Dead or Alive Dimensions

Genre: 3D Fighting

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Local Wireless, Online), StreetPass Support

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Review:

Dead or Alive is a Fighting game series whose reputation has evolved somewhat over the years. When the first game in the series was released, it was best known by for its sleazy pandering – this was a franchise that made “jiggle physics” in the chests of its nubile female fighters its signature, which for many made it hard to take seriously. What’s more, while most Fighting games feature a throwaway story, Dead or Alive’s story was infamously incomprehensible. The short version is that it’s about the internal politics of a ninja clan, an international fighting tournament, and a massive megacorporation orchestrating events behind the scenes… but then you get into stuff dealing with Japanese demons, evil clones, and all sorts of other nonsensical craziness.

Yet, despite the silliness and the sleaziness, Dead or Alive has grown to be seen as a top-tier 3D Fighting Game franchise. This is largely for two reasons: Firstly, the gameplay is rock-solid, built on a foundation of an accessible yet deep paper-rock-scissors system (attack-counter-throw) and featuring a nicely varied roster of fighters. And secondly, the Dead or Alive franchise has consistently been a graphical showpiece, featuring absolutely gorgeous environments and highly-detailed well-animated 3D characters.

When the series made its way to Nintendo 3DS in 2011 in Dead or Alive Dimensions, it brought all of these qualities to the handheld. Yes, the boob physics are still here, as is the completely insane story (in fact, Dimensions’ story mode is basically a tour through the stories of the first four games in the franchise). However, so too are the top-notch gameplay and presentation.

Dead or Alive Dimensions looks absolutely gorgeous on the Nintendo 3DS, or at least as good as Nintendo’s handheld can allow for. You can definitely see a lot of slowdown in in-game cutscenes, as well as a lot of nasty aliasing, but when you’re actually in the midst of the gameplay, everything runs smoothly, environments are wonderfully detailed, and the characters are similarly fantastic, with some really great, subtle animation (and no, I’m not just talking about the ladies’ chests). While you can definitely see it straining within the limitations of the hardware, Dead or Alive Dimensions is absolutely a showpiece game for the Nintendo 3DS.

The gameplay has transitioned well here also, with a simple four-button setup (punch, kick, block/counter, throw) that still allows for a fair amount of variety and strategy in combat, and with players being able to use either the D-Pad or analog stick for movement. Players also have the option to select moves and combos to use automatically via the touchscreen, though I generally found in the midst of battle that it’s usually faster to stick with the traditional gamepad controls.

There’s plenty of content here too – the game features a pretty comprehensive roster of 25 characters from the first four games in the series, including boss characters (and with a few unlockable secrets as well), there’s the aforementioned story mode (which doubles as a pretty good tutorial), arcade mode, gauntlet, and both local and online multiplayer (completely abandoned by the time of this writing, unfortunately). There’s also plenty of extra content to unlock, including new outfits and still statuettes of the characters that… well, seem intended for use with the game’s pervy photo mode. Hey, if you don’t like it, you don’t have to use it.

Honestly, I’m a bit surprised that as of this writing in 2022, the Dead or Alive series has yet to grace the Nintendo Switch (save for its sister series, Ninja Gaiden, and its Japan-only spinoff title Dead or Alive Xtreme 3). Given how phenomenal developer Team Ninja was at bringing the franchise to the far less-powerful Nintendo 3DS, I’d love to see what they could accomplish on the newer hardware. However, until that happens, Nintendo fans still have a truly excellent handheld Fighting game in Dead or Alive Dimensions, and fans of the genre with a Nintendo 3DS should consider this a must-buy.

tl;dr – Dead or Alive Dimensions does a phenomenal job boiling down this Fighting game franchise’s great gameplay, wonderful visuals, and… yes, “jiggle physics”… onto Nintendo’s handheld. Cutscenes suffer from slowdown and nasty-looking aliasing, but otherwise this is a game that looks great, plays great, and should be considered an absolute must for Fighting game fans on the Nintendo 3DS.

Grade: A

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