Dead or Alive 3 - Not the Best Re-Visit

Dead or Alive 3 was pretty much my first and technically only Dead or Alive game.  I didn't know anything about the tropes or what people apparently loved this game series for. Or maybe I should say I ignored it. Years after this I would say around the time I was in my 20s.  I realized it. 

Generally I liked this series as it's another 3D fighter that looks good.  There's honestly not too many 3D fighters out there. There still isn't.  It's mainly 2.5D now for the sake of time, effort, and price.  I didn't really recognize the sex appeal of the game.  Least not until Extreme Beach Volleyball came out and made a killing off it's girls.  I generally just played along with my friends talking about the endings for certain characters.  Like Helena and Christie's endings.  

It has one of the best Fighting Game Intros I've seen.

Unforntunately I had to change the song to something less copyright. The original song "Nine Lives" from Aerosmith was used here.  Good choice. Even though I haven't looked up the lyrics to it.  The beat works for it which is generally what's important.  Most songs for videogame intros have little to do with the theme of the game in the first place.  It's just a really good beat. Anyway since I didn't want Aerosmith's legal team on my ass for having there song in game, I changed it.

Lust Sin from Blazblue.  It fits, least from the beat and I'm not using the LA Vocal version.

Graphics

Well this was made by Tecmo and Team Ninja. And honestly considering the previous Dead or Alive games looked great on PS2 and Dreamcast. This obviously leveled up.  

Now if we're gonna refer to the stage backgrounds you can obviously tell especially on higher end TVs that the backdrop is just a still image.  I'm also not sure but I think there's some raytracing in certain stages.  If you don't know what Raytracing is (I didn't know until Spider-man Miles Morales was released).  It's basically the reflection of light on objects. You don't see it a lot in games cause that's a lot of work. And if you do it wasn't done too often.  

I guess should stop dodging this. The character models.  I have to say these are excellent character models. You might be thinking that I'm referring to the females.  No.  I mean in terms of this game. The character models interacting with each other and various objects is better than even some of the modern games.  I played King of Fighters 14 and OMG King of Dinosaurs happens to clip through everything. Not just this tail but his head too. I know some things can't be helped like Tekken and Soulcalibur with create-a-character and customizations.  But sometimes it feels incredibly jarring to see things clip through textures or interact weird cause it wasn't meant to.  Now Dead or Alive isn't perfect in this regard either. If you look hard enough you can find some character models clipping through textures or weird interactions.  But at least DoA manages to care about this stuff far more than other games.

If you want me to talk about the boob jiggle.  Whatever.  Yeah it's there.  I'm not the right person to judge but to be honest I barely notice it.  To me it's one of those things where it has to be blatantly obvious or someone annoyingly yells it out.  This game doesn't have "The Age Slider" that apparently DoA2 had.  The Age Slider was a setting in the options menu asking a player there age.  The higher the age the more you saw the female's boobs jiggle.  So obviously ppl would set the age to maximum to get the most jiggle they could ask for.  

The character endings while they make as much sense as any other fighting game of old.  The FMVs definitely got there money's worth.  I honestly enjoy see Leon dance or Lee Fang beating the crap out of a bunch of thugs.  If we're gonna talk lewd again.  Well this game definitely is playing with a thin line.  Least when it comes to some endings.  Christie's ending is her walking out the shower then chilling with her puma before another mission comes up.  During this ending clothes are rather minimal.  I guess it was enough to not make the ESRB rate it M.  Another example would be Helena's ending with her in beach wear going for a swim.  The camera definitely pushes your eyes in certain directions. Those endings are playing with fire.  But then you got Hitomi's ending where you'd expect something also lewd but no. Hitomi's just kicking her father's butt.  

The character interactions in story mode are something of note as well.  Some are obviously cheesy.  While others definitely show some emotion.  Jann Lee definitely has the cheesy stuff.  Ayane shows the most emotion.  

The costumes also make me question if this is okay to show on Youtube.  Most of the costumes are okay and honestly I like there looks.  Then there's others where I'm worried if Youtube will show up and mark the video inappropriate for most audiences.  But considering this is 2021 and Street Fighter V gets away with things far more risque than what DOA could produce.  Maybe I'm fine in this regard???

Gameplay

Finally can get off graphics.  Gameplay is a double edged sword. There's things I like about it. Then there's things I hate about it.  And there's things that absolutely frustrate me. 

Pressure Based Inputs ???? 🤨

So the controls are pretty simple and there's 2 styles of controls. Xbox being technically the first to try this for there fighting game. You can use normal style controls which has a lot more inputs but that's if you choose not use an analog stick.  The input can be a bit more complicated with Analog input off.  But at least you get what you want.  Then there's "analog input on".  This is a crap shoot as it uses pressure based inputs.  

