Virtua Fighter 3 Team Battle brings together twelve of the world’s best fighters in the ultimate tournament match. Fighters from all fighting styles com together, and for the first time in any game the players can fight with realistic 3D environments that they can interact with. No longer are players confined to flat arenas, as Virtua Fighter 3 TB has walls that you can smash your opponent’s face into, stairs and platforms that you can perform jumping attacks off and even cliff edges that you can knock and throw your opponent off.

Graphically, Virtua Fighter 3 TB sets the highest standards in videogame visuals today. Converting the 15 thousand dollar arcade machine’s visuals with ease, VF3 TB on Dreamcast has impossibly detailed characters and 3D backgrounds that will easily make you forget that this is just a fighting game.

Add to this the most comprehensive set of fighting moves in any fighting game and you have what is undoubtedly the best fighting game today that has the depth and longevity to appeal to beginners, experts and even those who have never played this type of game before.

12 characters who use different fighting styles from around the world.

Akira Yuki – Uses a Hakkyoku-Ken style of fighting based on Kung Fu. Short, sharp attacks and surprise throws are his specialty. Akira is a master at reversal attacks as well.

Lau Chan – A retired Chinese cook who is a master at Koen-Ken, Lau’s attacks are fast combinations of knife hand jabs and powerful spinning kicks.

Jeffrey Mc Wild – Use the Pancratium fighting style that was developed in Ancient Greece. Jeffrey is a master at powerful throws and slow, yet heavy attacks.

Wolf Hawkfield – a professional wrestler, Wolf uses a great variety of powerful attacks and grappling holds and throws to subdue his opponents. Some of his throws are devastating

Pai Chan – Lau’s daughter, Pai uses a similar fighting style to her father’s, with more speed and agility, yet lacking in power. Ensei-Ken also uses reversals and more kick-based attacks

Sarah Bryant – Like her brother, Jacky, Sarah uses a form of Jeet Kune Do although Sarah incorporates more kick and air attacks into her fighting arsenal

Jacky Bryant – Uses the Jeet Kune Do martial art that was developed by Bruce Lee. It consists of flamboyant kicks and effective street-style punches and throws

Shun Di – This old fighter uses a variation of Kung Fu that is based on drunken-like movements that are deceptive yet incredibly effective at taking opponents unaware.

Lion Rafelle – The teenage fighter, Lion uses the ancient ‘pray mantis’ fighting style named Tourou-Ken which employs deceptive punches and a large variety of fast, powerful kicks

Taka-arashi – This gaint 200 kilo sumo wrestler packs more power in his open hand attacks that any other fighter. His sheer power can easily knock opponents from the ring’s boundaries

Kage Maru – A ninja who’s fighting style is based around the ancient art of Ju-Jutsu, Kage’s moves are unorthodox, yet incredibly effective. He uses a variety of air attacks

Aio Umenokoji – Uses the Aiki Ju-Jutsu fighting style that is similar to Akido in the way that it uses your opponent’s weight and momentum against them

Dural – The game’s boss character, Dural is a metallic robot who possesses many of the moves of each of the fighters in the game and thus is highly skilled and unpredictable

Team battle mode where players can select up to four characters and fight against computer or human opponents in ‘elimination-style’ bouts.

A full training mode where players can practice against a computer opponent on any stage. Players can practice combos and experiment taking advantage of the various background environments (hills with slopes that allow players to juggle their opponents)

VF3 TB utilises the Dreamcast’s high resolution mode of 640 by 480 pixels and runs at a super smooth 50 frames per second.

Each fighter displays motion captured movements for incredibly realistic animation of their movements and attacks. Kicks, punches, throws – all attacks look very spectacular and as if they were ripped right out of a Hollywood action movie.

All stages are fully 3 dimensional, with walls, fences, cliff edges, and glass floors. Background locations vary greatly and include:

A section of the Great Wall of China, with sections of the wall stretching off into the distance as far as they eye can see. The section of the wall is covered with undulating steps and sections of wall that are broken and damaged, allowing players to force their opponents of their edge for a ring out victory.

A tropical island that is surrounded by glistening water on all sides. Waves crash in against the shore as players fight and nearby islands are clearly visible, each with their own palm trees and small buildings. Fine details, like the sand that’s tossed around underneath your character’s moving feat and the seagulls that zoom in and around the fighters, make this one of the most impressive graphical sections in any videogame.

