of mid 90s FMVs or chibi art styles of the time, you'll also love this. Otherwise, this isn't the best fighting game ever exactly.
Trivia: This is my first game ever! Hooray for thick rose-tinted nostalgia goggles..
Other Videos By FamilyTeamGaming
Other Statistics
Virtua Fighter Kids Statistics For FamilyTeamGaming
At this time, FamilyTeamGaming has 333 views for Virtua Fighter Kids spread across 3 videos. His channel published less than an hour of Virtua Fighter Kids content, making up less than 0.30% of the total overall content on FamilyTeamGaming's YouTube channel.