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[Dead or Alive 6 & X3] Stop sniggering at the back there
Jazz
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
What do you get if you cross a Tyrannosaurus Rex:
...with a burning pirate ship:
...and a good healthy serving of cheesecake?
That's right, it's everyone's* favourite fighting game (and occasional beach volleyball/vacation simulator, and even once jet-ski racing game) series, Dead or Alive, now back for Dead or Alive 6, the 24th instalment in the series [citation needed]! Releasing on March 1st for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC via Steam!
* - may not be everyone's.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecYRKkc6GGI
I've never heard of this game! What's it all about?
While there is a massive overarching (and largely incomprehensible) plot involving feuding ninja clans, evil corporations, cloning, supernatural beings, a recurring martial arts tournament and so on, the core of the game involves beautifully rendered characters (specialising in assorted different martial arts) beating the ever-loving shit out of each other in an assortment of elaborate arenas. Unlike most games of its ilk, these arenas often feature hidden areas and danger zones for you to pummel your opponent into, adding a small element of exploration and the need to be aware of hazards.
Is there seriously a T-rex?
Yes. But in a glaring oversight, it's not a playable character.
That's a shame. Are there a lot of characters to choose from?
Dead or Alive 6 has a roster of 26 playable characters, from old standbys from the earliest incarnations of the series such as ninja half-sisters Kasumi and Ayane, and wrestlers Tina Armstrong and her father Bass (that's like the fish, not the low musical range), to a couple of brand new characters: Diego, a Mexican-American street fighter, and the curiously-named NiCO, a Finnish scientist with lightning attacks. More DLC characters (including fan-favourite Momiji from Ninja Gaiden, who also appeared in Dead or Alive 5: Last Round) are planned but unconfirmed.
I seem to recall something about the female characters in DOA...
Yes, you are not wrong.
But hasn't that been taken out of DOA6?
No, but it has been toned down a little because the developer & publisher are trying to get DOA6 taken a little more seriously in this world of esports and EVO. But it's an aspect that's definitely not gone. If it was, surely Christie's unlockable leather get-up would have been removed; instead it's now available in multiple colours. There just might be fewer absurd physics-defying swimsuits this time around.
Wasn't there a DOA movie once?
Yes, it's officially called DOA: Dead or Alive (which does make it slightly easier to find in internet searches), it came out in 2006, and for my money it's the best bad movie you'll ever see. Various characters from the games are invited to a martial arts tournament that's all a cover for Eric Roberts to use nanobots to upload everyone's fighting styles into a pair of sunglasses so he can use them for his own ends. Five minutes in there's a hang-glider escape sequence involving a thrown sword. Seriously. It's terrible but in a truly brilliant kind of way. The action is actually not bad, and it's genuinely funny. It even has a volleyball scene. It does everything but turn to the camera and wink at you. I love it so much.
Can we talk about the other DOA games in here?
Of course! Just be careful with potential NSFW screenshots, and you're good!
...with a burning pirate ship:
...and a good healthy serving of cheesecake?
That's right, it's everyone's* favourite fighting game (and occasional beach volleyball/vacation simulator, and even once jet-ski racing game) series, Dead or Alive, now back for Dead or Alive 6, the 24th instalment in the series [citation needed]! Releasing on March 1st for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC via Steam!
* - may not be everyone's.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecYRKkc6GGII've never heard of this game! What's it all about?
While there is a massive overarching (and largely incomprehensible) plot involving feuding ninja clans, evil corporations, cloning, supernatural beings, a recurring martial arts tournament and so on, the core of the game involves beautifully rendered characters (specialising in assorted different martial arts) beating the ever-loving shit out of each other in an assortment of elaborate arenas. Unlike most games of its ilk, these arenas often feature hidden areas and danger zones for you to pummel your opponent into, adding a small element of exploration and the need to be aware of hazards.
Is there seriously a T-rex?
