Let's talk Virtua Fighter 3 on Saturn

[Team Andromeda]

Has it ever been revealed the technical polygon usage for Saturn VF, VF2, FMM, and LB? .

AM#2 gave an interview with the Japanese Saturn mag and where they said that the VF 2 Characters on the Saturn, were actually made up of fewer polygons than VF on the Saturn but were using advanced texture mapping for them to appear better. Hiroshi Kataoka then gave an interview to the Saturn mag talking about Fighting Vipers on the Saturn and he said that the team faced all sorts of issues with the programme needing to display far more polygons for each of the new character compared to VF 2 on the Saturn (given the armour and colthing used) and that the game also used Polygons for the backrounds, so the team had to drop the use of the Highest Res mode, but the up shot of that was that then meant they were apply to use lighting.

When I play Fighting Megamix it to me looks to be using far more polygons (for me) and more so when you consider that the Fighting Vipers are hugely improved over the Fighting Vipers on the Saturn and that game AM#2 said was already using more polygons than VF2 characters on the Saturn. So one would look to the Last Bronx and Fighting Mega Mix as about the best the Saturn could offer. So you could have had a Saturn VF3 with most of the move set and most of the characters done well enough, to get the gameplay over, given the Saturn 6 button pad the escape mode would not be an issue and the Saturn could repulcate stages like Wolf Or Jeff's pretty well, but Wolf's stage would just be flat, but it could still be just as big and maybe AM#2 would have used the VDP 2 in really clever ways like having one layer on a tilt to be used as the roof on Pai's stage.


It would have been a big ask, given that even the DC had issues with a VF3 port. But of course it could have be done, more so when you look at the likes of MK II coming to the Gear Gear or the ZX Spectrum handling a decent version of Enduro Racer. But I guess with the big decline of the Saturns sales in Japan after FF 7 and the upcoming DC project it didn't make sense to continue with the Saturn version

[Orchid87]

It would have been a big ask, given that even the DC had issues with a VF3 port.

The port was outsourced to Genki and they were given too little time to finish it. Proper DC port could look better than Model 3 version, maybe the Dead or Alive 2 level of graphics.

[Team Andromeda]

The port was outsourced to Genki and they were given too little time to finish it. Proper DC port could look better than Model 3 version, maybe the Dead or Alive 2 level of graphics.

SEGA its self had issues porting Model 3 games to the DC like we saw with Rally 2 . Genki did a great job with the DC port and it was all but perfect but even porting Model 3 games to the DC wasn't easy. I read an interview with Genki on how they had to rework their code over 4 times to get Virtual Striker running on NA@MI board and up to speed and that porting it to the DC would be even harder given the less memory

Model 3 was a bit of a monster board and lets the fact it even Model 2 would really struggle to handle Model 3 so any port to the Saturn would lose a lot, One could look at Fighters MegaMix and Last Bronx as the best the Saturn could do.
But using those you could still bring over most of the characters and the move set over, but pay a heavy price with the backgrounds. I would have thought that AM#2 would have looked to keep VF 3 on the Saturn running at 60 fps that's if much of the game was ever developed or at all because like with Sonic Fighters: Both were announced by nothing ever seen or hardly much talked about them; which is usually code for a project in trouble or that it been scrapped.

[Cafeman]

Thanks for the polygonal recollections, TA! Interesting.

[Team Andromeda]

Thanks for the polygonal recollections, TA! Interesting.

If I get time I'll try and dig out some of the interviews. I still have the Saturn Fighting Vipers interviews somewhere

The one interview I really wish I kept, was the interview with Genki talking about the VF3 DC port, that was posted on the Dreamcast Technical pages forum (such a good SEGA board before this place, that I was very lucky to be a member of) It was with a Japanese mag and a member translated it: In that interview Genki confirmed a few things which I didn't know at the time 1) Genki were all former AM#2 staff. 2) The Arcade version of VF3 didn't use a million polygons. 3) They had less than 6 months to handle the DC port of VF3. 4) Genki were the 1st outside studio to use AM#2 development tools for the VF3 port (which I think at the time were called firebird or phoenix). 5) The DC version of VF3 used 95% (or it may have been more) of the Arcade total polygons.

[Cafeman]

That topic was interesting to me back around 1999, and I was also one of the few DCTP members. The administrator was called "Dural". I remember one of the devs from Namco, and one from Melbourne House, were on that forum too. I wonder if that info is archived on the Internet Archive.

[Team Andromeda]

That topic was interesting to me back around 1999, and I was also one of the few DCTP members. The administrator was called "Dural". I remember one of the devs from Namco, and one from Melbourne House, were on that forum too. I wonder if that info is archived on the Internet Archive.

That place was a wealth of hardcore knowledge and like heaven for any SEGA fan... I'm still friends with the likes of Racer and Apharmd Battler to this very day, such a shame that Dural/EDGE (the site owner and an amazing tech guy) completely lost it towards the end with his bans to good members and PS2 trolling. Just because he didn't like how the SEGA faithful on that site went to the Xbox and not the Cube (which Dural/Edge loved) after SEGA pulling out of the Hardware. Yes they were a few developers on there, posting. Including one who worked with John O'Brien during their days at Malibu Interactive and I used to love his stories on what it was like to work on the Mega CD and with the amazing John O Brien (batman Returns 3D section coder)

Great times and none better when all us Dreamcast Technical pages members used to meet up online on Quake 3 and PSO on the DC. I just so wish I copied and pasted that Genki interview because it was fantastic and full of great info over Model 3, DC development and how Genki had access to AM#2 development toolset, that not even SEGA other In-House AM team had access too

[Moirai]

Eh makes as much sense as VF2 on Genesis.

are you serious lol

[parallaxscroll]

From Next Generation #30 - June 1997, and EDGE #50 - October 1997, respectively.

[Team Andromeda]

Here's a interview with AM#2 Katoka-san and given what he said about the number of polygons needed for Fighting Vipers over and above VF II on the Saturn. I can't see how much more AM#2 could have got out of the Saturn for any VF 3 port over and above Fighting MegaMix.

[Da_Shocker]

So ya'll just not gonna mention the fantastic Dead or Alive port?

[Black_Tiger]

So ya'll just not gonna mention the fantastic Dead or Alive port?

Second post.

[Team Andromeda]

So ya'll just not gonna mention the fantastic Dead or Alive port?

I think people already have. In terms of polygons, I doubt its doing much more than VF II (other than breast and some clothing) and I would think Last Bronx and Fighting Megamix are handling more polygons per frame. Zero Divide on the Saturn is a stunner too with VF/DOA High Res mode and also some 3D Polygons back drops to go along with the 2D backdrops. Apart from the odd clitch, Last Brox looked the best 'for me'