Dead or Alive 6: Marie and Honoka's Awesome Adventure
You don't have to be a writer to know that DOA5's story was an afterthought. It was cheesy, some fight sequences felt forced and were at times trivial, and overall had the depth of a bad pornographic film. You'd think that a game about a fighting tournament would be mostly about the tournament, but the DOA tournament itself felt like it was thrown in for the sake of any of the characters who wasn't a ninja. The ending wasn't very surprising or satisfying either.
While the cinematic story structure isn't solely to blame, whoever wrote the story disregarded any form of character depth or development. None of the characters were very engaging. They were all simple and very anime-ish, which is a problem considering anime isn't mainstream out here, an.d by the end of the story, were largely unchanged. The way the characters are right now would have worked in the 90's, but standards have changed since then, and you can't have a story where none of the characters develop at all.
I'm hoping that the sequel would drop the MK9 cinematic story structure and return to the arcade format and supplement it by including something in lieu of a quest mode like in Soul Calibur 2. When DOA starts having interesting characters, then they can return to the cinematic format.
In regards to DOA6, through the power of fandom, I would jump skip the game several years into the future, where most of the cast has matured, with some moving on, and brand new faces are introduced. They could either finally finish Donovan, or have the story imply that Donovan was killed years ago. Helena can either continue maintaining DOATEC, step down, or be assassinated and have a new leader takes her place (this could serve as the basis for the story), though this would no longer make Kokoro as relevant since she barely knows Helena, but a relationship or realization can be implied through internal monologues or flashbacks. That new leader could begin the next DOA tournament.
Kasumi still is in hiding or retires into a common life while in hiding and maybe have a family, or the hunt for her head could have been terminated by Hayate and she could just be exiled from her clan. I'm not sure if main branches in clans are allowed to marry sub-branches, so I'm not sure what to do with Ayane or Hayate. Since Kasumi won't be present, maybe as an unlockable character with new skills, Ayane could inherit some of her techniques. Hayate is head of the clan. Ryu doesn't change, but is a little more older. Bayman is aged and either continues work as a mercenary or retires and teaches new recruits. There no longer is a dangling relationship between Leifang and Jann Lee, who has moved on from his fight with Rig, and using the winnings from the previous tournament, they both run an orphanage in China where they teach kids martial arts. Gen Fu passes from natural causes and Elliot takes his place as master while inheriting some of his techniques and watches over his granddaughter while teaching her martial arts. Bass retires, while Tina is still in the game. Leon is retired. Hitomi teaches her father's dojo while also working or pursuing graduate studies. Christie is still an assassin. Lisa drops her mantle as La Mariposa, she no longer works for MIST and is an environmental scientist. Kokoro is a geisha and trains other maikos, but she is anchored over Donovan being her father. Mila is still an MMA fighter, but has gotten cockier and playful over the years for being the best for so long. Rig changes identity and is the one who probably organizes Helena's takedown or works as a CEO for a different company bent on continuing Donovan's work. Momiji through Honoka, I'm not sure where they go because I fell as though they don't fit in my fiction.