Doa 3, eh?

A game that came out almost 2 years ago as of the time I write this, instantly enraging players everywhere by having the balls to come out exclusively for the world’s most hated console ‘ the Xbox. Everyone, everywhere, began stapling pictures of Itagaki to their bedroom walls and flinging nasty, sticky things at his smiling visage, screaming ‘Tekken 4 is NOT a piece of shit you heartless bastard!’

Excellent way to get on everyone’s good side, Tom.

‘Of course,’ sneer the tragically unenlightened, who also happen to hate the Xbox, ‘it’s just Doa 2 with the power of xbollox propelling the graphics engine to greater heights. And even they’re not that much better than Doa 2’s.’

Excuse me while I cough, vomit, and shake an accusing finger in sheer outrage, please, perhaps throwing in a few overacted convulsions of apoplexy into the mix.

For it is so much more, and even occasionally less. I’ll start off with some of the ‘less’ stuff first.

The game opens up with the usual Team Ninja logo, followed by the most thoroughly pointless intro in history. There’s almost nothing worthwhile contained within - Brad Wong pulls off some relatively cool acrobatics, Christie assassinates someone before making a swift getaway’ but was Bass chopping down a tree really necessary? Was Lei Fang sitting on a boat really that interesting that it just HAD to be included? No, it wasn’t, and you’ll be skipping this intro rather a lot after your first viewing.

‘Exciter’ was better.

You can leave it going for a much better showcase featuring Aerosmith belting out ‘Nine Lives’. It’s great, and there’s some nice bits with Hitomi pulling off a Kata and Hayate and Hayabusa pulling off tag team combo death on Christie. Worth watching quite a few times, actually.

So, once past the skippable stuff, you come to the menu screen where you can choose whether you want to dive in to a certain style of match, tinker with the options, or watch the ending movies that you’ve gained thus far.

The options in Dead or Alive 3 are pretty standard. You’ll want to extend the lifebars, which can be done, and you’ll sure as hell want to extend the number of rounds ‘ which you can’t. At least for the 1 player, non tag-team game.

What. The. Hell?

This is my biggest gripe with the game. Limiting the amount of time you can spend playing it is simply retarded design of the highest calibre, and whoever made this the way it was should be shot ‘ even Itagaki himself cannot be forgiven for this sheer, incomprehensible madness.

Other than that, there’s not much to do in the options, except put off analogue mode if it’s somehow turned itself on ‘ another stupid idea that DOES NOT WORK.

Moreover, there aren’t as many costumes available as there used to be. Doa 1 had 14 costumes each for the ladies, and at least five for the guys. Doa 2 LE had up to 8. Doa 3 has up to 5, usually levelling out at 2 or 3 per character with alternate styles of the same costume. And extra costumes can be tough to get which can be a bad or good thing ‘ I don’t mind the conditions to get some of them, but 50 wins on survival to get Helena’s desert veil was somewhat excessive. So I ended up on a roll and got 100 wins with her, before discovering I had to get 50 with Leon too. Which I did, and purposely died at 50.

Is the lack of costumes really that horrific?

Yes. Yes it is.

How can I play as Tina without her catsuit or that awesome, awesome C2 Jeans and leather jacket which made her undoubtedly the hottest female in any videogame, ever? I sort of can, but it’s such a cruel, cruel twist of fate that such stunning, breathtaking designs were thrown aside for no particular reason. Many are the bitter tears I have wept over Tina’s new clothes, and I’ll not have it when Doa 4 comes out, mark my words.

So far, so negative. However, things get better from here on in ‘ so much better that you should probably take a deep breath now in case you can’t do so later!

The first thing you’ll probably go for after the options is the story mode. These are your average one round fights (which you can’t change) interspersed with, well, story. Some of these story cutscenes are great ‘ Hayabusa’s hurricane entrance and Lei Fang snapping tiles with her feet deserve special mention. Others aren’t so great ‘ such as the Hitomi / Jann Lee philosophy lesson.

Special mention must, however, go to the Zack / Gen Fu showdown. It goes something thusly:

Gen Fu: I can feel the power of the world within me’ and I will use the money from this tournament to pay for Mei Lin’s operation.

