I'm a generally critical guy, and I've been characteristically critical of a few aspects concerning DOA6 since its announcement back in June. I am fully aware of the fact that DOA6 is still in "early development" and that technically everything is subject to change. As such, all of my opinions are only tentative towards the game as a whole, and my sentiments are strictly with regards to what has been shown. Perhaps all of my concerns are misplaced and time will reveal how foolish it was for me to be the regular skeptic that I always am. However, it was suggested to me that I properly articulate my current take on the game, so I wanted to take this opportunity to do just that. I realize that much of what I'm about to cover has been addressed in some capacity in various other threads, but I'm creating this one in an effort to weed out some of the repetitious strawmen that have inevitably followed those discussions.
Before I begin, a disclaimer: These are my opinions. I use facts in an effort to explain my reasoning for why I hold those opinions, but at the end of the day, someone will always disagree. I could say that I don't think it's good for the game to include Mario as a guest character, and someone else could always say that I'm wrong for thinking that. You're allowed to disagree with me. I won't hold it against you. However, if you simply tell me to "wait until the game comes out" to make any final judgments, you are an idiot. Obviously, I already know that. My sentiments, once again, are with respect to what we have currently seen thus far and what I would have liked to see at this stage in time. That's all.
Note that if you're new to the series, I recommend ignoring this post entirely, as it's really discussing subjects relative to its predecessor and how the series could potentially evolve. At its core, DOA is still DOA, and I'm fairly confident that DOA6 will be one of the best 3D fighters out there.
GENERAL VISUALS
The graphics are notably improved from DOA5, and are up to current gen standards (unlike some other 3D fighters). Texture resolution, poly count, lighting and even to an extent, physics, have all seen a jump in quality that is appreciated. Graphics aside, the art direction, however, is quite underwhelming. I'm aware that a lot of people are upset at what they perceive to be toned-down sexualization, but regardless what your feelings are on that topic, the new outfit designs don't hold up well on their own merit.
Kasumi has donned her iconic outfit for roughly two decades now, but for some reason they ditched that in the debut material for a generic, boring tightsuit. There are two possibilities here. The first possibility is that Team Ninja felt that her old costume was too provocative, and didn't want people focusing on that element instead of the game's other features, such as gameplay. Obviously, virtually every other fighter has outfits far more revealing than Kasumi's classic outfit, but we do have to keep in mind that there's a perceived stigma surrounding the series whereby certain audiences hold it to different standards. However, she was debuted along with multiple other characters, and I don't believe that anyone would have written the game off for debuting Kasumi in a classic costume. Furthermore, if they didn't want something that could be seen as sexual, it's mind-boggling that they would have chosen a skintight bodysuit. The second possibility is that Team Ninja thought that this new outfit was much better than her iconic one, and that this bodysuit will be more memorable and well-received for the game's flagship protagonist. This possibility necessitates that Team Ninja is blind. It doesn't express her character in any way and could easily be copy-pasted into virtually any other project without anyone taking notice. If they're going to replace such a signature visual of the series, at least replace it with something good. A generic bodysuit is doing no one any favors. I am aware that Team Ninja has said that Kasumi's classic outfit will be returning. But that doesn't change the fact that they chose this outfit to try and represent the game at its monumentally important debut, indicating the direction the game is taking aesthetically. What this suggests is that the visual direction for this game is more fixated on generic than memorable, and that can be seen in other areas than strictly Kasumi's costume.
I literally had to google Helena's outfit to even remember what it was in this game. Granted, I thought her default in DOA5 was terrible, but at least I could remember it in its various, terrible details. Her DOA6 outfit doesn't linger in my mind for more than ten seconds after it leaves my visual field. Hayate's new outfit is not quite as forgettable, but it also happens to be the worst of the bunch. The thing is just so damn ugly. Hitomi used to sport a denim get-up, and while it wasn't the most novel or groundbreaking design, it was at least memorable, and I always took it as an homage to Ein's C2 from DOA2. They did better with her hoodie in DOA5, despite it being her alternate costume (yes, DOA5's alternate cosumes in the alpha demo were better than the premiere outfits for DOA6). But for DOA6, TN opted for a generic gi, even choosing to omit her phoenix logo from the DOA3 rendition that made it slightly unique to her [edit: the phoenix is actually still present, but it's now an incredibly tiny, black spec against a white background, rather than the far more noticeable and distinct gold pattern atop a black background in DOA3, where it was also much bigger]. Now it's just a bland gi, the most over-used, boring outfit in all of the fighting game genre. The new guy's outfit is also incredibly forgettable, unlike his face, which is actually pretty well done (except for the sideburns that are obviously far too long for a human being in the 21st century).
And, of course, we're getting an influx of terrible recolors. I'm aware that some people have suggested that it's early, and that TN is simply dedicating resources to other areas instead of making a bunch of costumes. That would be a legitimate stance, except that if that were truly the case, TN would simply make one recolor of each outfit (for the 2P slot) for efficiency. Instead, they've been showing off a vast array of terrible recolors for each outfit. Doing this actually consumes time/resources, rather than conserving them. In contrast, when DOA5 came out with its playable demos, they not only redesigned everyone's face and look for the new art direction, but also included at least two distinct outfits for each character in addition to doing much more.
Lastly, the U.I. is just bad. If you like it, great. I don't.
ANIMATIONS
Historically, DOA has always stood apart from other fighters in how they emphasize combat. The series forgoes flashy "effects," and instead focuses on the fluid and responsive movements of the characters. Rather than having a choppy, single-digit frame animation attached to a bunch of lightning, you would instead see a human body make a motion that clearly resembled a punch. This gave DOA a more "grounded" feel than many other fighters, since you could more clearly see and focus on the smooth movement of the characters, even as they transitioned between multiple actions. The few exceptions to this were always a bit jarring (such as immediately zapping downward when performing a low hold after being put in a lift stun), since in general the games look far more analogous to what you might find in a kung-fu flick than what you see in other fighters. Even the clearly unrealistic moves are generally quite easy to distinguish, such as Kasumi's 1T or Hayabusa's 214P. Other fighting games tend to rely on particle effects and the like to emphasize impact as a way of compensating for lackluster animation, whereas DOA has never needed to. Dimensions and DOA5 toyed with the idea of hit effects, but virtually everyone I know had them turned off, because they only obscured the beautiful action animation.
But Team Ninja has been slowly drifting away from this approach. Some of DOA5's post-launch characters showed hints of a stylistic approach more akin to other fighters (such as Momiji, Phase 4, Naotora and Raidou), and even changed some previously fine visuals with new, bad ones (such as Hayabusa's 3H+K). Now with DOA6, it only seems to be getting worse. The new character, Diego, exhibits an entire movelist of atrocious animation quality. There is no sense of momentum to his movements, as he sort of pops or slides from one position to the next. For example, he has a throw where he knees someone to the gut and then pushes them to the ground. The push, however, seems to just happen, as if the opponent is made of metal and the floor spontaneously morphs into a magnet. Then there's Hayabusa, who now has a bunch of superfluous lightning and fire particle effects added to some of his returning attacks which have no business having them. These effects are also attached to his new moves, such as his new ongyoin twirl and the gimmicky hold mechanic. All of them are hideous, and they only serve to obfuscate the action.
STAGES
So, the first trailer and builds had two stages. The first was a dark street corner/alley, with a bunch of obnoxious and distracting bystanders reminiscent of Street Fighter's confounding fetish (though here, at least they do something). It's far too dark with terrible black levels, and is otherwise pretty generic and uninteresting. There are, at least, some destructible and rebounds off the bystanders, unlike the other stage, which is a simple flat floor with walls (the worst kind of DOA stage, aside from a flat floor without walls). This stage, in contrast to its sister stage, is too bright, but still colorless and generally pretty boring. Both of these stages suck. DOA5 debuted with Scramble, which showed countless new environment interactions and multiple stages. The visuals were a bit bland, but there was still a lot interesting happening as a result of all the effort put in. It was new, innovative ground. DOA6's debut stages were boring by pre-existing standards, let alone even trying to impress or excite with anything new. At Gamescom they debuted a pirate ship stage with a giant kraken monster, multiple levels, destructibles and other unique interactions. I actually like this stage pretty well. It could use a bit more color contrast, and the ship's interior could be brightened up a bit. But overall, it's good, and I hope to see more like it.
