Dead or Alive General

Did this thread because we can't go off-topic in the Dead or Alive 5 thread.

Now, first order of business: Cleaning up this from the franchise's YMMV page:

Here's the correction. The woman getting her brains blown off is Anne, a mistress of Fame Douglas. To prove it, compare the former picture with that of the woman in the upper right of the latter picture. As to who killed her, that would probably be Helena, and why? Two reasons:

1. The killer had a breast sticking out on the left and behind appears to be a bowtie in the rear. See here at 1:12.

2. If the killer was Helena, why would she do so? She assumed Anne plotted the death of Maria, the former's mother, due to the fact both Maria and Anne slept with Fame. As to why we see it in Helena's ending, she could have remembered it and that would have added to her dying as the Tri-Tower explodes.

To be fair, as far as I can tell the games hardly ever mention Fame's other mistresses, if at all. The only ones I knew of were Maria and Miyako. So this flashback has zero context. I guess it does imply Helena killed her, it just seems rather cold blooded for Helena.

So, have Fame's mistresses only ever been mentioned in outside materials like artbooks? Is this a case of All There in the Manual?

My point exactly.

It could. As one of the not-so-nice things Helena did, and one reason why she was going for Redemption Equals Death, by dying with the burning Tri-Tower, only for Zack to save her.

In the case of that drawing of the six mistresses, All There in the Manual.

edited 25th Feb '15 8:16:51 AM by HallowHawk

I thought it was kind of obvious that helena had killed her? The identity of the lady was never explained in game so yeah it was jarring.

Man, this thread sputtered out so quickly.

Would you guys say that Kasumi and/or Ayane count as examples of either Girly Bruiser or Tomboy with a Girly Streak? Note that the latter has "Aesthetics" and "Beauty treatments" listed as her hobbies, and she has quite some frilly dresses among her outfits.

On another note, how come Kasumi has Lady of War among her tropes, but Ayane does not? What does the former have that the latter does not for the trope's purposes?

edited 17th Mar '15 6:25:18 AM by MarqFJA

Kind of hard to say, since there are so many female fighters in the game, their girliness doesn't stand out. I think Ayane is more the tomboy though, and Kasumi is more girly. That's also why Ayane doesn't fall into Lady of War, she sort of lacks the elegance that comes with the trope. In Ninja Gaiden where she's more composed, maybe, but in Dead or Alive Ayane is really kind of bratty.

One question about Dimensions: Can we consider it a reboot, since the Xtreme games' plots are not mentioned?

Their girliness doesn't have to stand out, from what I understand; if they have tomboyish and girly traits, then they should qualify.

And if I understand you correctly, you're saying that Ayane has Lady of War credentials in her Ninja Gaiden appearances; is that correct?

edited 17th Mar '15 8:20:40 AM by MarqFJA

I haven't played enough of the Ninja Gaiden games to really say for sure. I just know in the fighting games her attitude is much bitchier. Out of the cast, I think Helena embodies the trope the most, as well as Momiji.

... Actually, on a second reading, it appears that a Lady of War can be bitchy, according to the last part of the first paragraph. The elegance part seems to be primarily regarding her way of fighting. There's even some examples where the character is quite unladylike and fiery in normal behavior, but becomes quite graceful in a fight (see Rukia Kuchiki).

Good point. To me it's one of those definitions that's easily muddled and hard to pin down, since it's just a slight variation of the Action Girl. I guess the way I'd definite Lady of War is she's an action girl that doesn't lose her cool in a fight, as opposed to one who is a berserker or a Boisterous Bruiser.

Tina is definitely not a lady of war. Lei-Fang leans more towards it than she does. Helena, definitely. You could say that Christie is one as well. Point is, you could call Ayane one, but I feel that the series has several more cast members that better qualify.

Of course. Just because Ayane doesn't reach Helena's level, though, doesn't mean that she automatically can't qualify. There's such a thing as Downplayed Trope and Subverted Trope, for example (though I'm not sure if it's applicable to Ayane). Also note that we have Saeko Busujima as an example; she presents a rather refined Yamato Nadeshiko and Heir to the Dojo facade, when she's actually a hardcore Ax-Crazy Blood Knight who more or less would've been perfectly at home in Tokugawa-era Japan, or even the Warring States period (though she appears to be at worst a Moral Sociopath, given that she cares for her True Companions and can't bring herself to attack a child, even if it's one of "Them").

edited 17th Mar '15 2:59:44 PM by MarqFJA

You know something funny?

Team Ninja put a lot of effort into making Dead or Alive 5 a tournament-worthy game with the "I'm a Fighter" slogan and hosting official tournaments.

Meanwhile, Masahiro Sakurai has consciously put anywhere from no effort to minimal effort to appealing to competitive players with the Super Smash Bros series, even going as far to disservice competitive players in Brawl.

Between the two latest games, Smash U seems to have the much bigger competitive community in spite of the above. Why is that?

Part of it is popularity and branding: very few can rival an all-star Nintendo game.

Part of it is marketing: some people are so adamant to deny it but Team Ninja promoting Dead or Alive's fanservice so aggressively does repel people who would otherwise be interested.

Part of it is competitive prestige: Smash did have Melee, DOA had no prior game that was well received by a large audience (4's showing in Evo 2006 was a total embarrassment).

