Virtua Fighter 5: R Interview!!

Virtua Fighter 5 R: The ONLY Interview
Check out our huge, exclusive interview with SEGA AM2 development boss Makoto Osaki to get the full story on Virtua Fighter 5 Revolution, and various other hot topics.

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By Kikizo Staff, October 7, 2008

There's a chance you may not have even heard about the latest entry in the Virtua Fighter series, and that's because Sega has not arranged any publicity for the game outside of Japan. And even in Japan, where the games industry assembles this week for TGS, media access to the developer is strictly controlled; AM2 is the Sega studio everyone wants, but not everyone gets.

So we were delighted and privileged when AM2 development boss and VF veteran Makoto Osaki recently agreed to chat with us once more. Whether it was our proven ability to challenge them at their own game (and occasionally win), or the audacity of just turning up at AM2 and knocking on the door, we're not quite sure... but one thing's certain: you won't find the full story on VF5R anywhere else, nor will you find the stack of screenshots (previously unseen outside of Japanese mags) contained herein.

The rest of Sega can only look up to AM2 these days, quite frankly. Extreme production values, striking attention to detail and a legacy of Nintendo-like mega-hits combine to shame the track record of many other developers. Even though the occasional Virtua Fighter Quest blunder has slipped through the net, the ongoing quality and success of its core Virtua Fighter series is what keeps the studio alive and kicking - and shows that the thing we always loved about Sega - hardcore, full-power arcade blockbusters made in Japan - still have a rightful place in the modern games industry.

It's the whole point of what Sega was always supposed to be about if you ask us. And so our thanks go out to the VF player community in Japan, because without their damn good taste in fighting games and steady supply of 100 Yen coins, the VF series - and thus one-on-one fighting as a genre - would suffer.

Virtua Fighter 5 R sees the welcome return of sumo wrestler Taka Arashi, who debuted in Virtua Fighter 3 but has been absent from the character roster until now. The update also welcomes French karate newcomer Jean, who bumps the full line-up to 20 fighters including boss character Dural. Throw in some absolutely gorgeous stage redesigns/additions, and of course hundreds of gameplay tweaks and improvements, and VF5R is a must-see for all fans of the series.

Currently an arcade-only, Japan-only update, VF5R could well come to consoles in the form of downloadable content or even a standalone release (in the vein of Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution on PS2) - more on that in the interview of course - but for the time being this is obviously a bit of a niche game for us to be covering on Kikizo. However, we can't resist bringing you the latest on all things AM2, so for the rabid VF fans that we know visit the site: this is for you.

Kikizo: When did the decision to make VF5R come about? How long has the game been in development?

Osaki: Right after VF5, actually. Around the time we were developing revisions A and B for arcades.

Kikizo: So you made the decision to do VF5R long in advance, then. The numerous revisions were just to tide players over until then, we assume?

Osaki: Yes, they were designed to keep the interest of players while we worked on something more substantial.
Makoto Osaki - Development boss of SEGA AM2

Kikizo: Is there anything you wanted to implement in VF5R that you were unable to do, due to time or technology limitations?

Osaki: Hmmm, well, One thing I would really liked to have done is introduce some sort of internet versus match between arcades. You know, arcade-to-arcade play. The issue is, of course, the lag. In consumer games, people are satisfied with a small degree of lag being present, but in the arcade environment, that just isn't going to fly. When you play games online at home, when things go badly, you can at least blame it on your bad LAN cable, or something like that. But in arcades, where we charge a hundred yen per game, we can't be making excuses for lack of quality like that.

Kikizo: Would it be possible to do something like that with direct connection LAN cables? Street Fighter IV is doing something similar, but that's linking up machines within the same arcade...

Osaki: What hardware is SF IV using again... is it the PS3 hardware? No, wait, it's the Type-X2, my mistake. Hmmmm... technically, it could be done to link one machine to another, but I think the main issue with that suggestion is that... [in English] "too expensive!" [laughs]. SFIV requires a separate motherboard for each player because of that set up. Right now, VF5 is set up so that 2 players can play the game on a single board and hardware set. If we made operators buy two boards apiece, that would be extremely expensive for them.

Kikizo: On that note, does VF5R run on the same Lindbergh set up that VF5 ran on or have you guys made any upgrades like maybe go for a faster graphics card or newer Core2Duo processor (Lindbergh uses of the shelf parts) or is the hardware the same so that arcades only had to update the software?

