Dead or Alive - PS1 Review - Survival of the Fittest
What's up my fellow Steemian gamers?
Today I'm gonna be reviewing and sharing another fast paced and epic fighting game during the PS1 era entitled Dead or Alive.
You see Dead or Alive is considered one of the best fighting games to ever be created. It was so successful that it saved its company Tecmo from Bankruptcy during it's release in 1996. It earned about 9.6 million dollars during that time.
It grabbed the attention of the gaming world especially against giant fighting games during that era like Tekken or Street Fighter. It was so successful that it was made into a franchise, several spin offs and even a movie.
And an interesting fact though, its director and producer made a wager to the president of Tecmo by then that he would create a video game that would be successful and attract a fan base or else they will go bankrupt hence the name Dead or Alive. Boy, he's one brave director.
Alright, let's check the world of speed and action in Dead or Alive.
DOA on Vita
Character Selection
Story and Characters
As most fighting games, Dead or Alive is definitely small when it comes to story. In fact, you might have already heard this kind of story a thousand times, a tournament named Dead or Alive was held and whoever becomes champion walks with glory and wealth. Few really cares about the plot when it comes to fighting games because, well, it's fighting games, you just need to beat your opponent.
But don't worry you story lovers, at least the characters have some so let's get on with them.
Kasumi
The main character in the game and even in the live action movie. She is the princess of the ninja clan Mugen Tenshin but decided to enter the tournament and become an outcast to pursue Raidou, the rapist of her mom and who crippled her brother.
Zack
A DJ who is a master of Muay Thai, he joined the tournament for money and become famous. He was successful in his endeavor even though he didn't win.
Hayabusa
Who wouldn't know one of the most iconic ninja in all of gaming? He is the Hayabusa from the Ninja Gaiden series and has seen in various games including Dead or Alive. His story in this game is minor though, he joined the tournament to look out for Kasumi as he is a close friend of her brother.
Bayman
A Russian mercenary who specializes in Sambo fighting style. He gets pleasure in killing people especially dangerous and strong people. He was hired to enter the tournament to assassinate the founder of Dead or Alive.
Lei-Fang
A college student and a master of Kung Fu. She was born from a rich family and has a great sense of justice. She joined the tournament in hopes of beating Jann Lee, the guy who saved her from a group of thugs in which she knows she can handle herself.
Gen-Fu
A Kung-Fu master and bookstore owner, he has a sick a granddaughter and wishes save her using the prize from winning the tournament.
Tina
Born and raised by a famous wrestler, she dreams of expanding her status beyond wrestling. She wanted to become an artist and joined Dead or Alive in hopes of being discovered by Hollywood.
Bass
A retired wrestler and father of Tina. He is overprotective to his daughter and doesn't want her to become a Hollywood artist. Joined the tournament to prevent her from winning.
Jann-Lee
My personal favorite and is highly inspired from Bruce Lee. He dreams of becoming the greatest fighter of all time. He saved Lei-Fang 6 years before the first tournament.
Graphics
This game showed what the PS1 system was capable of, it showed high 3D graphics, smooth frame rates and fast paced fighting. It rivals even Tekken in terms of graphics. The clothes are absolutely fantastic, they even move and sway whenever your character makes an action. The frame rate from making combos are so fast and smooth that it looks like it doesn't have any pause or lag in it. The stage is somewhat very generic as it looks like a flat surface with 3D background. There are also a number of costumes available for each of the characters.
Sound
Each character has its own soundtrack which makes the music unique for each stage so it's a big plus for the OSTs. Usually the music is combination of techno and soft metal.
The sound effects are cool but repetitive. Every time a kick or a punch hits, it sounds the same which shouldn't be. The voices of the characters are all Japanese which is understandable since it's the PS1 but could have done at least some English voices and the announcer is really annoying to the ears.
Source
Gameplay
Since this game is a ported from the arcade, it has a lot of more features and game modes to offer as well as unlockables for finishing the game.
Dead or Alive was inspired from Virtua Fighter which means it has the basic punch, kick, grab and special commands to launch special attacks. Well, it would have become a common fighting game if those are the only things you can do but Tecmo added a reversal button for all characters. The reversal button is a great feature to prevent button smashing because you can stop your opponent even mid combo and unleash a counter combo.
There are a number of characters too that can be easily distinguished and has their own unique fighting style. There are grapplers, fast type characters like the ninjas and counter types like my favorite Jann Lee.
Various game modes are playable like the tournament mode which is the same as the arcade where you fight till the final stage, team battle for up to 5 characters can be used and fought, practice for learning the arts of the game, survival mode that all the other fighting games has and a kumite mode where you fight up to 100 enemies.
Some of the stages has danger zones where in if you knock your opponent down, the ground will explode causing more damage and can possibly add additional air combos.
Overall
Dead or Alive won't disappoint you if you're a fighting game purist like me. It's fast paced, fun and needs a great amount of strategy to execute fast in order to win. It is one of the best fighting game ever to appear in any console. Easily learn but hard to master.
If you got a friend who can play with you, then repeat play is a must as it gives so much excitement plus the explosion in the stages are so cool. But if on one player mode, extra costumes and characters are the only thing that will make you play this again, other than that nothing else.
Sample Gameplay
All photos without source were taken from my PS Vita and videos were from my Youtube channel.
I hope you guys enjoyed reading my gaming review.
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Dead or alive ps1
You remind about those time
When ps1 just came out,
I send all my time on game back then.
Thank you my friend, yeah missing the good old days :-)
Never played the PSOne version, or the import Saturn original, but I played the hell out of Dead or Alive 2 on the Sega Dreamcast. It was not a perfect fighter but it was unique enough, while being familiar, that it was fun and let's face it, the graphics (all versions here) are some of the best in a fighting game whenever this franchise showed up (no I am not talking about the bouncy boobs either).
It was an accessible fighter and that, I think, is what helped the franchise keep legs after people got over the boob physics.
Thanks for dropping by, that DOA 2 was a very impressive upgrade from DOA 1, I enjoyed very much playing that too :-)
DOA 2 was when I finally entered the franchise wholeheartedly. Probably because the Dreamcast was new to me and I wanted to see what it could do and everyone I talked to said get DOA 2. It being a great game certainly helped. lol