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A 3D Fighting Game franchise akin to Tekken and Virtua Fighter. Even though the male fighters outnumber the female fighters by a slim margin, it's the women who are the real stars of the show.

The actual story is about the dealings of the sinister DOATEC corporation, who hold the Dead or Alive tournament as a front to finance the genetic research in creating the ultimate fighter. A runaway ninja named Kasumi gets tangled in the struggle, using the tournament as a means of escape and to look for her lost brother Hayate, and take revenge on her traitorous uncle, Raidou. Other characters enter the tournament for their own personal reasons, but all get sucked into DOATEC's larger scheme. Ayane, who is also looking for Hayate, is required to kill her half-sister Kasumi (as desertion from a ninja clan is punishable by death); Ryu Hayabusa (remember him?) is looking for him as well; Hayate is trying to recover the memories he lost after being experimented on by DOATEC; Zack's just doing it for the money; and it builds steam from there.

Of course, nobody plays the game for that.

Despite the vast quantities of Jiggle Physics, the game actually has a great deal of independant merit of its own, being much more fast-paced and kinetic than the 3D fighters that it competes with while remaining technical and reasonably well-balanced.

This series provides examples of: