Virtua Fighter 5 – Essentials (PlayStation 3)

17 invitations have been sent out for the fifth edition of the World Fighting Tournament. 15 fighters make a return and two new faces appear in the arena; the young girl Eileen using monkey kung fu and lucha libre wrestler El Blaze. Little do the participants know that the organization J6, funding the tournament, has prepared a new Dural fighting program. In the previous game, their first version was defeated and the organization kidnapped Vanessa. She managed to escape, but her fighting data was captured and used to design V-Dural. With the new tournament, J6 wants to reveal the insider who helped Vanessa escape and test their new program against the best fighters of the world.

The overall one-on-one arena fighting gameplay is still present but there are a few changes. The ranking system has been revised, the throw speed has been reduced and there is a new offensive move, which allows fighters to sidestep each other to dodge and make more strategic attacks. The new clash system can be used to cancel out an attack with a throw. This edition also includes deeper character customization.