It’s December. You already know that Virtua Fighter Month is here and of course: I need to blog about Virtua Fighter stuff. I’m also excited about the fact that Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown is one of the seven games appearing at EVO Japan 2023, which I’ve already talked about in a previous blog.
Back in December 2021, SEGA announced and released the Yakuza Collab DLC for VF5US, which includes costumes and music from the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series for the cast, alongside with Type D Costumes and items returning from VF5FS. Then in June 2022, SEGA released another collaboration DLC, this time based on Tekken 7 which includes costumes, music, and also the Tekken 7 UI from Season 4. The second collaboration felt unreal since it was two 3D fighting games collaborating together for one awesome DLC.
Collab DLC is one thing to see for this game, which can lead to costumes, soundtrack, and in some cases: UI changes. Here are some of the games that should be part of VF5US Collab DLC:
#5: Dead or Alive
Back in 2012, Dead or Alive 5 was released and it featured Akira, Sarah, and Pai from the Virtua Fighter series, with Jacky being included in Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate one year later. Virtua Fighter was one of the biggest influences for DOA and it would be amazing if we could see costumes and music from the game appear in VF5US.
Certain costumes can fit certain characters such as Kage-Maru as Hayabusa, Pai as Lei-Fang, Jacky as Jann-Lee, and also Eileen as Marie-Rose for example. As for music, I think Alpha-152’s theme for Dural would make perfect sense considering that it shares a sinister tone.
#4: Persona
If you remember back in 2018, Atlus released Virtua Fighter DLC for Persona 3: Dancing Moon Night where the cast would wear costumes based on the VF5FS cast. I thought it would be good to return the favor by giving Persona costumes to the VF cast as well.
I think the best way to do this DLC is by giving them costumes from Persona 1 to Persona 5. I know Atlus doesn’t give Persona 1 and 2 some love, but I think it would be good to include those two games along with Persona 3, 4, and 5. In addition, they should include music from the series, as well as the UI from P4AU as well.
#3: Sakura Wars
This one right here is interesting. Sakura Wars is a franchise that is popular in Japan since it has several games, anime, and stage plays. So I thought to myself: “How awesome would it be to have costumes from the series over to Virtua Fighter?”. It’s easy to provide 19 costumes and 20 songs from the series ranging from the first game to Shin Sakura Wars (2019).
#2: The King of Fighters
Fun fact for those that don’t know: Atlus published KOF13 and KOF14 for the console release in North America. Giving KOF costumes to the VF cast would have endless possibilities since there are a lot of characters in KOF, which can be easy and hard at the same time. For example, I figured that we would have Jacky wear Terry’s costume, Akira wearing Kyo’s costume, Eileen wearing Athena’s costume, etc. The music ideas would also be difficult since there’s a lot of music from the KOF series.
#1: Shenmue
Lastly, this needs to happen. Shenmue was originally intended as the Virtua Fighter RPG for the SEGA Saturn before it became its own thing. A Shenmue crossover has been long overdue, plus you have a lot of characters and music that can be transferred over to this game from Shenmue 1 to Shenmue 3. The costumes that make the most sense are Akira having Ryo’s costume, Lau having Lan Di’s costume, Jacky having Ren’s costume, and Sarah having Joy’s costume. The rest can be distributed either way, but I figured that these are good examples.
Honorable Mentions
With EVO Japan 2023 coming up in the next couple of months, it’s only a matter of time what we’ll see with VF, especially since it’ll be the 30th Anniversary of the franchise. Hopefully we’ll get VF6 in the future, as well as ports for VF5US.
Virtua Fighter Month has officially begun! Come back next week as we talk about my experience with VF on Fightcade.
Until then… Train Up, Fighters!