Free Step Dodge

If you enjoy studying/entertaining yourself with competitive Dead or Alive 5U matches, it is highly recommended you check out the FT3 matches available in FSD's Media Section.


Member, Sly Bass came up with the idea, and says this is a way to highlight other player's abilities within the community, and I believe he has made a nice series that doesn't stretch for too long (like a FT10), but provides a great 8-12 minutes of awesome matches.


If you think you stand a chance against his famed Akira Yuki, perhaps you should consider sending a challenge his way. You can challenge him, or watch the whole series by perusing his thread. If you're interested in giving this man a challenge, remember that all matches will be uploaded no matter how bad or good you did. FSD will see the...

So not only do we have a couple batches of Team NINJA's Official Tournament videos, but we have Top 8 from Final Round XVII as well uploaded to our tournament page after weeks of waiting. You can finally view top 8 if Twitch lags too much for you. Here are some samples of the action:

Recently, a few community members have expressed interest in a European tournament called RoF 3. Hoodless is one of those guys:

"Hi, everybody! I am Hoodless aka Mark Macklin. It has always been a dream to attend a tournament overseas and compete with the best players in Europe. Meeting the french scene and learning from them will be a great experience. It will probably be the only chance for me to go to Paris, and to enjoy the fighter I like to play. I'll be grateful with anything that you donate. The Tournament is: Republic of Fighters 3, May 16-18."


Hoodless surprised us all at TFC with his incredible Rig. He managed to defeat Emann in a set, and he continued to deliver clutch matches the entire time he played. Because of his determination, knowledge and skill set, the community should consider helping him out with his aspirations.

http://www.gofundme.com/7pxkww

Let's get more players...

UPDATE: See the embedded image below for Team NINJA's response to hanging issues and a community-provided workaround as an alternative to the original export option.

Community, the English patch notes for version 1.05 have been released. Follow the link below for the full list, but I've included an important note regarding the patch from Team NINJA as well as the general system changes.

"This version contains mostly bug fixes and minor balance changes, without any general overarching goal. Based on comments from players, we took a look at the play style of each character and adjusted specific points which we felt were too strong or weak."

• Data added for new character Marie Rose. (Playable after an unlock key is purchased)

• New stage Lorelei added.

• 19 titles added for Marie Rose.

• 3 victory movies and 1 defeat movie added for Marie Rose.

• "Bloody Nocturne" and "Blood Tie ～DOA5 Ultimate mix～"...

As many of you are no doubt aware, the 1.05 patch, Marie Rose, her costumes, and the compatibility pack are available on PSN. Some of you may also have seen Marie Rose up on Xbox Live. You can purchase her individually now on both platforms for $5.99 USD (or her and her costumes for $12.99) however she is not yet playable on Xbox 360. The 1.05 patch is not slated to roll out until tomorrow on the platform and, until that time, Marie Rose will be unavailable on the character select screen. If you do choose to purchase her you are effectively preloading and nothing more.

Additionally, if you choose to purchase any of her costumes on either platform, remember to download the new compatibility pack. Without this download, you cannot see any of her costumes even if purchased.

Happy lab time, FSD!

Thanks to Brute for the reminder on the bundle pricing.

For those of you needing to wait for your Marie Rose fix (Xbox players and busy people), head over to Gill Hustle's stream to watch some gameplay right now!

Those of you with a PS3 and an internet connection can now manually search for Marie Rose on the PSN under Add-ons.

http://www.twitch.tv/ugslive

The American Dead or Alive community has raised the $300 necessary to bring our player, Sweet Revenge to another country for the biggest European DOA event of the year... RoF III (May 17th & 18th). Congratulations, Sweet Revenge. We will surely be chanting USA during the course of the tournament.

Team Ninja has CONFIRMED on their Twitter that more characters are definitely in the works. A big portion of the community has recommended that Team NINJA should add Tengu, and perhaps he is in the works thanks to all the Project Revival studs out there.

[medio]2514[/medio]

However, Tengu is still not confirmed so we can expect a handful of different characters such as: Yaiba, Raidou, Genra, Miss Monday (please no) or Irene. Who are you representing?

From European Tournament Organizer, @K4arma

You may have already saw it, @SweetRevenge plans to come to France to attend the Republic of Fighters tournament (May 17 & 18). I do believe that it’s a great opportunity for the worldwide DoA community to finally meet and fight. That would be the ultimate US vs Europe offline clash. I think everyone can expect that kind of confrontation and knowledge to share.

In order to make it easier for him to come, we’re implementing a donation campaign to fund part of his trip. The French community responded very well to our call. We have already gathered a lot of money, and are now only short of 300 USD.

So we decided to appeal to US players’ generosity and ask them a bit of support on this. Sweet Revenge has created a Gofundme page in order to reach his goal: http://www.gofundme.com/sweetrevengetoparis


This...

Sweet Revenge has done it again with his fourth consecutive tournament win, using his main Genfu. We also got to see some tournament regulars compete in some great matches. Right now they are only viewable on Twitch, but will most likely be available on Youtube in the coming days:

http://www.twitch.tv/funkyp/b/511027261 (DOA starts like 3 hours in)

Top 8:
1.SweetRevenge
2.MC Kwiggles
3.Sonic Fox
4.AFD Requiem
5.Chosen1
5.Awesmic
7.Allan Paris
7.Gruff



Congrats again, Matt. What was your favorite tournament moment of Final Round XVII or surprise?

If you've checked up on the tournament section recently you will have noticed there are quite a few events coming up within the next couple months such as Final Round XVII in Georgia, Texas Bar Fights XIV in Texas (duh), and Top of the Food Chain 7 in Virginia. For the west coast residents, there are two fighting game events, DOA included, taking place in Northern California. 1 local tournament and 1 major tournament.

The first upcoming event is BEST of the Battle V on March 22nd in San Jose, California. The second event is NorCal Regionals 2014 starting on April 18th in Sacramento, California. If you live in Cali be sure...

Another batch of Team NINJA's "Official Tournament" videos have recently been posted, and these three matches are pretty awesome.

First we have America vs. Europe with Matt Ponton and Emperor Cow getting into it with their mains. Matt did a great job handling Leifang's offense and won the match convincingly.


The next match features a Helena player and a Kasumi player. This matchup has always been a good one in my book, and both players are being as offense and as defensive as they possibly can. I don't see a lot of dropped combos from Japanese players, but I also don't see a lot of long and flashy combos (which can sometimes lose players matches anyway).


And quite possibly my favorite match... two heavies; Bayman and Leon going at it in a really intense match. Lots of great low throw punishing, and a great comeback. I enjoyed this match a lot and appreciated the overall diversity to this week's batch of videos.

Don't forget Final Round XVII. Last years Final Round was unforgettable with a huge turn-out for Dead or Alive, and clutch matches. Let's do it again this year with our new installment.

Pool 1:
loki jih
milechaser
CXThomas
nerdyafro
FNEX Rip
genocide_cutter
SweetRevenge
Gruff

Pool 2:
AK|MP XEN0M0RPH
Awesmic
Fred Campbell
LOLcheeseORZ
Vrolly
Jiraiya-Sama2390
Shade Swifteye

Pool 3:
Blue Link
AFD Requiem
drdonutman
Phibrizzo
crepuscule2012
R4712-VR88
Rg Sonic Fox

Pool 4:
M C Kwiggle
Yoyo
Cpt Toushiro
Bob Poundmax
Akuma SODMG
J.D.E.
Dallaz

Mark your calendars:

March 14-16, 2014
Hilton Atlanta Airport
1031 Virginia Avenue, Atlanta, GA 30354
Tel: (404) 767-9000 (double bed for $93 until rooms runs out)
Register
Dead or Alive 5: Ultimate - $10

Prove yourself to the best:...

Recently we have been contacted by a European Tournament Organizer by the name of @K4rma who has a message to other European players and this site pertaining to an upcoming event:

"I’m Maxime «Karma » Besenval, a french DoA player and tournament organizer. First of all, even if I’m a silent reader of Free Step Dodge, I’d like to say thanks for creating the website as it’s a real great community tool for all DoA players; even the French ones.

