| Author | Review |
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aGundamDownHere
176,683
TA Score for this game: 2,158
Posted on 22 March 11 at 08:11, Edited on 15 February 12 at 11:57 |
This review has 33 positive votes and 17 negative votes. Please log in to vote. |
All right, I will be completely honest with you. No matter who you are, or how much experience you've had with fighting games or the Dead or Alive series, you will hate this game. However, at the same time, some of you will also love this game to pieces.
For me personally, this was the first game in the Dead or Alive franchise that I ever played. Despite that fact, I still have an incredible nostalgia for this game, with many memories crammed into my friend's tiny dorm, staying up until the wee hours of the morning with a bunch of friends playing this, Ninja Gaiden, and Mercenaries. I have bought and sold this game time and again, and I keep coming back to it. He and I would actually stream Duel of Fates when we duked it out as Ayane (him) and Brad Wong (me). He would invariably beat me down relentlessly, but that just made my occasional victory all the sweeter.
But enough fond memories, it's time for a breakdown. This game, originally scheduled as a launch title, came out in December of 2005. Itagaki, then-head of Team Ninja Studios, was continuing his much-loved franchise, as well as his philosophy that video games had to be challenging to be rewarding. If you've ever played Dead or Alive or Ninja Gaiden, then you'll know that he wants the game to be very rewarding. For an idea, Dead or Alive 4 has three difficulty settings: Normal (default), Hard, and Very Hard. Oddly enough, some people say that Hard is easier than Normal, but I'm personally not sure.
The story mode is the typical fight-fight-fight idea of all genre games, and you likely won't really understand everyone's motivations even by the end. The game still tells a coherent story, but as with all fighting games, plot takes a backseat to pummel. This isn't saying the story is bad, and the cutscenes and cinematics put some of today's new releases to shame. A lot of them, especially those for female characters, are somewhat provocative, showing that the game definitely deserves that small M in the corner. But all things considered, some of them are pretty cool in addition to being really pretty.
Graphics-wise, the game is gorgeous, even by today's standards. The character models are beautiful, the backgrounds are amazing, and the costumes are incredibly detailed. Clipping is as much an issue as any fighting game, though not the debacle that was Soul Calibur IV (another game I enjoy). The women suffer the same oversized breasts the all video game women are afflicted with, though again, not the debacle that was Soul Calibur III and onward. So, there's not much to say about the graphics other than they're really, really good.
The stages, though, are absolutely amazing. They're interactive like no game has ever tried since. The "ring outs" that ended the round for other games are nonexistent, as you just knock them down to another level of the stage. It does a fair bit of damage, and you can even surf down a flight of stairs on your opponent's back. You can knock over a basket of oranges and watch them roll downhill, send balloons flying, and get run over by a Warthog a la Halo. You'll remember your fights on these stages.
For those who played DOA3, you should know that the counter system has been softened somewhat. They're no longer as easy to do as previous games, but they're just as punishing, if not more so. Punches and kicked both require you to press the block button (default X) and a direction to counter, usually backward for punches and forwards for kicks, but this varies somewhat by character. Also, the backwards/forwards just expands the time windows for those respective attacks, i.e. inputting back-X will counter both mid-punches and kicks but has a much smaller "sweet spot" for the latter than the former.
The DOA4 online community is a lot like all the other fighting game communities I've seen. There are a handful of skilled players who challenge people, and then there's a disproportionate number of outstanding players who scare everyone else away. Nowadays you'll mostly find boosters or the "best-of-the-best" playing, but the search feature allows you to find rooms based on experience/skill, actually letting you choose to look for people by letter grade SS through F. When you set up your lobby, you can even set a maximum level cap preventing people from entering, again by letter grade.
