Why do so many people dislike the VF cast?

[Calintzsan]

I don't understand why...

I love Sarah (she's my main) and I also like using Pai as well. Jacky is a work in progress for me, and while I never use Akira, I actually love the more involved handling of these characters. I haven't played a VF game in so long, and even then all I did was play the demo at a store a few times, so it's not like it's because I'm a fan of VF, since I don't play the games.

But I honestly don't see the need for so much hate on these characters in DOA. It's already disheartening to hear so much dislike for Sarah (I get this a lot personally), but for the entire cast it just seems unnecessary. I mean you don't have to use them, and I don't often see people using these 4 very much online anyways, so why...?

 

[ninemil]

Copy paste audio samples and static animation trees don't help their case. I love them as characters, but the team should've reworked their assets to make them better fit the art style of the engine, and the aesthetic of the game. They stick out like a sore thumb, and not because of their move sets or their ability.

It's a shame.

 

[Calintzsan]

Copy paste audio samples and static animation trees don't help their case. I love them as characters, but the team should've reworked their assets to make them better fit the art style of the engine, and the aesthetic of the game. They stick out like a sore thumb, and not because of their move sets or their ability.

It's a shame.

While I'm not really fond of the quality of their voices, it's something that doesn't really bother me anymore. By reworking them, what do you mean exactly?

 

[ninemil]

While I'm not really fond of the quality of their voices, it's something that doesn't really bother me anymore. By reworking them, what do you mean exactly?

Rerecording the VA, drop the silly sound effects from their moves, rework the models so their proportions fit the rest of the cast, and their animation trees carry the same number of points, rather than being so stoic and framey.

You know, like, make them DoA5 grade, rather than VF5 grade. Big tech disparity between games.

 

[herr_Fuchs]

i thought the voice and sound was an fanservice :/
still better than sf x tekken .
My main is Akira

 

[Argentus]

Yeah what they said. They don't fit at all. and their animations don't mesh well at all. Seeing them move in DOA is like a scene out of space jam or roger rabbit. It throws off all the rhythm when one character doesn't move the same way as the rest.

 

[Mayhzon]

Can't really speak for the others, but the main reason why I dislike them is the COM and what it does with them.

There's a handful of characters the COM is using way more aggressive than the rest of the roster and the Virtua Fighter characters are all part of that group. Sarah and Jackie especially. The COM seems to string their attacks together more fluidly and they counter-hold more attacks. Sometimes they even pull off a short juggle. It feels like these characters are used by a COM three difficulty levels above the one you chose. So when the COM uses one of these characters I'm instantly annoyed.

Then there is the alienation factor. When I buy a game of a certain franchise and start it up, then I want to focus on that game's theme and cast and nothing else. I don't like super edgy Easter Eggs nor pop culture references nor the inevitable guest characters that some games come with. Having some (to me weird) Virtua Fighter characters in Dead or Alive 5 is not less irritating to me than Kratos (with QTE combo bonus) or Darth Vader (c00l l4s3r sw0rds) as guest characters in the Soul Calibur franchise. They originally were created by a different designer / writer for a different universe and a different franchise. It shows and it breaks what little immersion was built up until they were encountered. They feel like they don't belong in the game I decided to play and it's not cool. It just makes me wish I had an option to lock these guest characters out of my game so they don't ruin my fun when I play arcade mode.

The low-quality audio and different animations are for me really just the cherry on top of the hate-cake at that point. And if the audio and animations were top stellar, I'd still despise the characters.


Does that mean that anything is wrong with these characters themselves? Absolutely not. It's the circumstances surrounding these characters that annoy me - The inconsistent art design, the difficulty spike, the break of the game flow. If you like playing these characters and you know how to use them, more power to you. I'm not going to dislike you because you have a favorite I can't stand.

My gripes mainly are with developers and publishers who use cross-overs as promotional material. It makes me *less* interested in their game, not more.

 

[Star Outlaw]

Since it's blatantly clear I'm a VF fan and therefore obviously biased, I'm not really going to try hard to argue against these points. What I will point out though is that the character models do appear to have been remade for this game. Just compare how they look in DOA5 and VF5 and you'll see a big difference. So, as far as how the VF characters look (sans animation) they have been made to fit with the general aesthetic of DOA5. I really don't think you can say their proportions are off. Just as an example, I think Sarah looks skinnier in VF5 than in DOA5, and Jacky seems to use the same generic male body model as other male fighters (maybe Akira too). At the very least they finally look as good as the renders used in the VF5 character selection.