Since the release of the DoA5, we implemented 8 offline tournaments of the game (RoF# 1 & 2, Stun Academy, 36th Chamber of DoA # 1, 2 & 3, Winter Session and StunFest). We always reached at least 32 subscriptions. As a consequence, a lot of players from other countries (Northern Europe, Belgium, Italy…) showed-up at each of our tournaments. In particular, The Republic of Fighters (RoF) is a Paris-based tournament with 8 fighting games. As a prestigious meeting place for the world’s best players the RoF quickly established...

After all of the intense matches from SCR this weekend, it's only fitting that we are followed up with huge news pertaining to our game and community. Marie Rose is coming to consoles 3/25 on Playstation 3 and the 26th on Xbox 360. A 1.05 update is also planned, but little details are available for that.


Update 3/04: Marie Rose will be paid DLC. Her retail price is 5.99 USD. It should also be mentioned that the title update will be coupled with Lorelei.

Kasumi Alpha "Phase 4" is also planned to be released and she is only currently planned for arcades.

The following images provided by Team NINJA. Be sure to thank them (Twitter/Facebook) for their support!

The amazing Eric "Big E" Small has upped the stakes for Dead or Alive players this year. A chance at the 500 dollar prize pot bonus from Big E himself will require no entry fee. Free. This is a nice opportunity for all Dead or Alive players to dip into the waters and give tournament play a try for those that haven't already.

I asked Big E why he was giving us such a nice break:

"I'm just trying to kick start the DOA community again and show them some love. BigE Gaming cares about the DOA community."

A prize payout equivalent to a 50 man turnout... free. Check out Big E's Summer Jam page for more information and updates!

Summer Jam for me is one of the most essential tournaments for Dead or Alive. Summer Jam 6 perked my interest to competitive gaming, and really hyped DOA5 up for me a month before it came out. Now I'm doing lab work and improving daily. Here are some great Summer Jam moments to refresh...

Firstly, congrats to Kwiggle for pulling off his best performance to date at Winter Brawl 8, defeating his brother from Loser's Bracket, and Requiem... a hungry performer bent on serving intense sets.


Second, the Top 8 videos have been uploaded to Bifuteki's Youtube. The reason they weren't available from day 1 was not because of subscriptions, but because their videos are often stolen on day 1. Expect this to happen regularly now. If you're interested in watching an event, I recommend trying to watch it live.

All Top 8 videos are also available for your viewing pleasure in our media page which is growing rapidly each day.

Lastly, I would also like to give a nice shout out to community member @Sly Bass for his brilliant showing of Akira at Winter Brawl 8. You can watch his new series in our media section which is titled...

This is the second batch of uploads from the Japanese "Official Tournament" courtesy of Team NINJA. These are the regional qualifiers with only three rounds to advance. The players play defensively not just because of their style, but because they are not given a chance to condition or "download" their opponent.

You see a lot of character diversity (Tina, Kokoro, Zack) from these videos coupled with the older batch; so enjoy!




The third batch (and perhaps the final) will be uploaded by Team Ninja soon.

Team NINJA is uploading tournament videos to our site Youtube channel. These videos are from Team NINJA's Official Tournament. The Japanese players who are already known for their defensive style are even more so here because of the set rules being one match to qualify. Each of these matches were the three qualifying finals in their respective regionals.

Three videos are up now, but more are planned to follow courtesy of Team NINJA, and this one is the latest:

Yes, a new character is coming to Dead or Alive next month, and as reported by Team Ninja and community member, Air Gear she will be the character at the end credits of Ultimate. If you didn't bother to play story-mode take a look at this teaser to catch up.

A few weeks ago, three-peat tournament champion, Sweet Revenge talked about his amazing year at tournaments. His ability to adapt and overcome clearly showed in full force... especially since the release of Dead or Alive 5: Ultimate. Now SR recaps the past, gives us some do's and don'ts to traveling and offers some tips for players striving to improve their game.

DOAN: First, where does that name Sweet Revenge come from? It seems that just recently revenge has been yours.

SR: It comes from a System of a Down song, and I've had the name before DOA. But I did beat Bladez, and Master after going to the lab with Genfu. I was never a technical player until DOA5. I love going to the lab, I find Genu tech every day.

DOAN: When you started playing DOA, did you start playing as a fan or someone with the interest of competitive play?...