In the end, the most notable complaint is difficulty. There is no "easy," and the AI actually does seem to learn to counter you based on what moves you do. They will counter moves that even you didn't know you were going to try, and the final boss, Alpha-152, follows the typical fighting game motif where putting together all the fights leading up to the final battle doesn't compare to that level of difficulty. This naturally has spawned various placebo-effect superstitions about how to beat the AI, from the logical "vary your attacks" to the more out-there "go back to dash after every three straight losses" to even "clear your cache and turn off for an hour." It all comes down to whether or not you're willing to put in the hours (regardless of skill) to go for everything, and how much you believe in the "challenge = rewarding" attitude. People talk about how the Mile High Club or Leonidas achievements from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, respectively, are some of the hardest achievements on the Xbox 360. Getting 100 hundred wins in both single and tag Survival Mode tops pretty much everything else.
Which brings me to my final point on this game. Dead or Alive 4 features Tag Team mode, in which one player can select two fighters and have them tag-in during a fight. This is similar to the feature the Marvel vs. Capcom and King of Fighters series have capitalized on, except that two players have the option of forming a tag team, each controlling one fighter and pressing a button (default left-bumper) to switch in. To my knowledge, no other 3D fighter has offered the feature, and likely no other 3D fighter ever will again.
Overall, this is a very good game. It's very fast-paced, probably the fastest paced 3D fighter of the current generation, with excellent concepts such as the unique and memorable stages that were executed quite well. The difficulty will likely put many off from the game, but even for an older title, this game is well worth a playthrough or two.
Note: As pointed out, Tekken Tag, as fitting the name, also employs a tag team set-up similar to DOA4's, but never came to the 360. Tekken Tag Tournament (TTT or Tekken Tag) came out in arcades in 1999 and then ported to PS2 in 2000. In 2011, it came to the PS3, and a sequel, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, has been announced. The game will reportedly be multi-console.
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Hurball
179,215
TA Score for this game: 1,673
Posted on 11 June 13 at 22:55, Edited on Yesterday at 13:25 |
 This review has 6 positive votes and 1 negative vote. Please log in to vote. |
3...
2...
1...
FIGH--
You've barely had time to even press a button and you've been punched. You're stunned, another punch comes in, and another, and one more puts you on the floor. Half your health gone in seconds. You roll to your feet and get a low kick away - some damage at last! But no, your opponent's countered it with a throw, and you're slammed against the wall. A bit of health left. Still a chance, you roll to your feet again, but a swift spinning kick to the face and it's K.O.
And that was Stage 1...
And that was the easiest difficulty...
Dead or Alive 4
It's a peculiar thing that I'm compelled to write a review about Dead or Alive 4 - Team Ninja's beat-'em-up was practically a launch title for the 360, way back in 2005. Reviewing a game over seven years old is essentially pointless, but in my quest to complete every game on my tag as much as humanly possible I started playing it again recently, and after the above scenario (it genuinely happened), I decided to put my feelings into words to soothe the pain.
Design
Considering the release date, the graphics of Dead or Alive hold up surprisingly well. Sure, they're not phenomenal, but character models are solid and distinctive (with the famous breast physics, with adjustable bounce), and the game plays completely lag free. At times the control feels clunky, but that may be partly due to my relative lack of ability in the game.
Environments are also impressive - albeit a little too arcade-y and looking a little dated on a console thesedays. That minor gripe aside, each level has it's own distinctive characteristics, and most are interactive in some way - punch your opponent against a low fence and they'll fall over it, taking damage as they hit the ground on the other side, and your fighter jumps over after them to continue the sparring on a different section of the map. The levels range from a standard wrestling ring to a dinosaur(!)-infested safari, and play their roles well in influencing how the fights evolve around them.
As far as playing the game goes - it's basic stuff. There's the usual story mode, as well as a time-attack mode, and a survival mode. Story mode sees you fighting through eight battles with the occasional random cut-scene thrown in in a futile attempt to explain your character's motivation, and upon completion you'll be treated to a ridiculous CGI clip. Another reviewer on this website joked you wouldn't want anyone to catch you watching the completion clips, and they hit the nail on the head - one girl's ending video sees her dancing naked around her room before throwing on a thin t-shirt and then... cooking some food...!
