Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. Review
Genres: Fighting game
Developers: Sega AM2, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio
Publishers: Sega, SEGA of America
Series: Virtua Fighter
Engine: Dragon Engine
Release Date: January 27, 2025
Platform: PC
“Early Access/Review Copy Provided By SEGA”
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As an 80’s Baby, I grew up in the arcade scene during the beginning of the fighting game craze that was started with Street Fighter 2: The World Warrior. That game inspired so many copies and blatant rip-offs (Fighter’s History being the one that had Capcom sue Data East and lose for the blatant plagiarism). When it came to the arcade industry leader at the time being Sega who constantly made games that created and defined genres, they wanted to get in the ring and create their own fighting game and thus Virtua Fighter was born. The father of all 3D fighting games was always the standard for the genre, so much so that Namco and Tecmo (and many others) would straight up copy whatever Sega would do with the series until Sega decided to stop putting forth the effort of making VF and thus Tekken, Dead or Alive, and other 3D fighters would have to step in and evolve the genre in their own unique ways and have so for the last 18 years since the debut of VF5. With the 2021 release of Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown on PS4, fans clamored for both the return of the series with a new entry and a port of the game to PC with rollback net code instead of delay based net code; the hopes of fans were answered on both accounts as we were given a teaser trailer for the next VF game made by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios (studio behind the Yakuza series) and a PC port (and arcade port) of Virtua Fighter 5 called Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. Does it stand up? Let’s find out!
With this being the definitive way to play VF5, you basically have everything VF5 US gave us with roll back net code and additional graphical fidelity options to be able to play the game in 4K at 120FPS along with all characters regaining moves that were removed from them due to balancing issues in VF5 US. All of the characters have been given rebalances and are given all their previous moves from VF5R which makes certain characters like Vanessa and Goh even more deadly than they already were. As a Jacky Bryant main, he’s the only fighter I play as (He’s the inspiration for me to learn Jeet Kune Do) and I’m glad he’s got all of his mix-ups and rush down mechanics from VF5R back.
You may be wondering why I said I only play as one character when this game has a roster of 19 fighters (which is small compared to other fighters on the market) and that’s because learning a fighter in VF is very much like learning an actual martial art as every fighter in the game has an insane amount of moves available to them compared to every other 3D fighter. Every fighter is completely viable and capable of beating any other fighter unlike other 3D fighting games that make certain characters have a higher priority over others.
You have your standard fighting game modes like Arcade, training, ranked match/online, character customization, tournament mode, and more. Arcade mode will put you through 8 fights against the CPU leading to a 9th fight against the series boss Dural. Training mode, while not incredibly intuitive to a newbie, allows you to train with your fighter and teaches you the ins and outs of how to use your character along with setting up different situational setups to learn what you need to do. You can customize any of the fighters with various outfits (albeit this is very very limited when compared to Tekken 8 or even Tekken 7). You can modify their default costumes all the way down to their cross over Tekken 7 costumes. There is also the 30th anniversary costumes which are the swimsuit line of costumes for those who care about that.
I do love the fact that you can select what music you wish to use in battles from the entire VF series (even Virtua Fighter Kids). My go to soundtracks to use are VF2 and VF3 arranged as they are amongst the series’ best OSTs.
Performance wise, I played this on multiple PC setups from my beast of a gaming desktop down to my gaming laptop and my two handheld gaming PCs being the ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion GO. Given that this is not a very demanding title, it runs smoothly on handheld gaming PCs and I’m sure it even runs buttery smooth on the Steam Deck. On my gaming laptop and desktop, I ran the game at 4K and 120FPS and experienced no graphical issues or performance dips. On the handheld PCs I ran the game at 1080p 60FPS with graphical details turned down to a minimum and didn’t run into any issues at all.
Online matches didn’t have any issues for me as I was able to get them fairly often during the review period and the netcode was really good. Even in playing handheld or on my gaming laptop via Wi-Fi (a cardinal sin for fighting games I know), I never ran into an issue.
Now you may be wondering if this game is worth the $15 price that it’s going for on Steam, and my answer would be YES Absolutely! For $15, you are getting one of the absolute BEST fighting games (even if it is an updated port of an 18 year old game) that holds its own completely against Tekken 8 and every fighting game currently available. It is a very grounded and down to earth fighting game with no special moves, fire balls, special meters, comeback mechanics, or any over the top gimmicks that are common in fighters these days. Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. is a fighting game that is all about mastering your fighter and rewards you for it as the only thing between you and victory is how well you know your fighter. There are no easy wins in VF and every fight can come down to who is the more skilled player and that is something I’ve missed when it comes to 3D fighting games.
VF5 R.E.V.O. is a complete package of a fighting game and is a must play game if you are a fan of fighting games especially for those of us that have grown tired of their being only one series dominating the scene. If there are any issues that players would have, particularly modern fighting game players, that would be the lack of a story mode or even the series most beloved mode being Quest mode as this is truly a game about playing online or against the CPU with nothing else for you to do. That simplicity may not be for many modern fighting game fans but for an old head like me, its more than enough as VF is still the most in-depth fighter available. If you want a grounded and more realistic fighting game with no gimmicks or comeback mechanics that’s completely honest, then VF5 R.E.V.O. is the game for you!
