12 out of 12 people found this review helpful.
Lots of flash, little substance
Date of Review: Sep 3, 2006
The Bottom Line: Either you loved Dead or Alive before or you did not. If you did not, then you really won't find any reason to get this one.
Gameplay: 6
Graphics: 10
Sound: 5
Controls: 8
Longevity: 5
Overall: 68% (Average/3 stars)
The Dead or Alive series has evolved quite a bit since it's debut on the Playstation 1 in 1998. Always pushing the graphical envelope, the series was reknowned for it's upper body physics (to put it lightly) on the female physique and it's innovative multi-tiered stages. Now on it's fourth iteration on the Xbox 360, those two items still dominate supreme but nothing else has advanced in terms of Tecmo's Dead or Alive series.
As a first generation Xbox 360 title, this game looks and moves beautifully. Though the characters don't look all that much different than it's Xbox counterpart, having an HD TV will go a long way in unlocking this game's potential graphical beauty. The backgrounds are very well put together, with the ability in some stages to be broken apart. The interaction of lighting, shadow and water play beautifully on the Xbox 360's powerful processors. Furthermore, there is not a slowdown to be seen during even the most intensive fighting that occurs.
It is unfortunate that Tecmo had chosen to recycle the sounds that it has kept around since it's DoA 1 days. The punches and kicks don't really have much power behind them. The impact on the grounds don't really sound like it hurts, which really translates into the feeling that we as players experience. Some of the music used in the game comes from the DoA of old, which gets tiring and makes one thankful that you have the option to use your own soundtracks in their place.
The control setup is simplified in DoA, versus most other fighting games out there. You have your punch button, your kick button and your block/counter button. The response between the game and the controller seems to work well, although it makes me wonder sometimes with the counter button (I shall digress for later).
The gameplay for Dead or Alive 4, unforunately, really is quite frustrating. As a fighting game, having an overpowering character would be a bit of a frustration to most any player who plays them. One character who sticks out most as unbalanced is Ryu Hayabusa, the ninja icon of Tecmo's Ninja Gaiden series. He is a character who solely has the ability to take 1/2 of your life with 1 counter move, and can end the fight in two moves in the hands of a player who knows which counters to perform with Hayabusa. It is unfortunate that such an overpowering character exists, and it shows quite clearly on the Xbox Live online stats. Hayabusa is THE most played character around the world, in Japan, in the United States, etc. Unfortunately, no patch from Tecmo has downgraded Ryu's capabilities any, and I do not expect this to occur, as Ryu has been the most overpowered ninja acrossed all of the DoA series.
The window for countering in Dead or Alive 4 has been shrunk by about half, which for any fighting game player new to the DoA series or those who were unable to master it last time is going to be quite frustrating. As this fighting game nearly has one half of it's mechanics depend upon the countering system, it would have been quite a bit more helpful to have a tutorial to explain the system extensively. Instead, you are left to your own devises using what they gave you in practice sessions, which still does not help you that much in improving your counter success rate.
Everything else depends upon button mashing. Yes, the worst thing that can be said about a fighting game is true with Dead or Alive 4. You can literally button mash your way to victory without a need to have practiced certain characters. This is more true with the ninja class fighting characters than it is with grapplers, but it should not be. I have personally witnessed online matches where even A ranked players lost to button mashers, simply because the counter system simply did not allow him to get off successful counters to end this fight.
What it really comes down to is has there been enough innovation since Dead or Alive 3 to warrent a $60 purchase. I am sorry to say that there has not. The fighting mechanics in this game are still the same, but with a frustratingly shorter counter window against an AI who demonstrates perfect timing. The last boss is still as cheap as ever. Lastly, if you select a ninja, you can nearly be assured victory over most non-ninja type characters. When stacked against other fighting games, this is what will seriously impact any person's desire to come back and play some more.
To summarize, the Dead or Alive series has been about a love/hate relationship. You either loved it or hated it. Without any further innovation, there really is nothing new to attract any gamers that never really liked DoA in the first place.
