Free Step Dodge

Hishashi Koinuma has many roles at Koei Tecmo, but it's uncommon that he hints at anything or speaks to the public through big interviews, though the recent success at Koei Tecmo has caused him to acknowledge it; one of the best ways being extra compensation to salary-based workers in the various group companies that are located in Japan. While these raises have not yet been applied to the smaller companies in America or Europe, this is the 8th consecutive year there has been a raise within the realm of Koei Tecmo; which is very impressive and improves the quality of life for the developers crafting our games. Koei Tecmo has also announced a wage increase to workers just starting out with Koei Tecmo.

The lengthy Famitsu interview delved into sales and growth at Koei Tecmo games. Koinuma was quick to note the success of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty (which is going to be seeing its first DLC at the end of June) & Wild Hearts as the key elements to their success, but he was...

KGP 2023 hosted the largest Dead or Alive tournament of the year in terms of numbers with 64 players showing up to participate. The Three-Part YESU Cup was won by Flack who has been a prominent & dedicated fighter in the Japanese offline scene for years with a disturbingly deadly Bass at his disposal. Bass Armstrong has been the winner of many Dead or Alive 6 events since the release of the game, and it's getting harder and harder to hear out the people that say "he's such a mid-character." Bass is dominating matches regularly and confusing his opponents whilst baiting them to hold. You don't need a 9-frame jab to win at DOA more than an overall understanding of the rules and the ability to play solid mind games.


For players that have been demanding more DOA action or questioning if it's still around, the Japanese players have been carrying Dead or Alive 6 on their backs in terms of offline...

Following up with our previous Koei Tecmo business write-up allows us to look beyond opening Japan physical sales and Steam performance from the official database now that we have some current figures from KT themselves. Things are looking up for the company in many ways, but there have been some financial upsets to go along with their latest business report. This write-up also touches base with the latest game release dates for upcoming titles as well as updates to their current games for the 2023 year.

Team NINJA announced that Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty has shipped more than 1,000,000 copies across all platforms with 3,800,000 players in total for Wo Long. That ratio should give you a solid idea of how important of a role Game Pass for Windows & XBOX played with the success of the new game.

Comparing it to another big recent title within the company Nioh 2 was able to exceed over 2,000,000 units...

Koei Tecmo is made up of six fairly small, but talented divisions (Gust, Kou Shibusawa, Midas, Omega Force, Ruby Party, Team NINJA) and of the six Team NINJA appears to be taking firm control of the company's overall financial forecast going through 2023 pertaining to game sales revenue and overall player count. This business article aims to observe recent Koei Tecmo financials, the future, and should also decipher why Koei Tecmo's game sales have fallen in some areas specifically within different teams and have broken records in other areas; especially with their Golden Goose studio: Team NINJA.


Recent sales may signal to some that Team NINJA should expand as a company, but also plays with the idea that more Team NINJA properties should be crossing over into other Koei Tecmo divisions and products. The Marie Rose costume in the latest Fatal Frame release was a solid idea...

Koei Tecmo usually (but not always) conducts surveys after releasing games that they had serious expectations for and in this year's case two surveys are available for both PROJECT ZERO: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse & Wo Long: Final Dynasty. They are both great titles available from Koei Tecmo and they are asking for honest feedback while giving you an opportunity to discuss or essentially vote for your favorite titles within the Koei Tecmo family of games.

For instance, take a look at the Atelier Ryza 3 survey, PROJECT ZERO's survey & Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty's survey and check out the following:

3-1. Please check if you have played any of the following Koei Tecmo...​

Thanks to tournament organizers around the world the expansion of side tournaments at huge blockbuster events have normalized to a point where the only reason that some of these games aren't main games is due to the fact that there are so many games with thriving communities that want to compete at a showcase level. Not because a game is hated or unwanted at events. Dead or Alive 6 is one of these games, and the DOA6 side tournament is at full capacity this week (64/64 players) with a waiting list of dedicated players.


The Yamagata Esports Union (YouTube channel posted above) will be streaming this loaded single-elimination tournament Friday at 6PM PT depending on your Time Zone. The organizers have done a wonderful job at promoting the event and this experience should be an eye opener to a few players that believe DOA6 is finished. This...

Loot was considered a huge deal in Nioh, and while Yasuda has gone on record to say that there isn't as much loot in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, there is still actually quite a bit of it to collect between armor sets, a plethora of different weapon types and accessories.

There are five types of equipment rarities including:

✮ - Common
✮✮ - Rare
✮✮✮ - Epic
✮✮✮✮ - Legendary
✮✮✮✮✮ - Mythic

The two rarities you want to focus your time on will be Legendary & Mythics with the other rarities being salvaged and sold at the Blacksmith. The drop rate of Legendary & Mythic are not that high and if you are looking for every piece of high-spec equipment; it can take a good while to get a complete Legendary collection of...