An underground subway that has trains constantly passing by the fighters as the battle through each bout.

The top of a building construction site that has glass translucent floors with girders overhead and stacks of unused metal girders piled across the floor. Sparks fly from nearby welding equipment as players battle it out.

On the roof of a Chinese restaurant in the middle of china town. The slanted roof makes for totally a different fighting surface, and the surrounding buildings are filled with incredible amounts of detail, like billboards, shop front signs, glass windows and power cables that string from building to building.

In the middle of Hong Kong harbour on a set of joined rafts and boats that serve as a makeshift pontoon. All of the boats and rafts constantly bob up and down, creating a huge amount of uneven surfaces that force the fighters to adapt in order to win. The surrounding water is perfectly animated and accurately represent turbulent waves

A scorching section of desert that’s filled with undulating sand dunes. The sand dunes make for a much more uneven fighting surface, and a constant sandstorm blows in the background creating a nice graphical effect.

An ancient Japanese fortress that’s surrounded by forty foot concrete walls. Inside the fortress are smaller oriental buildings with accompanying d�cor and Asian style appearance.

An underground abandoned coal mine that has been caged off with iron bar walls on two sides and steep cliffs on the others. A fire roars in the top left side of the stage and this fire lights everything in the cave with a flickering golden glow that looks truly amazing.

Finer details are used on each of the stages to give them a feeling of total realism. These effects include; flowing water, falling snow, real-time lighting effects, birds that fly around the fighters when disturbed, leaves that rustle underneath the feet of fighters, footprints that are left in the sand, and flags on nearby flag posts that flutter and blow in the wind.

The incredible detail on the fighters includes; eyes that follow their opponents, hair and clothes that blow in the wind and trail perfectly behind the fighter’s body when they perform attacks, mouths that move perfectly in sync with the speech from fighters, hands that open and close to form fists for punches, and even facial expressions of pain whenever the fighter is hit by a punch. Characters also have accurate shadows that are drawn beneath them.

4 different views are available in-game, including standard side view, first person view (from the fighter’s eyes), third person viewpoint (behind their shoulder) and a top-down viewpoint.

Each fighter has his/her own unique background music, as well as an additional two tracks for Dural and the cave stage which is an addition to VF3 Team Battle. All music is generated by the CPU, which allows the GD ROM to access between bouts (especially Team Battle mode) and this greatly reduces loading times.

All fighters have a huge range of speech for end out bout poses.

All punch and kick attacks are accompanied by a variety of sound effects for their contact with your opponent, with these effects generating a real sense of impact and damage that’s highly satisfying.

The game engine runs at 50 frames per second with all input from gaming devices updated each frame (50 times per second). This means that the game is incredibly responsive, allowing for a high level of player skill when inputing commands. Timing and execution of moves is imperative to becoming successful at the game, yet its design is so simple (with only four buttons) that beginners can jump in and play and perform plenty of moves.

The addition of a dodge button (aside from punch, kick and block) allows players to avoid attack by moving aside in any direction. Side throws have been added to allow fighters to immediately throw their opponent once they have dodged an attack (and while their opponent is still in the process of executing their attack)

The multi-leveled backgrounds with undulating surfaces create new 3D environments for fighters to adjust to. This opens up new combination attack possibilities where players can attack opponents from higher ground, or even ring out opponents by throwing or knocking them off the edge of platforms and roofs etc.

All throws in the game can now be escaped by performing the same movement within a very short period of time from when your opponent executes the move. This allows skilled players to avoid cheaper throwing tactics.

Walls can be used as weapons against opponents with many throws incorporating the wall (by smashing the opponent into and against the wall) or by knocking them up against the wall and continually attacking then while they are cornered.

Most players have over 150 different attacks, with more attacks available by combining extra joystick movements with buttons.

Virtua Fighter 3 Team Battle represents the pinnacle of fighting games for both arcade and home consoles today. Its incredibly complex, yet undeniably simple gameplay make it accessible for both beginners and highly skilled players with a steep learning curve in its gameplay providing plenty of reward and satisfaction for fans of the fighting game genre. Furthermore, the wide variety of martial arts styles and moves for each character gives the game an incredibly sense of depth and longevity that no other fighting game can claim to match.

Above all, the game is a testament to the power of Dreamcast as it handles the conversion of a 15 thousand dollar arcade game with ease, while improving upon its gameplay and graphical features.