Interestingly enough, Smash was considered every bit as much of a competitive joke as DOA was (generally speaking) until about a couple years ago.

edited 19th Mar '15 11:59:16 AM by Niitris

From what I've seen, the more popular a fighting game is, the less likely it is that people will care about how competitively "balanced" it is. And sometimes it's just a matter of how fun it is to play regardless. Most of the really popular fighting games have really lopsided rosters, where a handful of characters will dominate. I'm talking about 3rd Strike and Mv C 2.

If enough people play the game, they will make it competitive. Being built for competition helps, but only so much. Virtua Fighter pretty much lasted as long as it did because of being made to be so balanced, but the result is that it mostly only attracts competitors. It's the opposite of the big fighting games, which aren't as balanced, but have really popular characters or flashy mechanics that attract people, and those people will make those games regardless of if they were designed for balance.

I think DOA is now in a weird position; it now built for competitive balance, and it has some popular characters, BUT it has to deal with a bad reputation of being a shallow game series all about sex appeal, which actually puts people off. That, and the characters still aren't quite as popular as they could be.

It seems that fans aren't drawn to realism in terms of tone/characters. Street Fighter and Tekken are by far the most popular fighting games out right now, with Mortal Kombat trailing pretty close. Each of these games are either hyper stylized or flat out weird when it comes to story and characters. And then you have Marvel and DC games where you can play as super heroes, or Soul Calbur with all its swords and magic elements. Games like DOA or VF have their place as being the (relatively) realistic fighters, but that's not what fans like.

To me, DOA and VF feel more like actual "martial arts" games, while the rest feel more like some kind of urban fantasy with supernatural elements at best. They aren't really about martial arts because they're so fantastic in nature. I know DOA does have ninjas and other weird stuff, but I think that at least everything else is grounded enough.

If a game has a certain lore, people will be more willing to forgive structural/balance issues (Marvel, Hnk, Cv S 2), but everything does have it's limits (3D MK, TK 4, S Fx T) I don't think any fighting game is above good gameplay design, it's just that the more popular series have a greater margin of error.

While all games have stigmas attached to it, Do A has to deal with a very sensitive one (sex). Most people know that maiming and gore is wrong and that it's just silly cartoon violence. That same bulk of people are naturally iffy on how they should respond to seeing prettier than average females in bikinis and other excessively revealing outfits because of how it overlaps with values and stuff. Of course the decently good but not quite overwhelmingly great gameplay doesn't help matters.

I think it's more about what looks artistically interesting than it is about being extraordinary (though most of the time the supernatural does win out). All of the 3D fighters kinda suffer from this to varying degrees. Realistic looking combat isn't quite as engaging as seeing people jump 10 feet in the air and launching energy blasts at their opponent. It doesn't help that all the 3D fighters kinda have the same artstyle to it. I thought at least DOA had a chance to break through with the artstyle change as it symbolized a new era for the characters and the series. Though not quite to the level people would've like to see, some progress was made there.

Yeah. On a different topic, what does Ayane having Marrons glacés as her Trademark Favorite Food say about her? And come to think about it, what is "Aesthetics" as one of her hobby choices supposed to mean? She doesn't seem like the kind of person who'd philosophize on "the nature of art, beauty, and taste, with the creation and appreciation of beauty", engage in "the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste", or "critical reflection on art, culture and nature".

Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore is now available as a PS2 Classic for PS3.

I'd like to hear the details about this.

Low entry numbers and toxic community beyond the typical FGC perception. Those two things compounded a competitively unsound game. Artistic reputation did no favors and gave people more ammunition. All at once too, not sure how it could've been worse.

edited 31st Mar '15 12:18:09 PM by Niitris

For more detail on "competitively unsound" see the third post in this thread.

http://www.freestepdodge.com/threads/why-do-you-guys-hate-doa4%C2%BF.466/

Honestly that the series came back after 4 still shocks me today.

edited 31st Mar '15 12:34:10 PM by MakotoYuuki

Dead or Alive 5: Last Round is now on PC. Unfortunately, it seems to be a flawed port, what with the 2 new stages meant for Last Round being missing, as well as other missing features like lack of Steam Achievements, controller vibration, Steam Cloud, and even online play (though the last one will come in with a patch). Also, though performance is fine, the particle effects and "soft engine" from the PS 4 version are absent in the PC version as well.

Time will tell if Tecmo Koei will get around to filling out the rest of the features with time, but it's more likely that they'll see the reception to this port as an indication that PC players don't want DOA on PC, rather than what it should be: that they blame themselves for putting out such a below average port.

It should be noted that a lot of these things about the PC port has already been known since at least January, so the fact that Tecmo Koei didn't do a damn thing to fix it up when it was known shows just how much they *truly* care about PC.

EDIT: one more note about save files: they're attached to your Steam ID, and the game will NOT save if your ID has certain characters in it. Another possible sign that They Just Didn't Care

edited 31st Mar '15 5:03:49 PM by Nettacki

The tits are back.

Naturally. Has anyone ever doubted that there would be another entry in the tropical island fanservice spin-off series?

As of this writing, though, it'll only be released in Japan/Asia. Which is odd, given that DOA as a whole supposedly doesn't sell very well in its native land (sales in the US and European markets are pretty much keeping DOA afloat). Maybe Tecmo Koei will change their minds...