Gamescom 2012: Dead or Alive 5

Fighting games fans should be thrilled: It’s been over seven years since Dead or Alive 4, which had once marked our minds, as one of the strongest fighting simulation of all time. Now back with its fifth edition, we had the chance get some inside information from the game’s lead developer Yosuke Hayashi. So can we trust the Japanese developer to surprise us again with Dead or Alive 5? Does Tecmo and Team Ninja’s prized fighting game stands out form the crowd? The answer is hell yes!



At the European show, Tecmo announced the return of Brad Wong and Eliot, respectively from Dead or Alive 3 and Dead or Alive 4, as well as the addition of Akira and Sarah from Sega’s Virtua Fighter. If new characters aren’t your thing, then the visual aspects of the game should be enough to bedazzle you, with heavy work on the character’s facial expressions, movements and hardcore fighting techniques.



But the biggest focus of the Dead or Alive 5 is the gameplay itself with the addition of a fighting entertainment concept. By base, the interaction between characters and the arena is pushed even further than before, such as opening new areas by pushing your opponent out of the arena, or even the interaction when you bash an opponent to a car, a cannon or a wall.



Apart from these small innovations, Team Ninja thinks of themselves of a very hardcore fighting game, and wanted to apply this to their refurbished online mode. Dead or Alive 5 has now challenges online, with the possibility of choosing whether you want to accept it or not, which is a big change from the usual ways of how online challenges are being treated in other fighting games such as Street Fighter.



When asked about the online matchmaking, and my worries on how fighting games are usually difficult to find a similar challenger, Hayashi-san appeased my worries. With the addition of the new lobby mode – one previously used in Namco’s SoulCalibur IV – you will be able to join a group of friends, talk together and of course arrange fights or even training sessions called the Online Dojo.



Because fighting games rely heavily on player’s stats system to perform matchmaking, Team Ninja added another factor to find a more proper challenger when looking for a fight, with the addition of the area or region search. Why would you like to fight an American when you’re in Middle East?



My other worry was Team Ninja’s reaction to the rise of e-Sports and fighting tournaments. Being away for so long might be an advantage to their fans, but for newcomers, who are used to play competitively nowadays in tournaments such as EVO, I wanted to know if Dead or Alive 5 was ready for an international e-Sports challenge.



Adding social interaction in the game was the first step, with your player card being linked to Facebook, so you’ll be able to show off your fighting skills online, by sharing your stats, latest match results and much more.



The second step was bringing professional Dead or Alive 4 players in the team, to further bring pro-input into Team Ninja’s upcoming game. Players such as Marie “Kayane” Norindr or Vanessa Arteaga were brought to work on character balancing, as well as fixing the overpowered countering system from the previous games. In competitive fighting games, a well-balanced title is always a joy to play, and Team Ninja work paid off as they tested their game at the IPL Pro League this year.



Dead or Alive 5 seems to be on the right track to their comeback, bringing so much awaited addition, new characters, better balancing and of course upgraded visual performance that will please the veteran fighter as well as the newcomers. We can’t wait to try out the game as it is released next month, September 28th, on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

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Ozimandus has been reviewing games and gadgets since 2003. He's not afraid of speaking his mind, and loves to share his love of everything geeky.

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