I'll give you the old voice clips, they probably could have hired new VAs. For some reason though I have a hard time seeing what you guys see about the differences in animations, and believe me, I'm trying. I kind of see what you mean, but to me it's such a minuscule difference. Maybe because I played VF a lot more than DOA, I don't know. I just know that it's something I never would have noticed unless pointed out. I think the characters in both series each has distinct kinds of movements. When you say the VF characters lack animation points, then okay, I can understand that, it's just not a big deal for me, at all. I guess the closest analogy I can think of is if Street Fighter III character sprites were slapped into BlazBlue, but I don't think it's that bad.

Really though, as far as guest fighters go, I think the VFers "fit" better than almost every other guest fighter. You had Yoda,Vader, Spawn, and Link in SoulCalibur, Scorpion in Injustice, Predator in Mortal Kombat now, and Spartan in DOA4. Ezio in SC5 was one of the better choices. On both an aesthetic and thematic level, I don't think many fighting games go together much better than VF and DOA, except maybe Street Fighter and King of Fighters. I guess you can fault the developers for not doing more to make them mesh better aside from new character models, but I think that they were able to basically import them shows how compatible they already are with DOA. New recordings and a little work on the animations plus the new models are ALL that's needed. Hell, I even noticed some moves from VF4 used for their holds, so Team Ninja did that work too as a nice touch for VF fans.

I know that there are some people unfamiliar enough with both series that they can't tell that Akira, Pai, Sarah, and Jacky aren't even DOA characters. Seriously, I think Rachel stands out more than they do, at least when compared to the rest of the cast. The VFers look a lot more relatively normal than she does (as far as default costumes), and I feel like she breaks my immersion more than any other character. Point is, I don't think you can say that stiffer animations and dated voice clips are nearly as bad as Kilik fighting Yoda in a German castle when it comes to breaking immersion. There's stuff that's much harder to tune out, and at least all the VFers fit as "normal human martial artists," and aren't something like super heroes or aliens or demons or super soldiers.

 

[TLEE SAID THIS:]

I don't think people "dislike" the Virtua Fighters. People just don't use them because they don't stick out as much as the rest of the cast. DOA, although art-wise is more realistic than its previous games, still has that fantasy/anime element with their cast while the Virtua Fighters have a more grounded tone, especially with the fighting styles. The way they fight isn't as flashy. Therefore, fans of the series are more inclined to go with the fantasy characters than the realistic ones. I was drawn to Jacky because of his personality and I'm willing to admit that he's not as flashy as Jann Lee.

Furthermore, I don't think the way they play or the voices and sound effects of the Virtua Fighters are what scares people off. Granted, the sound effects aren't as punchy, but the way they play and sound were decisions made by the team and Sega to make native Virtua Fighter players feel at home with DOA.

If they had re-recorded the voice actors or changed the sound effects, I think it would have made them more bland than unique.

 

[synce]

Outlaw Star was a great show. Also VF is great. And I like how they handled the cameos. Except I don't like how they destroyed the guys' faces. I feel like they intentionally made them uglier to match the male DOA cast. Or they just suck at guys' faces. But I like conspiracies.

 

[Star Outlaw]

I don't think people "dislike" the Virtua Fighters. People just don't use them because they don't stick out as much as the rest of the cast. DOA, although art-wise is more realistic than its previous games, still has that fantasy/anime element with their cast while the Virtua Fighters have a more grounded tone, especially with the fighting styles. The way they fight isn't as flashy. Therefore, fans of the series are more inclined to go with the fantasy characters than the realistic ones. I was drawn to Jacky because of his personality and I'm willing to admit that he's not as flashy as Jann Lee.

Furthermore, I don't think the way they play or the voices and sound effects of the Virtua Fighters are what scares people off. Granted, the sound effects aren't as punchy, but the way they play and sound were decisions made by the team and Sega to make native Virtua Fighter players feel at home with DOA.

If they had re-recorded the voice actors or changed the sound effects, I think it would have made them more bland than unique.

I suppose if we ever figure out how to alter the sound files in the PC version someone could mod the sound effects.

