Virtua Fighter 5 is quite an old fighting game by now, but it seems to have followed in the footsteps of Street Fighter II when it comes to re-releases. It was first released in the summer of 2006 in arcades before making its way to the PS3 and Xbox 360 roughly a year later. Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown was a port of the updated version that was made available as a downloadable game on those same platforms in 2012. Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown made an appearance in arcades and on the PS4 in 2021, and it was recently updated for balancing. Even though a new Virtua Fighter was teased pretty recently, Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. is more of a port of Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown, but it's still significant because it marks the first time the series has made it to the PC since the release of Virtua Fighter Remix way back in 1996.

For those who haven't played any of the games in the series yet, Virtua Fighter 5 is a 3D fighting game that hits very differently compared to its contemporaries. For starters, some arenas have boundaries which, when crossed, counts as an automatic loss for the player who's gone outside the ring. The physics are mostly realistic, so even though you can jump impossibly high in the air, you can't bounce opponents off the ground or get them caught in juggle combos. There aren't special moves, so you aren't able to keep enemies at a distance, and the lack of a special meter means that players can't turn things around with a flashy automatic combo. What you get is a fighting game that's more steeped in realism and strategy, so pulling off a natural combo is just as important as dodging an incoming hit. Despite having a simple three-button system (blocking, kicking and punching), the system is deep. Each fighter has a plethora of moves that can be initiated either with proper button timing and slight directional changes, rather than using sweeping movements to pull them off. The system is deep enough to reward players who take the time to learn its nuances, but it is still accessible enough for newcomers to jump in and be formidable.

As mentioned earlier, this is a port of Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown from the PS4 that was released in 2021, which also happens to be a port of Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown. The character lineup of 19 fighters hasn't changed, and the same goes for the backdrops. The models haven't changed since Ultimate Showdown, and the game still sports the Tekken-like particle effects and color flashes once a move has made contact with an opponent. The costume DLC hasn't received any updates, and that's fine for the Yakuza and classic Virtua Fighter costumes. However, seeing Tekken 7 in this fashion despite Tekken 8 being out for over a year does date the game a bit.

R.E.V.O. includes the latest patch that the PS4 iteration received a few weeks ago. It's a big balance patch that has a number of changes done to characters, including the re-introduction of some of their old moves. Hitbox and character weight changes also factor into this, as does some tweaking to recovery windows. For a game of this vintage, it remains interesting to still see it receiving tweaks, but it is nice to see that PC and PS4 players won't experience any differences.

The main focus of the game is online play, and you get your first indication of this when you see that ranked Play is the first mode highlighted. It has adopted some of the things that newer fighting games have for online play, such as making you pick a character beforehand to save time. You can also practice against a training dummy, so you aren't just staring at a loading screen while waiting for a match to pop up.

Beyond Ranked mode, there's Room play, where you can set up a room of up to 16 players to battle it out without affecting your official win/loss record. A Tournament is also available, but it only seems to be offered when sponsored events are up or during specific points during a weekend. One thing that is missing is a proper Player mode for those who don't want the stress of Ranked play but don't want to fight against a small crowd of other fighters, either. In place of that is an alternative to VF.TV. Placed in the main menu, it constantly broadcasts replays of previous fights. The option is nice for those who want to relax and watch others spar, but there doesn't seem to be a way to tag specific players so you can watch all of their specific replays. There also isn't a search function to see bouts featuring specific characters.

All of this is being governed by rollback net code, which has already proven itself in other games to be one of the better solutions for fighting online. While our test period was short and we only played against QA and other journalists, the performance was good and lag was not noticeable at all. While this should bode well for those wanting a good online experience, the game does suffer from not having cross-play. This is especially bothersome when the game matches the mechanics of the PS4 iteration with the latest patch. On the one hand, considering the age of the game, there's a better chance that you'll find more PC players to fight against anyway versus PS4 players, most of whom are probably experts. On the other hand, the majority of fighting game players are still on consoles, so restricting PC players to a relatively smaller pool hurts the chances of giving this game a long online shelf life.

The focus on making this primarily an online game means that the offline game is weaker than in past entries. Training mode is still offered with a myriad of sub-modes, and offline versus play remains untouched. The only single-player mode present is Arcade mode. With different difficulties and other options that can be tweaked, it's still enjoyable, but the removal of license tests and a score attack mode makes this feel like a step down from Final Showdown. Finally, there's the character customization mode, but that also feels quite lacking in comparison to its contemporaries.

When it comes to the presentation, it's mostly good. The character models are excellent, with their outfits sporting a great deal of detail, and the same can be said of the environments. The game hits a smooth 60fps at all times, and while upscaling technologies like FSR, XeSS and DLSS are present, you should only need them if you're running on really old hardware. The game boost to a 4K resolution makes the game look much cleaner and sharper, and that's something you'll immediately notice if you're coming straight from the PS4 iteration. As for sound, the music is fantastic, and the sound effects are fine, but they sound like they could be beefed up. The voices are still the same ones used in the original Virtua Fighter 5, and they're fine but still sound quite cheesy, as their inflections can sometimes be quite off.

Thanks to the Steam Deck, a portable version of the 3D fighting game now exists. The game runs at the device's native 1280x800 resolution, and while it does steadily hit a solid 60fps, the game only does so once you have FSR 3.1 enabled. Turn it off and leave the rest of the game's default settings alone, and you'll drop to between 45fps-50fps, depending on the environment used. Turning off FSR means having to lower some of the few graphical options, but that might be worth it for those wanting to get the lowest amount of latency when fighting online. Battery life on a full charge hits a little over two hours, which isn't bad for what is essentially a PS4 game.

As was the case with the PS4 version of the game, your enjoyment of Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. is going to be dependent on what aspect of fighting games you enjoy the most. If you're more of a competitive online fighter, you'll appreciate the focus on that scene, but you will lament the lack of cross-play, as PC fighting game players tend to be a smaller community. Those who enjoy local versus play won't find any mechanical differences, while single-player fighting game enthusiasts will feel the sting the most since the game feels quite sparse in this area, but this is saved by the fact that the core fighting mechanics are so strong. As a stopgap measure to a completely new Virtua Fighter game, R.E.V.O. does a very good job in introducing PC players to the series and keeping them sharp in preparation for the new game's arrival.

Score: 8.0/10