GAMEPLAY
The most obvious element here is the meters, but I'm actually going to keep my thoughts on this element rather brief since I've already discussed it at length elsewhere, and anything more than broad impressions are simply tentative conjecture since I haven't played the game myself and the systems are still being tweaked and refined anyhow. I have never seen meters implemented well in a fighting game, and nothing I have seen suggests that DOA6 will be the exception. Feel free to disagree, that's just my stance.
Thoughts on meters aside, however, I am far more concerned about the lack of any other innovation. DOA5 introduced some new gimmicks with power-blows and cliffhangers, but it also brought in a wealth of game-changing mechanics that assisted the fundamental flow of the series' established systems. Things like sidesteps, sit-down stuns, critical bursts, breakable object interactions, etc. all re-examined and re-evaluated the function, potential and cohesion of a character's entire toolset, further emphasizing character identity and the considered utility for each action. I'm aware that not all of these mechanics were introduced in their final form from DOA5's original announcement, but what concerns me is that so far DOA6 has yet to introduce anything of such nature. They seem to be focused solely on the meter and "break" features as the "new" aspect of the game's mechanics, but those alone can't rival the innovation and progress we saw in DOA5. DOA6 largely seems like "DOA5 with meters," and I'm not sure that fully warrants selling a brand new game, especially after they were comfortable re-releasing the previous game in in so many different iterations.
Then we can look at movelists, and the pure stagnation present there. Almost every character's movelist is a carbon-copy of their DOA5 counter-part with perhaps a few new inputs you can count on one hand. This is vastly different from DOA5, where not only did we get a wealth of new moves for each character by the time a playable demo was released, but the new commands also vastly influenced the function and approach of the respective character. Additionally, returning moves had their properties tweaked, showing a clear indication that balancing these characters' tools was a priority.
If you're looking for an anecdote, this post is useful for perspective. Since the E3 demo, we've seen a couple of new things for Hayabusa. He has various tweaks or additions to throws from ongyoin, none of which change his gameplan in any notable way. He also has a new ugly, flaming high punch attack from ongyoin. Those of you who are familiar with Hayabusa know that the last thing he needed was another high punch from ongyoin. His pre-existing high punch options from the stance were pretty much his only pressure options from ongyoin that weren't totally stupid. This is why 2P as an ongyoin counter was so effective. To make ongyoin into a stance that isn't complete crap, he would need a sane pressure option from the stance that is literally anything but another high attack, let alone another high punch. This kind of superfluous obliviousness reminds me of the arbitrary changes we saw moving from 5 vanilla to 5U, where it seemed like TN felt compelled to make new things to justify selling a new game, so they grabbed junk from a hat and threw it in random directions. The results were often confounding, such as giving Hayabusa a new tracking mid punch (44P). But unlike his pre-existing tracking mid-punch, this one had no follow-ups, making it virtually useless and contributing almost nothing to the character's toolset.
This is, of course, in addition to the fact that we're not seeing many property revisions to pre-existing moves in DOA6 thus far. Literally every combo we've seen from Hayabusa is a DOA5 combo, and he is not exactly unique in this respect (I've simply been using him since he was a debut character for both games and happens to be one who I'm very familiar with). Almost everyone shown thus far seems to follow the trend of the game in general: DOA5 but with meters.
I will, however, end on a positive note. I've heard rumors that stagger-escaping is gone. If true, this is a wonderful development, even if it is coming many years later than it should have.
CONCLUSION
If you're pumped and excited by what you've seen, great! All the more power to you. But so far, I've personally been underwhelmed with what DOA6 has shown. What would I ideally like to see in the coming months?
-New system mechanics separate from the meter system
-New/revised moves that notably impact the respective character's gameplan or abilities
-New costumes that don't suck (remove recolors)
-Less effects and more clear animation
-More diverse and interesting stages
-Character themes (music)
I want to be excited, but I haven't seen anything that excites me yet.
