One of the most obvious improvements is the ease of movement. In previous DOA titles movement around the 3D arenas could be a little bit hamfisted. This time around its been made a lot easier which makes sidestepping and dodging substantially easier. The other improvement that we noticed most was the more strategic use of the multi-levelled arenas. In DOA 2 the ability to knock your opponent off ledges and through windows was a nice novelty but never really featured as an important gameplay element. This time around it is extremely important and different levels can require extremely different tactics depending on the character you are controlling. After you've been playing the game for a while it's possible to develop some very sneaky tactics using the environment as a weapon.
The usual lineup of gameplay modes is on offer. Story, Time Attack, Tag, Versus, and Survival Mode are the important ones that you'll be using most. The story mode is more than likely what you'll hit first as you work through each character's motivations for punching the snot out of the others. As always it's rather confusing and bizarre stuff but the end movies can be rather entertaining. We would have to say though that DOA 3 features most the annoying and frustrating final boss of any game of this nature that we have ever encountered. What possessed Tecmo to do this we have no idea. We won't spoil the scene for those of you who want to view it with unprejudiced eyes but be prepared for an extremely random and frustrating encounter. Time Attack and Survival Mode are fairly self explanatory. They offer a reasonable amount of entertainment and a fair bit of play of these modes is required to unlock the more ... appealing costumes for the characters in the game.
A good portion of Xbox owners (including this reviewer) will want to own Dead or Alive 3 because to put it quite plainly it looks amazing. The animation is insanely fluid, the level of detail on the characters is incredible and the backgrounds (when you get the chance to look at them in depth) are gorgeous. It really is the posterchild title for next generation visuals. You won't find a fighting game anywhere that looks as good as DOA 3. To list every impressive visual effect in this review would be impossible, there is simply so much to see. Floors crack, boards break, glass shatters, leaves swirl in the forests and snow steams and collapses under the fighters feet. Screenshots and descriptions really can't do DOA 3 justice, much like that thing in that movie starring that guy from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure you have to see it for yourself.
The audio in DOA 3 is competent but not outstanding. Some people may appreciate the cod-rock soundtrack but for the most part it's fairly unimpressive. The character voices are thankfully in Japanese ... no cheesy american accent overdubs! In-game effects are very good, pummeling your opponents results in satisfying thumps and crashes. Sending your enemy through windows and boards also sounds great. In terms of overall presentation and polish DOA 3 lacks the professionalism of some of Sega and Namco's productions. The character design, in-game menus and end of game movie sequences just don't quite measure up to the quality that aforementioned companies manage to produce time after time. Of course these things don't matter when your completely engrossed in the best looking beat-em-up to hit the market in years but they do rate a mention. With time Tecmo's overall level of presentation should manage to reach that of the big boys especially if the big MS gets in behind them.
If you're a beat-em-up fan some aspects of DOA 3's gameplay are likely to annoy you, but if you're anything like the Gameplanet team you won't be able to resist the pulling power of DOA 3's fantastic visuals. Yes it's a bit shallow, yes it can be frustrating but damn it ... it's a hell of a lot of fun to play and watch. We've scored it fairly hard as the frustrating elements of the gameplay do pull it back a little but if you're looking for a visually stunning arcade experience for your brand new Xbox then DOA 3 is what you need. There. We did it. A DOA review which didn't mention anything about girls and jiggling ... doh.
