Opinion from a newcomer, questions about the quality of Dead or Alive!

[t1Rabbit]

Hello there!

Im a totally new Dead or Alive player, DOA 6 is my first game in the series, started 1 week ago. I want to share some negative opinions about DOA 6, and id like to ask, these things are usually the part of the DOA series, or the 6. entry is a little weaker than previous titles?
I need to point out right in the beginning: I like the game. Its fun, the fighting mechanics is great. Character costumes are woohoo', and the graphics too (except some weird outdated maps). The training mode is the absolute best ive ever seen! Killer Instinct (such an underrated gem) was the king of training modes, but now, DOA6 won that title thats for sure.

So here is my short negative list:
- The story is absolute trash. It does nothing for newcomers to keep up with the horrible mess we got, and the whole story is boring, empty. The structure is all over the place, the cutscenes are short, sometimes undemanding, or totally nonexistent. Fights are more shorter, 1 round and sometimes you dont even get an ending cutscene. This is the weakest story mode ive ever seen in recent fighting games, i saw better ones in the PS2 era, which is a shame.
- Maybe a lot of you guys have no issues with these kind of things, but we are living in 2019, fighting games evolved a LOT. DOA6 feels like a game from 2004 sometimes. Only one fight beginning animation, one ending animation, its rare when your character say something different. This was cool maybe 5-6 years ago, not now.
- I feel DOA6 is rushed. Single player modes are lacking, but there is absolutely no emphasis on the multiplayer modes, because, well.. we have only one.
- Its absolutely subjective and its my only opinion, but characters are a little... generic? Its cool to see some ninjas, wrestlers, but there is a lot of "guy1, guy2, 'EDIT' asiangirl1, asiangirl2" like characters. I needed 3 days to distinguish the asian girl characters (Kokoro, Leifang, Hitomi, etc.) because they are so similiar to each other. They are basically 3 normal girl, nothing special. Diego is a "guy". I cant really speak anything else about him.

I hope my post will not enrage the forum, thats not really what i want. DOA 6 is a decent fighting game in my opinion, but sometimes i feel a little underwhelmed, and i want to know if previous episodes had these problems too.

 

[Shining_Wave]

(Leifang is chinese)

 

[Mayor-Of-Mustard]

As I've said before, I hecking agree that the game feels rushed and needed more time in the oven before release(even though i really love doa6 lol), I would've been happy with the game coming out in mid 2019 instead of early 2019. I'm just glad they're adding free updates for more win and lose poses and stuff + lobbies

 

[KasumiLover]

I don't think your post should enrage anyone unless they're just looking for an argument tbh, the story I agree is bad, if you say otherwise and think the story is complete and somehow good with how limited and unclear it is, there's some bias there xD

I think the game was overall rushed, the story scenes we've seen from trailers from months ago don't even look changed in the final game, which is why I think they were able to release it so relatively quickly, I think they had all the characters and story scenes done way back then but decided to delay the game since they added the new fatal stun sit down stuns and wall game mechanics, that and they were still somewhat working on graphics too.

And tbh the characters(or mainly the veterans) are generic since they were designed way back when actual stories didn't matter, they were given backstories but other than that there's not much depth to their characters, which is why I think they focused more on Marie and Nico and Honoka since they were fresher designs with more potential, in a way Nico imo came across as a younger Christie 2.0 since she had almost all of her traits but more story depth.

And as for the limited scenes and such, they are gonna add more but even then they could have did that all before the game released, idk how you can add a steady stream of girl costumes and hairstyles but forget the extra intros/outros, and the random unlock system is super flawed, they need to stop relying on patches and "campaigns" to fix the casual/offline player issues, although the gameplay and mechanics are very good.

Overall I think DOA6 was too focused on going the competitive route like T7 and SFV(although those are more popular and they've added more content over their lifespan) and they thought a gimped single player experience they could get away with since other big dog games did, but DOA6 is more niche and less "relevant" than T7/SC6/SFV so doing that wasn't a good idea and its sales and overall feedback are showing that.