PS: For the record, I'm not trying to condemn or lambaste Team Ninja or anything. I know they have reasons for making the decisions they've made, and I still love their games and am very much looking forward to Nioh 2. These are just some of my early thoughts on the things I've seen of DOA6 at this point in time.
Before I begin, a disclaimer: These are my opinions. I use facts in an effort to explain my reasoning for why I hold those opinions, but at the end of the day, someone will always disagree. I could say that I don't think it's good for the game to include Mario as a guest character, and someone else could always say that I'm wrong for thinking that. You're allowed to disagree with me. I won't hold it against you. However, if you simply tell me to "wait until the game comes out" to make any final judgments, you are an idiot. Obviously, I already know that. My sentiments, once again, are with respect to what we have currently seen thus far and what I would have liked to see at this stage in time. That's all.
Note that if you're new to the series, I recommend ignoring this post entirely, as it's really discussing subjects relative to its predecessor and how the series could potentially evolve. At its core, DOA is still DOA, and I'm fairly confident that DOA6 will be one of the best 3D fighters out there.
GENERAL VISUALS
The graphics are notably improved from DOA5, and are up to current gen standards (unlike some other 3D fighters). Texture resolution, poly count, lighting and even to an extent, physics, have all seen a jump in quality that is appreciated. Graphics aside, the art direction, however, is quite underwhelming. I'm aware that a lot of people are upset at what they perceive to be toned-down sexualization, but regardless what your feelings are on that topic, the new outfit designs don't hold up well on their own merit.
Kasumi has donned her iconic outfit for roughly two decades now, but for some reason they ditched that in the debut material for a generic, boring tightsuit. There are two possibilities here. The first possibility is that Team Ninja felt that her old costume was too provocative, and didn't want people focusing on that element instead of the game's other features, such as gameplay. Obviously, virtually every other fighter has outfits far more revealing than Kasumi's classic outfit, but we do have to keep in mind that there's a perceived stigma surrounding the series whereby certain audiences hold it to different standards. However, she was debuted along with multiple other characters, and I don't believe that anyone would have written the game off for debuting Kasumi in a classic costume. Furthermore, if they didn't want something that could be seen as sexual, it's mind-boggling that they would have chosen a skintight bodysuit. The second possibility is that Team Ninja thought that this new outfit was much better than her iconic one, and that this bodysuit will be more memorable and well-received for the game's flagship protagonist. This possibility necessitates that Team Ninja is blind. It doesn't express her character in any way and could easily be copy-pasted into virtually any other project without anyone taking notice. If they're going to replace such a signature visual of the series, at least replace it with something good. A generic bodysuit is doing no one any favors. I am aware that Team Ninja has said that Kasumi's classic outfit will be returning. But that doesn't change the fact that they chose this outfit to try and represent the game at its monumentally important debut, indicating the direction the game is taking aesthetically. What this suggests is that the visual direction for this game is more fixated on generic than memorable, and that can be seen in other areas than strictly Kasumi's costume.
I literally had to google Helena's outfit to even remember what it was in this game. Granted, I thought her default in DOA5 was terrible, but at least I could remember it in its various, terrible details. Her DOA6 outfit doesn't linger in my mind for more than ten seconds after it leaves my visual field. Hayate's new outfit is not quite as forgettable, but it also happens to be the worst of the bunch. The thing is just so damn ugly. Hitomi used to sport a denim get-up, and while it wasn't the most novel or groundbreaking design, it was at least memorable, and I always took it as an homage to Ein's C2 from DOA2. They did better with her hoodie in DOA5, despite it being her alternate costume (yes, DOA5's alternate cosumes in the alpha demo were better than the premiere outfits for DOA6). But for DOA6, TN opted for a generic gi, even choosing to omit her phoenix logo from the DOA3 rendition that made it slightly unique to her [edit: the phoenix is actually still present, but it's now an incredibly tiny, black spec against a white background, rather than the far more noticeable and distinct gold pattern atop a black background in DOA3, where it was also much bigger]. Now it's just a bland gi, the most over-used, boring outfit in all of the fighting game genre. The new guy's outfit is also incredibly forgettable, unlike his face, which is actually pretty well done (except for the sideburns that are obviously far too long for a human being in the 21st century).
