Virtual-On Thread

[Anonymous No.1284065]

Where my /vr/tuaroids at?

Just picked this up from my local shop for free. US Saturn version, complete, but it's got a crack in the spindle hole. Not something I'd put in my computer, but it should be fine in a Saturn. Plus, I've got the Japanese version, PC version, and XBLA/PSN ports too.

Any other VR pilots hanging around?
>implying Fei-Yen isn't the best

[Anonymous No.1284069]

[Anonymous No.1284072]

[Anonymous No.1284086]

Also, I totally forgot, but would anyone here know how to hook up a Sega Model 2 system without a cabinet? I've got Virtual-On in the case with the filter board, and I'd like to get it running, at least with video.
The problem is that I have no experience with arcade hardware and I don't want to fry my $100 holy grail. I tried selling it locally once I realized I was in over my head but no takers thanks to the game not being Daytona USA.

tl;dr how do I get this shit on a monitor and what should I avoid doing?

[Anonymous No.1284091]

[Anonymous No.1284103]

I wish I had people to play this with. It's such an elegant fighting game and beating up on the computer doesn't do it justice.

[Anonymous No.1284108]

>>1284103
>I wish I had people to play this with.
You and me both. None of my friends even wanted to try it.

[Anonymous No.1284138]

>>1284103
>>1284108
The 360/PS3 ports have netplay with an active Japanese community on both consoles. Mind you, you have to be up at 8 AM to play any of them but you can get some great matches going.

The PC version works over Hamachi, but it's laggy and you have to punch the program in the dick to get it to run on any modern version of Windows.

[Anonymous No.1284164]

>>1284065
had this on the Saturn it was meh.

[Anonymous No.1284195]

>>1284065
Definitely enjoyed playing it for a bit on Dreamcast but I just couldn't get a handle on the controls. There's like 6 different control types and I had no idea what any of them are aside from just trying them out. (I think A and B were similar, C and D, etc)
Definitely need to give this game another try, it just got lost in my pile of burnt games.

[Anonymous No.1284235]

I'd kill for the two player sit-down version of the cabinet in my home, one of the greatest arcade machines ever made.

[Anonymous No.1284243]

>>1284195
It's not really Virtual On if you aren't using twinsticks.

[Anonymous No.1284262]

>>1284243
heh,

wriggling your right stick while tapping trigger to burst "machine gun" with temjin's beam rifle, soo fast its like someone with severe parkinson
(for those who don't know: fire beam rifle, cancel firing animation by a quick sideways movement, cancel walking animation by firing another beam round, rinse repeat)

turning while walking anywhere you want
(especially useful with feiyen and apharmd, who has acceleration at the start of her movement, rendering full stop dangerous)

that start button special attacks, which unfortunately for some early model 3 cabinet with full sized twin stick, means, you might need 3d hand, or rather some hard boned head to hit the trigger with
(crouch start for grys vok nukes, was definitely the least ergonomic attack move this side of the universe)

[Anonymous No.1284267]

>>1284195
It takes getting used to, but control mode A works pretty well once you get used to jumpcrouching (as in, jumping so your Virtuaroid faces the enemy and crouching quickly afterwards)

>>1284243
Sure it's part of the experience but the price makes it unviable. I've been planning to make some makeshift ones with old Joysticks but finding 2 identical, high quality ones is proving harder than I thought.

http://blogs.sega.com/2010/01/07/create-your-own-custom-twin-sticks-with-cookingware/

[Anonymous No.1284285]

>>1284267
the jumpcrouch is something all newbies should be teached upon in their first 5 minutes of play. I spend so many coins before realizing this move...

[Anonymous No.1284329]

>>1284285
Incredibly Mark from CGR hated the fuck out of VOOT because he couldn't get the controls. I bet he didn't care much though, gladly he's gotten better.

[Anonymous No.1284759]

>>1284285
I grew up playing the PC version and COULDN'T jumpcancel. I always played on a low enough difficulty that it wasn't necessary. Once I got into Oratan though I picked it up quick just by watching the AI.

>>1284195
Oratorio Tangram is the best in the series. I want to say it's not very good for learning to play V-On with simply because it's so fast, but sometimes it's better just to jump right into it.

>>1284267
I made 360 Twinsticks out of a Saturn set by soldering the sticks' switches to the contacts of one of those PDP Fighting Pads that are packed full of microswitches.
It worked great and I was slapping some serious shit online because the Hori Twinsticks hadn't shipped yet. However, after about 20 games of Oratan 5.66, the 18-year-old vinyl bearings in the sticks had basically disintegrated. I want to make an arcade-perfect multi-console set someday.

[Anonymous No.1284806]

>>1284759
>v.5.66
so, you like temjin 10/80? i had a pretty satisfying experience when i realized my moongate play is faster than average oratan players... and dat gliding ram...

[Anonymous No.1284812]

>>1284759
i broke the (hard plastic abs )bearing housing of the twin stick arcade machine. it was almost impossible, as it was really well built, but i still managed to do it. and the arcade handyman cant fix it, now the machine is gone. hic...

[Anonymous No.1284893]

>>1284812
>and the arcade handyman cant fix it
Huh. iirc it's a fairly standard part. The only difference between a Twinstick...stick and a regular arcade stick is the fact that the VO stick has buttons in it, but that setup is used for several different games. I've seen VO stick assemblies on Sega Strike Fighter, for instance.
It might have just been a shitty excuse to get rid of a low-paying game.

[Anonymous No.1284969]

Have the twin sticks for Saturn (If you went to Play expo they were mine that were out)

Was going to try and get the arcade controls (yes I have an arcade CP as well as the side panels) working on the PS2 version.
The PS2 version is the best one, sadly it never got a release outside Japan and the PS2 pad suits it, but it can't beat the joy of two sticks.

What is the PC version like? Is It just a port of the Saturn one?
It would be easier to make the sticks work on PC

[Anonymous No.1285040]

>>1284969
The PC version is a port of the Saturn version with more detail and a slightly higher framerate. Though graphically it can't compare to the PS2 port or the Model 2 Collection releases, there's a hidden debug menu that allows it to run in 60 FPS mode which at least gives it the smoothness of the original.
The problem though is that the PC port was designed specifically to take advantage of the then-new Intel MMX processor instruction set and does some memory address shenanigans that Windows NT operating systems simply do not put up with. The end result is that on modern PCs, the game runs in slow-motion and the "Continue" screen showing your VR in the hangar causes the game to crash. It's worth playing if you have an ancient PC with Win 98 on it in which case it's impressive considering the year it was released, but you're really better off using the 0.9 version of the Model 2 Emulator.

The PC actually got a special and very rare set of Gameport Twinsticks. I passed up the chance to get two of them, in box, and the game for $120 on eBay a couple years ago and want to die whenever I think about it.

[Anonymous No.1285160]

>>1285040
Ah smeg

So DOSbox wont make it run properly?

Ill see if the PS2 port can use digital controls (D-pad and buttons) would make it easier to work with as I have some PS2 joysticks that are practically throw aways

[Anonymous No.1285853]

longtime Virtual On player since the Saturn days

I will say however I'm REALLY sick of Fei-yen and Angelan. You look up a video, best chance it's one of the girls. You look up a piece of fanart, best chance it's one of the girls. It's amazing they don't dominate the model kits (though I guess in Angelan's case it's a bit difficult)

I'm an Apharmd C player in VOOT, and a Kagekiyo player in FORCE. Don't really have a set machine in VOOM, though the PS2 re-release was pretty great.

[Anonymous No.1285971]

>>1285853
They don't dominate the model kits simply because their thin frames make figures of them fragile and difficult to manufacture. I own a shit ton of Fei-Yen figures from various manufacturers, I've built 3 kits of her, and they're all pretty much crap in comparison to the other VRs. Even the relatively excellent Kotobukiya Fei-Yen Kn is flimsy, while you could absolutely kill a man with Belgdor.
I even subjected myself to the Guarayakha kit. Never again.

[Anonymous No.1286062]

>>1284103
I have a friend of mine who loves this game but every time I go to his home with other friends we tend to play games that most of us will play. If he was living closer to my home I would visit him alone to play games like that.

By the way is the CPU that hard or is it me that sucks miserably at Virtual On games?

[Anonymous No.1286084]

i wanna get into this series. how's the 360 game? or should i start with the Saturn/Dreamcast games?

i might also want to get into the kits, what's a good place to get 'em from?

[Anonymous No.1286396]

I only played the 360 game but I thought it was a blast. Good difficulty too.
I'd really like to play with one of those Virtual On controllers one day.

[Anonymous No.1286787]

>>1286084

Which one?

All three main Virtual-On games are available on 360.

I would recommend starting with Oratorio Tangram, which is an XBLA release. It's actually an improved version of the Dreamcast game, and adds three new VRs, a seizure-inducing stage variation, and several balance tweaks that make VR movement more responsive. It also has widescreen support and looks better than the Dreamcast release.