(Suddenly ZACK, dressed as a Teletubby, leaps in from nowhere and poses in a truly ridiculous fashion)

Zack: No way, old man! I’m taking the money to Vegas!

Gen Fu: Fool! Only the life of my granddaughter matters!

Zack. The man is a hero in every single way, and not just for making Doa X possible.

None of these cutscenes quite get the adrenaline flowing like the Jann Lee / Hayabusa face off from Doa 2 LE, though. That was simply legendary.

Once you make your way through Story mode you will face off against Omega (Genra). He’s almost as bad a boss as Inferno, so I’m saying nothing more on him than that the camera angle whilst fighting him is pathetic and horrible and possibly the worst thing ever.

These also vary in quality rather a lot ‘ Bass has the most amusing ending made ever since Kage lost a match of Mah-jong all the way back when VF kids was released, showing with lethal force just how irritating a motorcycle packing up on you can be. It’s topped off beautifully when a passing by Tina totally fails to notice him, a slow motion grasping gesture coupled with a vain expression of increasing desperation as she drives on by.

Other endings are a mixed bunch ‘ Hayate and Kasumi have wonderful, wonderful endings that lead into one another. Hayate unleashes ninja death upon his sister, while Kasumi later evades/defeats them all, sadly watching the sun rise on a bright new day at the end. It’s actually even sort of touching, and watching Hayate burst through the mist after jumping off a tree, or Kasumi deflect shurikens with her knife is really nice to see. And Ayane burning the man she classes as her father as a tear trickles down her cheek ‘ is sweet. Raise the pyre, we’ve got a case of patricide tonight!

You also get to see Christie’s well rounded posterior as she takes a shower before she pets her pet Panther, and me dressed up as a dolphin closing in on a swimming Helena. Pointless, but fun.

Some of them though, just plain suck. Jann Lee breaking face with nunchucks should have been a wonder to behold, but the premise is handled with really poor cinematography which lets it down more than you would expect.

So ‘ the endings are certainly worth getting. After that though, you’ll probably just start playing Time Attack for your one player kicks all the time - like me!

2′ 46 with Tina, bitches. Anyone beat that? Huh? HUH?

Well, my review-o-sense tells me it’s about time to get into how the game looks, sound and plays ‘ the interesting bits.

First off ‘ the game is immensely beautiful. Thoroughly, pristinely so. Two years on and it still knocks the pants off any other fighting game out there in a visual sense. Oh, sure, there’s plenty of other games around that look pretty good. This one, however, is gorgeous in pretty much every single respect. Graphics may not make a game ‘ and they certainly don’t ‘ but they can definitely enhance the experience, especially when getting chucked out of a window and plummeting through a vast neon sign is a commonplace occurrence in said game.

The fighters aren’t particularly realistic looking, but they’re not supposed to be. They do look awesome, however ‘ excellently rendered, each bit of muscle and sinew and clothing looking solid and impressively detailed. The moves are not only spectacularly animated, they’re often imaginatively created - to the point where many look like they could be done by a real person, but would surely result in hilarious, painful consequences if attempted. And the sense of impact in this game is only rivalled by the game that came before it. You’ll wince when Ein thunders you across the arena with a single, powerful blow, and I defy you to not get excited as you violate Hitomi against a nearby wall.

In the best possible taste, of course.

The arenas, while often not quite as well designed as those in Doa 2, are still objects of mind assailing beauty. Whether fighting your way through a blizzard, in a cave made of ice, or punting someone off the most incredible looking mountain you’ve seen in your life, they all do their job exceptionally well.

Special mention goes to DoaTec HK, where you’ll either end up plummeting through the aforementioned neon sign to duke it out in the street or falling into a secret Kasumi cloning lab (they’re intending selling her on to the Japanese public) ringed by electrical generators that love to fry you whenever you come close.

Or the Lost World, where you fight for your life at the top of the world. It’s a long way down, and getting kicked off will have your opponent leaping after you, falling through the clouds just so he can beat you all the more. The water on one of these plateaus is the first time I ever felt my jaw go slack at water effects ‘ it really is lovely.

