The first time I played Dead or Alive was Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore for the PS2. Fairly sure it was the first PS2 game I ever owned, and man did I play the shit out of that one. A fairly simplistic one on one fighter with some interesting characters, fun and fast combat, and tons of costumes to unlock. It also had a story, but good fucking luck trying to make sense of it. Despite it being fully voice acted, even if you played all the stories it didn't really help clear things up.
In any case, I've followed the game gradually as it worked its way from console to console. Despite the addition of new characters in each game, there didn't seem to be a whole lot of innovation to the franchise. Some of the story got even more muddled from what little they gave you, and it has some bizarre spin offs where you play beach volleyball and oogle the characters boobies. That being said, I still love it as a fighting game so I picked up the new one after the holiday to see how it holds up.
DEAD OR ALIVE 5: (XB360)
As I fired the game up, I immediately took note that not much seemed to change right out the gate. I was able to fire it up and jump right into the arcade mode and basically it felt like all the other installments of the game. First thing I really want to make note of in this review, is that the graphics in this game have been immensely improved from the previous installments. All of the characters have have lost kind of the animeish looking eyes that they used to have to favor a more realistic and human looking facial features. I actually really liked the change.
Although, the ladies in this game still move around like they stuffed a pair of water balloons down their shirts and they are standing on the deck of a boat in the storm. The devs actually wanted to tone down the jiggle physics in the game to try to give it a more realistic an serious bent, but the fans pissed and cried about it till they changed it back (something I will now refer to as "Mass Effecting" the game and devs).
I would like to give a massive thank you to the people at Tecmo for adjusting the difficulty a bit in this one. Dead or Alive 4's was downright murderous on pretty much any difficulty setting you chose. Now at least in this game you have some options.
For all the major play modes outside of story mode, they are broken up into courses ranging from Rookie to Legend. With each step up in rank, so does the difficulty and in the case of the survival mode so does the number of people to fight.
Thank you to DOA5 for bringing that back, by the way. In one on one fighters if you don't play games online like I do, then you will find yourself getting bored sooner than later when you complete the story. Survival mode should be a standard that is in on every one on one fighter. It should be executed like DOA5 does it where as soon as you beat an enemy, the next one jumps in immediately No load times, no screen transition, the action just keeps moving.
All of the other modes are fairly unremarkable. Arcade mode, which is just 8 fights in a row 2 rounds. Time attack mode: which is the same as arcade but it keeps your total play time. Both of which of those modes you can play single or tag team. And the aforementioned survival mode. There is also a spectator mode where you can watch too computer players go at it as well while you take pictures. But lets face it, people use this mode to get upskirt shots or freeze them in peculiar positions, such as Kasumi's face straddling throws.
The actual combat of the game hasn't changed much since DOA2: Hardcore but they have polished and sharpened things up. The game is ideal because any button masher can pick the game up and start wailing away on people, but every character has a massive repertoire of moves that you can run through in training mode. So there can be a lot of technically pleasings ways to play as well. I'm a big fan of using Helena because her combos switch from low to high constantly and they are tricky to counter.
 |
| As the new girl, Mila's move set is kinda a limited compared to everyone else But god damn is she fun to use. |
Speaking of which, the countering system is probably the most polished its ever been. In DOA2 you could pretty much hit back and hold and it would reverse pretty much any move the enemy threw at you. Fun against the computer but in 2 player it just resulted with two players constantly grabbing at air.
Now their "Rock, Paper, Scissors" system of combat actually as some substantial balance to it. You can actually fling some punches or kicks because the countering system requires more precision to execute, namely by hitting a direction to correspond to high, med, and low attacks. They had this in DOA4 but it always felt more like a roll of the dice. I feel like I have better control here.
It's roster is bigger than its ever been. With pretty much all of the 17 main characters returning for the 5th installment, it introduces 2 new characters in Mila: the foxy MMA style fighter and Rig: who uses Taekwondo. Both of them bring in fighting styles not previously in the game, which make them both fun alternatives to the already extensive cast.
Also, this edition of Dead or Alive marks another first as it started to cross over with competing fighting game Virtua Fighter as some of that series established veterans in Sarah, Akira, and Pai Chan make an appearance. I haven't unlocked Pai yet but Sarah and Akira both fit in seamlessly. It had been a while since I last played a Virtua Fighter but it took little time to re-acclimate to using Sarah. Where is Jacky though?
