Dead Or Alive:Dimensions Review (3DS)

15 years of fighting, falling and bosoms on one cartridge

Flicking through my ‘Lazy Critic’s Dictionary of Games’, the definition of Street Fighter is ‘Over the top free flowing fighting’. Mortal Kombat’s stand-alone description is ‘Gore showered, stumplicious furious combat’. Soul Calibur’s is a bizarre mixture of words as jumbled up as its own plot. Dead Or Alive’s is simply ‘Breasts’. With each addition to the DOA franchise, it’s concerning how it’s becoming more well known for an accurate representation of the creators sexual frustration. After some remarkably single minded volleyball spin-offs, it seems DOA is trying to get back to talking with it’s fists rather than its assets, as Dead Or Alive: Dimensions takes to the small screen.

Rather than pulling out the frustrating ‘New instalment on a completely different system wth needed trinkets of plotline’ shtick, Dead Or Alive:Dimensions acts as a flashback to all the 4 Dead Or Alive tournaments in 5 bite size chapters. To help reflect on the 15 years of bootilicious battling, the new ‘Chronicle’ mode serves up both patronising tutorials detailing how exactly a punch works and heaps of cutscenes detailing each characters backstory, although it isn’t quite as in depth as desired. Although occasionally showing definitions of key characters and organisations in the story, the documentation is definitely directed in such a way for the fans’ enjoyment rather than newcomers. Chronicle mode is such a vague flashback for the cast and is paced so poorly between film length cutscenes and actual fights that it’s hard to really care about what the hell is going on most of the time.

Thankfully DOA:D lets its fists do more of the talking in light of its other modes. The control layout using the buttons is basic yet brilliantly effect, not getting bogged down in alternative moves and ultra finishers. The system is simple, stringing together punches and kicks to shove enemies off ledges is always fun and fancy, and the hold system used for countering attacks and chucking assailants back feels effective and very responsive. The complexities of combos translates straight onto the touch screen with your chosen characters entire move list detailed to scroll through. What’s better is that any of these moves can simply be performed by tapping on them. It evolves button mashing into frantic screen tapping, and although scales down the simple formula into something a lot more basic, repetitive screen bashing of complex combos won’t save you should you be playing on harder difficulties. There will be a clear preference between the two, but it thankfully means that you don’t have to fumble the stylus in such a manner that you are forced to use both touch screen and buttons.

Fanatics will find tons to unlock whilst battling

Though it’s great to be part of the battle, it’s not exactly so great to look at. Although cut-scenes look impressive for the 3DS’s capabilities, features do look blurry even with the 3D effects turned off. Things get much worse during gameplay. DOA:D runs at 60 frames per second, which though respectable, leads to some minor issues such as lip syncing problems. With the 3D slider turned up, however, that frame-rate drops by half and ruins any attempt at a fluent fight. Insult to injury comes in the form of more jagged characters and a very unimpressive 3D effect that feels shoved in.

Those who don’t wish to get bogged down in wooden acting can thankfully select from one of the multiple arcade ladders on offer, survival challenges and tag matches off the bat. Fighting through these challenges unlocks the full roster of 25 characters and tons of extra costumes to boot. Fanatics will find tons to unlock whilst battling, especially with the sheer amount of character figurines to collect. Unlike its rival Super Street Fighter 4, Dead Or Alive:Dimensions, statues are all for aesthetic/perverted pleasure. Collecting these allows you to take photos of the figurines and arrange even faker battles that you could actually be having in dioramas. It’s a nice little touch, but only really great for those who work at ‘Games Workshop’.

Though the figurine based combat is more static compared to its rivals, the Spotpass feature is more intuitive. A laggy online mode coupled with the poor frame-rate on 3D really is not advisable if neither player wants to play fair, but should you cross paths with another fighter via Spotpass, characters are sent over to each 3DS to fight in a make believe battle out of each others eye sight. The game records your fighting technique with a certain character and, if you will, sends a ‘ghost’ of that to fight it out with your unsuspecting opponents. It obviously means you have very little control over what will happen in the battle, but it’s a much nicer SpotPass feature than other games have exhibited so far…unless you take losses to heart, be they directly linked to you or not.

Although it suffers from hideous frame-rates on 3D and the Chronicle mode seems like an investment of time rather than an enjoyable narrative, Dead Or Alive:Dimensions manages to utilise the touch screen and diddy buttons to make a brilliantly fluid fighter with the fancy effects turned off. Fans of the series will definitely make the time to delve into all of the modes and pillage it’s many unlockables, and fans of the genre will find it a welcome beat-’em-up for their portable console that’s dismally lacking in the field. An unexpectedly great little fighter, and it doesn’t make you feel like a pervert for playing, a first for the series.