Live to fight another day.

Dead or Alive… what can I say about you? I have had some good and bad memories with you. When I played you during the second and third editions, you strangely drew me in on your fluid fighting system, cool characters, over-the-top moves; the whole experience just made me want to keep playing. However, when the fourth installment dropped, I grew apart from you. It was like you weren’t the same anymore,  just pretty to look at and not much else. Maybe its because I just wasn’t ready for what you had to offer then, because years went by and Dead or Alive 5 came out, I then grew to like you again. I started to reconcile the relationship we once had. Then, there’s Dead or Alive 5 Plus was born, and well, I still like you if that means anything.

Dead or Alive 5 Plus for the PlayStation Vita from Tecmo Koei is more or less the same game you played from the console counterpart, which actually isn’t that bad.

I mean, it was virtually the same as the console version, so there isn’t too much to write home about. However, for those who haven’t experienced the story, it takes place where 4th one left off after the great Ninja Assault on DOATEC. Without spoiling anything, Helena has taken over as the head of DOATEC and has requested a few fighters for a new Dead or Alive Tournament that she’s hosting. It sounds generic, but there’s alot more than just the tournament going on, in which makes it very compelling for a fighting game. Even though the outcome is pretty predicable and it seems like people find reasons out the clear blue (The normal thing in fighting games trying to make a story), it was still very much a solid experience. The only thing that is remotely different is the fact that they didn’t try to weave the tutorial into the story, but that’s fine.

This game has the fighting game community written all over it. Since this is more or less a port, most people have expected frame drops to happen in order to preserve the console quality graphics, right? This isn’t the case with DoA5+, as it keeps up with it’s 60 frames per second. For maybe a split second I forgot I was even playing on the vita, because it seemed too good to be true. Tecmo Koei, you definitely get a thumbs up, and if you should decide to port over Ninja Gaiden 3, take what you did here and apply it to that please. That way, we don’t have to show up at your Headquarters with swords saying we have a problem here.

This game has the fighting game community written all over it. Normal things that people don’t understand such as frame advantages, disadvantages, techs, counters, etc. are all accounted for. It’s fairly easy to get into, but you’ll notice a difference when you are fighting a more skilled player. Wherever you play a friend offline or a competitor online, you’ll always have that feeling that there is a room for improvement. For those who are new in the genre or just haven’t played fighting games in a while, there’s a tutorial in Dead or Alive 5 Plus that will teach about everything you need to know. It ranges from beginner to even the most advanced things that high level players consider a need to know kind of deal. Actually, you can take what you learned from their tutorial and apply it to any game really (different buttons, different game mechanics, but still the same concepts). Yes, I’m definitely cheering in support for the training mode as it provides such a relative degree of depth, but enough for the average player to understand.