Big E Gaming's Winter Brawl: 3D 2023 started at 12pm EST at the Double Tree Hotel located at Cherry Hill, NJ. This tournament is a small, comfortable and intimate environment for 3D fighting games of all types, including three different Dead or Alive games. The first title to be showcased at Bifuteki's Twitch stream is Dead or Alive 6, and you can observe the complete bracket for all three featured games at Big E Gaming's Start.GG for Winter Brawl: 3D 2023.


One of the star performers at this show was Scarlet Hurricane & Tina. While they may have lost to Jager in the opening fight, the movement, speed, reaction and timing has been nearly impeccable. Hurricane made a great tournament comeback after his loss to Jager by defeating Kambo with flash...

Winter Brawl 3D is less than two weeks away, and now is the time to plan your trip to Cherry Hill, New Jersey for a chance to compete in a tournament that is hosting three Dead or Alive main games on its roster. Big E Gaming has gone all out for DOA, and we appreciate just how much Big E has done for this franchise. If Dead or Alive 6 is not your favorite title you also have Dead or Alive 5: Last Round & Dead or Alive 3++ to choose from which has never been done before in our community history!

This is an intimate event with a COVID Policy attached, giving us a player capacity of 250 fighters. Big E isn't looking to create record numbers for this event, but he is honoring the offline scene and he is remembering DOA in the process. If you want to fight and showcase your skills, please consider registering today at Big E's organized and well-structured Start.GG. Some members from...

Lu Bu is one of those bosses that is extremely satisfying to fight but can also completely destroy you in one or two moves if you make a mistake with your deflects. Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is not just about perfecting those deflects, but it's also about Wizardry and magic, which can you help you considerably in this fight. Some critics have stated that Wizardry does not serve a purpose in Wo Long, but that is far from the truth, and listening to that advice will likely not help you progress through the game.

The best tip that can be given to anybody struggling with Lu Bu is use the Frost Lance Water Phase Spell. This spell can be casted quickly and it will diffuse Lu Bu's fire when he uses the Flame Weapon Fire Phase Spell. Things can escalate really quickly if you allow Lu Bu to use his Fire Spells because the damage increase and spread is ridiculous.

You fight Lu Bu in Part 4 Episode 1, and I did not know I would be fighting him as the boss after playing arguably...

There is a new second update to Dead or Alive 6 ++ by @Rev_an and it's available now for PC players! Check out the Patch Notes for all of the serious gameplay changes, character tweaks and other various adjustments. If you like what you see download 6++ Beta Update 2 and get ready for action! Rev has some additional comments that he left in the forum as a type of summarization for this update:

There's an updated dll and config file this time, so make sure you replace those as well as the character data. This also breaks the base mod's compatibility with Vanilla 6 since we're using one of the [gameplay] section's toggles; so make a backup of and remove d3d11.dll if you need to turn the mod off. It will no longer be sufficient to empty out the replacements folder.

Update 2 is trying out a big...

Click to expand...

Team NINJA's Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty has not only received strong review scores, but it's also breaking company records despite being a Day 1 Game Pass title. If you're interested in seeing what the excitement is about, we implore you test out Wo Long for yourself on Day 1 Game Pass. If you've never signed up for Game Pass before, it's only one dollar to start, and the quality here completely dominates the old build of the Final Demo.

While Nioh 1 & 2 are extremely successful and fun games, the general audience of gamers appeared to find more appeal in Wo Long as its all-time peak currently sits at 75,373. This number is nearly double Nioh 2's 41,273 all-time peak. That being said, Wo Long has created interest for Nioh 2 among players with a 17% increase since Wo Long's release.


Since Fumihiko Yasuda has taken over as president of Team NINJA Studios; the company has been...

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty reviews have started coming in strongly for: PC Steam, Playstation 5 and XBOX Series X. Steam currently leads the review race at 82, Playstation 5 and XBOX are very close to that with an average of 81. The game was predicted to score about the same as Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy or Dead or Alive 6 with both titles having an average rating of 72 at launch which means that Wo Long is currently performing better than both titles by almost 10%.

Wo Long is slightly lower than Nioh 2 in ratings, but not by much. Nioh 2 averaged a Metacritic score of 85 percent between its various editions. Team NINJA provided me with a review & content creation copy of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Digital Deluxe on PC and XBOX and we will give unbiased context and review of the game. From what I have played the...

After five years of no appearances and skipped opportunities the official Yesu Twitter account has confirmed that Dead or Alive 6 will be a side tournament at EVO Japan 2023 alongside Skullgirls: 2nd Encore. This tournament is happening because EVO Japan allows for people to officiate and register games to their side tournament roster. Yesu is a subbranch of Jesu who will be officiating and managing the tournament as the organizer.


