New Dawn: A Virtua Fighter Retrospective

A rambling retrospective on the original Virtua Fighter (1993), looking at my earliest experiences of the game, the pop culture and arcade scene in 1993, the development of the game itself, lots of gleeful waffling and lyrical waxing, and a really bad Yoda impression.

All in-game arcade footage of the game is capture directly from my own Sega Model 1 Virtua Fighter arcade board.

For anyone troubled or angered by my use of the term "beat 'em up" to describe Virtua Fighter, in UK games magazines during the 1980s and 1990s referred to all games which had a combat motif as beat 'em ups, including fighting games. However, they were differentiated by a specific prefix; games like Double Dragon or Final Fight were called "scrolling beat 'em ups" and games such as Street Fighter II or Mortal Kombat were referred to as "one on one beat 'em ups". Fighting games were still being called "beat 'em up" games in the UK gaming press up until the end of the 1990s. I'm old and I'm sticking to it.

If you enjoyed this video, you might also like my retro-infused Sci Fi(ish) novels available here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Books-Samuel...