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GF! Archival Version Copyright 1995-2004



Official Stratgy Guide

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by BradyGames

Snapshot
Ups: All the moves; essential strategies; character storylines.

Downs: No complaints.

System Reqs:
For Sega Dreamcast version of VF3tb.

Virtua Fighter 3tb is without a doubt the deepest fighting game on the Dreamcast. It uses a different movement system than most fighting games, it has tons of moves, a complicated throwing system, and a different way to counter almost every move in the game. Becoming the ultimate virtua fighter can be an all to real headache. Fortunately there is recourse, and if you’re on a quest to become the virtua fighter guru then I suggest giving the strategy guide from BradyGames a serious look. It has everything you need. It has everything there is.

Each character in the game is highlighted with their own section in the guide. The characters are broken down with analysis of their strengths and weaknesses, and rated for their overall difficulty to learn. These features combine to make an excellent starting point for beginners. You can pick a fighter whose style and strength appeal to you, and you can avoid the more complicated characters until you have a solid grasp of the game fundamentals and maybe a couple of the easier characters under your belt.

As nice as this is for beginners, don’t think for a second that you’re going to out grow the strategy guide anytime soon. The guide breaks down each character’s moves into groups such as basic attacks, ground attacks, back exposed attacks, throws, reversals and a few more. Each move listing provides you with the move’s name, command, damage, execution, hit location, and which button is used to reverse the attack. All total there are over a hundred individual move listings per character. Around twenty of each characters more devastating and difficult moves are also shown in a full color frame by frame explanation. The guide also draws attention to a move spotlight for each character. The move spotlight is a full color picture of the move, with a detailed discussion of the move and suggestions for how to follow it up, how to use it, and sometimes what to try if you can’t get it to work. Signature moves are particularly nasty attacks that define the character, and should make a staple in any offense.

At the end of each character’s section in the strategy guide is a two page discussion which breaks down how the character in question fares against every other Virtua Fighter character when run by the CPU. There is a paragraph of strategies, move suggestions, and helpful hints. If you seem to always run into trouble against a specific CPU opponent, you can look up the character that you’re using and see what they suggest.

The strategy guide also reveals the games secrets and codes for your enjoyment. Codes include, play as an alphabet character, listen to the remix soundtrack instead of the old one, play as Dural, change the backgrounds, and a few others.

Lest the literary aspect of the Virtua Fighter world be overlooked, the strategy guide also provides the each character’s biography and the progressing storyline for Virtua Fighters one, two, and three. If you’re dying to know your fighters blood type, or want to know which character likes Chinese poetry, its here in one easy comprehensive resource.

Learning Virtua Fighter 3tb can be hard. Frusturation can set in if the CPU is constantly slapping you around, to say nothing of another person with a little more Virtua Fighter experience. Mastering this game is going to take time and quick fingers, but if you master half of what’s in this strategy guide I guarantee that you’ll be mopping up the floor with this game, and you’ll be giving the CPU an ass whooping of epic proportions.

--Jeff Luther