The VFers' animations do seem to lack as much flourish as the DOAers, especially if you just compare stances. I know that this kind of has to do with the difference is design philosophy. Their stances are more static because AM2 wanted their hitboxes to be stable. Chracters like Jann Lee and Zack move all over the place. I do really like the VF animations though. They don't exaggerate their movements and move more concisely, but I feel that they have a certain level of style to how they move. Akira moves with a lot of weight, Pai's very circular, Sarah is very snappy, and Jacky is what I guess I'd call "tricky." It's easy to see in their grabs and special stances like Flamingo and Side Shuffle.

I guess another thing to keep in mind is that, on a more casual level, not many people could know about Virtua Fighter anyway. The VFers are there without any kind of explanation, so some might see them as being like Marie Rose, a new character without any backstory or explanation for why they're there. Not everyone keeps up with fighting game news. These aren't big name characters either (like Vader, Ezio, Kratos, Predator, etc.) so it's not like people will flock to them like Scorpion in Injustice. If people don't play them, it might just be a lack of familiarity and explanation, especially if they're casual DOA fans. In a way I kind of like that the VFers don't stand out like the typical guest characters that tend to draw too much attention away from the main cast.

 

[Rawbietussin]

I actually like them in DOA better than they are in their own game. The Bryants definitely won me over (Sarah instantly became my secondary main by the start of DOA5). TN made an impressive job at recreating their character models aesthetically in their art style and personally, I think they are the most fitting guest characters of the game. Sure, they don't really stand out with the majority of the sickeningly-sweet moe blob personalities (i.e. Hitomi, Honoka, Marie Rose, Kokoro) but that's a factor that personally draws me into playing as them.

Some people simply dislike them for petty reasons base on their preferences when things can be said to just about any character (They say Sarah is ugly for having a "manly face and broad shoulders") or they just find difficulty in dealing with them, especially against a COM.

 

[Jyakotu]

Honestly, I have no problem with the VF characters. Sure, they have some jerky, awkward animations (Sarah, Jacky), large ass hit boxes (Akira), and an unblockable attack (Pai), but seeing as how VF was a huge influence for DOA, it makes sense why they were guest characters. But like others said, their styles just bore me to tears. Their combos aren't as flashy as the DOA characters. I will say that the DOA system does help certain characters, but they still do animate awkwardly. But hey, Sarah has a flip, so I can't be too mad at her. Lol

 

[Argentus]

One thing I don't like about vf is there's no weight to their movements. Throw a punch. Feel the recoil? Vf characters don't have that. They can twitch and jerk like a 2d sprite with no recoil or weight and its jarring to see. DOA movements are more rhythmic and fluid with a few exceptions. I guess a simpler way to put it is vf pokes, DOA swings.

 

[Star Outlaw]

One thing I don't like about vf is there's no weight to their movements. Throw a punch. Feel the recoil? Vf characters don't have that. They can twitch and jerk like a 2d sprite with no recoil or weight and its jarring to see. DOA movements are more rhythmic and fluid with a few exceptions. I guess a simpler way to put it is vf pokes, DOA swings.

I feel the opposite. To me, VF feels fast, hard, and direct, like being hit by a rock, while DOA feels softer, like getting hit by a tire, but it really depends on the character. There's no way I can look at Akira's moves and not feel the impact. Even look at some of Vanessa's moves in VF5. I might say though that while DOA moves may have more weight, VF moves look like they have more hardness to them.

I know there's something to be said about fluid and consistent animations, but at the same time I feel that snappy animations also need to be acknowledged. For example, lets say a VF fighter and a DOA fighter have the same move that animates in the same amount of time. The DOA fighter moves smoothly, the speed is mostly consistent, maybe getting faster towards impact, then slowing down, but it's smooth and fluid. With the VF fighter, it might start out a bit more slowly, but it quickly bursts into a more explosive impact, getting that snap, like a rubber band. It might not be a real smooth movement, but that little burst does feel satisfying.

And it really does depend on each character. Some move more smoothly than others. Zack is much snappier than, say Helena, who moves very smoothly. Eliot is snappier than Lei-Fang, etc. Pai's probably the smoothest of the VF guest characters, while Akira, Sarah, and Jcky re all very snappy, so maybe someone like Aoi would seem better in a DOA game. It may not be just the animations but also the impact sound effects having an effect of perception, or even camera and controller shake and hit sparks. There's a lot more going on than just animations.

