Dead or Alive 4 (2005 Video Game) User Reviews

Ouch! Did that game just hit me?

[gatewalker · 8/10 · 6 January 2007]

The Dead or Alive (DOA) series of fighting games has always presented us with excellent games, and the addition of Dead or Alive 4 to that series proves to be no exception. It is a beautifully rendered and executed piece of interactive video art, and pretty damn fun to play… as long as you have a real person sitting next to you to play it with.

The graphic engine that runs this game is a testament to the power of the Xbox 360; a superb title to shows what this system is capable of doing, and provides us a window through which we are presented hints of what is to come. All of the character models are beautiful and move with a grace I have rarely ever seen in a game of this genre before.

The stages are complex and gorgeous also. Many of them have multiple levels, and some even branch into different arenas. On some of stages elements in the background will come to the foreground and interact with you. There is a stage where animals will run across the screen and knock you over, and another where you fight in the street while dodging cars.

The sound is adequate. If you like Aerosmith (apparently the game designer Tomonobu Itagaki does), you'll probably enjoy the sound track. Overall the music seems to fit the game well and the sound effects along with the character comments all appear to fall right on cue.

There are multiple game play modes to enjoy. You can play the story mode and discover each characters tale. This title, more than any of the previous titles, gives you more story background and explains things in much greater detail by use of the cut scenes and endings. The story of each character also determines what boss that character will face, not everyone faces the same opponent in the end. You can play the time attack mode where you try to beat the game a quickly as possible, or survival mode where you try to survive as long as you can against a stream of opponents. You can also take your fight online is that is something you like to do.

The combat system is somewhat complex, and seems to be quite a bit different from this series earlier incarnations. In addition to learning the combat moves you need to learn how to guard and how to counter. Becoming a master of the game play can be quite frustrating. A sparring mode for training is provided that will help you master some of the more difficult moves.

All of the fighting styles are based on hand to hand martial arts of some sort. There are no weapons as in Soul Calibur, or supernatural powers or projectiles (that I know of) as in Mortal Kombat. Some of the ninja characters can teleport though.

The major fault I find with this game is that it is very hard when playing against the computer. The computer opponent will block and counter many of your moves while you will often fail while trying to do the same. Against a human player you will find that you have a much greater chance of success at these attempts, but against the computer – you will end up getting really frustrated. There are times that you even find yourself driven to hurl your wireless Xbox 360 controller across the room and smash it into the wall (so far, the thought of replacing that fifty dollar controller usually stops me in mid swing).

I blame this obscene difficulty on Tomonobu Itagaki. He is one of those game designers, in the school of thought that is enjoined by Capcom and a few others, who believe that pain is enjoyment. That you must be nearly bleeding from your fingers and greatly frustrated to properly enjoy the games he helps to create. If the title is not supremely difficulty, you will have no reason to play it. Or so he and others seems to think.

Me, personally, I'm perfectly fine with healthy fingers, and good game play. That is why I say you should play this beautiful title with friends. They will suck just as bad as you suck. The will not counter and block every single move you try. They will not be able to cheat, as the computer player will always do.

With your friends, you will enjoy this title.

Alone, it will hurt you, or hurt your wallet when you end up buying a new controller after smashing your old one in frustration.

A great developed game

[jtdam09 · 8/10 · 19 March 2007]

We all started from Dead or Alive, to the second, to the third, and it has developed very quickly in my opinion. Now that Dead or Alive 4 is out, we stood for joy waiting on this game. Believe me I did.

Dead or Alive 4 I must say is one of the best graphic Dead or Alive games, while Dead or Alive 2: Ultimate was second. You get to see every strand of hair , and clothes flowing through the wind, and you get to see, of course, what DOA has gotten most famous for...Those deadly female ninjas, wrestlers, and martial artists.

Now three have joined the DOA cast, well technically five. There's Kokoro, the very long haired Geisha, the "Lion from Virtua Fighter" look-alike, but much better, Elliot, and the high kicking and flipper, La Mariposa, who most know as Lisa from Xtreme Beach Volleyball. It was kind of hard to find out what her race was. There is also a Halo-girl Spartan, and the main boss, Alpha, or Kasumi's jello clone.

