Geekscape Games Reviews Dead or Alive: Dimensions

Dead or Alive has notoriously been used as a showcase. Not for the scantily clad women and shirtless men, but for new hardware when it hits the market. Just think about it, Xbox launch… check! 360 launch… check! And each time, they push the console further than any other game at release. But with a very public split from Tomonobu Itagaki, the man behind the games and the development team, I was worried that the series would lose its magic if it were to return. With that in mind, I anxiously picked up Dead or Alive: Dimensions for the 3DS and prayed on my Ayane bikini statue that there would be nothing to worry about.

If you never got a chance, (or were too embarassed,) to play DOA before, here’s the deal. In this 3D hand to hand fighter, each character has a set of high, middle and low attacks. Combos and throws are easy to pull off, (which is aided by the touch screen displaying and even activating full combos.) It’s pretty easy to pick up and play, but the ability to counter is what makes the game. If a button masher keeps head-butting the same buttons or an opponent uses the same combos repeatedly, a high, medium or low counter can launch a powerful attack to back them off of you. Add in the interactive stages that characters can use as a weapon adds to the fast paced, dynamic battles.

Rather than being a straight up sequel, Dimensions is more of a compilation of DOA 1 through 4. All but one character from DOA 4 has returned in addition to about half a dozen bosses, (most of which have never been playable before,) and one that’s new to the series. And I’m sure they would have liked bringing in that one missing person, but I’m sure Microsoft wouldn’t have liked a Halo Spartan showing up on a Nintendo system.

While having a more extensive story than most fighting games, it was always disjointed and hard to make sense of. Dimensions tried to change that with its Chronicle mode, an official story mode where you take on the role of different characters during the events of each game. If you’re a new player, this is the place to start since the mode has constant tutorials and will occasionally slow down the action and tell you what to press in order to counter. Watching the cut scenes, (that seem to randomly switch between still character models and animated characters,) will make you glad that they crammed a Japanese voice option in, but when some of the Xbox cutscenes played, I missed the lack of the Aerosmith music that the series has used for years. C’mon Tecmo, pay up! But outside of the lack of Steven Tyler in my fighting game, the only flaws with the story are that some of the details got changed around, some parts are still confusing and if you’re not a main ninja character, you’ll be lucky to get any kind of screen time. This can probably be ignored by most people, but it bugs a follower of the series like me.

The relatively short Chronicle mode is buffered by numerous single player modes. Arcade mode has been switched up, with different courses that offer different sets of opponents. Survival mode is also in tiers, going from 10 opponents, all the way to 100 on one health bar. Tag challenge is the brand new mode where either with a horribly stupid AI partner or a human partner through co op, players team up against either one or two overpowered opponents. Playing through these modes unlocks some of the many unlockables, like secret characters, bonus costumes and figurines that can be photographed in the 3D Diorama mode.

Which brings me to the rest of the features. DOA uses just about every feature the 3DS has. The 3D itself looks fantastic, although it slows down the frame rate. It doesn’t affect game play, but if you want the console speed, it’s best to play it with the 3D turned off. The gyroscope can be used to view the backgrounds on the title screen or to move around the figure while taking photos. Kind of like a real photographer, only more, (or is it less?) perverted. Play coins from walking can be spent on surprise gifts, (usually figures,) so you’ll have more reason to get up and move. Activating Streetpass will give you ghost data that emulates the player you picked up to fight and Spotpass gives free daily DLC to people who log on. That’s right… FREE DLC! Who would have thought those words went together.

Yeah yeah, I’m going on and on about how great it is, but its glaring flaw is the online. Sure, I could also complain about the small amount of costumes compared to previous games, (how is Kokoro missing her outfit from her character portrait?) or the lack of arcade endings, but online’s drop in quality is a big deal considering how well it’s done on consoles. The lobbies are strictly one on one now, which is fine so it doesn’t strain the network, and the games usually run smoothly as long as both fighters have a good connection. Problem is, you can’t tell unless you’re fighting and the game switches to stop motion because there’s no gauge to tell you how good the connection is, and it’s not as consistently smooth as say, Street Fighter IV. There are no filters for bosses, so if someone decides to pick one, good luck. And did I mention the erratic scoring system that takes triple the points away for a loss compared to a win, and has even given me 0 points for beating a player at equal rank? But lastly, my favorite feature of awarding one player the win and the other a loss for rage quitting is gone, so the only penalty is a drop in their imaginary rank that doesn’t really matter for the quitter, and nothing for the winner. It’s saddening to me that one of the few fair fighting games online has been reduced to practically rewarding rage quitters.

But despite my gripes, the game is still the best yet on the 3DS. This is one fighter that doesn’t ignore the single player, with modes that will give you hours of entertainment, (and I’m not talking about the photo viewer.) Sure, there are fewer costumes, (which is probably why it went from being rated M to T,) but the game play content makes up for it. And despite the flaws with online, at the end of the day, if it plays well, that’s what matters most, and the game is as smooth as a local match most of the time. I’m happy to say that Dead or Alive Dimensions pulls no punches and continues its reputation of pushing a system to its limit and is the best single showcase for what the 3DS can do. And its the closest most of us will get to saying they have a hot ninja in our pants.