 

[DestructionBomb]

I actually like them in DOA better than they are in their own game. The Bryants definitely won me over (Sarah instantly became my secondary main by the start of DOA5). TN made an impressive job at recreating their character models aesthetically in their art style and personally, I think they are the most fitting guest characters of the game. Sure, they don't really stand out with the majority of the sickeningly-sweet moe blob personalities (i.e. Hitomi, Honoka, Marie Rose, Kokoro) but that's a factor that personally draws me into playing as them.

Some people simply dislike them for petty reasons base on their preferences when things can be said to just about any character (They say Sarah is ugly for having a "manly face and broad shoulders") or they just find difficulty in dealing with them, especially against a COM.

It's difficult to convince most of them since you have a large base that don't know how to deal with them, not to mention that most of them are not too strong in the game as a player, so they either find some type of excuse and choose to not find a way around it or simply memorize the moves. There is huge exaggerations within the players. Framey? No such thing, if a VF character's move on block is -12 like a DOA character..then it gets thrown like a DOA character, VF characters do not have special powers here, there is no strong difference besides the era they came from. I can assure you that majority of the posts I see these days is exaggeration from not trying to overcome them in a match. The most reasonable argument is the voice clips. No question about it. It overall feels as if it was recorded with a old beta version of Audacity. Everything else is mostly just opinions and not an actual fact. All exaggerations pretty much.

I don't understand why...

I love Sarah (she's my main) and I also like using Pai as well. Jacky is a work in progress for me, and while I never use Akira, I actually love the more involved handling of these characters. I haven't played a VF game in so long, and even then all I did was play the demo at a store a few times, so it's not like it's because I'm a fan of VF, since I don't play the games.

But I honestly don't see the need for so much hate on these characters in DOA. It's already disheartening to hear so much dislike for Sarah (I get this a lot personally), but for the entire cast it just seems unnecessary. I mean you don't have to use them, and I don't often see people using these 4 very much online anyways, so why...?

With the 4 that came, Sarah is the biggest one since she has match ups in her favor (Mostly towards grapplers), due to a standard strike speed with a priority of certain move ranges on block advantage from +1 to +5 (Not including the GBs.) It depends specifically on who they use. For example, Bass, Raidou (Does not have grappler speed throws but strike speed is generally on a moderate slow pace) or slower grapplers are one of the worst match ups against her because they are committed to make more reads than normal. Bass specifically might be the worst one since his standard GB is slow and he's only getting something small off of it, which Sarah might end up trading blows with him or striking him out from -1 situations. All random really, but Sarah just has a high chance of getting away with it. If you play any of these grappler characters, you somewhat have a right to complain. Whereas you have characters like Ayane, Gen Fu or Christie that can dominate Sarah no problem if they are exceptionally good at the game.

 

[Argentus]

It's difficult to convince most of them since you have a large base that don't know how to deal with them, not to mention that most of them are not too strong in the game as a player, so they either find some type of excuse and choose to not find a way around it. There is huge exaggerations within the players. Framey? No such thing, if a VF character's move on block is -12 like a DOA character..then it gets thrown like a DOA character, VF characters do not have special powers here, there is no strong difference besides the era they came from. I can assure you that majority of the posts I see these days is exaggeration from not trying to overcome them in a match. The most reasonable argument is the voice clips. No question about it. It overall feels as if it was recorded with a old beta version of Audacity. Everything else is mostly just opinions and not an actual fact. All exaggerations pretty much.

There's a flaw in this logic.

For example, my issue, is again, they animate completely differently, move in a much jerkier fashion than DOA characters.

Whether someone does or does not know how to deal with them in a match does not change that fact. Its not a matter of winning or losing, its a matter of their twitchier movements looking jarring next to the relatively more graceful and smooth DOA fighters.

Now I still have trouble fighting Sarah and Jacky, but that has no real bearing, and I still have the same opinion when I beat them.

 

[DestructionBomb]

There's a flaw in this logic.

For example, my issue, is again, they animate completely differently, move in a much jerkier fashion than DOA characters.

Whether someone does or does not know how to deal with them in a match does not change that fact. Its not a matter of winning or losing, its a matter of their twitchier movements looking jarring next to the relatively more graceful and smooth DOA fighters.

Now I still have trouble fighting Sarah and Jacky, but that has no real bearing, and I still have the same opinion when I beat them.

There is no flaw when that's particularly visionary on your "view." Viewing is mostly just what you see and how you portray things to what you see but that is in general not an actual true answer to the situation. The twerky so called movements does not make them any better at the game.