Yes. But in a glaring oversight, it's not a playable character.
That's a shame. Are there a lot of characters to choose from?
Dead or Alive 6 has a roster of 26 playable characters, from old standbys from the earliest incarnations of the series such as ninja half-sisters Kasumi and Ayane, and wrestlers Tina Armstrong and her father Bass (that's like the fish, not the low musical range), to a couple of brand new characters: Diego, a Mexican-American street fighter, and the curiously-named NiCO, a Finnish scientist with lightning attacks. More DLC characters (including fan-favourite Momiji from Ninja Gaiden, who also appeared in Dead or Alive 5: Last Round) are planned but unconfirmed.
I seem to recall something about the female characters in DOA...
Yes, you are not wrong.
But hasn't that been taken out of DOA6?
No, but it has been toned down a little because the developer & publisher are trying to get DOA6 taken a little more seriously in this world of esports and EVO. But it's an aspect that's definitely not gone. If it was, surely Christie's unlockable leather get-up would have been removed; instead it's now available in multiple colours. There just might be fewer absurd physics-defying swimsuits this time around.
Wasn't there a DOA movie once?
Yes, it's officially called DOA: Dead or Alive (which does make it slightly easier to find in internet searches), it came out in 2006, and for my money it's the best bad movie you'll ever see. Various characters from the games are invited to a martial arts tournament that's all a cover for Eric Roberts to use nanobots to upload everyone's fighting styles into a pair of sunglasses so he can use them for his own ends. Five minutes in there's a hang-glider escape sequence involving a thrown sword. Seriously. It's terrible but in a truly brilliant kind of way. The action is actually not bad, and it's genuinely funny. It even has a volleyball scene. It does everything but turn to the camera and wink at you. I love it so much.
Can we talk about the other DOA games in here?
Of course! Just be careful with potential NSFW screenshots, and you're good!
Jazz on
+5
Posts
Still, EVO really helps propel games for good longevity with healthy player bases, so it is a shame. DOA6 looks like a pretty great fighter that I'd like to see at more tourneys.
XBL: InvaderJims
Bnet: Pudgestomp#11153
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198004484595
We'll see how it goes, but I think there's a valid point to be made that that's apparently beyond the pale, but the staggering violence and gore on display in MK is just fine. (Yes, I'm aware that it's MK's thing, and I'm not being a prude about that. I just think it's a glaring double standard.)
Steam | XBL
I didn't even realize there was a DOA5 thread. And considering about 99% of my multiplayer will be on-couch rather than online, and I don't follow EVO, I doubt I'll be in this thread much.
Still, good OP Jazz!
Thanks! I don't follow EVO or anything either (although it was worth a mention in the OP), and because I hate how the lag messes up my timing, I very rarely play fighting games online - I played a few matches in the DOA6 demo because what else was I going to do with it, and I think it was the first time literally since DOA4 came out - so I'm probably in a similar boat. But there will probably need to be discussions around the minutiae of the mechanics, and so on, and so forth... I hope I can get some couch multiplayer in eventually, but I've not exactly got people nearby beating down the door. I'd love to have a "DOA history" night, sort of thing, bust out the old ones and have a few fights on each one before moving on to the next, but I think I'll probably be on my own doing that... oh well.
Cheers for the props! Yeah, I just had to come up with an angle (pictures of stages first, then eventually the "what do you get if...") and then it all flowed pretty easily.
I did go hunting to see if there was another thread, and yeah, there was a DOA5 one preceding the first release of 5. It made it to eight pages and hasn't been seen since 2012. This one will probably do similarly well at best, but even so, I'm looking forward to this game, I love this series, and I thought it deserved a thread rather than just hijacking the Xbox one again!
Steam | XBL
But complaints about the fickleness of Mother Nature aside, I liked what I saw in the demo and am looking forward to once again failing to git gud.
