Virtua Fighter 3tb

n/a

Model 3 NTSC-U NTSC-J PAL
Virtua Fighter 3tb
System(s): Sega Model 3 Step 1.0, Sega Dreamcast
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sega AM2 Genki
Supporting companies: 81 Produce, Attractive Action Club
Peripherals supported: Dreamcast VGA Box, Dreamcast Arcade Stick, Visual Memory Unit
Genre: Fighting Action/Kakutou Action (格闘アクション), Fighting/Taisen Kakutou (対戦格闘), Action
Number of players: 1-2
Release Date RRP Code JP 1997-09-26 ¥60,000 837-11858 US 1997 $? 837-11858 UK 1997 £300 837-11858 JP 1998-11-27 ¥5,800 (6,090)5,800e HDR-0002 JP (Repeat-ban) 199x ¥5,800 (5,974)5,800e HDR-0017 US 1999-10-19 $49.9549.95 51001 DE 1999-10-14 MK-51001-53 ES 1999-10-14 8,990Ptas8,990 MK-51001-53 FR 1999-10-14 MK-51001-53 UK 1999-10-14 £39.9939.99 MK-51001-53 DE/FR/UK 1999-10-14 MK-51001-53 UK/IT 1999-10-14 MK-51001-56 AU 1999-11-30 $89.9589.95 FVIR29DCS

Virtua Fighter 3tb (バーチャファイター3ｔｂ) (Virtua Fighter 3 team battle) is a Sega Model 3 Step 1.0 arcade fighting game developed by Sega AM2 and manufactured by Sega. An update to the developer's earlier Virtua Fighter 3, it was first released to Japanese arcades in September 1997, and is notable for allowing a team of fighters to be selected, rather than juts one.

In November 1998, Virtua Fighter 3tb was ported to the Sega Dreamcast, courtesy of developer Genki and publisher Sega.

Gameplay

Virtua Fighter 3tb is much the same game as Virtua Fighter 3, but as its name suggests, the arcade cabinet defaults to a "team battle" mode. Here, users are asked to select three characters instead of one (not dissimilar to SNK's The King of Fighters series), who will go up against other teams of three. The same character can be picked more than once (so it is possible to have three Akiras on a team), but the roster and ordering cannot be changed between battles.

Each character only gets one chance against the opposing team. If he/she is knocked out, this character cannot be used for the rest of the match. Winners recover a portion of their health for the next fight. Once eight stages are completed, the player will be challenged by a team of three Durals. Beating them ends the game.

Virtua Fighter 3tb arcade machines can be reverted to traditional Virtua Fighter 3 through a setting in the service menu, although this does not change the title screen. There is no means for the user to pick between the two modes.

The Dreamcast version has most of the features from the arcade game (including settings relegated to its service menu), plus a training mode and a "history" option, in which a video showcasing early footage of Virtua Fighter and Virtua Fighter 2 is shown, alongside the initial reveal video for Virtua Fighter 3.

History

Virtua Fighter 3 had originally been planned for the Sega Saturn, however due to the Saturn's vastly inferior graphics capabilities the port was scrapped. Virtua Fighter 3tb, on the other hand, was brought to the Sega Dreamcast as a launch title in both Japan and Europe. The original Japanese Dreamcast release of the game was distributed in a double CD case with a special preview disc of "Project Berkley", which would eventually become Shenmue. Later prints of the game lacked this extra.

Versions

Virtua Fighter 3 garnered a great deal of attention upon its original arcade release in 1996, and throughout the Dreamcast's development lifecycle was used as a rough guide as to how capable a new Sega system might be. However, the two year gap (three in the West) before a comparable home console outing led to it being compared unfavourably to newer titles

This is most evident in the Western launch, when Virtua Fighter 3tb debuted on the same day as the critically acclaimed SoulCalibur. Whereas SoulCalibur is considered to have improved during its transition from arcade to Dreamcast, Virtua Fighter 3tb makes noticeable cutbacks in areas, despite being the older and simpler game of the two. This may be attributed to the fact the Dreamcast port was handled by Genki and not in-house by Sega AM2, in contrast to the Saturn releases of Virtua Fighter (Remix) and Virtua Fighter 2.