While I respect your opinion, how are these issues affecting you as a player when none of it is the least bit threatening. Alright, let's assume and play along that I said they have jerky and twerky movements...and what..I don't see how it's a problem, it's not like they have special powers to beat you with magic tricks. VF characters are not that special. I treat them the same as a DOA character. They get punished like any other DOA character for making a mistake.

 

[Star Outlaw]

It's difficult to convince most of them since you have a large base that don't know how to deal with them, not to mention that most of them are not too strong in the game as a player, so they either find some type of excuse and choose to not find a way around it. There is huge exaggerations within the players. Framey? No such thing, if a VF character's move on block is -12 like a DOA character..then it gets thrown like a DOA character, VF characters do not have special powers here, there is no strong difference besides the era they came from. I can assure you that majority of the posts I see these days is exaggeration from not trying to overcome them in a match. The most reasonable argument is the voice clips. No question about it. It overall feels as if it was recorded with a old beta version of Audacity. Everything else is mostly just opinions and not an actual fact. All exaggerations pretty much.

I think that what "framey" means is that, while the games RUNS at 60 fps, the characters aren't always animating like that. So, a move may TAKE 12 frames to complete from start to finish, but it may only have, say, 8 frames of animation. All Street Fighter games run at 60 fps on arcade, but the amount of animated frames for a move usually increases with each new game because of fster tech. SFIII has way smoother animations than SFII, even though they both run at the same speed. And I really hope I know what I'm talking about.

So that's what I think people mean when they say the VF animations feel choppy, in a sense, but this isn't a 2D game so it works very differently from sprites. Since it's a 3D animation, it should have animation at every frame filled in. And this is getting into territory I'm not entirely familiar with, but it could be the VF animations do have less key frames. By key frame I mean the major points in the animation.

Imagine animating a ball to move around in a circle in one second, at 60fps. If you animated every frame of that, there should be 60 spots the ball will move over and these form a circle. If, however, you use less dots to make the circle, it looks less circular and more angular. The ball can only move in a straight line, so the more spots you assign it to move over as it travels, the smoother it looks. If it had only had 4 spots, the ball would just move in a square shape.

If a move took 26 frames to execute, but only had 4 key frames, it would look stiff. It doesn't change the speed of the move, just how it looks. At least that's what I think they mean. I really need to sit down and look at the animations to really figure if this is true for the VFers.

 

[DestructionBomb]

I think that what "framey" means is that, while the games RUNS at 60 fps, the characters aren't always animating like that. So, a move may TAKE 12 frames to complete from start to finish, but it may only have, say, 8 frames of animation. All Street Fighter games run at 60 fps on arcade, but the amount of animated frames for a move usually increases with each new game because of fster tech. SFIII has way smoother animations than SFII, even though they both run at the same speed. And I really hope I know what I'm talking about.

So that's what I think people mean when they say the VF animations feel choppy, in a sense, but this isn't a 2D game so it works very differently from sprites. Since it's a 3D animation, it should have animation at every frame filled in. And this is getting into territory I'm not entirely familiar with, but it could be the VF animations do have less key frames. By key frame I mean the major points in the animation.

Imagine animating a ball to move around in a circle in one second, at 60fps. If you animated every frame of that, there should be 60 spots the ball will move over and these form a circle. If, however, you use less dots to make the circle, it looks less circular and more angular. The ball can only move in a straight line, so the more spots you assign it to move over as it travels, the smoother it looks. If if had only had 4 spots, the ball would just move in a square shape.

If a move took 26 frames to execute, but only had 4 key frames, it would look stiff. It doesn't change the speed of the move, just how it looks. At least that's what I think they mean. I really need to sit down and look at the animations to really figure if this is true for the VFers.

All the characters have a 2 initial frame startup on attack. TN is not that dumb to make a mistake like that. They run the same as any other characters. The only difference in initial speed is online. PS3/360 are a fine example of this when they are running by force on a lower FPS than normal compared to running the game raw with no online.

If the VF characters have any special properties for this case, that is Team NINJA's fault for letting it do that, not a bunch of characters fault. However, Team NINJA is not "that" dumb to do that. No one is getting a special boat here, just because a character is from VF doesn't mean they should get special cookies to having more dominance than DOA characters. The players are being fooled by the animation but not the impact.