 

[SaihateDYNAMO]

Just about everything you said in your OP revolves around the fact that the game, while really fun to play, was definitely rushed. The incomplete story, lack of winposes, and “meh” representation of character personalities (which in previous games was mainly shown through their varied clothing styles, arcade mode endings, and multiple intro/winposes) is a weak showing in comparison to the past DOA games.

This game isn’t representative of the best the series has to offer in everything but the gameplay, where it is definitely the most solid DOA has been in a while imho. Stick with the game and things will definitely get better with the updates over time

 

[Raansu]

Game was rushed.
Online lobbies got delayed, but supposedly we will get them sometime this month.

I don't get why people keep saying the offline is lacking though. What all exactly are people wanting? Good or bad, there's a story mode, and all the other traditional modes are there with arcade, time attack, survival, an extremely in depth training modes etc...on top of the new quest mode. What exactly is lacking? What else is needed to be added in a simple fighting game?

 

[CyberEvil]

Offline options are way above average here. DOA Quest mode was a great addition and all other expected offline modes are there. Training options are unmatched in my opinion.

Once lobbies arrive we’ll be pretty solid.

 

[NewWestFan]

I agree with a lot of what you said but I am about to give you crap over:

- I feel DOA6 is rushed. Single player modes are lacking, but there is absolutely no emphasis on the multiplayer modes, because, well.. we have only one.

What exactly are we looking for here?

A shitty bowling game that you'll play maybe to get achievements and then never pick up again? Challenge towers? A full blown freaking RPG mode? What do you want.

ARCADE
TIME ATTACK
SURVIVAL
STORY MODE
DOA QUEST (Tutorial that gets harder as you go and rewards you for learning to play better)
FREE TRAINING
COMBO CHALLENGE
COMMAND TRAINING

Name me one fighting game out right now that makes that list feel lacking. I'll wait with baited breath lol Not trying to stir an argument, and not saying this game is perfect, but I will defend this title from bullshit.

DOA6 was Rushed. But the singleplayer is not the indicator.

 

[Mayor-Of-Mustard]

I agree with a lot of what you said but I am about to give you crap over:

What exactly are we looking for here?

A shitty bowling game that you'll play maybe to get achievements and then never pick up again? Challenge towers? A full blown freaking RPG mode? What do you want.

ARCADE
TIME ATTACK
SURVIVAL
STORY MODE
DOA QUEST (Tutorial that gets harder as you go and rewards you for learning to play better)
FREE TRAINING
COMBO CHALLENGE
COMMAND TRAINING

Name me one fighting game out right now that makes that list feel lacking. I'll wait with baited breath lol Not trying to stir an argument, and not saying this game is perfect, but I will defend this title from bullshit.

DOA6 was Rushed. But the singleplayer is not the indicator.

I'd legit play an rpg mode of doa, it sounds fun ngl. would it be like chronicle mode in sw4?

 

[The 4th phase]

I would love something similar to that tekken 6's scenario campaign that was sick

or that sc3 mode was great aswell.

 

[NewWestFan]

I'd legit play an rpg mode of doa, it sounds fun ngl. would it be like chronicle mode in sw4?

I would love it too but it isn't something you expect from fighting games single player modes was my point haha

 

[zoo]

Yeah DOA always handled single player really well, this game is only lacking tag and team battles but still a solid list of modes. I think where 6 kinda failed is making them useful. Like I only ever played arcade for costumes and trophies and those are handled so differently now. No lobbies is without a doubt the dumbest thing tho

but characters are a little... generic?

I hear this from a lot of outside ppl but I guess it's something you either need nostalgia for or have to adapt to. For instance I grew up with DOA so I love the cast, most aren't super exaggerated by nationality like other fighters so they have this almost human-like nature to them. But I can't blame you especially if you're coming from something like Tekken where everyone feels like "video game" characters if that makes sense. Tbh I always found most of virtua fighter's roster boring so there's that

 

[t1Rabbit]

(Leifang is chinese)

True. Absolutely true.