In Japan, the situation was much worse, as the Dreamcast version shipped without any form of two-player versus mode in order to hit the Dreamcast console's launch date. As such, of all the early Dreamcast titles, Virtua Fighter 3tb saw perhaps the most drastic update when brought to the West, with both versus and versus team battle modes being added over the course of the year alongside a slew of bug fixes (other notable upgraded games include Sonic Adventure, Sega Rally 2 and Blue Stinger).

While operating at a higher resolution, texture quailty is often worse for Virtua Fighter 3tb on the Dreamcast, and lighting and fog effects also differ between the two versions. Character shadows also do not always render correctly, as evidenced in stages played on uneven surfaces, such as Pai's where the battle takes place on a slanted roof. Some stages have different coloured backgrounds for unknown reasons.

In the Dreamcast port, the character model of Aoi Umenokoji consists of about 7,500 polygons, with her head alone consisting of about 4,300 polygons. In the water stage, the polygon count reaches up to 1.9 million polygons per second, about 32,000 polygons per scene at 60 FPS.

Returning to the Dreamcast version of the game as a secret is the so-called "alphabet character", a fighter sharing movesets with the regular cast but constructed out of 3D letters from the name entry screen. The alphabet character debuted in the Saturn version of Virtua Fighter 2 (also as a secret), however here it is more fleshed out, with limbs being spread out across the ground when knocked over. The alphabet character is are made up of a single letter rendered at different sizes (save for its hands) - if hit, the letter changes, becoming the "END" graphic if the player loses a match.

A normal player model is loaded if the alphabet character attempts to fight Dural, and this model is also used for the credits sequence. A mode also exists where all opponent players are replaced with the alphabet character (using their moves).

Production credits

Main article: Virtua Fighter 3tb/Production credits.

Arcade version

• Producer: Yu Suzuki
• Program Director: Tetsuya Kaku
• Design Director: Kazuhiro Izaki
• Game Director: Daichi Katagiri

Programmers

• Game System, Undulation: Tetsuya Kaku
• Game System: Daichi Katagiri
• Game System, CPU Battle: Kota Matsumoto
• Cloth, Motion System: Yuichiro Mine
• Polygon Management: Yoichi Nakazato, Naohiro Hirao
• Camera: Takashi Ono
• Stage Collision: Norio Haga
• Stage & Character Effects: Shigeru Yoshida
• Stage Effects: Tsuyoshi Nishida
• Replay, Ending: Syuji Takahashi
• Advertise, Ending: Hiroshi Masui
• Scroll, Hand Motion: Takeshi Yamanouchi
• Main Motion Set: Masataka Daigo
• Motion Set: Kazuhiro Shigekuni, Masaya Takeshige

Designers

• Motion Designers
  • Main Motion Design, Direction: Kazuhiro Izaki
  • Motion Design, Advise: Toshiya Inoue, Naotake Nishimura
  • Motion Design: Kasyo Oda, Akira Morimoto
  • Assistant Motion Design: Daichi Katagiri, Manabu Tsukamoto
• Character Designers
  • Character Modeling Direction: Toshihiro Nagoshi
  • Main Character Design, Modeling: Mika Kojima
  • Character Design, Modeling: Ringo Manabe
• Stage Designers
  • Stage Design Direction: Naotake Nishimura
  • Main Stage Design, Modeling: Hideaki Kato
  • Stage Design, Modeling: Gaku Nakatani, Shinichiro Shimano, Naoaki Tasaka, Masaaki Somaki
• Planner
  • Planning Support: Manabu Tsukamoto
• Sound Designers
  • Program: Hiroshi Kawaguchi
  • Compose, SE: Takenobu Mitsuyoshi, Fumio Ito, Hidenori Syoji
  • Supervisor: Toshihiro Nagoshi
• Assistant Programmers
  • Reflection Mapping, Model3 Base: Takuji Masuda
  • Collision, Pin Point Light, Utility: Takashi Fujimura
  • Polygon Converter: Kazuhiko Takata
  • Sound, I/O Utility: Koki Koiwa
  • Test Mode, Coin Utility: Kazutoshi Tozawa
• Assistant Designers
  • Stage Design: Yasuo Kawagoshi, Junichi Yamanaka, Kazufumi Ohashi, Hidenobu Miyakita, Mitsugu Tsuchida
  • Assistant Stage Design: Shinya Inoue
  • Effect Design: Makio Kida
  • Scroll Design: Yukinobu Arikawa, Kazuhiro Izaki
  • Character Design: Akihito Hiroyoshi, Daisuke Sato
  • Taka-Arashi Design: Tetsunari Iwasaki
• Publicity: Yasushi Nakajima, Yoshifusa Hayama
• Special Thanks: AM R&D Dept. #4, AM Hardware R&D, AM R&D Dept. #2 Technical Research Section, 81 Produce, Action Team AAC, Yasuyuki Hattori, Terushige Watanabe, Yuko Ota
• Presented by: Sega

Dreamcast version

• Producer: Yu Suzuki
• Program Director: Tetsuya Kaku
• Design Director: Kazuhiro Izaki
• Game Director: Daichi Katagiri

Programmers

• Game System, Undulation: Tetsuya Kaku
• Game System: Daichi Katagiri
• Game System, CPU Battle: Kota Matsumoto
• Cloth, Motion System: Yuichiro Mine
• Polygon Management: Yoichi Nakazato, Naohiro Hirao
• Camera: Takashi Ono
• Stage Collision: Norio Haga
• Stage & Character Effects: Shigeru Yoshida
• Stage Effects: Tsuyoshi Nishida
• Replay, Ending: Syuji Takahashi
• Advertise, Ending: Hiroshi Masui
• Scroll, Hand Motion: Takeshi Yamanouchi
• Main Motion Set: Masataka Daigo
• Motion Set: Kazuhiro Shigekuni, Masaya Takeshige

Designers

• Motion Designers
  • Main Motion Design, Direction: Kazuhiro Izaki
  • Motion Design, Advise: Toshiya Inoue, Naotake Nishimura
  • Motion Design: Kasyo Oda, Akira Morimoto
  • Assistant Motion Design: Daichi Katagiri, Manabu Tsukamoto
• Character Designers
  • Character Modeling Direction: Toshihiro Nagoshi
  • Main Character Design, Modeling: Mika Kojima
  • Character Design, Modeling: Ringo Manabe
• Stage Designers
  • Stage Design Direction: Naotake Nishimura
  • Main Stage Design, Modeling: Hideaki Kato
  • Stage Design, Modeling: Gaku Nakatani, Shinichiro Shimano, Naoaki Tasaka, Masaaki Somaki
• Planner
  • Planning Support: Manabu Tsukamoto
• Sound Designers
  • Program: Hiroshi Kawaguchi
  • Compose, SE: Takenobu Mitsuyoshi, Fumio Ito, Hidenori Syoji
  • Supervisor: Toshihiro Nagoshi
• Assistant Programmers
  • Reflection Mapping, Model3 Base: Takuji Masuda
  • Collision, Pin Point Light, Utility: Takashi Fujimura
  • Polygon Converter: Kazuhiko Takata
  • Sound, I/O Utility: Koki Koiwa
  • Test Mode, Coin Utility: Kazutoshi Tozawa
• Assistant Designers
  • Stage Design: Yasuo Kawagoshi, Junichi Yamanaka, Kazufumi Ohashi, Hidenobu Miyakita, Mitsugu Tsuchida
  • Assistant Stage Design: Shinya Inoue
  • Effect Design: Makio Kida
  • Scroll Design: Yukinobu Arikawa, Kazuhiro Izaki
  • Character Design: Akihito Hiroyoshi, Daisuke Sato
  • Taka-Arashi Design: Tetsunari Iwasaki

Dreamcast version

• Programmers (Genki): Yoshinari Sunazuka, Satoshi Ishii, Daisuke Tanaka, Tsuyoshi Matsumoto, Keijiro Iwase, Mitsuru Kudo
• Designers (Genki): Ichirou Kojima, Yumie Ohtake, Naomi Yakushijin, Akemi Watanabe, Tomoki Kuroiwa, Shinya Kozaki
• Sound Designers: Tatsuhito Narita, Takenobu Mitsuyoshi, Fumio Ito, Hidenori Shoji, Takashi Nakamura, Tatsuya Suitsu
• Technical Support: Tadahiro Kawamura, Masafumi Fujita, Takayuki Ota, Seiji Fujiwara, Norimasa Yoshizawa, Shinichi Uchida
• Publicity: Yasushi Nakajima, Chiaki Yagi
• Special Thanks: Hiroshi Aso, Hiroshi Hamagaki (Genki), Seiki Saito, AM R&D Dept. #2, Naomi Lib Team, MPEG Sofdec, 81 Produce, Action Team AAC, Yasuyuki Hattori, Terushige Watanabe, Yuko Ota
• Presented by: Sega

Magazine articles

Main article: Virtua Fighter 3tb/Magazine articles.

