Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O.

Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. was provided by SEGA for review. Thank you!

I've never played a Virtua Fighter game before, but that might have something to do with the fact that the series has been on a hiatus over the past couple of decades. Virtua Fighter 5, the last entry in the series so far, came out in 2006 before being remade on the PS4 in 2021 and finally released on the PC in 2025 as Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. Unfortunately, I the fact that this game is 19 years old is beginning to show.

You have to set your expectations accordingly for Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. Although a couple of remakes have happened for this 2006 release, the fundamentals have stayed in place. Nowadays, it's pretty standard to expect a storyline or some sort of campaign in a fighting game, but there's no such luck here. It's hard to describe the game as anything but relatively barebones compared to its modern rivals. There is an arcade mode that can be played alone, but it doesn't add much of a story.

On the main menu, you're presented with an online ranked match option, the option to find an unranked online game, play offline against a CPU, play offline against another player, Arcade mode, or play an online tournament, which is run every weekend.

In a world where its competitors are boasting roamable online hubs, campaigns with overarching plots, and more characters than you can shake a stick at, Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. does feel a bit slim on features. On the plus side, it has a decent number of stages, 18 in all. There are also 19 characters, which are somewhat customizable in appearance, although many of the more unique options are largely locked behind the 30th Anniversary DLC.

When we get around to the real meat of a fighting game, the combat Virtua Fighter 5 is your pretty typical fighting game affair. It holds back slightly on the more "fanciful" aspects that its competitors sometimes employ. This is purely based on hand-to-hand combat, so you won't be deploying any weaponry or firing energy projectiles at your opponents.

The combat feels good; separate buttons are assigned to your punching and kicking, as well as grapple attacks, which keeps things relatively simple for new players, but you can employ countless combos. Every direction you hold while attacking will change the action, and you can make sweeping motions with the direction as you attack to add more variety. While Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. may be lacking in content, it is backed up by a detailed fighting and combo system that's more grounded than others in the genre, and it does a great job of making you feel like you're actually in a real martial arts fight.

Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. has added rollback netcode into the game, which in practice is meant to make fighting online appear seamless, with little delay. Unfortunately, I found the player base for the game to be on the smaller side, even at launch, meaning finding a suitable opponent can be difficult. I often played against opponents from Asia, and the networking kind of fell apart in my matches since I am in the UK. Fighters were moving unnaturally around the arena, and I had frequent disconnects. Even though you can filter the search to only connect with players with a "Good" connection in ranked matches, this seems entirely non-functional. I was regularly put in matches with over 200ms of ping, which is unplayable.

I managed to get into a couple of matches with low ping, around 50ms or so, but even then, after a couple of rounds, the game would almost always disconnect before the match. I had even positioned myself right next to my router to ensure it wasn't my Steam Deck's WiFi signal dropping, but I still experienced frequent disconnects. For reference, after 8 online matches, only 1 could end naturally with a winner.

I (Noah Kupetsky) also tried out the Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. online to see if it was possible the online matches were consistent even in different regions. I played multiple matches, and while one had some stuttering, the rest were solid. I had no disconnects and was able to play it easily on the Steam Deck. I even one some of my matches, which was a big surprise.

Noah Kupetsky - CEO of SteamDeckHQ

The small player base isn't helped because the R.E.V.O. edition of Virtua Fighter 5 is PC exclusive. Although the PS4 edition of the game is similar, it doesn't quite have the same features, so cross-platform multiplayer isn't possible. For a game that relies on its online gameplay for most of its modes, it's a bit of a worry that both the network code and the size of the player base are presenting issues so soon after release.

As for presentation, the game is passable, and the graphics have improved since its PS3 days, but it isn't up to par with other games in the genre. It shows its age in places, with visuals such as the water being pretty lackluster, even on high settings. However, that does come with the advantage that most devices can easily handle the game.

Having said all that, the developers are clearly aware of Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O.'s limitations compared to its competitors and have priced it accordingly, with a $20 launch price tag.

Regardless, I would struggle to recommend Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O., which is a real shame. The core gameplay and fighting are solid and work well, but the package around it is lacking. Aside from playing a series of battles against AI or 1v1 with a friend locally, the only other modes are online-only. The online gameplay is plagued with poor connections and disconnects that ruin the experience, alongside a relatively small player base that may pose problems in the future for finding an online match.

Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. - Steam Deck Performance

I can say in Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O.'s favor that it runs great on the Steam Deck. With support for 1280x800 resolution, great gamepad controls, and a graphics preset already in place for the Steam Deck, you can't fault it.

The developers keep the game on mostly high settings, making a couple of compromises occasionally, and then running with FSR 3 on Quality mode. This all still resolves to a nice quality image, and in my testing, the game pretty much always holds 60 FPS, maybe dropping 1 or 2 frames during the characters' opening cutscenes.

There's no need to adjust any settings in SteamOS, the game is coded to run at 60 FPS, and you'll need all the power from the Steam Deck to run these settings.

Here are the settings I used for the game. You can click the images to enlarge them:

The power draw for this one was mostly around 18W-20W, with temperatures around 65C. Thus, you can expect around 2.5 hours of battery life from a Steam Deck OLED and around 1.5 hours of battery life from a Steam Deck LCD.

Accessibility:

Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. has rebindable controls, but no other accessibility settings.

Conclusion:

Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. could have been a great game. The core mechanics are solid, the fighting feels good, and there's plenty of depth to the combat system with all the combos you can learn, but all of this is marred by the fact that it's a primarily online game with a pretty terrible online system in place right now.

Performance on the Steam Deck is good, holding 60 FPS throughout, and it has a great control scheme as well. The battery life is a bit disappointing, but Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. likely isn't a game you'll play for a long time in one sitting.

Our review is based on the PC version of this game.

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