You have also reminded me that I actually own DOA: Dead Or Alive, The Hit Motion Picture of The Game and that I should really watch it one of these days. I think it was like four bucks on Vudu and I’m sure it will turn out to have been worth it. I have a soft spot for video game film adaptations. I’ve even adopted the “Bloodrayne Quality Test”, where I watch bad movies and then ask myself whether they were worse than “Bloodrayne: The Movie”.
Many movies fail the BQT.
Also the story is not hard to follow. You have a ninja and an evil corporation wants to clone the ninja to make bioengineered super soldiers to sell to other evil corporations and also Phase 4 who is Kasumi’s Nobody who wants to seize control of Kingdom Hearts.
Jesus, BR was bad. So bad.
(Side note: Natassia Malthe, who played Rayne in the second and third BloodRayne movies, plays Ayane in DOA.)
I hope you get your power on soon, @baudattitude . At least then you can play some games while you're snowed in! Stay safe and warm.
Edit: now you've got me wondering about a bad movie appreciation thread. The regular movie thread tends to go more for good movies
Steam | XBL
They had one in January, too, apparently. Did that get reactivated for this latest demo period, or did you have to download the game twice?
Like Mega Man Legends? Then check out my story, Legends of the Halcyon Era - An Adventure in the World of Mega Man Legends on TMMN and AO3!
Guess what just showed up, a day early! Thank you, Shopto.net
Steam | XBL
Same as the last one. Actually maybe even one less. Two is the ideal number, you can compensate for her two different voice actresses.
So, one absolutely fine, one... not.
Edit: currently Phase 4 is on the character selection screen, but locked. Alpha-152 isn't there, but I'm 99% sure she's in the game. She just might not be a playable character this time around. Which is probably just as well.
Steam | XBL
Steam | XBL
I think that's all she is. And you know, that's fine. She's a broken character at the best of times and just bullshit at worst (in finest DOA boss tradition).
There's a massive problem (for the likes of us) with the game that I've only just spotted - there is no online lobby mode. Like, at all. The demo at least had it greyed out under Online from the main menu. In the full game it just isn't there, all that's listed under Online is Ranked Match.
That seems too crazy to be an oversight, but I REALLY hope it gets patched in. Sure, I won't use it much but I would like to play in a friendly lobby with you guys (and another friend who's still considering picking up the game but most likely later when it gets a sale price).
Still, it's a day before release; it's not inconceivable that it'll be in a day one patch. I'm a little worried that it's not listed in the online manual in its menu breakdown, either.
(Edit: a bit of Googling says that the lobby IS coming. Not sure when, but soon. Hopefully tomorrow. But apparently definitely March.)
The other thing I hope gets improved is the loading times. They're pretty long, even between matches. DOA has always rightly been known for very quick and often instant loading - even DOA3 loaded up and cached the next character and stage as you played and that was eighteen goddamn years ago - so I really hope that gets improved.
Also the costume unlock method this time around is bullshit (it involves earning costume "pieces" and random unlocks, and currently it seems the new DOA Quest mode is the best way to do that). No just hammering through arcade mode - you do earn for that but it seems like you earn far less, like, 4 pieces instead of 200 for a DOA Quest stage (full costumes vary from 200 to 1000+ each). Still, DOA Quest seems good so far, sort of a mission based thing not a million miles away from what Soul Calibur has previously done.
So, while there's definitely a few questionable decisions going on, thankfully the actual fighting is great, and it's gorgeous to behold. Just be sure to go into DOA Central > Wardrobe and set a main fighter in there! (A/X to select the character, then X/Square to set, it's not super clear in the game.)
Steam | XBL
Let's be completely fair here, she's not a SNK final boss or anything. And Tengu isn't half as annoying as Ein on the same difficulty. Though yes, that might be for the better.