EVO Japan will help majorly as a platform to showcase our community talent, but EVO Japan does not manage these side tournaments. FSD will reach out to the organizer to see how bringing DOA6 to this big-name event came about. EVO Japan begins March 31st and runs through the second of April. Please stay tuned for future updates pertaining to this EVO Japan side event including entrants, brackets and game stream schedule...

Today Team NINJA has announced a new Venus to the Dead or Alive Xtreme: Venus Vacation brand. Considering that we've had ZERO news or references from Team NINJA pertaining to Dead or Alive since November at the G-STAR Keynote; this is fairly big news for fans of Team NINJA products. Team NINJA's new character is named Yukino, and she seems to be interested in photography. Like all new Venus characters, she starts off at a premium price until going F2P at a later date.


Considering that this is one of Koei Tecmo's biggest drawing streams of all time they also decided to show off the Marie Rose costume DLC for the next Fatal Frame game. Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse releases March 9th, 2022. A few weeks past Wild Hearts and only six days ahead of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. Koei Tecmo is going all out before the next wave of big titles.

Hoodless organized the Dead or Alive 6 side tournament at Frosty Faustings XV showing us once more why he is the DOA6 World Champion by also competing and winning the tournament. Dragon Ninja's Ryu Hayabusa was on point, and he had defeated his opponents convincingly until he once again had to confront his strongest opponents: Rig and Hoodless.

We have all seen that Hoodless has definitely been on a streak lately with Killy being the only thorn in his side. Everyone has a reason to fight, and it's clear to the viewers and it's clear to the offline scene that his reason to fight is to continuously prove himself and show the best gameplay using the most complex characters. He's a true master of stance changes and timing putting his mastery level on display against one of the strongest Hayabusa players that actively plays.

Dragon Ninja was watching Flame Falco and Memphis Legends patiently and probably intensely as this match was hyped by the spectators and for good reason...

By now most people know that Dead or Alive has been exploited by a plethora of sniveling con artists out there in the adult entertainment world, and Koei Tecmo has seemingly double downed on getting the police and courts involved with this outrageous idea that people think they can do whatever they want with characters they don't own. Koei Tecmo has "cracked down" on advertisers of adult entertainment using their characters to sell sex and now it's in the form of a body pillow that is in custody.

If we are going to do some pillow-talk here I personally feel no remorse for the individual(s) arrested for this case. Stop using DOA unethically and unauthorized as your hobby horse to get money and get a real job or career like everyone else! If you don't want to work at Koei Tecmo, use your skills with the franchises they create for proper content creations that are within the means...

Sometimes the title says it all, but it's hard not to mention someone classified as a worldwide celebrity that thinks your game is awesome, and this is the case for Joe Rogan and Dead or Alive. Now I'm sure his daughter doesn't play competitively, but she does beat up her dad with Marie Rose! Joe Rogan went as far as to say that Marie Rose is "hot as fuck." The good news for Rogan here is that Marie Rose is eighteen years old, but the bad news for him is they are a bit far off in age. 37 years a part to be more precise.


Ivana of the DOA community posted the Tweet this morning confriming the statement from the Joe Rogan Podcast, and I personally couldn't help but chuckle at his description of the moves and character. I'm sure playing the game with his daughter is a memory he enjoys, and I found it touching myself. His daughter could have chosen a more popular fighting game like Tekken or Street...

Dead or Alive has shown some sparks of life lately, and it will be making a comeback to the offline scene to kick off a promising 2023. Outside of our regular Hoodless Weekly in North America and MIKADO Channel 4 Tournaments in Japan we haven't seen a lot of activity for our mainstay fighting series, but this looks to change next month with two huge offline tournaments for Dead or Alive 6 and appearances from classics such as Dead or Alive 2: Ultimate and Dead or Alive 3 ++ to keep you thoroughly entertained.

The biggest reveal is from Big E Gaming who announced the return of Dead or Alive 6 at Winter Brawl. Dead or Alive 6 is being featured at Winter Brawl as a main game (at this point in time) and the tournament will take place at Double Tree hotel in Cherry Hill, NJ March 18th. We will announce further details as they come to us including Registration Link, Event Time & Tournament Pools. Another big announcement is that Dead or Alive...

Happy Holidays! Over the past year Dead or Alive 6: Arcade has been making a comeback in Japan not only with the number of people playing, but also increased viewership and interest due to efforts of the Japanese DOA community & Mikado Channel 4 Arcade. They hosted a fun and free tournament for Intermediate and Beginners and their regular monthly tournament. Mr. Kurogane is the regular Kula Diamond player, and his professionally organized tournaments are streamed on a separate Mikado Channel.


The Mikado Game Center promotes Dead or Alive 6: Arcade on a weekly basis streaming the players that come by to show off their skills and with monthly events. They stream on YouTube and save the VODs for your viewing pleasure. We are in the process of getting names of the players that show up regularly so we...