Virtua Fighter 4

n/a

NAOMI 2 PlayStation 2
Virtua Fighter 4
System(s): Sega NAOMI 2, Sega NAOMI 2 GD-ROM, PlayStation 2
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sega-AM2
Distributor: Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (Europe)
Genre: Fighting
Number of players: 1-2
Release Date RRP Code JP 2001-08-02 ¥? ? US 2001 $? 840-0080C UK 2001 £? ? JP 2001 ¥? GDS-0012C JP 2002-01-31 ¥6,800 (7,140)6,800 (7,140) SLPM-62130 US 2002-03-17 SLUS-20323 US (Greatest Hits) 2003 SLUS-20323GH EU (Promo) 2002 SCES-50759 EU 2002-05-10 SCES-50759 DE 2002-05-10 SCES-50759 ES 2002-05-10 SCES-50759 FR 2002-05-10 SCES-50759 UK 2002-05-10 £39.9939.99 SCES-50759 FI 2002 SCES-50759 IT 2002 SCES-50759 AU 2002 SCES-50759-ANZ

Virtua Fighter 4 (バーチャファイター４) is a fighting game developed by Sega-AM2 and released for Sega NAOMI 2 arcade hardware in 2001. It is the fouth major entry in the Virtua Fighter series and a direct sequel to Virtua Fighter 3. The game was originally announced under the working title of Virtua Fighter X, before appearing with its final name at AOU Show 2001.

The game changed the Japanese arcade landscape due to use of internet and physical cards to save progress, which was the VF.NET (later ALL.Net) system.

It was succeeded by Virtua Fighter 5 in 2005.

Gameplay

Characters

Virtua Fighter 4 is the only game in the history of the Virtua Fighter series to remove a character from the core lineup of playable characters. Taka Arashi, who debuted in Virtua Fighter 3 and would return in Virtua Fighter 5 R, was not included due to technical difficulties.

	Akira Yuki
	Pai Chan
	Lau Chan
	Wolf Hawkfield
	Jeffry Mcwild
	Kagemaru
	Sarah Bryant
	Jacky Bryant
	Dural
	Shun Di
	Lion Rafale
	Aoi Umenokoji
	Lei-Fei
	Vanessa Lewis

History

Development

The NAOMI 2 arcade version of Virtua Fighter 4 uses up to 20,000 polygons for each character, while each background uses over 50,000 polygons, with up to 16 hardware light sources per polygon, at 60 frames per second. This was the highest character polygon count and lights per polygon for a video game up until 2001, giving it the most detailed character graphics and lighting effects of its time (such as dynamic search lights). In comparison, the same year, Dead or Alive 3 on the Xbox used 10,000 to 15,000 polygons for the characters. Virtua Fighter 4's character polygon count was unsurpassed until Virtua Fighter 5 in 2005. In terms of textures, the game uses 128 MB of texture data for the characters.

The PlayStation 2 version of Virtua Fighter 4, due to hardware limitations, reduced the polygon count down to 7,000 polygons for the characters and had much fewer light sources. The texture details were also reduced for the PlayStation 2 version.

Legacy

Like its predecessors, Virtua Fighter 4 saw several minor upgrades during the course of its lifespan, titled "Ver. B" and "Ver. C" respectively. It was ported to the PlayStation 2 in 2002 with slight graphical downgrades and online modes removed in exchange for more single player options.

Two major upgrades exist for the game, Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution and Virtua Fighter 4 Final Tuned.

Production credits

NAOMI 2 version

Virtua Fighter 4 Staff

• Executive Producer: Hisashi Suzuki
• Producer & Director: Yu Suzuki
• Coordinator: Hiroshi Kataoka
• Game Director: Daichi Katagiri
• Program Director / VF.NET & Card Planning: Toru Ikebuchi
• CG Design Director: Yasuo Kawagoshi

Programmer

• Main programmer: Susumu Morii
• Game System: Shinji Ohshima
• Rendering Effect: Goho Ogura
• GUI & 2D Graphics: Takanori Kobayashi
• Program & Arrangement: Masataka Daigo
• NAOMI net & Enemy: Syuji Takahashi
• Stage Effect & Sound Program: Yohsuke Takeda
• Stage Effect & Card System: Shigeru Yoshida