The forest, by the way, is the most beautiful background ever created. It knocks everything else into a limp, cocked hat before setting them on fire. Leaves swirl around, the earth looks like earth and the trees looks like trees. Even the motherloving stream looks like’ well’ a stream!

And of course, the beach. The first hint we ever got that Doa Volleyball was coming, and like the fools we were, we failed to notice it. But we all noticed that getting kicked up against a palm tree frees coconuts from their organic confines to drop down on top of unprotected heads, didn’t we? Yes, we did!

Jesus, the palm trees. Swaying so convincingly in the wind that we wanted to be there in that paradise alongside them as ninja vixens performed complicated and stunning martial arts moves in an attempt to render each other totally senseless. How romantic is that?

Another new thing about the arenas is that you can die from falls now ‘ just like in real life! Landing on your head after being knocked through a thin chain barrier in Lorelei won’t leave you with a smidgen of health remaining any more. It’ll see your bruised body rendered lifeless and stiffening against the cold, hard earth. There is no humanity at work here, only mother nature in all her terrible glory.

And it’s fantastic.

So yes, Doa 3 looks like a vision of absolute wonder, and the stage designs quite enticing.

Where there is Mr. Video, however, Mr. Audio is never far behind. And Doa 3’s music, unfortunately, sucketh the fat one.

You have no idea how much this particular fact distresses me. Doa 2 had awesome, awesome, lovely and awesome music to listen to while you were concentrating on removing your opponent’s head with your knuckles. Doa 3 does not.

Out of all the tracks in the game, only Hitomi and Tina’s are any good - at all. The rest of the BGM concoctions are simple, bog standard techno clich’ romps that fail in every conceivable way to get the blood pumping and the arteries straining during gameplay. After Ryu’s ‘The Shooted’, Ein’s ‘Vigaku’, Helena’s ‘Blazed up Melpomene’ and so many more wonderful scores from it’s predecessor, the disappointment with the music in Doa 3 is just so much more painful to bear.

To sum it up, Doa 2’s music urinated on all other fighting game soundtracks from way up on high while dancing a truly superior jig, and yet almost all other game music performs the same toiletary function on Doa 3’s. A tragedy of colossal proportions.

Tina sized proportions, in fact.

So how does the game play? Brilliantly, thank God. It’s responsive, loads of fun, and incredible not only to play, but also to watch ‘ whether you’re playing it or you’re off the pad, which is a much rarer feat than it sounds. It’s Doa 2’s engine taken further and given a tune up, and I’ve no complaints with that whatsoever.

The countering system has been updated, though not really changed, exactly. Up back and free still counters high, back does mid, and down back thwarts sneaky bastards going for your legs. A pretty vocal complaint from Doa 2 critics who didn’t understand how to throw was that the original damage setting for pulling off a counter was set a mite too high. Team Ninja have slid their katana deep into the guts of the countering system and cut it down a little, visually enhancing the animations for successfully pulling them off as they did so. Whereas a character might have kicked someone’s legs out before, they’ll now kick one leg out from them, pivoting around to deliver a stunning roundhouse kick to the jaw, sending them flying off to hit something hard and painful. It’s exceptional martial arts awesomeness at it’s very finest.

Certain characters have also been given super counters, such as Lei Fang and Bayman. These counters, performed by a slightly more complex motion than before, are more visually impressive and more damaging than their usual ones. Bayman stamping down hard on someone’s balls and then breaking their leg is just plain vicious.

As in every sequel ever, more moves have been introduced. Air throws are now available, more characters have ground throws, there are special ‘catch’ throws you can do during strikes for certain fighters and there are just so much more string attack options available to all.

In fact, going back to Doa 2 it’s obvious to see just how limited your attack options were before. While Doa 2 is still a fantastic game in it’s own right, I now feel so much more constrained while playing it due to the lack of certain key Doa 3 moves and combos that couldn’t be performed before. Jann Lee’s strings got such a huge improvement in Doa 3 that he seems like the most obvious bastard in the world in Doa 2, and how Hayabusa ever managed to survive before getting his limbo stun attacks or his jumping throw that mauls unwary fighters getting off the ground, I’ll never know.

