Best fighter to date.

I'm surprised at how little buzz there was about this game. I was very excited and I am very pleased that I own it.

The fighting system is the best part about VF:5. It is in my opinion the most in depth fighting system to date. It allows novices to mash buttons with each other if that is how they want to play. However the system goes deep enough to where advanced players are using footwork, timing, and adaptation to get around the opponent's defenses.

The characters are well balanced, yet some are not without their cheap moves. However VF5's fighting system keeps cheap choppy moves to a minimum, causing the player to be open during certain parts of the move allowing the opponent to predict and counter.

The online aspect is simple yet addictive, you simply fight in ranked matches and earn higher ranks as you win fighting harder opponents. The best part about online mode is the ability to show off your custom character to other players.

The single player is frankly sort-of boring. Simply because the Ai is somewhat easy. Eventually it will feel like your just grinding through quest mode for the items.By the way you can only gain special custom items from single player and not multiplayer.

The voicework is horrible it's sort of muffled with a sort of eerie feeling when the lip sync doesn't match up. That's a very little issue however seeing as you will probably just skip through the fighter's introductions to get to the fighting.

The graphics are polished but very uninspired. There is very little flair to the characters, making them hard to love or hate. The art direction is very bland.

This is a must buy if you like to play fighters. It may be hard to get into in you've never played the Virtua Fighter series before however nows the best time to start.