Personally, I'd never played a Dead or Alive game before this one, and with fighting games notorious for their absurd endings and character relations it's not something to criticise them with. Veterans of the series may find something to appreciate here, but seeing your character robbing an Egyptian tomb before morphing into a spandex-clad "superhero" and being hunted by undead skeletons... Words fail me.
Of the other game modes, time attack is the same (minus the storyline clips) and survival sees you fighting enemy after enemy until you're knocked out. Both have a tag team variant - simply hit LB to see your fighter somersault out of the ring and your backup jump in. It provides a slightly different challenge to the usual fighting, and is a nice addition to the game.
Dead or Alive also offers online play, and despite a bizarre online system the game still works through Live (no EA involvement here thank god), and holds up surprisingly well - once you've figured out how to start a lobby via the use of a cartoony avatar in a choice of cartoony environments that are unlike anything else in the entire game. Rather than being a list of players, your lobby is literally that - a room of players free to roam about between fights. Quirky doesn't even come close.
Gameplay
In the past I've criticised games for being too easy - for instance survival horror games constantly throwing ammo at a player (Dead Space 2), explaining every puzzle to the player every step of the way (Okami), or an unlimited rewind feature (Forza 3). That is not a criticism Team Ninja will ever face.
The lowest difficulty setting available in Dead or Alive is "normal". Anyone wishing to increase it should probably be sectioned under the mental health act. The AI will string together five/six/seven hit combos from the word go, barely giving you a chance to fight back. If you get too close - they'll grab you; if you repeat the same move more than once - they'll counter it; if you mix up the moves a bit - they'll still counter them; if you try to grab them you've already lost.
Very often, completing story mode (eight fights, remember) would simply be a matter of perseverance. I'd simply retry each fight until I lucked out and beat them, sometimes I'd beat the AI first time, sometimes it'd take over five attempts.
And then there's the finale against Alpha-152... When compared to her, all the other fights are a walk in the park. A holographic woman capable of teleporting at will as well as dealing damaging combos, and crippling throws. Try to combo her and she'll teleport away, get close enough and she'll grab you and literally knock half your health off in one swoop. Get her pinned against the wall and she appears behind you to throw you into it. Be prepared for dozens of retries against one of the cheapest bosses in any game. Ever.
When a game needs four paragraphs dedicated solely to berating its difficulty, you know something's not quite right. And even now I'm not completely sure I've gotten across just how frustrating, demoralising and cheap the AI feels at times. I do appreciate that there are gamers out there who love the challenge of a game like this, but a game should still cater to others somewhat. Games can still be difficult and fun - Super Meat Boy was lethal at times, but was never cheap, clumsy or unfair. Success always seemed possible, unlike here, and the game actually benefited from its difficulty.
Achievements
Being one of the most difficult games I've ever played, it's no surprise that the achievement list for Dead or Alive is near-impossible for all but the most dedicated of gamers. That said, through perseverance it is possible to get over 600 GS relatively painlessly - but gaining the required 50 and 100 kills in survival mode will be impossible for most. It's not a bad list, to be fair - especially when you compare lists from games this old. Despite being fairly bland, the achievements cover most of the game, and offer a hell of a challenge for the masochists amongst us.
Summary
One one hand, it's kind of admirable that the developers of a game have refused to make Dead or Alive 4 easy, but at times it feels simply unfair... There are often points in fights where it's probably just as effective to put down the controller and let the AI continue to combo you to death rather than even attempt to fight back and get instantly countered - at times it feels as if the game active hates you. Furthermore, regarding the counter system - even guides suggest not to attempt it yourself against the AI due to it being impossible to reliably gauge what attacks are being used. It's a gameplay addition that only be effectively used against you!
At the end of the day, it comes down to this - do I enjoy playing Dead or Alive 4, and would I recommend the game to anybody? The answer, fairly obviously, is a resounding "no" - and that's almost entirely down to difficulty. One and a half stars may seem unfair - the game is glitch free, plays smoothly, has a good selection of characters who handle in their own unique style, and has a good selection of modes to choose from. But if a game makes you want to pitch your controller through your television out of pure anger every time you play it, that all counts for absolutely nothing.