And, of course, we're getting an influx of terrible recolors. I'm aware that some people have suggested that it's early, and that TN is simply dedicating resources to other areas instead of making a bunch of costumes. That would be a legitimate stance, except that if that were truly the case, TN would simply make one recolor of each outfit (for the 2P slot) for efficiency. Instead, they've been showing off a vast array of terrible recolors for each outfit. Doing this actually consumes time/resources, rather than conserving them. In contrast, when DOA5 came out with its playable demos, they not only redesigned everyone's face and look for the new art direction, but also included at least two distinct outfits for each character in addition to doing much more.
Lastly, the U.I. is just bad. If you like it, great. I don't.
ANIMATIONS
Historically, DOA has always stood apart from other fighters in how they emphasize combat. The series forgoes flashy "effects," and instead focuses on the fluid and responsive movements of the characters. Rather than having a choppy, single-digit frame animation attached to a bunch of lightning, you would instead see a human body make a motion that clearly resembled a punch. This gave DOA a more "grounded" feel than many other fighters, since you could more clearly see and focus on the smooth movement of the characters, even as they transitioned between multiple actions. The few exceptions to this were always a bit jarring (such as immediately zapping downward when performing a low hold after being put in a lift stun), since in general the games look far more analogous to what you might find in a kung-fu flick than what you see in other fighters. Even the clearly unrealistic moves are generally quite easy to distinguish, such as Kasumi's 1T or Hayabusa's 214P. Other fighting games tend to rely on particle effects and the like to emphasize impact as a way of compensating for lackluster animation, whereas DOA has never needed to. Dimensions and DOA5 toyed with the idea of hit effects, but virtually everyone I know had them turned off, because they only obscured the beautiful action animation.
But Team Ninja has been slowly drifting away from this approach. Some of DOA5's post-launch characters showed hints of a stylistic approach more akin to other fighters (such as Momiji, Phase 4, Naotora and Raidou), and even changed some previously fine visuals with new, bad ones (such as Hayabusa's 3H+K). Now with DOA6, it only seems to be getting worse. The new character, Diego, exhibits an entire movelist of atrocious animation quality. There is no sense of momentum to his movements, as he sort of pops or slides from one position to the next. For example, he has a throw where he knees someone to the gut and then pushes them to the ground. The push, however, seems to just happen, as if the opponent is made of metal and the floor spontaneously morphs into a magnet. Then there's Hayabusa, who now has a bunch of superfluous lightning and fire particle effects added to some of his returning attacks which have no business having them. These effects are also attached to his new moves, such as his new ongyoin twirl and the gimmicky hold mechanic. All of them are hideous, and they only serve to obfuscate the action.
STAGES
So, the first trailer and builds had two stages. The first was a dark street corner/alley, with a bunch of obnoxious and distracting bystanders reminiscent of Street Fighter's confounding fetish (though here, at least they do something). It's far too dark with terrible black levels, and is otherwise pretty generic and uninteresting. There are, at least, some destructible and rebounds off the bystanders, unlike the other stage, which is a simple flat floor with walls (the worst kind of DOA stage, aside from a flat floor without walls). This stage, in contrast to its sister stage, is too bright, but still colorless and generally pretty boring. Both of these stages suck. DOA5 debuted with Scramble, which showed countless new environment interactions and multiple stages. The visuals were a bit bland, but there was still a lot interesting happening as a result of all the effort put in. It was new, innovative ground. DOA6's debut stages were boring by pre-existing standards, let alone even trying to impress or excite with anything new. At Gamescom they debuted a pirate ship stage with a giant kraken monster, multiple levels, destructibles and other unique interactions. I actually like this stage pretty well. It could use a bit more color contrast, and the ship's interior could be brightened up a bit. But overall, it's good, and I hope to see more like it.