When you start many of you notice "Where is Gen-Fu, Helena, and Leon". Well, you have to unlock them.

The soundtrack has gotten a little more interesting. You will always know that there will be at least a few Aerosmith songs in there, and there is. The Aerosmith songs really set the mood into this game. The intro is the best part for a song.

Now, to the stages. They are really detailed, and you fight everywhere on those stages. You even get to knock them over fences. When practicing, going to new places are a lot of fun.

To the gameplay, many characters seem to have new moves compared to the past gam,es, and every character has that powerful move, to make your replays "skip, and repeat". Some characters have really good juggling combos as your strategy to beat every character in this game.

The very big problem about this game, is the difficulty. 1st of all, there's NO EASY MODE! When you start playing mode like story, or time attack, they really get easy at some times, but the last stage, out of all stages, will keep you playing this one stage for 15 o 20 minutes. Believe me. This game will get you frustrated, a lot. My cousin actually broke a pack of my clear cds, and I had to buy another one. That's how frustrating it is.

However, the good thing about story mode, is that some characters do not face Alpha on the last stage. So you can get those "kinky" costumes that you wanted, and be glad you got it.

Do I think this game is really good to buy. Easy mode or no easy mode(Well, Easpecially having an easy mode) Yes, this can be a good game to buy.

It's alive alright't

[Rookieme · 10/10 · 8 December 2007]

I don't understand why most of the people compare "Dead or Alive" to "Virtua Fighter" so much. I have played both series since forever and both have a different feel to it.

"Virtua Fighter" is the nr:1 deepest, realistic fighting simulator game out there while "Dead or Alive" is fast, arcade fun kind of a game that takes advantage to the environment and look's good while playing it.

Is "Dead or Alive" as deep as "Virtua Fighter"? God No! But it doesn't need to, they are quit the opposite. Even the creators of these games doesn't deny this. Yu Suzuki's direction to "VF" is to have total realism while "DoA" creator Tomonobu Itagaki is simplicity. Both have mention this on interviews.

I for myself are glad that "Dead or Alive" exists and I think we need a game series that stands out like the way it does, it's pure fun and simple but still a fast aggressive fighting game with obvious controls and function. And comparing "VF" to DoA" for me is complete bullocks. Both of them are the best on their crafts and who says you can only choose one of them.

"Dead or Alive 4" is the recent game of the series and it's the best one so far with more moves, more character's, fantastic interactive stages, faster game play and a final boss that will be a great challenge for the experienced "Doa" players but a tearing experience for the newbies. I Should also mention that it has the best ending sequence a fighting game has ever had, seriously!

As the saying goes, looks aren't everything...

[knowledge · 4/10 · 20 May 2006]

Ever since its debut in the late nineties, the dead or alive series has produced absolutely beautiful looking games .The 2005 instalment is no different -this game is a graphical stunner! The characters look highly detailed and the backdrops that they fight against are incredibly realistic.

Like the saying goes though, looks aren't everything and Dead or alive proves it-it may be easy on the eye but gameplay wise its as severely lacking as its always been.

The game play just encourages lazy button bashing tactics with its 'one button-sets-off-endless-multi-hit-combos attack system. Even the most calm and collected player can be reduced to a button mashing goon with controls like these- DOA 4 plays like a dumbed down version of virtua fighter.

But the worst thing about the gameplay ? The absolute worst thing? Its the counters. While games like tekken, virtua fighter and king of fighters have counters that take skill and timing to pull of , DOA's are the complete opposite. The counters here can be performed at the touch of a button and take off unfairly huge amounts of energy. This quick and easy counter system invites you to be over reliant on it and results in boring matches in which you and your opponent spend half a round waiting to hit each other . Its frustrating.

Dead or alive 4 is both super good looking and superficial. I'm tempted to say that things might improve with the sequel but judging by this franchises track record I severely doubt it.