CG Designer

• Chracter Face Director / Akira & Kage: Jun Kubota (iceman)
• Wolf & Jeffery: Makio Kida
• Lion, Aoi & Dural: Hiroaki Ota
• Jacky & Lei-fei: Tetsunari Iwasaki
• Sarah & Vanessa: Takashi Ito
• Lau & Pai: Yumiko Sonoyama
• Shun: Chizuka Tamehira
• Chracter Concept Design: Kenji Miyawaki
• Stage Design: Munehiko Makino, Atsushi Kanno
• Visual Effect Design: Toru Ikeuchi
• GUI & 2D Graphics: Kazfumi Ohashi
• Design Support: Akihito Hiroyoshi, Takahito Minei, Hiroshi Hiraga, Kon Goshi, Nobuyuki Fujiki, Masami Naitou, Jin Onodera, Makoto Onuma, Nobuhiko Kosuge, Takahiko Kimura, Mitsugu Tsuchida

Planner

• Planning & Arrangement: Tomonori Shiino

Motion

• Motion Director: Kouji Kudou
• Motion Designer: Yoshiyuki Iwai, Kousuke Sasaki, Makoto Koizumi, Masato Nakamura, Hajime Itou
  • Nova Inc.: Kashow Oda, Kazuaki Kitazawa
  • Anchor Inc.: Masahiro Onoguchi, Toshiyuki Ohashi, Yoshikazu Sumioka, Kiyoshi Kunimori, Mitsuo Shimizu, Shintaro Umeda, Tsutomu Tokumasu
• Motion Capture Team: Hans Van Veenendall, Yaeko Okadaya, Takeo Iwata
• Motion Actor
  • Attractive Action Club: Mitsuo Abe, Akira Oohashi, Eiji Morisaki, Tomotaka Watanabe, Jirou Ishimura, Toshinori Sasaki
  • Katsugekiza: Wataru Koga, Iori Sakakibara
  • Stunts Astyn: Motoki Kawana, Akira Sugihara
  • Ray/Orbital Link: Nakazawa Ray
• Game System Regulator: Tetsuji Sugahara, Masaharu Terabata, Masanori Chida

Sound

• Sound Creator: Tatsutoshi Narita, Shinichi Goto, Sachio Ogawa, Hideaki Miyamoto, Naoyuki Machida, Satoru Higashi, Tomoya Koga, Hiroyuki Kazama
• Chracter Voice: Shinichiro Miki, Mahito Tsujimura, Minami Takayama, Shigeru Chiba, Nina Kumagaya, Tetsuya Sakai, Takahiro Sakurai, Takenobu Mitsuyoshi, Eric Kelso, Jeff Manning, Dennis Gun, Colleen Lanki, Yuko Florence Yunokawa, Donna Burke, Claire O'Connor, Marcus Hood, Ryan Drees

VF.NET

• VF.NET team: Koki Koiwa, Kazuhiro Shigekuni, Yasuyuki Komiya, Masaya Takeshige, Chika Torii, Wataru Nakanishi
• Cabinet Design: Masao Yoshimoto, Hideyuki Yamada, Seiji Ishii, Toru Mori, Masaki Kawabata, Yasuhiro Wada, Hiroki Koyama, Naoaki Syoui, Mitsuru Kawamura, Kenji Watanabe
• Publicity: Taku Kihara, Kaznori O
• Visual Editing: Makoto Ando, Naonori Watanabe
• Special Thanks: Master Gorenshi, Satoshi Motoike, Masanori Ohe, Youji Kato, Ryujirou Ohta, Satoshi Fujinuma, Mitsuo Kashiwagi, Masayuki Takahashi, Miyuki Noda, Hiroyuki Tsuzuki, Daigo Iwatani, Hiroya Eguchi, Hideaki Fukai, Shungo Seki, Katsuhiro Fujita, Yoshihiko Suzuki, Tomoko Morikawa, Eisuke Abe, Takeyuki Izumi, Naoya Shiozaki, Ryo Sato, Seiji Honma, Masato Shimoyama, Hiromitsu Sasaki, Hiroshi Tsurusaki, Daisuke Kojima, Ryo Shibasaki, Manabu Sato, Masato Suzuki, Hidemi Yamaguchi, Akino Tsuga, Erika Aihara, Hiroshi Kandou, Masaya Saida, Akira Yamanaka, Yukio Sugino, Magic Capsule Co., Ltd., discoveryfirm "the legend of China"
• NAOMI by: Hardware R&D Dept.
• Presented by: Sega
• Created by: AM2