Free stepping plays a bigger part now ‘ none of that senseless ‘hold down free and hope you can walk about’ nonsense that Doa 2 had. Now you can walk around, free as a bird with broken wings! This is a vast, vast improvement which adds so much to an already great fighting system ‘ while it sounds like an almost offhand addition, the freedom of movement shoots through the roof with it’s implementation.

Despite the improved free-stepping system, the fighting system still executes on what is undeniably a rigidly 2D plane. Sidestepping might work against a single attack, but even the most common of P, P, P strings will undoubtedly home in on you like an OAP homes in on a biscuit barrel. Moreover, it can be argued that the characters have no sides since there are no side throws, nor any additional effects gained from bashing them from the side rather than the front. It might be nice to see this changed in Doa 4, but it’s far from being seriously detrimental to the way the game plays and feels.

This added freedom of movement is crucial to the way Doa 3 plays. There are a number of reasons for this ‘ Doa 3 undoubtedly has the most interactive and game-swaying environments in a fighting game to date, so positioning yourself inside the ring is crucial to success. Even a drop of water or an innocent looking dash of snow lying beneath your feet when you get hit could be the difference between recovering in time to block or being hit by the ultimate bastard combo of doom whereby you are bounced off the walls and raped of your precious, precious energy reserves.

Which leads me to another point. I get the strong feeling that Itagaki got seriously mashed during the creation of his masterpiece and, for reasons best known to himself, ran full speed into a wall using nothing more than his head to break the momentum. Whether or not this theory holds water or not, it’s hard to deny that Itagaki has learned that walls really do bring pain when hit at high speeds. In Dead or alive 2, fighters simply sagged to the ground after being smashed against the ring boundaries. Now, however, they bounce off them ‘ back into the waiting grasp of their attacker. And they’re defenceless for a limited period.

This seriously affects the way the game flows. If Jann Lee, for instance, performs his Dragon Gunner (his special knee breaking throw) then follows it up with an unstoppable step in kick (F, F+K) while your back is to a wall, there’s a huge chance that half your energy bar is going to disappear as he juggles and beats the living hell out of you.

The. Walls. Are. Brutal. And it’s this one reason above all else that forces you to choose your path with care, and to position yourself to the best of your ability whilst fending off the advances of some truly violent wenches. It’s tactical, sir, it surely is.

It’s sort of strange that Team Ninja haven’t seen fit to implement throw escapes, however. A couple of feints to the face, your opponent counters and ‘ Boom! You’ve got a hi counter throw on him that he can’t escape, pummelling him up against a wal before putting him facefirst into the ground. It’s great!

Shit, I was talking as to why there’s no throw escapes. Uh’ well, they’d have been nice, I guess, as long as they were implemented in the thoughtful VF Evolution style, as opposed to the button bashing style that escapes throws in Soul Cailbur. Not being able to throw button mashers annoys me ‘ after perfectly dodging a move that has them off balance, a throw should be rewarded unless they know which one you’re going for and put in some sort of viable, well thought out command to escape. People who ram buttons randomly do not, and seeing them escape skill-based retribution annoys me no end.

So, the absence of throw escapes - they might have been nice depending on how they were implemented. That’s my conclusion, and I’m sticking with it. Sure, you can escape plain old P+Free throws, but most people will always go with the most damaging command throw ‘ since you can’t escape them, there’s little point going for anything less.

All said and done though, Doa 3 is an addictive little bastard of a game that leaves you feeling enthralled, proud, awesome, refreshed, stunned ‘ all the above and more. No other fighting game I’ve come across gives a feeling of such control, though Virtua Fighter Evolution comes close. All the moves are fast and snappy, and whether you’re on the offensive or running for your life, you really feel that it’s YOU who determines who wins. In a heated standoff, your next move could be your last or the one that wins the match ‘ how well can you read your opponent? Will he be going for the legs or trying to psyche you out into countering low so that he can juggle or throw you? More than anything, it’s you against your opponent. Not the controls, not the blockstun or moves that come out of nowhere or are perhaps overpowered ‘ it’s you against him.

After a short while, all this information runs by at an unconscious level. You know how to proceed with your gameplan without having to think about it. In fact, playing Doa 3 can be such an immersive experience at times that it can be akin to meditation. Time all but slips away and you emerge from the session feeling refreshed and at peace with the world. A game that clears your mind in this day and age ‘ especially one involving violent beatings and fighting for your life ‘ is a rare thing indeed.

Seriously. I’ve spoken to a few people who have felt the same after a Doa 2 or 3 session, though I’ve also spoken to others who… well, haven’t. It applies to me though, and I’m the one doing the review. So nyah.

Oh, shit. New characters, almost forgot to mention them.

First up we have Christie, a British Assassin who is undoubtedly the hottest female in any videogame ever. A practitioner of She Quan, which is basically Snake style Kung fu to uneducated types such as you and I, she’s a nippy little beast, slipping in between the cracks in your defence and putting you down hard on your ass before you even manage to remove your eyes from her breasts in order to concentrate on the fighting. Unfortunately for her, she’s a wee tad weak in the offensive stakes - a single power blow from a character like Leon is often more damaging than many of her commonly used combos, so you have to employ some horrifically mindbuggering tactics to succeed with her ‘ but by god, is it worth it.

The next addition to our intrepid band of heroes is the insanely powerful and cute Karate utilising minx, Hitomi. Undoubtedly the hottest female in any videogame ever, she’s rather adept at sending you halfway across the arena in but a single mighty blow, crashing you through the barriers and sending you hurtling to your doom on the hard, unyielding streets far below.

She’s really just here to replace Ein and give the Japanese high school student worshipping public something to drool over, though. She uses many of Ein’s moves, but she excels in having much more variation than the leather jacket wearing wonder ever did at the expense of a little of his manly ‘oomph’.

Which is probably a good thing, her being an attractive young lady and all. She truly is the finest female Karate practitioner in the land, and I will punch all who disagree firmly upon the nostrils as a suitable form of chastisement.

Oh, and there’s some guys called Hayate and Brad Wong in there too. For the sake of completion I might as well tell you something about them, the damn useless male additions that they are.

Oh, I kid. They’re all right!

Hayate is basically Ein from the last game, all recovered from having his spine broken and his memory erased. Having returned to his exalted position as leader of the Mugen Tenshin Ryu, he celebrates by unleashing a horde of ninjas to kill off his sister, Kasumi. What a crazy guy!

That said, he’s a pretty hard bastard into the bargain. Fast, powerful, and with his own Izuna drop variant, he’s not to be taken lightly with his new and revamped moves list. Whether he’s better than Ein, or indeed more wanted - there are four ninjas in the game now and Ein’s been relegated to secret character status which deprives us of his brawling style - is a matter for debate. Surely with the cloning backstory, they could have featured a cloned Ein inside the Story mode.

And with the rich plot development that the Dead or Alive series is justifiably famous for, who could imagine what epic sagas could have unfolded from this awesome character set up?

Nobody, that’s who. But it would probably have gone something like this as they stared at each other threateningly:

Ein: ‘I’m the original. Aren’t I?’

Hayate: ‘No, I am.’

Ein: ‘Shut up. Let’s fight.’

Hayate: ‘What do you mean?’

(Fight begins)

Pulitzer prizes to the usual address, pleez.

Brad Wong amuses me. The only good drunken boxer ever to hit a fighting game ‘ undoubtedly because he’s at a sensible age and avoids the ‘Drunken Master’ stereotype ‘ he’s an unpredictable psychopath. He’s a little slow to get going in his attack pattern, but when he does, he rarely stops using headflips, somersaults and other insane moves to mutilate his enemy from every conceivable angle.

Oh, and he’s a 30 year old jobless wanderer whose hobby is drinking lots of alcohol. Added to this, he entered the tournament with the sole intention of discovering the ultimate wine.

Awesome.

So, there’s not a single bad new character, which is always nice to see in a sequel.

