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Before I played Virtual Hiryu No Ken, I didn't really expect too much from it. The last Hiryu No Ken game for Super Famicom (Ultimate Fighters for SNES) has given me such a bad experience. Anyway, after hours of playing time, I am pleasantly surprised that the game turned out quite good.
After watching an average computer graphics sequence, describing, in part, the backgrounds of all 14 characters. I arrived at the main menu. Here's the rundown of choices: Circuit, VS, Option and Practice. All these modes are self-explained except the Circuit mode. Circuit mode can be considered as a regular 1-player mode, but it offered more interesting sub-modes to it. The sub-modes are Hiryu Type 1, Hiryu Type 2, Expert and Exciting. Each of them features some slight difference in terms of gameplay. Hiryu Type 1 and 2 are similar, both featuring one punch and one kick button. Plus it offers a special system called Sin-Gan. Sin-Gan is quite hard to explain in words, but it is basically a signal that signalify which body location got hit. Or which body location is best to attack on the opponent. Expert mode disables all the special moves, so defensive play becomes the most important role here. Exciting mode is the opposite of Expert which it offers fast gameplay. It has two punch and two kick buttons, so more offensive moves can be executed.
Control is acceptable, but sometimes when I execute moves, I feel it doesn't have the quick responsiveness like Tekken 2. Gameplay is just liked many other 3D fighting games, it actually plays somewhat like Tekken 2 with a few differences. First of all, you have to press an extra button for blocking instead of pulling back. Secondly, only one button is available for side-step, so you can only side-step to one side. Thirdly, by holding buttons like Block + Punch, the character can counter-attack the opponent. Lastly, there is an additional button specfically for super move. When the gauge reaches to certain amount, you can execute a powerful move on the opponent, such as fireballs.
Graphically, it lacks some crispness that marked the remarkable 3D fighting game, Tekken 2. Plus the character model is not as well-built as Tekken 2 which certain characters' body designs don't look too natural. But it does boast textured mapped characters, which gives the game a rich-detailed appearance over Tekken 2 and Street Fighter EX. Animation-wise, it is certainly not as smooth as Street Fighter EX due to the slower frame-rate, but it is good enough when comparing to many other 3D fighting games in the market.
Music and sound effects are a bit on the weak side, nothing jumped out and impressed me. As a matter of fact, certain stages' musics sounded very boring, and it really destroyed the mood when fighting against the opponent.
Overall, Virtual Hiryu No Ken is definitely not an outstanding game like Tekken 2 and Street Fighter EX. But I feel it is better than many other 3D fighting games in the market, such as Banpresto's Shadow Struggle and Atlus's Heaven Gate. The best part that I like about this game is the variety of fighting styles, all 14 characters fight differently. In particular, certain characters are pretty fun to play with. My only gripe is the lack of responsive control and weak audio. If you're a fan of the Hiryu No Ken saga, you can't miss this game; if you're looking for a new 3D fighter to play for a while, go ahead and try it out.
Score: 7 out of 10.