Osaki: No, nothing has changed. The hardware's exactly the same, save for an upgraded Nvidia driver for the graphics card. We've also optimized the code to improve the overall speed so for the arcades the upgrade was relatively cheap.

Kikizo: After a long spate of absence, we've finally seen Taka-Arashi's return in VF5R. What made you decide to bring the character back into the series?

Osaki: Because the users wanted him back! [Including Kikizo] We took a survey of the players on VF.NET [the Japanese VF5 ranking and communications system] , and he was a feature requested by many players. We've also got the tools and power now to bring him back in his full glory.

Kikizo: The gameplay of VF3, which Taka was originally designed around, is very different from that of VF5R. Hiroshi Kataoka [President of Sega AM2] also mentioned that Taka didn't make the cut because his development was difficult, around the time VF5 first released. What sort of changes did you make to Taka to adapt him to the gameplay systems of VF5?

Osaki: Well, uh, we should forward this question to Mr. Katagiri [the motion designer]...

Daichi Katagiri: Taka's movement in VF3 was quite slow, compared to the other character. But his slower movements didn't really match the speed increase of Virtua Fighter 5 as compared to VF3. As a result, Taka in VF5 is considerably quicker than his VF3 incarnation... though he's still comparatively slow. We've also got a new sumo stance for him, like Lau and Lei Fei's various stances. Like this! [poses] Oh, and compared to Taka in VF3, his move set has also doubled. The skills he has are a bit less complex than some of the other characters, making him a bit easier to learn than in VF3, where he was considered an expert character.

Osaki: Regarding why he's in the game now as opposed to earlier - it's because of the improvement in development tools, both what we have access to and the experience we have in using them. Back in VF3, we needed to make a lot of original animation movements for Taka-Arashi, like when he'd just "thwump" to the ground following Kage's Koenraku throw. Even not too long ago, we'd think of something and say, "no, it's just not possible for us to do that," but with all the experience and advanced tools we have now, we're able to get a lot more concepts off the ground. Specifically, we used to be using SoftImage 3D for rendering and animation, but now we're using XSI.

Kikizo: In VF3, many move animations had to be specially re-done for Taka due to his size. Again, this is the case in VF5R. Was it difficult going back through all the skills and re-doing them specifically due to Taka's presence? How did you decide which attacks should have special animations and properties versus Taka?

Osaki: It is indeed difficult! The hit and defense motions - when Taka gets hit - are unique to him, and their instances have increased considerably. But not just for Taka and Jean getting smacked around, but for all the other characters - since we've got two new move sets, we need to develop animations for all the other characters when they get hit, as well. We actually re-did a whole lot of animation for VF5R as a whole, to make things look more natural in reaction to being hit.

Kikizo: VF5R introduces a new character, Jean. How did you go about developing his character? Why the choice of traditional karate as his martial art?

Osaki: Well, we didn't have karate up until this point. It seemed strange that I didn't have it - I mean, Tekken has had it for God knows how long. We've had a bunch of other traditional Japanese martial arts represented up until now, as well - Aikido with Aoi, Judo with Goh, Sumo with Taka-Arashi. It just seemed weird that we didn't have Karate in there, you know? So we designed a half-Japanese, half-French karate-using character. Doing a karate-based character was also a good choice in that his skills and motion design was pretty easy - we had a lot of reference materials available to us, and we were able to get all of his skill motion done by using motion capture.

Kikizo: Jean's the second VF character with silver hair as a default color - is there a significance to that hair color in the game, or is it just a stylistic choice for the character designers?

Osaki: We try to design characters so that when you see the character lineup for VF5, you say, oh, Akira, he's the "nekketsu" [spirited martial-arts devotee] character, Shun Di's the old martial arts teacher type, Jeffry's a power/throw type, Blaze is this tiny, fast, annoying little thing! [laughs]. But weird hair colors like that... they're viewed as "cool" and "distinctive" by a lot of Japanese. You know, it's in the vein of the "Visual Kei" image a lot of J-Rock bands have. One character we've been missing from the lineup so far is a sort of "Visual Kei" type.

Kikizo: Going off of that, I've heard that the character of Jean was designed specifically to appeal to female players...

Osaki: Well, we did think a bit about the fujoshi appeal... [laughs] but that's not the main reason, I assure you! But yes, we can certainly see how the design elements - silver hair, the "visual-kei" aesthetics, the Western/Japanese mix - appeal to, uh, that crowd. [laughs]. But the main reason was just to fill out the roster - we didn't have anyone like Jean in a VF game yet, and we didn't want him to look too similar to anyone else, either.

Kikizo: How do you go about deciding how to re-balance the abilities of the characters each time you make a revision to the game?

Osaki: Every time we do a revision to the game, our motion director and ace player, Katagiri-san, works to adjust the game balance. Every time, we have a certain "scene" for the version. Up until this point, we've tried to equalize the balance amongst all the characters with a more "mild" game balance. But for VF5R, we've gone in more of a... how would you say it... "destructive" direction. By that I mean that all the characters have some powerful, hard-hitting attacks and potential to inflict a lot of damage on each other given the right opportunity. Both characters in a match have strong moves available to them. This means that a single round can end very fast when compared to the original game. However, we have gleamed that this is the sort of thing that our users want.

Kikizo: So more high-damage combos like in VF2 and VF3.

Osaki: It's more in line with the initial version of VF4. Virtua Fighter 2... man, that game was HARSH. You'd eat Akira's Tetsuzankou and you could pretty much kiss that round goodbye. You had matches ending in three seconds back then!

Kikizo: There has been a bit of criticism from fans online that some of the items and outfits available for the characters are getting "too ridiculous" and are inappropriate for a game based on serious martial arts combat. How would you respond to this?

Osaki: [laughs loudly] Honestly, we thought like that for a long while, too! But, see, back when VF4 was around, we had these "embarrassing" items that'd get stuck on you for losing too much or generally not performing well. We wondered what the players would think of these items, but what we found was that they were quite well accepted. People were deliberately losing to try and get some of this ridiculous stuff. In the beginning of VF5, we made mostly "natural" items - hair, make-up, things like that. But what seemed to make users the happiest were those big, standout items. We figured, "Hey, people dig this stuff, why not give them more of it?" We really thought putting those sorts of items into the game was "risky" at first, but now they seem to be the "must-have" stuff.

Kikizo: Recently, an item was made available in-game that allows the characters to wear Nendoroid dolls that look like the characters of Hatsune Miku and Kagamine Ren and Len. Is this a hint that there might be more collaborations between Sega and Crypton Future Media and Good Smile Company in the future? (Maybe there will be VF5 character Nendoroid toys made available?!)

Osaki: Unfortunately, I don't think any VF Nendoroid characters are coming at the moment! But... Hmm. Hmmmmmmm! [laughs] But the people who hold the rights to Hatsune Miku and the others - Crypton Future Media - are really, really picky about the products they license the characters out to. If the quality of the products are up to their standards, they'll be happy to let us use her likeness. They're more concerned about the heart of the product than just licensing Miku out to anyone and everyone. [Speaking of which, Sega's just announced a PSP Hatsune Miku game... - Ed]

Kikizo: So why did you decide to collaborate with Crypton specifically and add the Vocaloid characters in as items?

Osaki: We've had talking items in the game for a little while now. The characters - Usagi-san the rabbit, Torasuke the tiger - will sometimes say things after matches. Miku and the others are in a similar vein. As for how we got the license, well... to be honest, I'm a big fan of Miku and the site that made her popular, Nico Nico Douga [a Japan-centric movie sharing site]. So when the Sega licensing department was asking the dev teams about whether we were interested in using the Miku character. I basically raised my hand and said "YES, PLEASE!" [laughs] So the Vocaloid characters are officially the third "talking" items in the game.

Kikizo: Fighting games aren't as popular as they were about a decade ago. Some have argued that fighting games are simply becoming too complex and uninviting to new and casual players. Do you agree with this? What can we do, as genre fans and game developers, to bring more new players and fans to fighting games? What are your thoughts on popular console-based, "casual" fighting games like Dairantou Smash Brothers X?

Osaki: I definitely agree. Actually, when the VF series first appeared on the scene, it was a 3-button game in a time where Capcom's 6-button fighters ruled the scene. It seemed like a pretty simple game in comparison at the time. But over the course of the next 15 years, VF became more and more complex by leaps and bounds. I wonder - if series creator Yu Suzuki were to try and develop a fighting game now, what kind of game would it turn out to be in the current environment? Maybe something with a different input method. We've done other experiments with alternative forms of input in the past, like in AM3's 1994 Dragonball arcade game that used a camera to detect player motions.

Kikizo: Well, it's interesting that you say that, because Yu Suzuki's touch-screen fighter, Psy-Phi, was cancelled in 2006 after location testing. Those kinds of games with alternative input methods seem more successful in the home market, though. You've got the EyeToy and Wii games...

