Pull up your diaper, boy! It’s time to fight! Review

Pull up your diaper, boy! It’s time to fight!

It was a dark day on the playground. Some five year old bearded kid with a bottle of sake stole your favorite teddy bear. With the adults nowhere to be found, you have to defeat him and the rest of those violent preschoolers. Only the strong (and potty trained) will survive. Can you stand up to the challenge? Not an easy thing to do with a head bigger than the rest of your body.

The classic characters of the Virtua Fighter series have returned, and, boy, have they changed. Due to some unnatural (and probably drug induced) scientific experiment, their bodies have shrunk and their heads have grown. Apparently, the people at Sega were attempting to make them relive their childhood. I wouldn’t mess with these preschoolers, however. They may have smaller bodies and bigger heads, but they’re just as lethal. Though this game doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, fans of Virtua Fighter 2 will probably get a kick (it’s a joke! Get it?) out of Virtua Fighter Kids.

Virtua Fighter Kids is just like its predecessor except in a cartoon universe. The graphics are just as smooth as Virtua Fighter 2 and also a lot faster. The backgrounds were also changed to fit the new motif. With gumdrops, smiley faces, and even a children’s playpen, the guys at Sega left no schoolyard untouched. The most obvious change about the characters themselves are the big heads. We’re not kidding around here; they have biiiiiiiiiiiig heads! The heads are sooo big, in fact, that they have to pass through each other in order to execute certain moves. The reactions of are pint-sized fighters are so cute they almost make you sick. (They gave Jeffery doe eyes!!!) Though seeing a five year old take a belt of sake is a little bit disturbing. No one can say that Sega didn’t put their all into the graphics.

The sound and music for Virtua Fighter Kids are almost identical to that of VF2. The music has a little bit of a ‘cutesy’ tone to it, however. The players voices have also raised three octaves. All the sayings are the same, only they come from a little kid with a big head. Jeffery doesn’t seem quite as macho saying “I win” anymore. Pai’s victory dance, however, finally makes a lot more sense now that she is a little girl.

One major addition is that there are a lot more options in Virtua Fighter Kids than in its predecessors. You can choose between two fighting modes, normal and kids. In normal mode, all the special moves are identical as those in VF2. In kids mode, you can execute special moves just by pressing one of the attack buttons repeatedly. You can also increase or decrease the size of the ring. This is a great option for people who hate the ‘ring out’ victory. You can even make yourself invincible, making it easy to defeat anyone. The boys at Sega also included the ability to set up a combo into one button. This makes you able to execute even the toughest moves at the touch of a button.

VF Kids looks like its trying to incorporate several concepts at the same time. We can’t figure out if the game is supposed to be for children, or if it is called ‘kids’ only because the fighters look like kids (sort of). In some ways they look more like battling oompa-loompas. The violence hasn’t been toned down at all in this version. If anything, it’s actually a little more disturbing to watch five-year-olds beat the crap out of each other.

Virtua Fighter Kids is one of the most indescribable games to come down the pipe in a long time. I just wish I could have been at the meeting where they planned out this game so I could ask them what the hell they were doing. Though it is an interesting concept, Virtua Fighter Kids is simply a repeat of Virtua Fighter 2. On the other hand, you have to go and see this game at least once, just to see what we’re talking about.