Promotional material

Print advert in Dreamcast Magazine (JP) #1998-05: "1998-05 (1998-12-18)" (1998-12-04)

Print advert in Freak (IL) #75 (1999-xx-xx)

also published in:

• Freak (IL) #78 (1999-xx-xx)

Print advert in Dreamcast: Das Offizielle Magazin (DE) #1: "Oktober 1999" (1999-10-14)

Print advert in Electronic Gaming Monthly (US) #125: "December 1999" (1999-11-09)
also published in:

• Gamers' Republic (US) #19: "December 1999" (1999-11-15)

Print advert in Next Level (AR) #12: "Enero 2000" (xxxx-xx-xx)

Print advert in Neo Plus (PL) #30: "Marzec 2001" (2001-xx-xx)
also published in:

• Neo Plus (PL) #31: "Kwiecień 2001" (2001-xx-xx)
• Neo Plus (PL) #32: "Maj 2001" (2001-xx-xx)
• Neo Plus (PL) #33: "Czerwiec 2001" (2001-xx-xx)
• Neo Plus (PL) #34: "Lipiec-Sierpień 2001" (2001-xx-xx)
• Neo Plus (PL) #35: "Wrzesień 2001" (2001-xx-xx)

Artwork

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Physical scans

Model 3 version

Arcade, World

Dreamcast version

Sega Retro Average
Publication Score Source

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Based on 0 review

Sega Retro Average

Publication Version Score Ação Games (BR) 97 Arcade (UK) NTSC-J 100 Arcade (UK) PAL 50 Consoles + (FR) NTSC-J 96 Consoles + (FR) PAL 85 Computer & Video Games (UK) 75 Dreamcast Monthly (UK) PAL 70 DC-UK (UK) PAL 90 DC-UK (UK) PAL 70 Dreamcast: Le Magazine Officiel (FR) PAL 80 Dreamcast: Das Offizielle Magazin (DE) 75 Dreamcast Magazine (JP) NTSC-J 100 Dreamcast Magazine (UK) 93 Dreamcast Magazine (UK) PAL 85 Dorimaga (JP) NTSC-J 82 Dreamzone (FR) PAL 88 Edge (UK) NTSC-J 80 Edge (UK) PAL 70 Electronic Gaming Monthly (US) NTSC-U 80 Entsiklopediya igr dlya Dreamcast (RU) 81 Famitsu (JP) NTSC-J 90 GameFan (US) NTSC-U 84 GamePro (US) NTSC-U 58 Gen 4 Consoles (FR) 40 Game Informer (US) NTSC-U 75 Gamers' Republic (US) NTSC-J 91 Incite Video Gaming (US) NTSC-U 60 MAN!AC (DE) NTSC-J 90 MAN!AC (DE) PAL 88 Man!ak (PL) 95 Man!ak (PL) 83 Mega Fun (DE) PAL 86 Neo Plus (PL) 70 Next Generation (US) NTSC-U 75 neXt Level (DE) NTSC-J 90 neXt Level (DE) PAL 90 Next Level (AR) 68 Official Dreamcast Magazine (UK) 70 Player One (FR) 82 Playmag (FR) PAL 70 Play (PL) 85 PSX Extreme (PL) 70 Revista Oficial Dreamcast (ES) PAL 80 Sega Magazin (DE) NTSC-J 93 Strana Igr (RU) 90 Strana Igr (RU) 93 Total Control (UK) NTSC-J 90 Video Games (DE) PAL 81

	81
Based on 48 reviews

Virtua Fighter 3tb

Dreamcast, JP (double CD)
Cover
Spinecard Disc File:Vf3 dc jp manual.pdf Manual Project Berkely disc

Dreamcast, JP (single CD)
Cover
File:Vf3 dc jp manual.pdf Manual

Dreamcast, US
Cover
Disc Manual Inlay

Dreamcast, EU
Cover
Disc Manual

Dreamcast, UK/IT
Cover
Disc

Dreamcast, AU
Cover
Disc

Technical information

ROM dump status

System	Hash	Size	Build Date	Source	Comments

External links

• Sega of America webpage: Dreamcast
• Sega of Japan catalogue pages (Japanese): Dreamcast