This is kind of a nit picky thing to keep complaining about, but seriously? Fuck downloadable content. I'm really getting tired of pissing and moaning about this but it makes me angry each time. One of my favorite reasons for playing DOA2: Hardcore was all the of the cool and different costumes you can unlock by continually playing your favorite characters. Some of the girls have upwards 6 or 7 different costumes a piece. That to me is awesome, fun to do, and gives me a reason to keep playing the game.
And while DOA5 boasts a pretty sizable number of costumes, a lot of the nifty and fun cosplay types aren't in there. Why? because you have to pay extra for them in DLC. Doing the math? To get all the extra costumes for the game you have to pay upwards 5000 or more Microsoft points, which is like an additional 50 bucks. I'm sorry, but that's absolute bullshit. Costumes for characters shouldn't be anything more than 50 cents tops.
Make DLC have sizable and significant changes to the game. I will download the free ones you have offered (and I might bite on the maid pack since I dig that look, {Don't judge me}) you can go fuck yourself with your stupid downloadable content.
 |
| I uh... Yep, totally playing this game for the fighting. Yep... Credible game journalist.. that's me. |
Now, you'll notice that I didn't start this review going into the story line like I usually do. There are two reasons why I did it this way. One, the story in this game is so muddled up and complex that I can't really find a way to narrow it to one paragraph. And two, it's because I wanted to save this for last because this is the area of the game where DOA5 has made some DRASTIC improvement.
Usually in fighting games, the story mode usually consists of some small prologue when you start then you play the game via arcade mode. Occasionally you'll get a cut scene mid game and then an ending after you beat the last boss. I would say the Tekken Series and the Street Fighter Alpha series probably perfected this style. For this genre of game, it worked for the most part. But if you really wanted the whole "story" of this type of game, you'd really need to play through it with every character. For some of these games, that's pretty daunting.
Persona 4 Arena did an interesting try with the story where it functioned a lot like its RPG roots where you had a lot of character interaction and story telling between the fight sequences I'll admit it did a great job in telling a story, but there was WAY too much of it for the amount of fighting you do. Ended much too quickly and it could get boring.
Dead or Alive 5 has shaken up this formula. Since many of the characters in the DOA universe are connected you don't get to select a character and jump right in. The game sets you on a timeline, and shows you many animated fully voice acted cut scenes that pick up after the end of 4. It gives the story some real meat to it, and none of the cut scenes run on so long that it gets too excessive between the fights. At least not like Persona 4 Arena did.
The timeline jumps from character to character and you play about 3 fights with each of them. Some of them are looking to win the DOA tournament, some are looking to hone their fighting abilities, but the real linchpin of the story focuses on the ninja characters and their battles against DOATEC.
 |
| When using characters not tied to the main story, the pacing can get light hearted or downright silly, but it doesn't really affect the overall story too badly |
To give a brief summary, Helena tried to destroy DOATEC for their work with weapons at the end of 4 before she was rescued by Zack (who still sucks). Two years later she has assumed control of the company and is trying to right its goals to more peaceful aspirations and has partnered up with Kasumi on her hunt for the clones of her(Kasumi) created by DOATEC to be sold as elite ninja weapons. Hayate, Ayane, and Ryu Hayabusa continue their hunt for Kasumi for abandoning the clan, although there appears to be a desire amongst them and Helena to see this misunderstanding come to close so Kasumi may return home.
Some of the cut scenes can drag on. If you watch the youtube of all them cut together (see below if you don't wanna get the game), its the length of a full feature film. That being said, this is probably the best story telling that this franchise has ever done. Now the dialog between the characters actually makes sense because I am getting the exposition to explain what the fuck is actually going on. I still don't know what project epsilon is or why it was a failure, but at least I have a better idea than I did in DOA2: Hardcore.
But with such a intricate story line focused on the ninja chracters, I have to wonder why they never tried to do a Ninja Gaiden spin off featuring the DOA characters? A fast paced hack and slasher where you jump from the perspectives of Kasumi, Ayane, Hayate, and other DOA characters? I would totally play that, if it was based of Ninja Gaiden 1 and 2 of course. Never 3.
Fuck this got wordier than I wanted it too. Alright, to wrap this up I can acknowledge that this game will never be seen on the same tier of fighters than say Street Fighter, Tekken, or even Soul Calibur. But this is a franchise that I've always had a soft spot for, and this installment has done a lot to work out many of the problems I had with the franchise.
If you are new to the series, or a seasoned veteran you can take my opinion for what its worth. Dead or Alive 5 is a fast, fun to play fighter with tightened, simple controls and a massive story and graphic overhaul. This installment is easily the best in the series. It will be hard for the next installment to top this one.