Osaki: Frankly, though, the traditional arcade game format - with joysticks and buttons - is by far the cheapest for retailers. In the past, we released a lot of games with gimmicks like motion chairs like Space Harrier and OutRun. You rarely see those kinds of games in arcades anymore because of the cost. Arcade managers simply can't afford that sort of investment. And let's not even go into the overseas market... it's practically dead. The market there is entirely redemption [prize] machines now. The users in America just don't go to arcades anymore, because they don't see why they should invest the effort when they have games at home. In Japan, you've got arcades near train and bus stations that the vast majority of the people have to pass going to and from work, so they get a lot of traffic.

So now you've got a smaller market. In the past, we'd get a good return on investment if we budgeted a lot towards the development and manufacture of those sorts of "gimmick" machines. But when you've got a smaller market, you can't afford to give those sorts of games as big a budget, and so you see far fewer of them make it into production. That's why it's so hard to get those sorts of alternative-input machines onto the market.

Ah, wait, we got sidetracked! I almost forgot about the last part of your question. About Smash Brothers... I like the game, and my son plays it a lot. It feels a lot more like a genre-ambiguous title. The timing of input in the game, from my impressions, doesn't seem quite as strict, and the base gameplay is easier to pick up than traditional fighting games. I have to wonder though, if it'd be as successful if the game featured all original characters instead of the established Nintendo cast... I don't think it'd do well at all in that case.

Kikizo: Just as a sidenote, we spoke to the Smash Bros. designer Masahiro Sakurai and he mentioned Virtua Fighter as a specific inspiration when creating the skills and combo attacks for Sonic.

Osaki: Well! That's interesting. Maybe Sakurai-san kindly considered the type of "Sega-style games" as a homage.

Kikizo: There have been a spate of arcade closings in Japan recently. Has this impacted the bottom line of Sega's AM division at all? Do concerns about the health of the arcade industry influence game design at all?

Osaki: Ah, this is difficult... Well, to answer the first part of your question, yes, it did have an impact on us. Regarding the influence it has on our game designs, I think we touched upon this a bit earlier - about how budget and manufacturing costs affect the choice of machine construction and input device. For instance, when we develop new parts for arcade machines, we need to make manufacturing injection-moulds for them. If we produce 1000 machines that use this part, the cost for each is small, but if we make only 100, it's not cost-effective at all. When you have fewer potential buyers, it's already limiting the number of those machines you'd theoretically be able to sell. It makes more sense for us to invest in internet games than "gimmick" machines these days. The cost of server maintenance and upkeep has really decreased over the past few years.

Kikizo: A lot of things seem to have changed the past few years, just a year ago here in Japan the only few people carrying a PSP in public in Japan were the crazy Otaku types but on our way here we saw lots of people playing their PSP on the metro, do you have any idea why that is?

Osaki: Well, the reason why people are playing their PSP more is simple: Monster Hunter came out. [laughs] That game's sold over 2 million copies, making it a genuine hit. The game's been well-accepted by teens and young adults. Even here at Sega, we've got a lot of the younger employees playing during breaks. I think it's part of a trend - in Japan, within the last five years, competitive games have been waning in popularity, while cooperative games have seen a huge upswing.

Kikizo: So, do you still enjoy first-person shooters...

Osaki: Yes. YES. [laughs]

Kikizo: ...and what have you been playing recently?

Osaki: I've been playing Call of Duty 4, actually. Our clan is really strong, one of the best in Japan! We're definitely one of the best 4, at least. [laughs] I really like Battlefield: Bad Company, as well. I've been playing them all on my Xbox 360.

Kikizo: So are you looking forward to Gears of War 2?

Osaki: I can't play that one at home, though. There's kids in the house! It's way too violent! Maybe after they go to sleep.

Kikizo: This is something we noticed when talking with you previously as well as talks we had with several other Japanese developers, the people in Japan who develop videogames love western first person shooters yet for the Japanese public it remains a niche genre. Why do you think Japanese developers enjoy them so much while the people buying games in Japan seem to be uncaring for the genre?

Osaki: I think it's because in foreign markets, FPS games are kind of considered "flagship" titles for demonstrating new technology and the power of the hardware. In Japan's game market, fighting and racing games fall more into this line of thinking. So game companies here naturally want to check the newest FPS games out to see how the technology is being put to use. Stuff like FEAR and STALKER uses a new engine, as does the Unreal series. Plus, most of them are very well developed. Call of Duty 4 in particular is extremely impressive. It has the look and feel of an arcade game in places: it's very speedy and it keeps 60 frames per second. Well, on the 360, anyway. The fact that the game is challenging is good, too. The match recording system in CoD is also excellent - we actually referred to the way it works when making the recording system in the arcade version of VF5.