I could imagine that the overall lobby mechanic to be different, sure, but yeah, the absence of a proper party competitive mode is worrying--maybe it is just deactivated at the moment. And a little surprising--as a 3D fighting franchise, Dead or Alive was one of the first games to embrace modern online functionality with DOA2U. Well, let's hope we're not waiting long.
The loading times are a bummer--I wonder if they're hardware based, or just bullshit sloppiness like Namco with SoulCalibur VI. It had problematically long load times not for stages, but weapon inventories that was especially prevalent in fighter-creation mode where you switched between weapon sets but not characters, and only on Xbox One (including XB1X). Curiously, DF didn't encounter it in their breakdown, and it was patched, so now load times on Xbox One X are shorter than on Playstation 4.
The weird thing is, loading times were pretty encouraging in the demo! They actually let you skip past the opening video sequences and straight to the menu, and you don't have DOA5LR's excruciating long beginning-of-game costume catalog check (that could change). But I also had the demo installed to low-to-mid range SSD, rather than the internal drive, which likely had some impact (or at least I thought I did).
My copy shipped out today, and I'll have it by...tomorrow! Friday launches, huh? So I'll share my technical findings when I get it.
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198004484595
What I hate more, though? Preordering a digital game and having to wait for the Steam activation code >.<
There's one thing I hate more than that - waiting for a Steam pre-load to unpack. It's faster just to wait until whatever it is is actually out and then download it.
Steam | XBL
Steam | XBL
That dumb joke aside, for a basic Xbox One the level's lighting and shadows look very nice. I'll try and remind myself to take a suitable video at some point so we can make a very unscientific comparison.
Steam | XBL
After midnight EDIT - woo! GMG delivered! Sure, 15 minutes late isn't great...but at least it's loading now.
Do let us know how the port is
Steam | XBL
Excellent--I remember you describing some issues during the demo, or someone did, so that's good news.
I always assume Youtube is going to add some significant compression and framerate change when us proletariat upload to it, so that's I went to lighting as the thing to look for. If you have the space, Xbox's own clip sharing is pretty good at preserving quality (even if the end user will have trouble getting it not to auto-compress), I might try using that when I upload.
Shockingly, sharing true 2160p/60hz clips is still difficult today. And people wonder why I have my doubts about gameplay streaming Halo Infinite to a Switch or any other device.
Results will obviously vary on other models of Xbone.
Steam | XBL
Steam: betsuni7
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198004484595
Steam: betsuni7
6 is going to have an F2P release in due course - that's obvious from how it installs, with a ton of entries for most characters - but it's not available like that yet.
If you want all the characters, the full games are a far better value proposition. If you just want one or two mains, the F2P version is fine (the full cast are still available to the AI or online opponents with the full version.)
Dooooooo eeeeeeet :twisted:
Steam | XBL
Steam | XBL
I'm going to say yes
EDIT2 - Okay, still going to say yes
(That, crazily, supports 1080p and native 4K but not 1440p without a mod! And it's caused the odd issue for me when switching resolutions when Firefox is also running, which nothing else does. It's a shame, because the game runs really well otherwise.)
Steam | XBL
But... But I have a PS4... So is this complete version called DoA 5 Last Round? I was looking and am still confused. Honestly I passed on the F2P versions since I'm still a bit old school where I like buying a game with almost everything on the disc. I say almost these days since I at least have come to terms with DLC. I do appreciate it when companies make a complete game release later on though.
Steam: betsuni7
Edit: Also just got an email from Steam saying DoA6 is live and on sale...
Steam: betsuni7
Yeah, this. On Steam, PS4 & Xbox One, DOA5: Last Round is the full game; DOA5: Last Round: Core Fighters is the F2P game. The full version of DOA5LR includes everything except Mai, Naotora and the eleventy billion downloadable costumes.
Core Fighters does serve as a useful demo version, as it goes, and is fully compatible with the full game. It more or less is the full game but with no story mode and only four playable characters (although it sometimes offers a couple more for free temporarily).
Steam | XBL