Tecmo’s Dead or Alive franchise began in the arcades and on the original PlayStation and Saturn — all the way back in 1996. This week, Dead or Alive 6 was released. Dead or Alive arrived on the scene in the day of Virtua Fighter and Tekken, the latter of which is still going strong. There have been several spin-offs of the 1v1 fighting game, namely the Beach Volleyball games which, well, I’ve never had any interest to play. I can’t help but mention, but if you weren’t aware, DoA5 has well over a thousand dollars of DLC available, mostly in the form of costumes for its characters. Already, there is a $93 Season Pass for DoA6, but it doesn’t actually cover everything that’s even available right now. It seems crazy, but evidently, this bizarre DLC schedule seems to work for this franchise enough that Koei Tecmo is going to continue it.
Anyway, DoA6 is familiar territory for anyone that has played the franchise before. New gameplay mechanics are introduced, as well as new characters, but the feel of the game is certainly familiar. Team Ninja, of Ninja Gaiden fame, returns as the developer. A triangle system for combat is the basis, offering a punch, kick, hold, and throw functions that are mapped to your face buttons. A punch or kick will defeat a throw, a throw beats a hold, and holds beat strikes. Button mashers will find success in playing DoA6 against the CPU on typical difficulty levels, but skilled fighters will take advantage of the various Break mechanics. Basically, the system is based off of the Break Gauge, a meter under the characters’ health meters that fills up in a light blue color. It’s easier to understand and use than many fighting games. The Break Blow is performed just by pressing R1, and if you press it four times, you’ll execute a Fatal Rush, which is a cinematic series of damaging attacks. You can unleash a Mass Destruction sequence if you knock your foe into barrels or boxes (available in some stages) while doing a Break Blow or Fatal Rush. A Break Hold offers a way to counter when stunned.
The ability to side-step is, I believe, new to the series and a welcomed addition, providing a more engaging and robust fighting experience. The more I played DoA6, I came to appreciate the depth underneath the noise. By that I mean that there is a lot of components to DoA6 that I wouldn’t necessarily put in the ‘pro’ column. For one, the story is all of over the place and makes little to no sense. It continues events from DoA5, if you happen to be familiar with those. The DoA Quest mode offers up 104 quick challenges, with a three-star system. Stars are unlocked for accomplishing the challenges within the challenge, so to speak. Typically, one or two of these stars is easier to get the first time around. To unlock more challenges, you have to earn enough stars, so expect some forced replay here. Furthermore, as you play, you unlock points and also upgrade the character you’re playing as. You’ll unlock bonuses like costume parts and patterns, which seemed arbitrary and confusing, but that’s not too unusual for the franchise, in my experience.
Moreover, much of the character roster (which is smaller than DoA5 at this time, at least), consists of very generic and non-interesting characters: the loud-mouthed wrestler, the shy Japanese girl, the overly dramatic ninja — they’re all here. The stages aren’t very compelling in their appearance or design, even the one with the dinosaur eggs. The music sometimes seems out of place. Multiplayer is not fully fleshed out just yet, with only Ranked Matches being available at launch. The costumes for many of the female characters is scant, something the series has long been known for. There’s a lot of things about the series, and DoA6 specifically, that aren’t all that endearing to me, but underneath that noise there is an impressive fighting game with some deeper mechanics than it appears at first look.
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