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Rock beats scissor. Scissor beats paper. Paper beats rock.
This is how simple the Dead or Alive concept is. And yet, it's seriously one of the deepest fighters I've ever played. Sure you can mash, like many other games. And there's no doubt you can have a good time mashing. But if you want to really get good you must understand the game. And to understand the game, you must understand "the triangle system," or roshambo. In Dead or Alive it works like this: strike beats throw. Throw beats grab. And grab beats strike. But the deepness comes from how you utilize all these. You see, "strike" is another word for punch or kick. And all of these punches, kicks, throws and blocks can be executed high, low or medium. It gets tricky. No wait, actually a better word is frantic. Because frantic is the word to use when you're talking about a fighting game where matches rarely make it to a minute in length. I mean to be honest in DOA5 even after you've saved a bulk of the data to the HDD to minimize load-times, the loading is still likely to be longer than your fights. But if you're a fan of the series, this is a thing of beauty. You know that each fight should be an amazing rush of blood to the head erupting in a violent ballet of well executed moves that are less chance than the roshambo of Alex Kidd's world.
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Long has the DOA series been dismissed as just visual fluff. And to a certain degree that's understandable. I mean to be fair the developers spent more time on the physics of breasts than most others spend on their fighting engine. But throughout the progression of the series we've seen an arcade fighter come into its own. A definite high point was Dead or Alive 2 released on Dreamcast and PlayStation 2. And although subsequent releases - namely DOA 4 - would blow it away visually and roster-wise, it's hard to cast any stones against the second installment.
And I suppose before I go on I should just admit my bias. I am a big fan of the DOA series. I mean, I'm not a big 3D fighting fan. But I enjoy some Tekken. I think the SoulCalibur series is fun and worth your dollars. But DOA is what really grabs me. It's visceral, yet strangely brainy. But not overly brainy - nope, I'm a guy who enjoys the dumbness of the movie adaptation.
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And I've spent a half-dozen hours this past week devoted to Dead or Alive 5. Specifically, the Story Mode. And this is exactly why I'm raving about this game. The Story Mode is actually one of the most impressive doses of fan-service I've ever seen injected into the single player mode of a fighting game. Normally, you get an Arcade Mode. So what's that? Fight a bunch of dudes, win the game. Easy right? Twenty minutes? This was basically an entire movie full of ridiculous plot twists, stupid dialogue and insane scenes. To note: for a moment I was upset that I thought a major character was dead only to find out it was a clone I saw slain; at one point Tina declares she is running for governor; and at one point Kasumi visits Antarctica wearing... well, very little.
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Dead or Alive 5 is a game so good that it actually renders its predecessors unnecessary. You've got an overwhelmingly awesome single player mode - one that will unlock countless extras including characters from Virtua Fighter. You've got a solid 2-player mode via local or online. You've got a roster that is impressive as hell. You've got stunning visuals that put the preceding games to shame (which is saying something when graphics have been so important to the series). Really, this is a game I strongly urge all fighting fans this generation to run out and add to their collections. Now.
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Hyperdimension Neptunia seems to be one of the most divisive games of the year. You either love it or you hate it. And I love it. Where to begin? It's a crazy collaboration between the likes of NIS, Compile Heart, Sega and Idea Factory. It's an extreme JRPG, but seems to be making fun of JRPG's. It's got some of the most moe artwork I've seen localized in a while. It's dialogue is ridiculously hilarious. It has a simplified overworld system where you don't actually walk from place to place, but instead choose chapters from a list. It also simplifies item management. It uses a strange setup where you utilize button combos for your attacks. Instead of spells, you summon old Sega games like Altered Beast or Fantasy Zone. To put it simply, it's kind of insane. And like I said, I love it.
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Our heroine is named Neptune. This is actually a personification of the failed Sega Neptune hardware. In fact all of the goddesses in the game are based on consoles. That's because the game is basically an allegory about the console wars. You see it's only when "Nintendo," "Sony," and "Microsoft" team together that they can destroy Neptune. This personification of companies leads to great fan-service jokes. Early in the game Vert (Microsoft) talks about how her breasts are so much larger than Neptunes that it's obvious that that implies she is more powerful -- a sly jab at Microsoft's ridiculously large Xbox (and its controller).
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And the whole game is full of rib-jabs to video game nerds. Early on you fight things that look like Space Invaders as well as Dragon Quest-inspired slimes. Your quest is of course to save the land of Gameindustri. Even the developers poke fun at themselves with the visual novel style interface and dialogue that seems to make light of the very games that have put each of them on the map.
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I'll be the first to say that this game is not for everyone. It definitely takes a certain kind of fan to find this game appealing. But for those of us that do, it's one of the most unique RPG's to hit US consoles in quite some time. Oddly enough it even inspired me to go out and get a Dreamcast. You see it's such a strange game, I couldn't help but feel like Neptune (Sega) was telling me -- 'hey! If the Dreamcast was still around today, THESE are the kind of games that would be on it.'
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