As I stated, I think the fighting itself is very solid. and I also think that the work put into tweaking the games environment and implementing new ideas is amazing and DOA could not have evolved any better..and I will continue to support the game as much as I can.
However... the surrounding content (which was already established in previous DOAs and did not require any more R&D) was wiped out for no reason .. This includes old survival mode , tag survival, and team battle ... and what we have as online and offline options are just not up to the promised standard.. I'm sorry.
Not to mention that the online as it stands right now is pitiful and is only "playable", and I would like to emphasize the word "playable", on a full bar connection. This is inexcusable for this day and age especially since Tecmo pretty much pioneered 3D Online fighting game net coding 7 years ago. and I still think that the old code may have been better than the current despite having it being affected by lobbies and people going in and out of rooms... when it was a solid 1 on 1 or even 3-4 people who stayed in a room with a semi decent connection ... it was even more than playable...
Now I've been hanging out a little with LeiFang12 who made it all the way from Denmark to London to support the Euro Launch at Eurogamer and he said there's hardly any scene where he comes from and the only outlet he has is online ... Imagine how someone like that must feel when they see the online is unplayable ..
At least around here we can still gather up for offline sessions (which is arguably the best outlet for training and leveling up). but not everyone has that luxury and not everyone has the same free time ... simplest example would be me and Hurricaine rev ... he finishes work around 10pm and I finish around 5pm. and we live at least an hour apart... so ... by the time you can change, pickup your stuff, and come over its already too late and we only get to meet up ever so rarely ... Online (if it were actually decent) solves this ... I had the most solid sessions in SCV and VF online... and I hear TTT2's netcode is second to none (havent tried it)... just a little things to think about ..
Yes I am disappointed. The game as a fighter is amazing. But the fan base is not just the hardcore. I appreciate the emphasis on them this time around. But I think what they had to offer could have been a lot better and it wouldn't have cost them anything since its already been done before. If they were struggling with the netcode they could have easily asked a 3rd party which is capable of such a task to do it for them ...
Also their market is not just Japan. Otherwise, they wouldn't have promoted the game all over the world for the past year. which also means they shouldn't have just tested the net code in the super duper telekenetic lazer fiber optics they have in japan. Think about that ...