The other way the Quest Mode is user-friendly is by providing a couple of skill levels, with players intitally able to choose from Beginner and Standard levels. This provides a lot more longevity for both beginner and intermediate players. Beginners will have an easier time starting out, and have a bit of breathing space while they learn the skills. Intermediate players, possibly those who were stuck in the Dan rankings in VF4 will have a chance to achieve a title rank at the Beginner setting, which still gets quite challenging. This is not to say Virtua Fighter has gone soft. It is still as hard as nails at the higher rankings. It is more that Virtua Fighter is catering to a wider audience, rather than just the hardcore fighting fans. The way Quest Mode is structured is great, and will lead to players being able to come closer to mastering the game than Kumite did.

Also within Quest mode are hundreds of unlockables, which are either won during a match or bought in the Shop. Money can be acquired either by fighting in certain matches, or completing Quest Orders. The range of unlockables is huge, including different accessories for your fighter, extra stages for the Versus mode, or classic win poses. Our favourites are the short movies that can be bought showing an arcade player effortlessly performing certain combos with different characters. Separate tournaments can also be unlocked. These are not based at a certain arcade and they feature some of the game's top fighters, so can be very tough to win in. Most of these bonus tournaments will also feature certain stipulations not found in normal fights, such as knockdowns do extra damage, or damaging your opponent will increase your own health. They provide a lot of extra play outside of the arcades, especially since they are so challenging. Also available in the Quest mode are all sorts of statistics regarding your own progress, as well as a tally of what fighters you have beaten at each arcade. It's a nice package provides a lot of replayability for the solo player, and completing everything with a character will take quite a bit of time.

The training mode in Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution is a thing to behold, and one of the best training modes we've come across in a game. While the training in VF4 was excellent, Evolution takes it a step further by going deeper into the fighting style for each character. This helps not only beginners, but the more intermediate and advanced players as well. This doesn't mean that the fighting in the game becomes easy though. Even after breaking down the gameplay and explaining it it will still take the player a long time to master each fighting style. Practising in a neutral environment and actually putting it into practice in an actual fight are vastly different, especially when the training prompts are gone.

For beginners, there is a Tutorial mode, which takes you through the basics of gameplay, from simple attacks through to blocks, evades, counters and recovery. Each of these has a little tutorial which explains the move, and then lets the player practice it in a neutral environment. All facets of basic gameplay are covered here, and the player who practices through all of them will have a good grounding as a fighter. There is also a Command mode for each character. This provides you with each character's set of fighting moves and allows you to practice them. Since each fighter has a different set of moves this is particularly useful, and shows exactly how much there is to learn to master a particular character.

All of the above was in VF4 and it was very good for starting players off. Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution takes training a step further by providing the player with an extra three training modes for intermediate and advanced players. Tactics Advance takes the player through a set of series and combo moves for each player and explains each in detail, profiling their use and reasoning for using them, as well as letting the player practice them. Challenge takes the basic actions from the tutorial mode such as guarding, evading, and recovery and puts the player in a set of challenging situations to practice these moves in a more difficult environment. And Mission Practice lets you practice in a match environment, while meeting certain conditions similar to those found in the Arcade mode. All three modes are designed to take the player deeper into the fighting engine, to let them get a better grasp of the fighter they are using, and give them the ability if practiced well to achieve higher ranks. In all it's a training mode that caters for pretty much everything, and struuggling players of all levels can certainly find some benefit in spending time here.

There is still the question of whether the game is worth buying if you already have the earlier Virtua Fighter 4, and this is something we cannot give an unqualified answer to. For the few that mastered Virtua Fighter 4 and achieved the highest ranks in Kumite mode the addition of a Quest mode as well as two more fighters may not be enough to warrant a purchase. But for the vast majority of players who were not able to get all the way through VF4 we think this is worth buying. If you found yourself stuck at a particular rank or skill level in VF4 and just couldn't pass that, then Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution may be the game that will take you past this. The combination of the training mode, the way Quest is structured, and the Quest Orders will improve the player's skill and focus on the weak points in their fighting ability. And the Quest mode itself is a lengthy mission, with plenty of opponents at all skill levels to fight against.

The beginning player is well catered for as well with the extensive training mode, and this makes Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution an excellent entry point into both the Virtua Fighter series, and fighting games in general. Practice will be required though; the button-mashing player will only get so far into the game before a bit of skill is required, but for those willing to put in a bit of extra effort the rewards are certainly there. It would certainly be hard to find a better introduction into fighting games than this.