Welcome back to the Dead or Alive Love/Hate series! In this entry, we’ll be moving onto the next game in the series, Dead or Alive 2. As I said in the previous entry, the original Dead or Alive was fairly derivative: basically a Virtua Fighter wannabe with marketing that played up the pretty girls in its cast in an effort to stand out. Could Dead or Alive 2 step out of this shadow and make its mark on the fighting game scene? Read on to find out…

As before, I played a few different versions of this game to get an idea of the differences between them. Most of my time was spent playing the PS2 Hardcore version, but I also checked out the Dreamcast port and Xbox Ultimate version. The PS2 and Dreamcast versions are very similar, but Ultimate is more akin to a remake using the DOA3 engine than it is a port. It plays fairly similarly overall, but the graphics are improved and updated quite a bit (eg, Ryu Hayabusa’s default costume has been updated to reflect his look in the recently-released Ninja Gaiden), and the localization has basically rewritten every line of dialogue. You can’t really go wrong with any version of DOA2, but for my part, I tend to prefer experiencing the “original” vision of a game. In that regard, PS2’s Hardcore version is the most complete realization of that idea, but if you want the most polished version possible, then Ultimate is your best bet.

Love

• Core Mechanics – It didn’t take long, but Dead or Alive 2 goes from a rip-off of other fighters to establishing its own identity for the series with one simple addition: throws. With this, a rock-paper-scissors system is introduced, where strikes beat throws, throws beat holds, and holds beat strikes. This, combined with the high/mid/low strikes and hold counter system make playing Dead or Alive a fast-paced, strategic fighter where you can always turn things around with a good prediction, and in order to continue pressing your advantage, you need to mix up your attacks to avoid getting punished. It’s pretty simple to get to grips with and there are tons of combos you can choose to learn if you really want to master a character, but you can still do well just by being aware of the combat triangle.
• Graphics – It’s been said before, but the graphical leap from the PS1 era to the PS2 era was the biggest in gaming history. The visual difference between DOA1 and DOA2 is a great illustration of this. Character models have gone from blocky stick figures to full-on personalities, and stages have gone from flat squares to detailed, multi-level environments. This is particularly impressive because DOA2 was a launch title for PS2 and the graphics hold up fairly well even today. This is largely down to great art direction: the anime-style character design works well for the hardware and has a timeless quality to it which obscures most of the rough edges and lower-res textures.
  • Of course, if you want the highest-fidelity, Ultimate on Xbox is running on the engine from DOA3 and is by far the best-looking version of DOA2 as a result.
  • I also have to give some credit to attention to detail in this game. I happened to notice that, in one stage, I was standing above an air vent and the hot air exhaust was causing the fabric of the character’s clothes to blow upwards. The game moves fast enough that you could play this game for dozens of hours and never even notice, but it was really cool to see… even if it was probably put in as a way to dynamically upskirt the female characters. See, in any other game I wouldn’t even question the intention of this, but DOA has a reputation and it makes you side-eye things.
  • Oh, and somewhat-related to improved graphics: the boob physics are significantly improved. They still look a little goofy if you actively stare at them (something I would never do, I am only staring in the interest of science), but they’re leaps and bounds better than the original game and far less distracting too.
• Stage Hazards – Perhaps the flashiest innovation brought by Dead or Alive 2 is its cinematic, interactive stages. No more squares surrounded by bomb traps, Dead or Alive 2‘s stages each have their own personality. Many stages will have obstacles you can knock an opponent into for extra damage (often causing the object they collided with to become damaged and/or explode). The most impressive hazards though are the falls in certain stages: launch an enemy at the right spot and they’ll go flying off a ledge, over a railing, or through a pane of glass. This not only results in a sizeable chunk of bonus damage, but you jump down after them and then fight on an entirely different stage. Some stages have multiple levels, so your fight can end up telling its own little narrative as you move to each new area. This would become a staple of the franchise going forward and it’s still so cool seeing it here.
  • Also worth noting: there are 20 stages available in Hardcore! That’s just an insane amount of stage variety available!
• New Characters – DOA2 continues to expand the series’ cast with a couple hard-hitters. Most notable is Helena Douglas, who might be the most important character in the franchise. As the daughter and heir of Fame Douglas, the billionaire who established the Dead or Alive tournament, she takes over the company after his assassination and is the one who is involved in organizing all future tournaments. She also has her own motives established here, as her mother was killed in the crossfire when an assassin tried to kill Helena. I also just really like her fighting style: it’s full of grace and precision, which gives her a distinctive personality amongst the cast. Also key to the new additions is Ein, who we eventually come to realize is Kasumi and Ayane’s missing, amnesiac brother, Hayate.
  • Special shout-out to Ayane and Bass Armstrong. They were technically in the PS1 version of Dead or Alive, but they make their full-on debut to the cast here (for the record, we’re going to encounter this situation multiple times in this franchise; I might mention a character appearing in DLC or a re-release, but I consider their debut the point where they’re included in the base game). Ayane is one of the most compelling characters in the franchise. She is a ninja who is a pariah within the Mugen Tenshin clan due to being conceived from the rape of her mother. Despite being close as children, she has developed resentment for her half-sister, Kasumi, due to the unfair way that they are treated and you can sense this in the way that Ayane vengefully hunts her down for abandoning her clan. She has a stand-offish personality and a relentless focus on her mission, but you can tell that these stem from her desire for acceptance. Bass, on the other hand, is a great foil for Tina and provides lots of humour with his hard-ass, doting father act.
  • Unfortunately, this leaves the final new addition, Leon, in the dust… He’s got a compelling enough story, entering Dead or Alive because his lover’s dying words were that she believed that he was the strongest person in the world and he wanted to live up to her image of him. Unfortunately, he basically is just a roster-filler… he is extremely reminiscent of Bayman from the previous game, but with no real plot relevance to speak of.
• New Game Modes – Dead or Alive 2 brings in some new game modes, my favourites of which are tag battle and team battle. Tag battles are what they sound like: 2v2 matches where you can swap in and out with a button press. There are some strategic options opened up by this mode as well, including passive healing while tagged out and you can perform tag throws for extra damage. It’s great fun and probably my favourite way to play DOA2. Team battle is similar, allowing you to take a team of fighters and then engage in fights up to 5v5. These fights play out one fighter at a time, with the next in line swapping in when the previous is KO’d, but it’s an efficient way to get to try out several fighters in one go.

Hate

• Story – Look, I don’t have huge expectations for story in a fighting game. Hell, DOA1 has no in-game story presentation, or even endings (in the PS1 version at least), but I didn’t ding the game for that because it wasn’t really what that game was going for. DOA2, on the other hand, is aiming higher, and as a result it has farther to fall if it fails. Unfortunately, the story presented here is nearly incomprehensible. You get thrown into your first fight with zero setup to establish character motivation or what’s even happening. Then you move onto the next fight, rinse and repeat five or six times until the final boss. Now, between some matches, you may get a five second cutscene to establish some character motivation or to highlight that a particular match-up is important. If you play through every character’s story mode, then you might be able to piece together an extremely rough idea of what’s going on, but even that leaves a lot of gaps and misconceptions (particularly when Helena accuses Ayane of being the assassin who killed her mother… we’re given no confirmation if this is true, but there’s also no reason to question this, and it wouldn’t be confirmed to be false until years after the game’s release).
  • The worst part of all this though is the final boss, Tengu. Nothing about this guy makes sense. He’s a demon from Japanese folklore who is causing mischief and screwing around with Ein’s memories. But, considering that he’s the final boss for everyone, he might have something to do with the people running the tournament as well…? Fuck if I know. They’d later retcon that Dead or Alive 3‘s final boss was the one who summoned tengu into our world, but that’s clearly not what they intended at the time this game released, so what the hell was the idea when they made this game…?

I had a blast with Dead or Alive 2. I wasn’t really sure what to expect going in, but I ended up having way more fun with it than I was expecting and walked away thoroughly impressed. As someone who is not particularly adept at fighting games, it scratched that itch I used to get playing Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny for hours on end. It’s on the shorter end of things (entire character story modes can easily be completed in ten minutes), but that just makes the game better for me – it’s easy to just pickup and play, especially now in an era where you can play PS2-era games from the comfort of a handheld emulator. If you have any interest in the franchise, I would heartily recommend checking this game out.