Source:

In-game credits

PlayStation 2 version

Staff

• Director: 池淵 徹
• Coordinator: 片岡 洋

Programmers

• Main programmer: 田中 秀樹
• Arcade Conversion
  • Graphics Library: 池淵 徹
  • 3D Display & Converter: 八木澤 茂
  • 2D Display & Effect: 高林 雄一
  • Effects: 吉田 茂
  • Sound: 武田 洋介
• Training
  • Training System: 庄司 弘明
  • Trial: 関根 紀裕
  • Free Training: 五十嵐 保孝
  • Command Training: 影山 壮太
• System
  • File System: 山之内 毅
  • Data Files: 薄井 岳彦
  • Advice: 橋本 圭介
  • Options: 佐藤 領

Designers

• Art Director: 川越 康雄
• Characters: 平賀 宏志, 為平 千寿香, 五師 魂, 藤木 伸幸
• Items: 小菅 信彦, 真鍋 林檎, 土田 貢
• Stages: 菅野 敦, 安藤 聡
• Visual Effects: 池内 徹
• 2D Graphics: 大橋 一文, 貫洞 洋至
• Design R&D: 加藤 陽仁, 藤沼 里志, 高橋 雅之

Planners

• Training: 蝶間林 英生
• System: 下田 紀之
• Sound Team: 成田 尊, 小河 幸男, 後藤 真一, 町田 直幸, 東 論
  • Menu Narration: Lenne Hardt
• Original Movie: 渡辺 尚則, 池内 徹, 大橋 一文, 貫洞 洋至, 鈴木 正友

Help Team

• Programmers: 飯田 貴行, 岩﨑 剛, 大島 真治, 佐藤 文則, 杉本 哲也, 醍醐 正高, 村松 誉教, 森井 進, 森口 賢, 和田 誠
• Stage Designers: 牧野 宗和, 松井 工, 京谷 茂孝
• Character Designer: 嶺井 孝仁
• 2D Graphics: 渡辺 尚則, 鈴木 正友, 太田 英邦
• Planners: 松山 雄介, 増井 宏, 椎野 智徳, 谷口 祐一
• Publicity: 木原 卓
• Publicity Design: 王 和則, 西野 紗代子, 太田 英邦
• Supervisors: 有馬 央, キャサ夫, ちび太, 諸橋 務, 工藤 浩司, 千田 正憲, 中村 真人, 佐々木 孝介, 小泉 真, 寺端 正治, 大橋 俊幸, 荻原 純志, 菅原 哲二, 片桐 大智
• Special Thanks: 森川 ジョージ, PKアキラ, アニアキ, 海老原 玲緒奈, 鏡 陽光, 小島 創, 忰田 豊, ザ・ゲリラ, 佐々木 明子, 澤田 五郎, 篠原 元貴, 榛葉 志乃武, 杉原 貴広, ススキノウルフ, セガール, 龍爺, たいちょう, ハクションラウ魔王, 長谷 励, ハチ, 羽田 隆之, 深沢 洋介, マッスルサラ, 三浦 利夫, ムッキー晶, 武藤 洋平, 吉田 孝広, 太田 隆二郎, 小岩 巧基, 重国 和宏, 柴崎 孝美, 清水 祐介, 釣崎 宏, 鳥居 史, 中西 亘, 宮脇 謙史, 古川 憲司, CRI事業部, テクニカルリサーチ部, Virtua Fighter 4 アーケードチーム

Sega of America

• Localization: Jin Shimazaki, Osamu Shibamiya, Arthur Liboon
• Product Marketing: Mike Fischer, Robert Alvarez, Cord Smith
• Public relations: Kirsten Merit, Gwen Marker
• Creative Services: Robert Schonfisch, Angela Santos

Sega of Europe

• Localization / PD: Kats Sato, Matt O'Driscoll, Aude Donnan, Mark Horneff
• Product Marketing: Jim Pride, Mark Fisher
• Software Manual: Emma Ledda
• Special thanks to all those involved at: Sony Computer Entertainment Europe
• Executive Director: 鈴木 裕
• Executive Producer: 鈴木 久司
• Presented by: Sega

Original Game ©Sega ©Sega-AM2/Sega,2001,2002

Source:

In-game credits (JP)

Digital manuals

• 

  NAOMI US manual

Magazine articles

Main article: Virtua Fighter 4/Magazine articles.

Promotional material

PDF

NAOMI 2 US flyer

PlayStation 2 AU print advert

Print advert in 576 Konzol (HU) #48: "Március 2002" (2002-xx-xx)

PlayStation 2 print advert in Play (US) #5: "May 2002" (2002-xx-xx)

Artwork

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Physical scans

NAOMI 2 version

NAOMI 2, US
Cart

NAOMI 2, JP

NAOMI 2 GD-ROM, JP
"Top" instructions "Long" instructions "Long" instructions (2)
Disc

PlayStation 2 version

Sega Retro Average
Publication Score Source Game Informer (US) 98 May 2002, p78 100 TechTV (2002/04/05)

	99
Based on 2 reviews

Sega Retro Average

Publication Version Score 576 Konzol (HU) 90 BGamer (PT) 87 Bonus (YU) 85 Click!Konsole (PL) 95 Consoles + (FR) PAL 95 Computer & Video Games (UK) PAL 80 Edge (UK) NTSC-J 70 Electronic Gaming Monthly (US) NTSC-U 98 Famitsu (JP) NTSC-J 93 GamePro (US) NTSC-U 100 Game Station (UK) 80 GMR (US) NTSC-U 100 Hyper (AU) PAL 94 MAN!AC (DE) PAL 91 Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine (US) NTSC-U 100 PlayStation 2 Official Magazine - UK (UK) PAL 80 Players (DE) PAL 90 Play (PL) 96 Play (US) NTSC-U 80 PlayZone (DE) PAL 91 PSM (US) NTSC-U 90 PSX Extreme (PL) NTSC-J 93 Power Unlimited (NL) 89 Super Juegos (ES) 95

	90
Based on 24 reviews

Virtua Fighter 4

PlayStation 2, US
Cover
Disc

PlayStation 2, US (Greatest Hits)
Cover
Disc

PlayStation 2, US (Hollywood Video)
Cover

PlayStation 2, JP
Cover
Disc

PlayStation 2, AU
Cover

PlayStation 2, EU
Cover

PlayStation 2, EU (Promo)
Disc

PlayStation 2, UK
Cover

PlayStation 2, FR
Cover

PlayStation 2, DE
Cover

PlayStation 2, ES
Cover

PlayStation 2, IT
Cover

PlayStation 2, SE/DK/FI/NO
Cover

Technical information

Virtua Fighter 4 was the first video game to use normal mapping, an advanced form of bump mapping.

The character models in the original Sega NAOMI 2 arcade version had about 20,000 polygons per character. This was the highest character polygon count in any video game at the time, surpassing the character polygon counts of 2001 Dreamcast game Sports Jam (up to 18,357 polygons) and higher than the character polygon counts of any Xbox games (up to 15,000 polygons in Dead or Alive 3 and Dead or Alive Ultimate). The polygon counts in the PlayStation 2 version of Virtua Fighter 4 were reduced to about 7,000 polygons per character.

ROM dump status

System	Hash	Size	Build Date	Source	Comments
?	CRC32 ddcf01e0 MD5 0c91d4105d3969c345bdede385344bf8 SHA-1 56925d84541e709b5a354ea701756752b92be342	691,470,336		CD-ROM (EU)	SCES-50759 (V1.00)
✔	CRC32 af293820 MD5 6042fc56240778af6f96891d473cbafb SHA-1 c085481cf6c0b33b1369e8c66af4b0b0d6341654	567,332,976		CD-ROM (JP)	SLPM-62130 (V2.00)
?	CRC32 3ddf5508 MD5 961c46ace3bfc96e4e88ea1e93e35e81 SHA-1 4b867387c089e586d6fe3f4d4d9ea47743870f25	569,800,224		CD-ROM (US)	SLUS-20323 (V1.02)
?	CRC32 MD5 SHA-1		2002-01-04	CD-R				Page
?	CRC32 MD5 SHA-1		2002-02-01	CD-R				Page

External links

• Sega of Japan catalogue pages (Japanese): PlayStation 2
• Official website
• Virtua Fighter 4 on PlayStation.com: JP, US