Kikizo: Well you said CoD4 in places has the look and feel of an arcade game - do you see any correlations between FPS design and fighting game design?

Osaki: That's a strange question. [laughs] I can say some points are quite similar. One thing is sound. Fighting games are very fast-paced, so the moment you land a hit or block, you need some sort of quick audio response to confirm it to the player. The same situation goes in FPS games. Like, when you hit someone at a far distance, you hear a sound confirming your success. When a grenade is thrown, you need to figure out what side of you it's on. You might be able to see it visually, but you can also find it by sound very quickly. In terms of relaying information speedily to the user, I can say FPS game and fighting game design bears a lot of similarities.

Kikizo: You mention you play CoD4 and Bad Company - what other home or portable games have you been playing recently?

Osaki: I've been playing been playing a lot of Poker Smash on XBL arcade. I also really like Rhythm Tengoku Gold on DS. Generally FPS and casual games.

Kikizo: Didn't Sega actually make an arcade version of Rhythm Tengoku in Japan?

Osaki: Yes, we did!

Kikizo: Okay, now for the million-dollar question.

Osaki: Uh oh [laughs]...!

Kikizo: Will there be a home version of Virtua Fighter 5 R?

Osaki: Well, you know I'm not actually in the home department, but your interpreter over there is... how about you ask him? [laughs while interpreter shakes his head laughing as well]. I can't give a definite answer, but if we get a lot of requests from users, then it's definitely possible. We just don't know yet.

Kikizo: Yeah, there's a lot of concern from US and European VF fans because a home version's the only way we'll get a chance to play it.

Osaki: Argh, so much pressure! [laughs] Actually, the development teams of the arcade and home version are different. So, unfortunately, I don't have much say in a home version...

Kikizo: We've seen some older AM-team developed lightgun-shooting titles, such as House of the Dead and Ghost Squad, turn up on the Wii. Do you think we'll be seeing any more Sega arcade shooters on the console?

Osaki: Ah, gun games. They're still extremely popular in the US... I know there's a whole ton of our gun-shooting arcade games at every Dave & Buster's in the US. I can't say specifically if we'll be seeing sequels or new incarnations for specific games, on the Wii or elsewhere. We do have the development staff of those games in AM2 still, and they're working on something... I wonder what they're planning. I guess we'll see, you will see...

Kikizo: A lot of Sega properties, some of which you've worked on, are now being worked on in the West. Sumo Digital for instance converted games like OutRun2 and Virtua Tennis, 3 and even had access to almost all Sega IP for Sega Superstars Tennis. There seems to be a shift of Sega's development from East to West - for example, the recently announced House of the Dead game is being developed by another British team. How do you feel about your franchises being developed by developers from abroad?

Osaki: I think it's the right direction. These are properties that have a lot of pull in Western markets. Each team in each region should try to make the most of the native market by using our intellectual properties. I like a lot of overseas titles, as you well know by now. But Western gamers... they still do buy a lot of Japanese games, don't they? I'd like to know if Western players still enjoy games with Japanese tastes as much as they used to.

Kikizo: I think it varies based on audience to audience. There's still a large audience for Japanese RPGs with anime-styled characters and melodramatic stories. Action games... I think, in general Western players like both Japanese and Western styled games. The success of Ninja Gaiden 2 and Devil May Cry shows the Japanese aesthetic style still has a lot of appeal in that genre.

Osaki: Hmmm, yes, I see.

Kikizo: And there's Final Fantasy XIII, which is getting an Xbox 360 release, but only in Western territories. So yeah, there's still a healthy market for Japanese markets we think.

Osaki: Very interesting insights. Thank you.



Sincere thanks to all Sega Japan and AM2 staff for making this interview happen. Interview conducted by the powerful two-hit combo that is Kikizo's Ali Almaci and Heidi Kemps. Feature words by Adam Doree. Check our many previous AM2 interviews out here. Virtua Fighter 5 R is out now in Japanese arcades, and a release on consoles is yet to be confirmed - but seems reasonably likely, if you ask us. You can see a load of videos of it on YouTube and over at VFDC, (who incidentally have a handy guide on on how to tell Sega you want a console version).