Virtua Fighter (Arcade)

Virtua Fighter is the granddaddy of 3D fighting games, a landmark in animating realistic 3D characters, and one of a handful of games enshrined at the Smithsonian. It's also got a lot of unused content.

Prerelease Info

Unused Characters#

Four characters not accessible normally can be enabled through the use of MAME cheats.

Jeffery Buckman (Jeff)#

Jeff is a military character who wears camo gear, a hat, and shades, of which the latter two can be knocked off in a fight. While playable, his moveset is clearly unfinished: he uses a handful of Jacky's techniques and lacks throws. Curiously, his design bears a remarkable resemblance to Prototype Jack from Tekken 2, a game which had several of the same designers as this game including core designer Seiichi Ishii.

Majido Ab Dul#

Majido is perhaps better known as Siba. He was seen in pre-release screenshots and even featured on the international arcade cabinet for the game where he was referred to with the latter name, albeit then romanized as "Shiiba" (if not outright mislabeled as "Akira" on some arcade cabinets). At the point in development where he was scrapped, his name had been changed to Majido. Similarly to Jeff, he has a sparse move list, cribbing from Sarah and Lau, that lacks basic throws. He also has a pursuit attack which is remarkably glitchy, often teleporting him halfway across the stage. In other regards, he is noticeably more developed than the other unused characters, being the only one to have a unique character select icon and voice clips. He later appeared as a hidden character under his original name in Fighters Megamix.

Takeru Ryushoji#

This character appears before Akira in the character data table (and uses Akira's name in combat), indicating that he may have been an early design for Akira. However, given the presence of an unused bio and nameplate that corresponds to no other character, corroborated by the name that appears for this character on the high-score table, he seems to be known as Takeru. Like the other unused characters above, he has only a very basic moveset with no throws.

Unused Boss Characters#

This curious set of characters is listed after Akira in the character data tables and all use Dural's name and moveset, and also lack a character select portrait like Dural. According to early design documents for the game, these are the Koskol Brothers, Rekka, Score and Aeon respectively, who were meant to serve as the game's trifecta of final boss characters. How this would have worked in the game is unclear, but given that Dural is typically fought across 3 rounds, they may have been intended to be fought one round at a time. Notably, given they all use the same moveset and character IDs, this is effectively the only character in the game with three available outfits.

Here are movies of all the characters in action:

Watch on YouTubeWatch on YouTube

To play as these characters, insert these codes into the MAME cheats vf.xml file.

Replace Akira with Majido:

<cheat desc="Replace Akira with Majido">
    <script state="on">
      <action>temp0 =maincpu.ow@FD2EE7</action>
      <action>temp1 =maincpu.ow@FD2EBB</action>
      <action>temp2 =maincpu.od@FD2A73</action>
      <action>temp3 =maincpu.ow@FD2A93</action>
      <action>temp4 =maincpu.ow@FD2AB3</action>
      <action>temp5 =maincpu.ow@FD2AD3</action>
    </script>
    <script state="run">
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2EE7=33AF</action>  <!-->Model and data-->
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2EBB=4843</action>  <!-->Model 2 and data-->
      <action>maincpu.od@FD2A73=001D1A8F</action> <!-->Portrait-->
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2A93=0B37</action> <!--> Character Select Name P1 -->
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2AB3=14F7</action> <!--> Character Select Name P2 -->
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2AD3=D773</action> <!--> Bio -->
 
    </script>
    <script state="off">
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2EE7=temp0 </action>
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2EBB=temp1 </action>
      <action>maincpu.od@FD2A73=temp2 </action>
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2A93=temp3 </action>
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2A93=temp4 </action>      
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2AD3=temp5 </action>
    </script>
    </cheat>

Replace Akira with Jeff:

<cheat desc="Replace Akira with Jeff">
    <script state="on">
      <action>temp0 =maincpu.ow@FD2EE7</action>
      <action>temp1 =maincpu.ow@FD2EBB</action>
      <action>temp2 =maincpu.od@FD2A73</action>
      <action>temp3 =maincpu.ow@FD2A93</action>
      <action>temp4 =maincpu.ow@FD2AB3</action>
      <action>temp5 =maincpu.ow@FD2AD3</action>
    </script>
    <script state="run">
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2EE7=3C7B</action>  <!-->Model and data-->
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2EBB=4CA5</action>  <!-->Model 2 and data-->
      <action>maincpu.od@FD2A73=001D1A8F</action> <!-->Portrait-->
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2A93=09FF</action> <!--> Character Select Name P1 -->
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2AB3=11EB</action> <!--> Character Select Name P2 -->
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2AD3=C95B</action> <!--> Bio -->
 
    </script>
    <script state="off">
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2EE7=temp0 </action>
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2EBB=temp1 </action>
      <action>maincpu.od@FD2A73=temp2 </action>
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2A93=temp3 </action>
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2A93=temp4 </action>      
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2AD3=temp5 </action>
    </script>
    </cheat>

Replace Akira with Early Akira:

 
  <cheat desc="Replace Akira with Early Akira">
    <script state="on">
      <action>temp0 =maincpu.ow@FD2EE7</action>
      <action>temp1 =maincpu.ow@FD2EBB</action>
      <action>temp2 =maincpu.ow@FD2AD3</action>
    </script>
    <script state="run">
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2EE7=3DF9</action> <!--> Model and data-->
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2EBB=4E23</action> <!--> Model 2 and data-->
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2AD3=B437</action> <!--> Bio -->
 
    </script>
    <script state="off">
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2EE7=temp0 </action>
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2EBB=temp1 </action>
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2AD3=temp2 </action>
    </script>
    </cheat>

Replace Akira with unnamed character models 1 and 2:

 
  <cheat desc="Replace Akira with Boss 1 and 2">
    <script state="on">
      <action>temp0 =maincpu.ow@FD2EE7</action>
      <action>temp1 =maincpu.ow@FD2EBB</action>
    </script>
    <script state="run">
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2EE7=510F</action> <!--> Model and data-->
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2EBB=5285</action> <!--> Model 2 and data-->
 
    </script>
    <script state="off">
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2EE7=temp0 </action>
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2EBB=temp1 </action>
    </script>
    </cheat>

Replace Akira with unnamed character and Dural:

 
  <cheat desc="Replace Akira with Boss 3 and Dural">
    <script state="on">
      <action>temp0 =maincpu.ow@FD2EE7</action>
      <action>temp1 =maincpu.ow@FD2EBB</action>
    </script>
    <script state="run">
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2EE7=53FB</action> <!--> Model and data-->
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2EBB=369B</action> <!--> Model 2 and data-->
 
    </script>
    <script state="off">
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2EE7=temp0 </action>
      <action>maincpu.ow@FD2EBB=temp1 </action>
    </script>
    </cheat>

Unused Name Graphics#

The names Takeru, Tao, Willie, and Jeff can be seen amongst the character names. Willie is an early name for Jeffry and Tao is an early name for Lau (as seen in pre-release screens). Takeru is completely unused through normal means, but appears in the ranking screen upon finishing the game with the early Akira design, indicating that the name was attached to this character. Strangely enough, the name of "Willie" also appears in the ranking screen if the player completes the game using Jeffery Buckman. Lau and Jeffry's final, altered names are not pre-made sprite maps, but instead rendered using the in-game font.

Jeffry and Lau's names were likely changed due to copyright concerns: Jeffry is quite obviously modeled after real-life martial artist Willie "Bear Killer" Williams, while Lau already looks similar enough to Tao Pai Pai of Dragon Ball fame without outright stealing his name.

Majido is used for an unused character seen above, as is Jeff.

In addition, there is a select screen graphic for the name Yagyu, an early name for Kage. His early name can be seen in pre-release screens.