GAMEPLAY
The most obvious element here is the meters, but I'm actually going to keep my thoughts on this element rather brief since I've already discussed it at length elsewhere, and anything more than broad impressions are simply tentative conjecture since I haven't played the game myself and the systems are still being tweaked and refined anyhow. I have never seen meters implemented well in a fighting game, and nothing I have seen suggests that DOA6 will be the exception. Feel free to disagree, that's just my stance.
Thoughts on meters aside, however, I am far more concerned about the lack of any other innovation. DOA5 introduced some new gimmicks with power-blows and cliffhangers, but it also brought in a wealth of game-changing mechanics that assisted the fundamental flow of the series' established systems. Things like sidesteps, sit-down stuns, critical bursts, breakable object interactions, etc. all re-examined and re-evaluated the function, potential and cohesion of a character's entire toolset, further emphasizing character identity and the considered utility for each action. I'm aware that not all of these mechanics were introduced in their final form from DOA5's original announcement, but what concerns me is that so far DOA6 has yet to introduce anything of such nature. They seem to be focused solely on the meter and "break" features as the "new" aspect of the game's mechanics, but those alone can't rival the innovation and progress we saw in DOA5. DOA6 largely seems like "DOA5 with meters," and I'm not sure that fully warrants selling a brand new game, especially after they were comfortable re-releasing the previous game in in so many different iterations.
Then we can look at movelists, and the pure stagnation present there. Almost every character's movelist is a carbon-copy of their DOA5 counter-part with perhaps a few new inputs you can count on one hand. This is vastly different from DOA5, where not only did we get a wealth of new moves for each character by the time a playable demo was released, but the new commands also vastly influenced the function and approach of the respective character. Additionally, returning moves had their properties tweaked, showing a clear indication that balancing these characters' tools was a priority.
If you're looking for an anecdote, this post is useful for perspective. Since the E3 demo, we've seen a couple of new things for Hayabusa. He has various tweaks or additions to throws from ongyoin, none of which change his gameplan in any notable way. He also has a new ugly, flaming high punch attack from ongyoin. Those of you who are familiar with Hayabusa know that the last thing he needed was another high punch from ongyoin. His pre-existing high punch options from the stance were pretty much his only pressure options from ongyoin that weren't totally stupid. This is why 2P as an ongyoin counter was so effective. To make ongyoin into a stance that isn't complete crap, he would need a sane pressure option from the stance that is literally anything but another high attack, let alone another high punch. This kind of superfluous obliviousness reminds me of the arbitrary changes we saw moving from 5 vanilla to 5U, where it seemed like TN felt compelled to make new things to justify selling a new game, so they grabbed junk from a hat and threw it in random directions. The results were often confounding, such as giving Hayabusa a new tracking mid punch (44P). But unlike his pre-existing tracking mid-punch, this one had no follow-ups, making it virtually useless and contributing almost nothing to the character's toolset.
This is, of course, in addition to the fact that we're not seeing many property revisions to pre-existing moves in DOA6 thus far. Literally every combo we've seen from Hayabusa is a DOA5 combo, and he is not exactly unique in this respect (I've simply been using him since he was a debut character for both games and happens to be one who I'm very familiar with). Almost everyone shown thus far seems to follow the trend of the game in general: DOA5 but with meters.
I will, however, end on a positive note. I've heard rumors that stagger-escaping is gone. If true, this is a wonderful development, even if it is coming many years later than it should have.
CONCLUSION
If you're pumped and excited by what you've seen, great! All the more power to you. But so far, I've personally been underwhelmed with what DOA6 has shown. What would I ideally like to see in the coming months?
-New system mechanics separate from the meter system
-New/revised moves that notably impact the respective character's gameplan or abilities
-New costumes that don't suck (remove recolors)
-Less effects and more clear animation
-More diverse and interesting stages
-Character themes (music)
I want to be excited, but I haven't seen anything that excites me yet.
PS: For the record, I'm not trying to condemn or lambaste Team Ninja or anything. I know they have reasons for making the decisions they've made, and I still love their games and am very much looking forward to Nioh 2. These are just some of my early thoughts on the things I've seen of DOA6 at this point in time.
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