The XBLA release of the original Virtual-On (The Saturn game) is only available if you have a Japanese XBL account, as it was never localized, but those are easy to get. It's a straight port of the original arcade title though, not the Saturn version, which IIRC had some subtle tweaks to make the gameplay a bit more responsive to make up for the Saturn version's awful framerate. It's actually a bit clunky and dated, but it's probably the best for learning how to play with Twinsticks.

Force is the only Virtual-On game released on the 360 in disc form. You can also get it from the Japanese and Hong Kong Games on Demand stores. It's significantly different from the previous games in almost every way. It's slower and the VRs move and react more realistically for their size. Homing weapons have a harder time tracking and VRs rotate slowly, making it difficult to land hits while dashing. It has a huge roster of characters, most of which are variations on a single VR model. The biggest change is that the game is based around 4-player team combat.
In my opinion, it's not a particularly good game. Compared to Oratorio Tangram, it's frustratingly slow, and it plays so differently from the other two games I can't recommend it to beginners. Though, the game does allow you to pick the size of Fei-Yen and Angelan's tits and ass, so uh, there's that.

tl;dr: get Oratorio Tangram for the 360.

[Anonymous No.1286825]

>>1286062
Which one is giving you trouble and what VR are you using? Also which game are you playing?

The main thing you want to avoid in all games is dashing around the stage willy-nilly. Because VRs dash in a predictably straight line, you are incredibly vulnerable. On top of that, you've nothing to gain on your enemy since you can't hide anywhere.
Another trick is to avoid turning. Use a jump-cancel (jump and then immediately hit the guard button) to instantly lock on to your enemy from anywhere. Some turning is okay, particularly if you're trying to aim a weapon that has no homing function, like Raiden's lasers, or sweeping an automatic weapon, like Fei-Yen's arm gun.

[Anonymous No.1286836]

>>1284806
10/80 is fucking great. There's not many things in VO more satisfying than popping an SLC-ing Cypher out of the air with his turbo RW. Except maybe firing the same thing down the center of Raiden's CW.
I've got one painted bright pink like Dan Hibiki.

[Anonymous No.1286841]

>tfw you're the only one who enjoys Camouflaged Soccer Hooligan

[Anonymous No.1286852]

>>1286825
>The main thing you want to avoid in all games is dashing around the stage willy-nilly. Because VRs dash in a predictably straight line, you are incredibly vulnerable.
This. Anybody who doesn't know how it works should look up "Dash Vectoring," it's like the first most basic strategy anybody should learn for this game.

There's also a lot of area control going on in the game, it's important to know which sections of the field you can potentially "threaten" and which weapons will have the best chances of hitting in which situations. Certain weapons are very good at "herding" opponents to where you want them, which is especially useful if you like to play a melee game (which is probably the best part of at least the first game, but a lot of people never do anything but stand back and shoot).

Even though it seems like a pretty straight forward game at first glance, you have a whole lot of options at any given point in time, and knowing which one to use when is very important for improving your game.

[Anonymous No.1286858]

Can VOOT be emulated at this point? I long to replay this game.

[Anonymous No.1287152]

>>1286858
The Dreamcast version emulates well.
There are competent Model 3 and NAOMI emulators as well, but I've not tried V-On with Supermodel or NullDC.

This pic is several years old from some ancient release of Chankast and VOOT was perfectly playable back then.

>>1286852
It's an amazingly deep and rewarding game once you really get into it. It looks like a vehicular combat game, maybe a fighting game, but it's actually an arena shooter. In fact, in the Chronicle 15 book that comes with the Force Memorial Box, Juro Watari points to Doom, and its LAN deathmatches, as one of the major inspirations for the series.
I really oughta get that book scanlated or some shit, there's some good stuff in there.

[Anonymous No.1287175]

Who here plays OT on the 360?

[Anonymous No.1287245]

>>1287175
I used to, but I don't have a 360 anymore :(

[Anonymous No.1287267]

>>1287152
>I really oughta get that book scanlated

If you can be arsed scanning/upping it, eventually, someone will get around to translating it.

[Anonymous No.1287394]

>>1286841
proficient at striker, but loving commando. the only gripe with commando is the very limited ammo imo. with striker, its a full blast grysvok would be proud bot.

[Anonymous No.1287592]

I was a huge arcade player of this. It made the transition to Saturn a little tricky until I got the twin sticks in my hands again. I play it on Xbox live every now and then... I miss the arcade days.