Since I wasn’t exactly sure where to mention the Tag Team part of the game, I guess it can slip in here without it looking too out of place.

Simply put, Tag Team rocks. Two characters chosen per team, one of your characters in the ring and one in reserve recovering any energy lost - slowly. This is an absolute riot in four player, and accusations, eye poking and ‘accidental’ controller removal happen at such an alarming rate that you just know that you’re playing something fantastic. Having a character backing away from a fresher opponent before swapping out only to have his partner come in with a flying kick that creams the previously cocky aggressor never gets old.

Certain combinations of partners also result in new throws, and these are vicious. While everyone has a standard tag throw animation, the specialist ones are more damaging and very, very brutal. Tina and Bass’s double clothesline, Lei Fang and Jann Lee’s Spine snapping antics or Ein and Ayane’s brutal ‘testicle impalement’ speciality - they’re all simply some of the best throws ever made in any game ever.

More than this, whenever someone gets hit during gameplay, that character’s partner can come in and continue the combo, swapping in and out of both members at alarming speeds. These combos can be incredibly sadistic, though decent amounts of skill is needed to pull them off, and with a human partner, almost ungodly levels of co-operation and near telepathic communication.

About the only problem that Tag Mode actually has is that all the rings are enclosed and much smaller than what the one on one arenas have to offer, with no sort of dropping off edges whatsoever. A shame, but something had to give.

I guess. It’s have been awesome to see what Team Ninja could do with tag team cliff throws, but we’ll have to wait until Doa 4 to see if they take advantage of this opportunity ‘ they’d be mad not to. Visions of a falling body falling gently to earth as a ninja flashes by it, stripping energy off like there’s no tomorrow before his 350 pound friend stamps its head into the ground seems like it could be so damn cool.

And here we are, ambling ever onwards to the inevitable conclusion of this review. If you’re still here at this point, thanks for reading. I guess it’s about time to say how I feel about the game. Well, let me think about how to put it’

‘ah. Got one.

If God himself came down and demanded that I cease promoting the sheer, unadulterated love I feel for this game, I would probably respond by attempting to bite his face off. It’s that fricking good.

So while being sexually harassed by Tina, Christie and Hitomi (in the Apollo, Venus and Pegasus respectively) is a dream that I’ll forever hold dear to my heart, I shall regretfully foist that particular delusion aside for now in order to surrender my one real, true and honestly unbiased opinion on the game. It’s not going to shock you, but here it is:

It fucking rocks.

It’s better than it’s predecessor in many ways, though not in all respects. The music has suffered, as have the stage designs. There’s less to unlock, and the one player options are horribly limiting ‘ I’d like to play more than two round matches against the CPU, Itagaki you dolt. 50 missing moves in the US version and even less costumes can hardly be classed as fair towards our Stars and Stripes wearing cousins, and it’s about as much a sequel as Soul Calibur 2 turned out to be ‘ changes, but nothing truly major.

Overall, however, and most importantly of all ‘ playing Doa 3 is the most fun I’ve had playing a fighting game.

Ever.

Whether pulling off a Shining Wizard with Tina, Izuna dropping an opponent a hundred metres off a cliff with Hayabusa, or rolling about in a drunken haze with Brad Wong ‘ in the game, you fools ‘ nothing else quite gives me the same sense of excitement or awe, control or satisfaction as a quick (or not so quick) session of Doa 3 does.

And because of all this heartfelt awesomeness, the little niggles I’ve mentioned pale into insignificance alongside its jaw breaking, scenery destroying splendour. You can get it for about ten quid or ten dollars by now, so if you have an Xbox at hand you really should have Doa 3 sitting right there beside it. Two years on and it’s as fresh and as fun as ever it’s been.

As a sequel it might be a tiny bit disappointing. As a game, however, it most certainly is not. There are those who will probably look at this review and at the score with disbelieving stares and who will then shake their heads in bafflement before calling me a tasteless fag who lists off problems and then says it’s still the best thing ever.

However, since I don’t care’ 95%?

That’d be about right, then.

• Developer: Team Ninja
• Publisher: Tecmo
• Reader Review by: Hayabusa
• Score: 95%