Originally released for Sega Genesis, 1997
Wii Points: 800 ($8)
Review it yourself

September 13, 1993. "Mortal Monday." A day that will live in infamy. I was eleven years old at the time, and the only two consoles I owned were an NES and a Game Boy. Mortal Kombat was not due out for the NES, and a Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis was too far in my future to consider, so I would have to settle for the Game Boy version. After spending about 15 minutes with the game, I turned the handheld off and stared blankly at the screen. What is this?, I wondered. Surely this was not the Mortal Kombat I knew and loved, the Mortal Kombat I had spent so many quarters playing in the arcade. I did not know enough back then, at such a tender, young, naïve age, about video game ports. I did not understand that many companies were content to create an inferior version of a successful product in order to sell a few more units. That's what happened to Mortal Kombat on the Game Boy, and that's exactly what happened to the Sega Genesis version of Virtua Fighter 2.

Virtua Fighter 2 on the Genesis is subpar to the point that fans of the series will not even recognize it as a Virtua Fighter game.

Sega knew that a 16-bit platform could not handle VF2 in its original 3D form, so the company decided to make it a 2D fighter. That could have worked. With enough attention to certain core details of what makes a VF game good, such as smooth animations, the transition might have been successful. Unfortunately, it was not. One of Virtua Fighter's best features is the smooth attack animations--the ability to string combos together displayed a fluidity of movement not offered by 2D fighting games like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. In VF2, the transition from move to move looked like something out of a Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan movie, but not so in the Genesis version. The attacks are choppy, and it appears that more than half of the animations were cut to save cartridge space. Pulling off combos is still possible, but they come off stuttering worse than... well, worse than the Game Boy version of Mortal Kombat.

While many fans considered Virtual Fighter's graphics to be superior to other games in the one-on-one fighting genre, I always had to disagree. They were blocky and ugly; but then, so were those of most games at the start of the 3D craze. The Genesis version does the impossible, making the game even uglier than it is in its original form. The backgrounds are smeared and painful to stare at, while the characters are not much better. Hands are squares, eyes are small blue dots when they are discernible at all, and most of the characters' outfits are just splotches of two or three colors.

The Sega Genesis' Yamaha YM2612 sound chip was never very adept at producing high quality sound effects, and Virtua Fighter 2 sounds worse than most games. At best, the victory cries are comparable to the gargled cries of a person with a throat full of phlegm attempting to sing. The various "Hiyas!" and grunts emanated during battle sound like quick bleeps during a sound test. The Genesis was not incapable of producing decent sound, but developers needed to understand how to coax results out of the chip. Sega, even when developing for its own console, did not understand this simple truth, and the results are evident in VF2.

Virtua Fighter 2 is a testament to a rule of thumb I have held dear to my heart every since September 13, 1993: Just because a game can be ported to a system does not mean that it should be. This game is not worth $8; it's not even worth $.08. Virtua Fighter fans will get nothing from it, and those new to the series will come into a great franchise on a low note. Those in the market for a 2D fighter on Virtual Console should consider the equally-priced Street Fighter II instead.

Turn back to read our review of Hudson's Bonk's Revenge, or click here to read our review of Nintendo's Punch Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream.