hello! welcome to the final entry in my DOA blog series where i blog about a DOA game every day until Dead or Alive 5's North American release on September 25th. yesterday, i covered Dead or Alive Dimensions which is pretty fun, but isn't all that exciting if you've played DOA4 a ton. you can find that here if you wanna check it out.

here are the previous entries if you wanna check em out as well:

• September 17th - Dead or Alive 1 Ultimate
• September 18th - Dead or Alive 2 Hardcore
• September 19th - Dead or Alive 3
• September 20th - Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate
• September 22nd - Dead or Alive 4
• September 23rd - Dead or Alive Dimensions
• September 24th - Dead or Alive 5 Alpha Demo & Other Stuff

Dead or Alive 5 comes out tomorrow, which is something i can't really believe myself writing, but it's almost here! i'll be in class for like, 10 hours tomorrow so i won't be able to play it until late tomorrow but i'm still super excited for tomorrow nonetheless.

anyway, what better way to celebrate the eve of DOA5's launch than talking about Dead or Alive 5? i suppose playing Dead or Alive 4 would be better, but instead here's a thing on the DOA5 alpha demo.

Dead or Alive 5 Alpha Demo (2012) - Playstation 3, Xbox 360*

Motherfucker, this is about the DOA5 alpha demo. Not the Dead or Alive 5 coming out tomorrow

arguably the best part about the entire package, the unfortunate souls who bought the Ninja Gaiden 3 Collector's Edition were granted access to an early build of Dead or Alive 5. people who just bought regular-ass Ninja Gaiden 3 could get the DOA5 demo too, when they picked up first-print copies of the game. although it was only limited to two exclusive characters on PS3 and 360 each, where somebody that bought the NG3CE got the "premium" demo that had all four playable characters on one console. that's what i managed to get my hands on, as i was one of the fools who bought the NG3CE.

seriously. fuck that game.

What's new?

well, right off the bat, Dead or Alive 5 features a new visual style. out with the plastic-skin anime doll characters and in with the more realistic looking characters. to go along with these fancy new character models, they've added some more detail to the fighters that show up as the fight goes on. this includes stuff like dirt on the skin and clothes, and sweat that not only makes the characters have sweat beads sliding down their faces, but it effects the clothing too. for example, Hitomi's tank-top costume becomes see-through by the end of a match, so all of the excited players can oggle at her bra. weird.

as far as gamepplay is concerned, there are some fancy new mechanics this time around. the stages (or one stage, in this case) now have a lot more interactivity and play a much bigger role during a fight than they ever did before. DOA5 introduces the "Cliffhanger" moment, where when knocked into the right object, you can send your opponent flying and hanging on for their dear life on the edge of a surface where a large fall below awaits. here, the attacking player can either choose to strike or grab their opponent while running towards them. the defending player have the same option. if the defending player selects the same option as the attacking player, then the Cliffhanger attack is blocked and both fighters reach the bottom surface with no damage taken. if the defending player didn't properly predict the attack, then well.. something like this happens:

this new Cliffhanger moment is complimented by a new move called the Power Blow. it's a move that every character has, and when hit, brings the game into slow motion, giving the attacking player the option to send their opponent rocketing towards a part of the stage, whether it's a Danger Zone or just a wall. doing a Power Blow at a specific section of a stage can trigger special Danger Zones available only once per match. for example, in Scramble (the alpha build stage), doing a Power Blow on the destroyed street can give you the chance to send your opponent flying into a car in mid-air to deal extra damage.

there are some other little changes here and there. some characters have gotten new moves, and now each character has a special counter hold that deals extra damage, but is more difficult to pull off. it's similar to how Lei Fang's advanced counter holds work in a sense. the alpha build also uses the three-point counter system, which was changed to the four-point counter system in the final build.

Causing car accidents is pretty fun

Dead or Alive 5's alpha demo is a great deal of fun. we've got Ayane, Ryu, Hayate and Hitomi as playable characters. the moveset feels pretty similar to Dead or Alive 4 for each character, with some welcome additions from Dimensions as well as brand new moves. that's not a bad thing, because this game was easy to pick up in an instant. it manages to keep Dead or Alive 4's great feeling combos, smooth flowing moves and even manages to pack an even harder punch thanks to the new sound design on the strikes that make everything feel a lot more satisfying to pull off. however, what makes the combos a lot of fun to pull off is the added air time to juggles. it certainly seems like this time around, the characters stay in the air longer during juggles and combos which really gives players the chance to pull off some really cool looking, really fun-to-pull-off combos.

the power blow and cliffhanger moments are pretty cool. i played the alpha demo for about.. 30-ish hours i'd say so i've gotten totally sick of the Scramble stage. at the point i'm at right now, i just turn Danger Zones off so i can play around with the fighting system a lot more, which wouldn't surprise me if it was something i ended up doing in the retail version of the game.

the new visual style is a nice welcome addition to DOA5. it makes the game feel like that its DOA's first true fray into the current generation consoles, graduating from the anime style to the less-anime-style models and graphics. well, the characters still act anime (and kind of awkward, in Hitomi's case with her "Ah, wow~!! I Won!! ^___^;; " attitude) but.. um.. at least they don't look like it. the game runs nice at a smooth 60 FPS, although the graphics up close are really weird lookin during gameplay. ah well, it's a game in its alpha stages, so it's not perfect! the boobs are still gross, though. it seems like they went from weird gravitation pull boobs to water-balloon boobs this time around which is.. well, it's certainly a lot more disturbing.

the music seems.. forgettable, this time around. the menu music is pretty alright, but the in-game music is a total bore. maybe it's from hearing it too much, but hearing it makes me sad that you can't take music off in the options menu. for some reason, it just really makes me want to sleep. the male announcer is pretty bad, too. i kind of have a thing for Monica from DOA2U and DOA4, and even the original DOA announcer was pretty alright bit this dude is just boring beyond belief. get this guy out of here, with his dumb voice filter.

the demo also features a horrible lack of options. you can't turn the music off, or play around with the audio settings at all, really. there's also no training mode which is well.. totally to be expected from a demo but for a "premium" demo, i would have expected the game to make it a little easier to play around with the new stuff than making player 2 an opponent that doesn't move. although the AI is pretty terrible:

there's not much else to cover in the demo, really. the DOA5 alpha demo is a lot of fun to play around with, but only for so long. i got tired of it pretty quickly because of how barebones it was in features, which is to expected because it's a demo but.. i guess i'm just a little upset that i got this little tease of content for 6ish months to suffer over. i think it would have made the wait a little easier if i didn't have this thing on my hard drive.

a side note: there have been a lot of changes to the game since the alpha build, so this isn't indicative of how the final game is.

That's all, folks

a pretty quiet, and frankly, unexciting end to my countdown to DOA5 blog series. i was going to write up some sort of preview about Dead or Alive 5, but you know what, the people on this forum who are going to buy it, i bet are already sold on it. plus, college is fucking exhausting. i'm falling asleep as i type this, so i apologize if this wasn't the most exciting entry in the entire world. my juices aren't flowin as well as they usually are.

so, that's about it. this is probably the most amount of blogs i've put out in a short amount of time. in fact, it's probably the most blogs i've put out in the past two years. i'd like to thank everybody who read the entire way through. it's been fun. i'm actually not sure if these blogs were good reads or not, and while i appreciate any criticism, i'm just glad that a nice amount of my thoughts on the Dead or Alive games are finally out there.. although i still have a lot to get off my back.

Dead or Alive 5 is shaping up to be an excellent looking game, and i'm super excited to nab it tomorrow. expect a review? probably not. expect a blog? probably not that either. i'll probably lay off tossing my opinions out there and just sit back and hopefully enjoy Dead or Alive 5 while i can. hopefully i'll get to play with a few of you.

thanks for reading. i'm gonna go sleep now.

~Ajay

hello! welcome to the final entry in my DOA blog series where i blog about a DOA game every day until Dead or Alive 5's North American release on September 25th. yesterday, i covered Dead or Alive Dimensions which is pretty fun, but isn't all that exciting if you've played DOA4 a ton. you can find that here if you wanna check it out.

here are the previous entries if you wanna check em out as well:

• September 17th - Dead or Alive 1 Ultimate
• September 18th - Dead or Alive 2 Hardcore
• September 19th - Dead or Alive 3
• September 20th - Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate
• September 22nd - Dead or Alive 4
• September 23rd - Dead or Alive Dimensions
• September 24th - Dead or Alive 5 Alpha Demo & Other Stuff

Dead or Alive 5 comes out tomorrow, which is something i can't really believe myself writing, but it's almost here! i'll be in class for like, 10 hours tomorrow so i won't be able to play it until late tomorrow but i'm still super excited for tomorrow nonetheless.

anyway, what better way to celebrate the eve of DOA5's launch than talking about Dead or Alive 5? i suppose playing Dead or Alive 4 would be better, but instead here's a thing on the DOA5 alpha demo.

Dead or Alive 5 Alpha Demo (2012) - Playstation 3, Xbox 360*

Motherfucker, this is about the DOA5 alpha demo. Not the Dead or Alive 5 coming out tomorrow

arguably the best part about the entire package, the unfortunate souls who bought the Ninja Gaiden 3 Collector's Edition were granted access to an early build of Dead or Alive 5. people who just bought regular-ass Ninja Gaiden 3 could get the DOA5 demo too, when they picked up first-print copies of the game. although it was only limited to two exclusive characters on PS3 and 360 each, where somebody that bought the NG3CE got the "premium" demo that had all four playable characters on one console. that's what i managed to get my hands on, as i was one of the fools who bought the NG3CE.

seriously. fuck that game.

What's new?

well, right off the bat, Dead or Alive 5 features a new visual style. out with the plastic-skin anime doll characters and in with the more realistic looking characters. to go along with these fancy new character models, they've added some more detail to the fighters that show up as the fight goes on. this includes stuff like dirt on the skin and clothes, and sweat that not only makes the characters have sweat beads sliding down their faces, but it effects the clothing too. for example, Hitomi's tank-top costume becomes see-through by the end of a match, so all of the excited players can oggle at her bra. weird.

as far as gamepplay is concerned, there are some fancy new mechanics this time around. the stages (or one stage, in this case) now have a lot more interactivity and play a much bigger role during a fight than they ever did before. DOA5 introduces the "Cliffhanger" moment, where when knocked into the right object, you can send your opponent flying and hanging on for their dear life on the edge of a surface where a large fall below awaits. here, the attacking player can either choose to strike or grab their opponent while running towards them. the defending player have the same option. if the defending player selects the same option as the attacking player, then the Cliffhanger attack is blocked and both fighters reach the bottom surface with no damage taken. if the defending player didn't properly predict the attack, then well.. something like this happens:

this new Cliffhanger moment is complimented by a new move called the Power Blow. it's a move that every character has, and when hit, brings the game into slow motion, giving the attacking player the option to send their opponent rocketing towards a part of the stage, whether it's a Danger Zone or just a wall. doing a Power Blow at a specific section of a stage can trigger special Danger Zones available only once per match. for example, in Scramble (the alpha build stage), doing a Power Blow on the destroyed street can give you the chance to send your opponent flying into a car in mid-air to deal extra damage.

there are some other little changes here and there. some characters have gotten new moves, and now each character has a special counter hold that deals extra damage, but is more difficult to pull off. it's similar to how Lei Fang's advanced counter holds work in a sense. the alpha build also uses the three-point counter system, which was changed to the four-point counter system in the final build.

Causing car accidents is pretty fun

Dead or Alive 5's alpha demo is a great deal of fun. we've got Ayane, Ryu, Hayate and Hitomi as playable characters. the moveset feels pretty similar to Dead or Alive 4 for each character, with some welcome additions from Dimensions as well as brand new moves. that's not a bad thing, because this game was easy to pick up in an instant. it manages to keep Dead or Alive 4's great feeling combos, smooth flowing moves and even manages to pack an even harder punch thanks to the new sound design on the strikes that make everything feel a lot more satisfying to pull off. however, what makes the combos a lot of fun to pull off is the added air time to juggles. it certainly seems like this time around, the characters stay in the air longer during juggles and combos which really gives players the chance to pull off some really cool looking, really fun-to-pull-off combos.

the power blow and cliffhanger moments are pretty cool. i played the alpha demo for about.. 30-ish hours i'd say so i've gotten totally sick of the Scramble stage. at the point i'm at right now, i just turn Danger Zones off so i can play around with the fighting system a lot more, which wouldn't surprise me if it was something i ended up doing in the retail version of the game.

the new visual style is a nice welcome addition to DOA5. it makes the game feel like that its DOA's first true fray into the current generation consoles, graduating from the anime style to the less-anime-style models and graphics. well, the characters still act anime (and kind of awkward, in Hitomi's case with her "Ah, wow~!! I Won!! ^___^;; " attitude) but.. um.. at least they don't look like it. the game runs nice at a smooth 60 FPS, although the graphics up close are really weird lookin during gameplay. ah well, it's a game in its alpha stages, so it's not perfect! the boobs are still gross, though. it seems like they went from weird gravitation pull boobs to water-balloon boobs this time around which is.. well, it's certainly a lot more disturbing.

the music seems.. forgettable, this time around. the menu music is pretty alright, but the in-game music is a total bore. maybe it's from hearing it too much, but hearing it makes me sad that you can't take music off in the options menu. for some reason, it just really makes me want to sleep. the male announcer is pretty bad, too. i kind of have a thing for Monica from DOA2U and DOA4, and even the original DOA announcer was pretty alright bit this dude is just boring beyond belief. get this guy out of here, with his dumb voice filter.

the demo also features a horrible lack of options. you can't turn the music off, or play around with the audio settings at all, really. there's also no training mode which is well.. totally to be expected from a demo but for a "premium" demo, i would have expected the game to make it a little easier to play around with the new stuff than making player 2 an opponent that doesn't move. although the AI is pretty terrible:

there's not much else to cover in the demo, really. the DOA5 alpha demo is a lot of fun to play around with, but only for so long. i got tired of it pretty quickly because of how barebones it was in features, which is to expected because it's a demo but.. i guess i'm just a little upset that i got this little tease of content for 6ish months to suffer over. i think it would have made the wait a little easier if i didn't have this thing on my hard drive.

a side note: there have been a lot of changes to the game since the alpha build, so this isn't indicative of how the final game is.

That's all, folks

a pretty quiet, and frankly, unexciting end to my countdown to DOA5 blog series. i was going to write up some sort of preview about Dead or Alive 5, but you know what, the people on this forum who are going to buy it, i bet are already sold on it. plus, college is fucking exhausting. i'm falling asleep as i type this, so i apologize if this wasn't the most exciting entry in the entire world. my juices aren't flowin as well as they usually are.

so, that's about it. this is probably the most amount of blogs i've put out in a short amount of time. in fact, it's probably the most blogs i've put out in the past two years. i'd like to thank everybody who read the entire way through. it's been fun. i'm actually not sure if these blogs were good reads or not, and while i appreciate any criticism, i'm just glad that a nice amount of my thoughts on the Dead or Alive games are finally out there.. although i still have a lot to get off my back.

Dead or Alive 5 is shaping up to be an excellent looking game, and i'm super excited to nab it tomorrow. expect a review? probably not. expect a blog? probably not that either. i'll probably lay off tossing my opinions out there and just sit back and hopefully enjoy Dead or Alive 5 while i can. hopefully i'll get to play with a few of you.

thanks for reading. i'm gonna go sleep now.

~Ajay

I never got the demo because I only had the regular edition of NG3. So I have nothing to add about that. I love the new art direction, I much prefer it to the old look, all the characters look a nice deal better now.

It is kinda surreal that i'll be playing DOA5 tomorrow. I'm stoked for it, it is looking great. We definitely need to get some matches in DOA5 before too long.

I'm pretty excited for tomorrow. Only bummer is I may have to stay at work late. It sucks being an adult sometimes.

Argh! they should've released that Demo ... they should now that the damage done by NG3 has cleared anyways yeah the game looks great and cannot wait to play it even if I have to wait a while for it I'm sure it will be worth it.

Pretty good retrospective Ajay, I certainly learned some stuff about DOA that made me appreciate the series even more.

got the game last week. best buy was selling it early. its pretty good.

in lieu of restating my excitement, i recommend you check out this baby

Good Blog series man. I actually genuinely was looking forward to each one every day. I too was one of the people who bought the NG3 CE (actually I bought the game twice...) so I have the demo as well was fun but I'll be glad to have the full thing in my hands. I'll see you on the other side man. Can't wait to see you online. =)

Man, I spent my extra money on Borderlands 2 and now I can't pick this game up right away.

I'm just happy that the water balloon boobs are a little toned down but still bouncing.

Awesome blog post. I picked up DOA5 on a whim and I'm having a great time with it. I didn't realize how much I missed the combat system. There is such a great dynamic to each match.