The name Shiiba also has a select screen graphic. This is a romanized version of how "Siba" would be written in Japanese (シーバ).

Unused Character Bios#

Every character in the game has a bio that appears on the select screen. A handful of these go totally unused, while two are altered via graphics patching. Strangely, the blood type data is not stored with the rest of the bio.

This bio corresponds with the character Jeff, whose full name is Jeffery Buckman -- a likely tribute to actual VF1 design staff member Jeffrey Buchanan. The name Jeffery (minus an e) would eventually be shifted to another character.

This bio corresponds to Majido.

This bio corresponds to the character Takeru, which is the early Akira design shown above.

Akira's bio. This is mostly identical to the final, but Akira's last name is Ryuzaki instead of Yuki.

This bio is mostly identical to Lau's final bio. The "Tao" part of the name is patched over in the final version.

This bio is almost identical to Jeffry's besides the name, which is patched over with new graphics in the final version.

Early/Unused Character Select Screen#

An unused character select screen is present in the game's code, however, many of the graphics it once utilized have been moved or overwritten. The basic layout can still be seen, and scraps of unused character select graphics can be seen here (and in some cases, reconstructed, as with the bizarre-looking Dural above). Dural and one of the unused boss characters (most likely Rekka of the Koskol Brothers) actually have portraits on this screen unlike the final character select, which may indicate that they were intended to be playable at some point.

This is likely an early character select, however, the placement of the objects hints that it may have been involved in an unused cabinet-link tournament and/or league mode. It is two-player versus only and doesn't allow mirror matches. The layout is similar to the pre-release screenshot of the character select screen.

To access this screen, use the following MAME cheat:

<cheat desc="Beta Character Select">
    <script state="run">
      <action>maincpu.pb@40ff34=04</action>
    </script>
  </cheat>

Unused Names on the Best Times Screen#

The following string can be viewed in the Main CPU while the Best Times ranking screen is displaying.

TOM.LAU.JACKY.KAGE.MAJIDO.WOLF.DURAL.SARAH.PAI.JEFFRY.WILLIE.AKIRA.TAKERU.

Unused Game Mode Remnants#

The following string can be viewed in a MAME debugger while in Test Mode:

NORMAL.TOURNAMENT.LEAGUE.TOURNAMENT BARCODE................NO LINK.MASTER.SLAVE.LIVE.......................
REAL1.REAL2.TOY1.TOY2.SELECT1.SELECT2.

Unused Sounds#

Fighter Voice Clips#

An assortment of voice clips for generic fighter grunts remain in the files and can be assessed through the sound test. These are grouped differently compared to the used fighter grunts and are noticeably higher-quality compared to them. They may have been placeholder sounds used until the final ones were recorded, or perhaps belonged to the test characters the developers used during development.

Majido Voice Clips#

Majido Ab Dul's unique voice clips. Compared to the above clips, these are at the same quality and labelled the same way as the used characters' voice clips, a seeming indication of how late into development the character was cut.

Announcer#

Title Call-Outs#

Two call-outs for the game's title can be found in the files. One is clearly voiced by the game's own announcer, whilst the other is voiced by someone never heard elsewhere in the game. It sounds quite similar to the unused title call-out found in Virtua Racing's files, and may have been done by the same person. Both call-outs notably refer to the game as "Virtua Fighters", a slightly earlier version of the game's title used until late in development.

Misc. Call-Outs#

Various call-outs from the announcer that are never used in-game. "Set" and "Round" are both displayed in-game as the effective round count and the number of fights in the arcade ladder respectively, but are never called out verbally.

"You Win" and "You Lose" were likely to be used when winning and losing a round/fight. Curiously, Tekken, a later game made by many of the same developers, used similar voice clips for these same instances.

Move Commentary#

Some very curious dialogue for the announcer can be found in the game's code that's inaccessible in the sound test, which describes the moves and actions executed by the players and their chosen fighters, perhaps for play-by-play commentary.

References#