Virtua Fighter 2 (Arcade)

Released a year after the first game blazed through arcades, Sega AM2's Virtua Fighter 2 brought the series to even greater heights with the highest quality 3D models yet seen in an arcade game, making use of texture-mapping for additional character details and motion-capture for animations, both among the first for 3D fighting games. On top of this, the gameplay system was expanded and refined, with 2 new characters added and move lists extended for the existing ones.

It seems almost impossible to raise the stakes higher than this. ...Almost. Check back in a year or two.

I look forward to our next bout!

Debug Mode#

Virtua Fighter 2 notably contains a debug mode that can be accessed either through a button combination or through emulator cheats. To access it on hardware, hold down Service Coin and using P1 controls press Left, Punch, Kick, Right, Right, Down, Punch, Up, Kick, Kick.

Alternatively, you can save this script as vf2.xml in the cheat folder of MAME.

<mamecheat version="1">
  <cheat desc="Easy Debug Mode">
    <comment>Hold Service Coin and press P1 Punch for Debug</comment>
    <script state="on">
      <action>maincpu.md@1978=08</action>
      <action>maincpu.md@1979=20</action>
    </script>
  </cheat>
</mamecheat>

After the Debug Mode has been activated, the menu can be accessed in-game by pressing START+ GUARD on the Player 2 controls. The menu is very similar to the one present in this game's sister entries, Fighting Vipers and Sonic Championship.

Unused Characters#

MUE	KOJAC

Accessible through the Debug Mode's PARAMETER_SET are two characters unusually never seen in-game, which the menu calls "MUE" and "KOJAC" respectively. They take on the appearance of Lion's Player 1 costume but with different colored vests, black for MUE and white for KOJAC. They both utilize Akira's moveset and voice clips, but they still use Lion's idle and movement animations and even still have his unique backflip move. These characters may have been added as debug test characters or as placeholders for new characters that were planned but never implemented.

Revisional Differences#

Shortly after Virtua Fighter 2's release in arcades, an updated version christened the "2.1" release was created, mainly to address issues with the initial release and adjust the character balance.

The adjustments made in this version can be toggled in the test menu through a "Version 2.1" option. When activated, a ".1" icon will be added to the top of the screen over the timer.