In connection to my recent review of DOA6, here are my reviews for DOA4 and DOA5 for comparison…
Dead Or Alive 4
Gameplay: 4/5 – Smooth, very intuitive and easy to learn. Some of the characters are a bit stiff but over-all, most are a lot of fun. DOA4 also introduced La Mariposa, who along with Tina is one of my favourite characters. Which is surprising, as I usually don’t like grapplers.
Graphics: 4/5 – Keeping in mind that this is an early Xbox 360 game, the characters look a bit too… smooth. As in, they all look more like plastic figures than real people. I don’t mind the slightly cartoony aesthetic of this game and the fight arenas for instance are very varied and interesting.
Animation: 4½/5 – In-game and character animations are pretty detailed. The pre-rendered cutscenes are excellent and hilarious for the most part, but the engine rendered ones look a bit doinky.
Music: 3½/5 – Compared to the game’s sequel, the background themes are a bit more energetic. However, I wouldn’t say any of them are particularly memorable.
Sound: 3½/5 – I’m a little spoiled here, but I just don’t think the Japanese voice-actors are all that hot. None of them sound awful and most at least fit their characters well, but I really do think the English voice-cast of the sequels was way better.
Replay value: 3½/5 – The fighting is a lot of fun and you have very colourful locales, I’d say some are even better than those in DOA5. However, the lack of game modes and the small character roster are my biggest draw-backs. There’s no story-mode and instead the arcade-mode serves as the story-mode. Basically, once you’ve beat the story-mode as all the characters, you’ve unlocked everything in the game. It’s a fun game, but it just lacks the longevity of its sequel.
Score: 77% – Absolutely a worth-while title to try out. However, with all the improvements the sequel made over it, DOA4 feels weirdly anemic. The lack of game modes in particular keeps me from playing it more.
***
Dead Or Alive 5
Gameplay: 4/5 – I’d say pretty on par with the previous game. There are way more characters, but for instance Ayane, Hayate, Kasumi and Hayabusa all play very similarly which is why I don’t feel there’s that much of a difference. The roster is also unfortunately a little unbalanced, but I think this is actually good since it encourages using different play-styles (especially in tag-team mode).
Graphics: 5/5 – Beautiful. I do miss some of the wackier locations from DOA4, but the character models and, especially, the costumes are a joy to the eye.
Animation: 5/5 – The story cutscenes are naturally very good, but I also love the individual fight intro animations. In tag-team mode some character pairs also have their own special animations which is also fantastic.
Music: 3/5 – Literally the only bad aspect of the game. The music is appropriate for most of the locations but is really low-key and even pretty boring. Worst of all, it gets completely drowned out by the sound-effects most of the time.
Sound: 4/5 – The voice-acting is a bit cartoony and silly but I enjoy it infinitely more than the bland Japanese acting in the previous game. The Virtua Fighter guest-characters intentionally speak with grainy old-school voice-samples which is also a nice touch. The only reason the game doesn’t get a full score is that the disaster zone arena has way too much noise, from sirens to explosions going on and it honestly bothers me a bit.
Replay value: 5/5 – The area where this game beats the snot out of the others is the Replay Value. First of all, there’s a long story mode which you can play to unlock extras, but you can also do this with the Arcade mode if you wish. If the normal arcade mode is just too slow for you however, you can switch using the way faster and more fun tag-team mode which is also brilliant. Playing DOA5 just doesn’t get old for me.
Score: 87% – While I have some minor gripes with the lack of balance in the roster, nothing changes the fact that DOA5 is one of the most polished and fun fighting games that’s ever been made. If you haven’t experienced it yet and love fighting games, you need to check it out because you are really missing out otherwise.
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