Training and tournaments

How to train

This game is from 2001, so not a lot of people keep playing it constantly. However, there are many retro gaming conventions, with plenty of competitions, free plays and tournaments. In countries like Spain and France some events are including Virtua Tennis 2 in their tournaments line up. Probably the biggest has been the Fightcade Offline Festival (March 2018, Murchante, Spain), with a really interesting VT2 tournament in a japanese classic arcade cabinet. The Dreamcast version of the game makes easier this kind of events.

But how can we train this game further than those events? If we have a friend that likes the game as much as we do, that’s the perfect solution! But it’s not that easy with a retro game. So, we must look for another way to practice. Of course, we can use on-line emulators, like Demul, which works with Dreamcast and Naomi arcade systems. The emulator also allows on-line matches, so if some friends from far plays VT2 too, you can play with them.

We can also play against the CPU but after some games the arcade mode could become boring repeating every time the same routines. However, if we play the Exhibition mode at the Dreamcast or PlayStation 2 version, we can face the CPU with different levels, surfaces and settings. For example, we can play against Norman at Paris or Rafter at Wimbledon. We can also change the difficulty, so we can play at the hardest level, the closest to a tough human rival. At last, we can play matches of 2, 3 or even 6 games to win, with or without tie break.

Tournament rules

The default settings in the game are matches of 2 games to win and no tie break. However this is unfair because one of the players will serve one game more than his rival. That advantage could define a match. So we should change the game options. The fairest setting is the tie break, which assures the same number of serve games for each player. The three versions of the game (Arcade, Dreamcast and PlayStation 2) accept this change. It recommends using the tie break in convention events as a fairer judgment rule.

Another important rule that should be at tournaments involves the character select. This game doesn’t allow both players use the same character. If I want to play Pioline but my rival chooses him before I do, I will have to choose a new player. That’s why both players should say before the game which character they want. If it’s different, there is no problem. But if they want the same one, they have to do a rock-paper-scissors game to decide the first player to choose a character.

Tournament and videos database

YouTube is an awesome tool with tons of videos. It contains lots of Virtua Tennis 2 videos but most of those are short gameplays, One Credit Clears or poor reviews. So, this section wants to provide some tournament or competitive gameplay videos of this game. At the same time, most of tournaments that communities organize are not explained. Then, we decided to show the events with Virtua Tennis 2 competitions.

1- HFS-V - Virtua Tennis Tournament (Vierzon, France, may 2019)
The 5th edition of HFS had the competitive tournaments of Street Fighter games and some ''family friendly'' ones, including Virtua Tennis 2. Anyway, the ''family friendly'' label was only a tag, because the tournament was really serious: 26 players, some of them really strong, live stream and Ken Bogard as a commentator. It was played in a Versus City Arcade Head-to-head setup. Due to the family label, the tournament was played in a single elimination format. The winner was Septa, the second place was for Ken Bogard (aka GArcade on Smash.gg) and the third for Marcade. Here is the whole tournament video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ri-gtVfrcY Here is the bracket: https://smash.gg/tournament/hfs-v-1/events/virtua-tennis-2-solo/brackets/453704/808181/

2- RetroBarcelona 2018 - Virtua Tennis 2 Tournament (december 2018)
The RetroBarcelona event belongs to a bigger convention, like Barcelona Games World, with thousands of visitors and stands. That's why it becomes a really interesting opportunity to show Virtua Tennis 2 in a competitive way. The tournament took place on sunday 2nd december, with an impressive amount of 35 players. It was played in a double Versus City Arcade Head-to-head setup from Navarcade crew. Due to schedule limitations (tournament at lunch time and organizers that couldn't leave the events so late), the tournament was in a Single Elimination format. This is the Challonge link of the brackets: https://challonge.com/es/u1dw0b0m

Top 3 (from left to right): Diego (2nd place), Marcade (1st place), Pedro Ruiz (3rd place).

3- A.R.C.A.D.E. Winter Tournament (Barcelona, december 2018)
The catalan association A.R.C.A.D.E. organized a winter event with three different tournaments: Puzzle Bobble 2, Initial D and Virtua Tennis 2. The event took place in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat (Barcelona) on december 15th. The Virtua Tennis 2 tournament was played in a single elimination bracket. First matches were First to 3 games, semi-finals were First to 4 and the grand finals were First to 6 (a whole tennis set). The winner was Albert ''McFly'' and the second place was for Dani Trape. Check the event video: 

4- Fightcade Offline Festival - Virtua Tennis 2 Tournament - Top 3
This convention took place in Murchante (Navarra, Spain) in march 2018. It included more than 50 japanese arcade cabinets and players from 5 different countries, like Spain, France, UK, Italia and Japan. There were several arcade tournaments, including Virtua Tennis 2. The competition was played in a Naomi original arcade system and a Konami Windy 2 arcade cabinet. This is the video of the top 3 finals: