Virtua Fighter

Virtua Fighter brought the first truly three-dimensional fighting game to the 32X, and with it a different way of thinking about combat than players were used to from two-dimensional brawlers. The eight fighters have no fireballs or supernatural attacks — instead, they rely on styles drawn from real martial arts, from karate and wrestling to Chinese schools. The fight is built around a trio of punches, kicks, and blocks, on correct timing, and on whether you can push your opponent out of the circular ring. Being knocked out of the arena ends the round just as decisively as running out of health, so spatial awareness matters as much as knowing your combos. Each fighter has their own set of throws, grabs, and counters, so even after dozens of bouts there's still something to discover about what a given style can do and who it works well against.

The 32X conversion tried to preserve the essence of the arcade original and leverages the add-on's polygon power to do it. The characters are made of blocky shapes without textures, which from today's perspective looks like a moving paper statue, but the movement is legible, and that's what matters most in this game — you need to recognize whether your opponent is starting a strike or guarding. The camera stays to the side of the ring and swings into dramatic angles during throws and falls. The sound design is restrained, with hits and fighters' shouts taking the lead role, so tension mostly arises from the silence between exchanges.

At the time, the game was seen as an important argument for the add-on, even though comparisons to the arcade original and to the Saturn version were harsh. The influence of the original is hard to overstate: it defined the rules of three-dimensional fighting games, from sidesteps and throws to the emphasis on realistic styles, and its legacy carries the entire later series. On the 32X, it's an interesting period document today, at its strongest in two-player mode on a single console, where you quickly stop noticing the characters' blockiness. Anyone willing to put in the work training a single character will discover that beneath the simple controls hides a surprisingly deep fight over positioning and timing.