 

[Raansu]

A shitty bowling game that you'll play maybe to get achievements and then never pick up again? Challenge towers? A full blown freaking RPG mode? What do you want.

To be fair, when I was a kid I definitely played the bowling mode more than the main game in Tekken Tag lol.

I think it would be neat if DoA had some kind of side game, but I'm not sure its really necessary. The core stuff related to fighting is already there.

I'll be honest. I never quite understood why DoA and DoA Xtreme are separated. It'd be cool if it was all in one game.

Itagaki split them on purpose because he wanted the "gravure idol" (グラビアアイドル - I think I typed that right. Someone better than me at JP will probably correct it lol ) fanservice to be focused on that and not the main game.

 

[tokiopewpew]

Stuff like additional fight intro and outro sequences are propably (and most likely) added to the game in future patches. Was like this in the previous title of the series as well.

 

[t1Rabbit]

I agree with a lot of what you said but I am about to give you crap over:

What exactly are we looking for here?

A shitty bowling game that you'll play maybe to get achievements and then never pick up again? Challenge towers? A full blown freaking RPG mode? What do you want.

ARCADE
TIME ATTACK
SURVIVAL
STORY MODE
DOA QUEST (Tutorial that gets harder as you go and rewards you for learning to play better)
FREE TRAINING
COMBO CHALLENGE
COMMAND TRAINING

Name me one fighting game out right now that makes that list feel lacking. I'll wait with baited breath lol Not trying to stir an argument, and not saying this game is perfect, but I will defend this title from bullshit.

DOA6 was Rushed. But the singleplayer is not the indicator.

It depends what people want from a fighting game. There are players who only dedicated to 1v1 online fights, and there are others who love if there is something different in these kind of games. I agreed the number of single player modes are good, but most of these modes are almost the same. Free training is not even a game mode. Combo Challenge and command training is GREAT, but not everyone is interested to finish all of the combo challenges, me neither, only for the characters i play.
Killer Instinct has tons of single player content for example. Its a budget title with 3 seasons, equal with a AAA game. Shadow Lords mode (can be played for more than 30-40 hours with new things to experience), regular fight mode, Shadow lab mode, story, survival, shadow survival, a training mode which is exactly the same as in DOA6 (yeah, this great training mode exists since 2013), "basic practice mode" if that is a real game mode, and 3 online multiplayer choices.. Tekken 5 from the PS2 era had similiar amount of content too. By the way, i dont think DOA6 single player modes are the worst in the genre. Its definetly better than Mortal Kombat X, Tekken 7, etc. Its just nothing new after a few days, more of the same. I know you have an exact need from a fighting game, but not everyone thinks that way.

 

[t1Rabbit]

Offline options are way above average here. DOA Quest mode was a great addition and all other expected offline modes are there. Training options are unmatched in my opinion.

Once lobbies arrive we’ll be pretty solid.

Agreed, its above average in 2019. But with only one online mode (right now), it should be more, or the multiplayer modes should be more. It was a mistake to release the game in this state imo. Still love the game tho, but sometimes i feel i should just put away for a few months and go back to get the "full package".

 

[Raansu]

Lack of lobbies aside its a pretty complete fighting game feature wise. I do think not getting lobbies was bad and they should have delayed for another 2 weeks, but whatever.

 

[deathofaninja]

I think the story is easy to attack but I enjoyed it. Lobbies will be coming and the various poses that made you feel the game was outdated are also coming.

Now I have played a lot of SCVI and if you want to know what bores me it is the boring square rings. I get that style has its own purpose, but I agree with Team NINJA that the stages are like characters unlike anything else. Tekken and especially SC are popular games, but it doesn't change my mind that they just play it safe every time.

 

[Goarmagon]

I think the Blazblue/Guilty Gear games set a good benchmark for how a complete fighting game should look.