A few months back, Team Ninja teased Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate as well as the reveal of Ninja Gaiden DS heroine Momiji’s first fighting game appearance. With E3 approaching, the developer detailed its plans for the upcoming ultimate edition of last year’s fighter, and surprisingly, it’s going free to play.
The base version will have four characters, Kasumi, Ayane, Ryu Hayabusa and Hayate. If ninjas aren’t your thing, the entire roster, plus Momiji will be available at $4 a piece. Yes, that includes the Virtua Fighter guest characters. Story mode will cost an additional $15, but versus and online modes will be included in the free model. However, online won’t be compatible against players using the standard game or the Vita version, so get ready to re-download if you want to follow the community to the new game.
Kasumi and Momiji fight for kunoichi superiority.
Now to put on my tin foil hat for a second, this is what I was afraid of, both with the trend of DLC and the state of Team Ninja after former head Tomonobu Itagaki left. Fighting game fans have joked for years since Capcom popularized the trend of locking finished characters that games would eventually start charging you for individual characters. Not to be outdone, Team Ninja is creating an updated year old game that will cost more than the original at release if you want a full roster. It won’t be compatible with older versions even though the differences shown so far are minimal, and in my opinion, Team Ninja is losing credibility fast.
Itagaki used to have very public spats with Tecmo over the decisions his team made when the publisher wanted him to change his vision, so it’s no wonder that after he left, the developer has had some big disappointments, (Ninja Gaiden 3 comes to mind.) That trend is continuing with this new pay model, and even though my main character is one of the four free ones, it’s hard to support a game that will have had three versions in less than a year, the last of which is desperately trying to cash grab. Dead or Alive has been my favorite 3D fighter ever since I first played it on the Dreamcast, and I’ve never thought twice about supporting the series. For me however, this is too much to take.
Tomonobu Itagaki… Oh, how you’re missed.
But I’ll leave it to you, Geekscape readers. Am I making too big of a deal out of this? At least it’s free and you won’t have to pay for characters you’ll never use. But then again, new copies of vanilla DOA5 are pretty cheap now, and they actually have a full roster. Either way, let us know what your take is below!
Source: Joystiq.com