How to kill a good fighting game

[jaywolfenstien · 25 September 2008]

DOA4 is the tragic case of a spectacular fighting game whose single player modes completely and utterly ruin the entire experience. Unless you A.) are a hardcore veteran of the DOA world, B.) have friends who play the game and/or play online. Or C.) enjoy learning by the "if you don't have perfect timing and execution, I will smash your face in with a baseball bat" school of teaching, then you might want to find something more worthwhile to do with your money (like using it as suppositories for your pets, for example.)

In fighting game's past, the player was presented with six to eight difficulty options. Dead or Alive 4 has three options, and on "Normal" (the easiest) you can expect to be stunned, staggered, popped up, juggled for a nine hit combo, slammed into the wall twice and 75% of your life is gone. When you get up to retaliate, assuming you make it up, you can expect the AI to counter your attack, putting you right back down on the ground. Meanwhile, it plays a mean mix-up game making it nigh impossible to counter them.

And once you dredge through seven matches of fighting game hell, you might get the privilege of facing Alpha-152 who can teleport out of range of the first hit of your combo into the path of the second hit and teleport out of range (again) where she counters. That counter? It takes off 75% of your health. No, I'm not exaggerating. Her teleports also have a knack for throwing off your button input, which really doesn't matter because she teleported off camera and punishes you before you can even see where she went (much less have time to retaliate.) In other words, there is no conceivable way Alpha-152 could lose unless you get lucky.

And that's how the entire single player experience feels. A game of luck. Forget skill, forget timing, forget mixing up high/mids/lows, punches/kicks. If the computer wants to counter you, it will. If it doesn't, you might win. Might. Do you feel lucky, punk? Oh, and by the way, much of the unlocking involves beating this insane Russian roulette of a challenge multiple times per character.

That's all fine and dandy for veterans of the series looking for steeper competition from the easy AI of DOA's past, but um, Team Ninja … what about those of us who have to work out the cobwebs from when we last played DOA half a decade ago? Or what about people just coming to the series cold? Team Ninja's answer is apparently for the rest of us to "F*** off."

Now be careful because I'm not complaining about the difficulty – I'm complaining about the lack of a choice. Again, challenge is nice. There's nothing wrong with a challenge. But to take away the freedom of meeting said challenge when the player is ready? That is unforgivable for a fighting game.

DOA4's lack of a choice and it's "challenge" had an interesting side-effect: for the first time in my fighting game career I actually cared that the endings are irrelevant animated anecdotes that have nothing to do with the, ahem, "story." I'll accept a laughable excuse for a plot – read my review of Symphony of the Night or Soul Calibur IV for proof. But, Tecmo, if I have to give up part of my soul to beat your frickin' game, you better deliver more than half-assed endings and a stupid bonus costume.

It pains me to write a review so negative. It really does. I do like the franchise and, as stated in the first paragraph, it is a spectacular, fast paced, fighting game.

One of the major standouts of the DOA series is the detailed interactive environments – environments so well done they actually overshadow the character models. Not only can you smash your opponent into a wall, send them flying through a window, falling from a narrow rope bridge, or tumbling down a flight of steps – now you can also knock them over furniture, railings, or a street median … and then jump over and drop kick them as they get up. Oh, and now environment can finally hit back – most notably on a city street where drivers aren't afraid to plow through pedestrians or combatants (10 points for nailing a pedestrian, 50 points for a combatant, and infinity points to run down the SOB who thought Alpha-152 was a good idea.)

Initially, you get control of sixteen colorful characters, including wrestlers (Bass, Tina), street brawlers (Bayman), ninjas (Hayabuse, Kasumi, Ayane), the obligatory Bruce Lee impersonator (Jan Lee), an assassin (Christie), and a bit of everything. As per fighting game tradition, the roster expands as you endure story mode time and time again, opening up Ein, Helena, Leon, Gen-Fu, Tengu, and a Halo cameo. While the environments are spectacular, the character models all look like animated figurines and not flesh and blood characters. They're okay, but it's hardly the graphical step up a next gen system's fighter could take.

As much as I like the fighting engine. I absolute despise the god-awful one-player experience. I can't say it enough. It ruins the game. If DOA4 did not have an online mode, it would not be worth your time. Much less your money.