Review by: Shin Hong

GRAPHICS: 8 (out of 10)
I felt that FMM had worse graphics than VF2. Of course Sega had to cut down on detailed graphics in order to fit the sheer amount of characters in the game. The characters are not as crisp and bright in VF2 (I'm not even going to begin to compare it to VF3). The new backgrounds are a nice touch, however. For example, there is a desert scene much like VF3, with the hazy sun. A subtle hint they threw in is the BGM for this desert scene. The BGM is actually the music played on a VF3 machine when it is in its attract mode.

Some backgrounds have bad pop-up, such as the glass elevator. You can literally see the large blocks of mirrors appear or disappear as the camera angle switches. But despite all my criticism of the graphics, I am still amazed at the amount of characters and backgrounds you're allowed to play.

Also, there is a FMV intro if you wait a few seconds during the main screen (at least in the Japanese version). It is pretty cool, showing almost every character in the game.

SOUND/MUSIC: 9
Again, I must praise Sega for the sheer amount of music they put on the CD. I think there are over 30 tracks to listen to alone. However, each track is usually 2 minutes long at most (which is annoying since every round you fight the music restarts). The sound effects are average, with annoying "thumps" for blocked attacks and weird noises when you break armor. But the sound effects don't really get too annoying - you can play and not notice.

The BGMs are good in their variety. There are some VF1 tracks (Kage's being one of my favorites), VF2 tracks, Fighting Vipers tracks, some Sonic Fighters tracks, a Daytona track (Rolling Start!), and also some VF3 tracks! Basically the music is always fresh since the stage selection is so wide. The only problem is the BGM restarts for every match, except Rentahero's song (the only track with singing actually).

GAMEPLAY: 7.5
When you start playing this game, do not think it will play just like VF3 (that would be TOO good). Actually, FMM doesn't play like VF2 either. In my mind, FMM plays like FV. Even if you go to options and change the game to "Virtua Fighter Mode," the floating is insane. The damage levels are much less in FMM. So basically you can't play the VF2 characters the same way you did before. I have to admit that I am biased towards VF2 characters because I have not played FV characters, but I feel that the gameplay is lacking in this game.

To confuse things even more, the VF characters get some VF3 moves. The floating allows some nasty-sounding combos such as Pai's simple Kick,Kick,Kick,PPP+Sweep combo. However this combo only does about 12% damage or so (don't hold me to this guess). I don't like how the characters float so high and frequently. The FV characters have moves made to use floats (since in FV floating was a key factor in gameplay), however I feel the VF characters lose their edge in FMM because of this floating/reduced damage system.

In fact, I found that FV characters have an advantage generally over the VF2 characters. All of the Fighting Vipers characters moves do substantially more damage and their moves usually have priority as well! It's a tough battle to play against a button mashing FV character, even if you are pretty good at a VF2 character.

Otherwise I feel that Sega has done an okay job at mixing all the different fighting characters. With secret characters like Janet and Kumachan, the fights get more interesting.

OVERALL: 8
FMM is worth the buy. However if you have VF2, FV, and you play VF3 constantly at the arcade, I suggest that you don't buy FMM (you would get annoyed at the different gameplay). But most of us (including me) are not like that and so FMM is a fun game.