[NiktheGreek]

Hi, I'm Virtua Fighter! You may remember me for such feats as inventing the 3D fighting genre and leading it throughout it's lifetime. However, I wasn't always the game I am today. For example, here's my character select screen:Back when I was an incomplete mess, here's what my character select screen looked like:This image was found at System 16, and features a number of changes. Final name on the left, prototype on the right:Lau - LeeJacky - JackieSarah - SaraKage - YagyuJeffry - WillyAnd that swarthy fellow next to Lee, he's Shiba. You may remember him from such games as Fighters Megamix, where he was known as Siba. The keen-eyed among you may notice that he's not a part of my final build, replaced by the rather popular Akira. More on him later. When I was even earlier in my development cycle, here's what I looked like:This one was scanned from Mean Machines Sega. Final name on the left, proto on the right:Lau - TaoJacky - JackieSarah - SaraKage - YagyuJeffry - Dural (dead wrong, that's the name of the robotic final boss)And oh look, there's our mate Shiba/Siba again. And while we're here, why not have a look at possibly the only in-game image of him on the internet?This was scanned from MMS too. There he is, on the right, fighting Lau. Crucially, we can't say how closely he'd resemble the Siba of Fighters Megamix. One problem is that he's missing his sword, which is used in a few of his moves from Fighters Megamix, and there's no evidence to suggest it would be added later. Another problem is that his throws are executed like those of a Fighting Vipers character, rather than the Virtua Fighter character he is.Is that all there is to know about Siba? Nope. An unsubstantiated rumour from MAWS states "During Virtua Fighter's development, the game featured an Arabian fighter named 'Siba'. He was replaced later on in the final prototypes by Akira, as the developers felt that the game needed a karate fighter similar to Street Fighter's Ryu." That story is likely, but as said before unsubstantiated.Also, whoever did the cabinet art for the US release of Virtua Fighter clearly didn't know that Siba was scrapped. How do we know this? Easy:I'm Virtua Fighter, thanks for listening to my story!

[PhakeDC]

Thanks for compiling these scans. I for one wished they'd included Siba in the final build, and his blade too..It certainly worked in Tekken with Yoshimitsu

[Sith-Smasher]

Ah the memories... Still got VF on Saturn, polygons glitch like hell but it was the first 3D fighter released.The sequel was much better but I never got my hands on it. When I bought the Saturn things were already going downhill and games were scarce.When a shop was cleaning out, I got a nice deal back then: €25 for 10 games so I still got VF, Panzer Dragoon, NiGHTS & Daytona champ. edition.

This post has been edited by Sith-Smasher: 10 September 2006 - 06:13 PM

[Cryomancer]

added, and this was worded awesomely might i add

[Eric Wright]

Sith-Smasher, on Sep 10 2006, 07:06 PM, said:

Ah the memories... Still got VF on Saturn, polygons glitch like hell but it was the first 3D fighter released.The sequel was much better but I never got my hands on it. When I bought the Saturn things were already going downhill and games were scarce.When a shop was cleaning out, I got a nice deal back then: €25 for 10 games so I still got VF, Panzer Dragoon, NiGHTS & Daytona champ. edition.

actually, I think the first 3D fighter was either Ballz or some SNES Super-FX chip game

[NiktheGreek]

True, Virtua Fighter wasn't the very first 3D fighter, as it was released in December 1993 and thus some awful MS-DOS games like 4D Boxing predate it (though technically could be classified as sports games, rather than traditional fighters). However, as far as the modern 3D fighting genre goes, VF was the beginning - other games since have retained various parts of it's distinctive combination of ring out victories, floaty jumps and a lack of projectile attacks. Hell, the life mission of the Tekken series has been to rip off the VF series, especially evident if you look at the addition of new features to each game.I like to think of it like this: 4D Boxing will remain a footnote in the history books, for the terminally pedantic to hold up as a shining example of how everything you know is wrong. Virtua Fighter is part of the Smithsonian's permanent research collection on IT innovation.Cryo: thanks muchly.

This post has been edited by NiktheGreek: 16 October 2006 - 01:44 PM

[JoJo B.]

Not really a VF question, but while we've made some mention of Fighters Megamix, does anyone know where the character Deku originates from? Is he some sort of original character?

[Phugolz]

awesome! Sorry to bump an old topic, but I found this cool. I loved fighters megamix, and always thought the addition of a "lost" VF character was true fan service