Reviews// Dead or Alive Dimensions

Being a fan of the Dead or Alive series is hard work. You can't express your love for the games without people rolling their eyes while signing you up for the sex offenders register. What they forget is that behind the juvenile approach to character design is a solid fighter that consistently rewards players who put the time in.

However, with six years between Dead or Alive Dimensions and Dead or Alive 4 even the least cynical amongst us would have to wonder if the series might now feel dated. Thankfully, DOA:D proves that it doesn't.

Time Capsule
Dead or Alive Dimensions feels like a time capsule, as though nothing has happened in the last six years to drive the series any further from where we last left off. But a quick glance over SPOnG's interview with newly appointed head of Team Ninja Yosuke Hayashi will show you that it was never meant to be.

Yosuke describes this game as a reboot rather than a sequel; I see it more of a celebration. DOA:D feels like a sort of 'Best Of' game, cherry picking the highlights from the previous in the series and presenting it as a full package and although it doesn't feel as though it's got as much content as four games in one, it certainly feels it has more than just one.

The Good and The Bad
You're treated to 25 characters, all with various outfits to unlock; nine game modes and 999 character trophies to collect. It's just a shame that some of the game modes are not quite as entertaining as you would expect.

Take Chronicle Mode for example. It's supposed to guide you through the DoA story from the first to the latest game putting you in control of the more important match ups in the tournament. What sounds like an interesting concept is in fact one of the worse things to happen to the series.

This game mode is so cutscene heavy that you'll be watching far longer than actually playing. What’s the worse is that the cutscenes are terribly animated, poorly voice acted and are extremely boring. You'll be skipping them in order to get to the fighting.

When you do get the chance to fight, you're forced to work through sluggish and long winded tutorials. There is no reason to litter this game mode with such tedium when you already have a 'Training' mode. This will without a doubt upset fans who don't need to learn the game to progress but will still be forced to re-learn three punch combos anyway.

Thankfully, Arcade and Survival modes have a little more of a 'pick up and play' focus to them. Arcade allows you to unlock various courses of increasing difficulty as you progress and tracks time during your fights, replacing DoA4's Time Attack mode in the process. It's as addictive as it's ever been and shaving seconds of each fight will feel both satisfying and rewarding.

Survival is still fantastic. Starting with just 10 wins to achieve, you unlock higher targets as you go on. Once you finally get to dizzy heights of 100 fights, the later bouts feel extremely tense. A lot of time and effort gets you into the 90s but it will count for nothing if your concentration drops and you miss a right hand to the head knock out.

Tag Challenge, however, slips back into disappointment. The two-on-two battles were always a treat in the previous games but this time you're only able to control one member of your fighting duo. When you tag out you have to sit and watch the AI doing its job. And by 'do its job' I mean 'get its arse kicked'. Your computer-controlled tag partner is nothing more than a decoy for your enemy to destroy while you hang back to regain some health. It shows a bit of disregard towards what used to be a really fun mode in past iterations.

Boiling Down
Surprisingly, the DoA fighting mechanic has aged really well. Action is fast-paced and the 3DS keeps up with every punch, kick and parry, making for an enjoyable experience. Framerate is smooth and never drops during fights, while the multi-tiered levels still set DoA apart from its rivals.