I can't say "impressions" here because I've already been through just over 700 matches, offline and online, and by now I have to admit that I'm, you know, kinda familiar with the game. I guess. VF is such a heavy game that I never feel like I'm completely qualified to discuss it. But as we all know, bloggers don't need qualifications. So let's get going!
The 360 version is Ver. C: a little tiny upgrade on the PS3's Ver. B. This is technically the most recent version, but the differences are pretty slight, so Sega wisely didn't bother advertising it. What they did do was slap a big "ONLINE" on the box to show off the fact that the game's got online play. I really have to eat my words about online play in this game: while it's not always perfect, the speed between players in the continental US is usually so good that I can do everything I can do offline, including the faster motions that require single-frame accuracy. I was intending to have this game as a practice tool for my in-person meetups with the local VF players: instead, I'm playing the local VF players online. Crazy!
The implementation is a little bare-bones, but this is likely to streamline the process: nobody can spectate, for example, because it would slow the match down. In fact, in ranked matches, you can't even choose who you fight: this is, of course, to counter the phenomenon on DOA where a guy would start a room with seven of his friends, and they would all throw the fight to him over and over again until he got whatever rank he wanted to be. In VF5, if you start a game room, you must fight the first person to pop up. No way around it. No kicking people, no leaving the room. It's better to search the available fights and find someone around your rank, so that you have a decent fight. But if nobody's around, well... expect a lot of easy wins.
The only way out of a fight is manually disconnecting, which, strangely, is not penalized at all. You'll see a lot of people around with high win rates who, it turns out, just disconnect every time they're about to lose. There isn't much to do about this aside from reporting it to Live, which I do, but I doubt that anything actually happens to these guys.
The ranking system, by the way, is really nice to actually be able to play against other people. See, from VF4 on, VF has had a highly competitive ranking system where, once you're out of the beginner ranks, you can only advance through by continuously winning against players within two ranks of yourself. Win enough, and you move up. Lose enough, and you're demoted. Tough but fair. Against the computer AI it's sort of a pushover until the end, but against other people, you can really see the way the game is sorting the community by skill level. I haven't seen anybody ascend past the dan rankings (the intermediate level; right now I'm a 7th dan) yet, but it's only a matter of time.
I do wish that online play was more stand-alone, though: in order to customize your character, you'll still need to play the online Quest mode, which is a bit of a grind once you're good at the game. Getting the items you want to make your perfect costume will entail winning hundreds and hundreds of easy, boring fights. I'd rather earn the stuff some other way.
Even with that in the way, though, a truly workable online mode is is something of a holy grail for VF players outside of Japan. With an arcade scene on life support and a pool of players that's few and far between, online play is something we've needed for years. This has opened up the game tremendously for me. In the past week, I've come into contact with a pool of competition that is completely beyond what I'd be able to get in person, and as a result I've gotten so much better at the game.
Back when I was playing VF4 Final Tuned, the only way to play the damn game was to wait for your turn on the one arcade setup we had. You just didn't get to play that much. And we were considered lucky: not too many people in the country even had a Final Tuned machine to play on. So this, hell: I can play anybody in the states, almost seamlessly, whenever I want. It's amazing. I can barely tear myself away from it.
I would enjoy online play a little more if I didn't randomly disconnect after 10-20 seconds into a match. I also love how they record Command Time Attacks and have them ranked online as well. Oh yeah, did you happen to fight against Chief Flash online yet?
Posted by: Chris Photangtham | November 12, 2007 at 09:30 AM
Did you forward your ports? After I set up a static IP and set up my ports I was absolutely golden. Chief Flash, by the way, is one of the first dudes I got to play against online. He whipped my ass and continues to do so whenever I run into him. I'm so bad at escaping Wolf throws.
Posted by: David Cabrera | November 12, 2007 at 07:14 PM
I've tried Port Forwarding, DMZ, and UPnP. I'll test it out later tonight. If that doesn't work then I'll try the static IP solution. Hah, against Flash you gotta try f p+g or b p+g, those are his favorite throws unless he does something else :(
Posted by: Chris Photangtham | November 12, 2007 at 09:10 PM
I was really surprised to see how well the online worked too. The game is pretty smooth with only a few lag problems when I've played.
I'm done with Ranked Online. I played with two guys that just bitched because they didn't like my fighting style with Leon.
If you ever want to play, just hit me up with an invite. My tag's MoonJump81
Posted by: Nick | November 13, 2007 at 01:21 PM
Dave,
Are you by any chance going to Big Apple Con this weekend? Jason and I are touring around it, and we'd love to have you join our party. You could be the red mage, or something. Let me know!
--Mack
Posted by: Mack | November 14, 2007 at 07:38 PM
I didn't even know that was coming up, but I've got some cash and I definitely wanna do it. I'll see you guys there.
Posted by: David Cabrera | November 14, 2007 at 09:21 PM