Virtua Fighter Kids

Virtua Fighter Kids is an installment in the Sega-AM2 Virtua Fighter fighting game series. It was released in the arcade and on the Sega Saturn in 1996.

Originally in Japan; Virtua Fighter Kids was released on the Saturn as a promotional item in co-operation with drink brands "Java Tea" and "Energen" under the title "Virtua Fighter Kids: Java Tea Original Edition". It was later released commercially without any mention of "Java Tea" on the cover.

All Java Tea product placement was removed from the western versions of the game, however it is present in all Japanese version (Arcade, Regular and Java Edition).

Virtua Fighter Kids is a super deformed version of Virtua Fighter 2. Reportedly, the game was developed to practice on the facial and eye animations on the characters for the impending Virtua Fighter 3.

All the characters all have big heads, and the music is a faster pace. The gameplay itself is slightly tweaked from VF2. The Saturn version includes some new FMVs and adds programmable button sequences to allow players to test and use pre-made combos. In some versions of Virtua Fighter Kids players could "eat the souls" of other characters. Virtua Fighter Kids characters are not really children - 'Kids' refers to the super-deformed' art style, and as such some of the fighters retain adult characteristics, such as facial hair, muscles or breasts.

One of the variations of the boss character, Dural, featured her with a fishbowl for a head, complete with a fish swimming inside. One very special addition from all the other VF games is that this game had ending movies that you could access when you beat the game as a character.

Appearances in other games
Although no official sequels to Virtua Fighter Kids were ever made (other than the VF Kids versions of the CG Portrait Series in Japan called the Game Gear Portrait Series), the child version of Akira Yuki and Sarah Bryant reappear as playable characters in Fighters Megamix, and some of their fellow playable characters appear in the game's ending movie as well.