So certain moves were done either by lightly tapping the punch, kick, and guard buttons.  Or with a hard press.  This is a crap shoot at best and definitely not for people who like to smash buttons on there controllers or get frustrated easily.  These pressure based inputs can mess you up quite a bit.  Giving you moves you didn't want at the worst possible time.  So you wanted a punch combo that's just 4 punches.  Well too back you're getting the move mapped to a hard press punch instead cause you pressed punch too hard.  If that wasn't bad enough there's some combo strings that require you to go from light to hard back to light press in the same string.  Not fun.  It is fun knowing that certain moves are easier however.  Like Hayabusa's Izuna drop in pretty much 1 button 3 times as opposed to a massive amount of D-Pad input.  None this helps on certain fights though like the final boss. More on that guy later.

Controls

Aside from the pressure based buttons. The controls are pretty smooth and responsive.  Most games I find myself having to mash out motions just to get special moves.  This one not so much.  I find myself preferring analog input cause it's a 3D Fighting game. So I want to use the analog stick to move around in 3D.  I wish I could keep the Analog input but remove the pressure based buttons. 

True-Combos Don't Exist?????

This is a bit loose. But doing combos seems to be a matter of what moves you actually input.  You could just punch all day and get a combo but the guy getting punched can counter it.  See if you use a move repeatedly you have a chance of recovering and countering there obvious combo attempt.  The only times combos seem to be true is if you knocked your opponent airborne or landed a strong counter it.  Otherwise you're not truly doing combos. 

Game Modes

There's quite a number of game modes which in terms of a fighting game this is a bit more than the average fare these days.  Story Mode, Vs, Training, Time Attack, Survival, Team battle, CPU Exhibition.  While each mode is generally short.  You get a lot of mileage out of them.  And it's still more than average of today.  Today you'd be lucky to have more than Arcade, Vs, training, and online.  

*Sidenote: Fantasy Strike, a fighting game I've played a few years ago. You have to pay to get replay mode unlocked. Geez."  

I enjoy the CPU Exhibition as you can watch the CPUs duke it out and control when the game goes bullet time and how the camera moves on the action.  

Difficulty

Aside from the controls giving me issues at times with the pressure based sensitivity.  The AI in this game is pretty demonic.  Honestly it feels like it doesn't matter what setting the AI is on.  They seems to kick your ass if and when they feel like it. I think the difficulty setting is just a placebo. Usually when I play story mode there's always one or 2 fights where the AI just becomes a wall that I have to surmount.  Reading my buttons to just making me taste the dirt on the ground.  I'm stuck there for quite a bit. Other times I'm stomping the AI left and right with simple commands. 

The Final Boss

This guy named OMEGA (or as the story puts him as Genra) is truly a cheap boss. When you encounter him he feels like your fighting Virtua Fighter's Dural where it's just an optional fight.  But no you gotta beat this guy to get the ending.  

First the camera angle changes which will disorient most players.  The camera goes for a 3rd Person view behind the player.  This makes it look like you should now be pressing up on the Analog Stick or D-Pad to move forward instead of Left or Right.  

Then the 2nd thing you'll note is that this boss has projectiles.  Something none of the other characters have. And Omega like to spam them. He has:

• A Shockwave that can be blocked or jumped
• A Fire Wave that has to be ducked and can't be blocked
• A multi-firing projectile that has to be sidestepped and can't be blocked.

Omega likes to shift between these projectiles. Sometimes to the point that he makes Marvel 3 Morrigan players and Injustice 2 Deadshot players to be completely innocent with there projectile usage.  

The worst features is fighting this guy up close.  He's incredibly difficult to read.  Having decent High-Low mixups is one thing.  Another thing is being unable to tell if he's blocking or not.  Mainly due to the camera angle but you can't really see if this guy is blocking until it's too late.  And usually if you're attacks are blocked expect to get thrown and then deal with more projectile spam.

Another is that when you knock this guy down. He creates a shockwave that damages you and knocks you down.  You have to be blocking for this.  And the icing on the cake is that during this fight your health is slowly draining.  Yeah this boss is unfair and is the last wall standing between you and your story mode ending.  I've had sessions where I'm stuck on this boss for an entire hour cause everything I try gets stuffed by projectiles or something else.  This guy honestly ruins Dead or Alive 3 for me.  And I question whether or not do I prefer this boss or the thing in Dead or Alive 4 that I fought? Both give me nightmarish thoughts and both would be on my list of hardest/cheapest fighting game bosses to exist. 

Music/Sound

First off I don't know Japanese or whatever language they're speaking.  I don't know cause my mom walked in on a session before and said that they're speaking Korean.  I would personally prefer if they spoke there native language just for more added charm. But honestly I don't care too much.  

Now the music.  The music is a treat. Even if they picked songs from Aerosmith and The Beatles for certain tracks.  The OST is a must listen.  Tecmo and Team Ninja have always done great with there soundtracks.  It's generally forgotten at this point.  

Overall

Not the best revisit. I didn't like dealing with the final boss and I questioned myself on how I put up with the awkward pressure based controls.   Still a good 3D fighter though and I don't see too many of those around.  I think the latest 3D Fighter is Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown??? which is another expansion on the same Virtua Fighter 5 from way back in 2006 sheesh.  Anyhow, I'm glad to have covered this again.  Even if Youtube reception seems to only pay attention to the female character videos.