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PeaceSquid
376,694
TA Score for this game: 706
Posted on 09 January 10 at 21:31 |
This review has 65 positive votes and 64 negative votes. Please log in to vote. |
Dead Or Alive 4 is horrible.
That's really all you need to know but I don't want a ton of negative votes - although I deserve them, simply for owning this game - so here's a little padding. But remember, the game is fucking bleak.
Okay, so Dead Or Alive 4 is the latest in a series of beat 'em ups from Team Ninja who are not so much a development team and more a cult of sadists. It features all the usual trappings of a DOA game. Decent graphics, adjustable breast physics, ending videos that make you hope that no-one catches you watching them and some harsh difficulty.
However, where the old DOA games were fun (especially DOA2 on the Dreamcast), this one is hateful. It almost makes you imagine that the dev studio was built on an old burial ground and the angry spirits have possessed Team Ninja and turned them into complete pricks.
The main thrust of the single player experience is in the Story Mode. This is a sequence of eight battles against random enemies and would take you about fifteen or so minutes to beat. However, the AI clearly have a little Cyberdyne influence as IT HATES YOU.
Right from Round One you'll be getting countered by the telepathic AI, beaten into submission by punishing combos and thrown all over the place JUST AS YOU ARE ABOUT TO WIN. This gets steadily worse until the boss which makes Seth from Street Fighter IV seem sedate and fair. She teleports all over the place, arbitrarily countering you whenever she sees fits and then she fucking ends you with the kind of agression that would make Chuck Liddell blush.
You'd think that your best defence against this tide of violence would be counter-attacking, right? WRONG. To counter you have to combine a button press with a direction. X + Forward for kicks, X + back for punches. Combine with up and down for high and low attacks. Let me make this simple for you... you know rock/paper/scissors? That's this game. Just guess because, for what it's worth, you aren't going to be countering shit in this game.
If you fancy a break from the hateful AI, there's always online play to play with any buddy masochistic enough to buy this shit. However, it's a lag fest that will give you flashbacks to your 56k modem days. It's also dressed up in a frankly baffling lobby system that seems to be there for one reason: to irritate you beyond reason.
Achievement whores need to avoid this game even more than the rest of humanity as the gamerscore on here is earned with PAIN. The worst of the achievements is for surviving 100 rounds of Survival Mode. Currently my record is about six.
To sum up: the game is violently awful and should be avoided by everyone except perhaps Paris Hilton for whom it should be made mandatory.
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XxShagaxX
275,876
TA Score for this game: 3,263
Posted on 25 January 10 at 22:06, Edited on 24 February 10 at 21:01 |
This review has 2 positive votes and 6 negative votes. Please log in to vote. |
Dead or alive 4 is a game which continues to push the fighting genre forward. This game has in my eyes the most complex system and pulls it off flawlessly. The online is what all other fighters should have with a lobby where players can watch fights in or out of the matches, text each other while in the lobby (pre xbox live party) , or switch to any fighting mode on the fly.(tekken and street fighter need this) The only cons i would mention are not about the game but what people think about the game. Its not made for you to get all 1000 in a day. if you expect to win without learning the mechanics you will lose its that simple. if you like button mashers you should play another game and you think u can mash in this game against an experienced player show me i would love to prove you wrong. With so many stages moves fighters and much more if you play fighters to actually have fun and get a challenge at the same time this is your game if you want a easy 1000 or you cry at the fact you cant beat AI oh well your out of luck.I would like to add a couple of things to this review and this would be the "real" cons of this game. First off stack able achievements and issues like no punishing of quitters are not things that in my opinion should lower a games score plus those things are in the hands of the player i mean you don't have to play this game, what matters is the actual game you are playing and the only issue would be some minor hit detection issues ( characters going thru moves) and a couple of exploits from some characters other than that this game is a challenge and you will enjoy it if you put the time into it the game asks you what this site asks you when you look at the name "just how good are you?"
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