I had this marathon of DOA yesterday
where Goro and I played DOA 1-5 .. 1 hour each ..
after not playing the old games for so long we had no expectations....
DOA1 was everything we remembered it to be ... took us a while to get it back .. but we did n remembered some of our tricks here n there ... had a blast ..
Then we turned on DOA2U ...
Man, hands down one of the most visually beautiful games to this day. hell it is so beautiful that they dont even need to up the graphics in some stages if they were to port them over to DOA5 ... just a simple copy-paste and I swear no1 would even notice. Yes that's how beautiful that game is. and then it hit us both ... As far as DOA5's fighting system goes, it is great and we are both happy and comfortable with its complexity, quirks and all. but we both felt how very lacking it was in terms of stages being , ALIVE... the stages in DOA2U are so ALIVE even if nothing is going on in them ... The same could not be said about DOA5 unfortunately.
But out of all the stages in that game, if there is 1 stage that needs to make it back.. its Aerial Gardens... probably the most visually superior stage in the game, stats in a closed area with a ceiling stun possibility, breaks out into multiple tiers, has slippery segments, and of course cliffs. If DOA5U needs 1 stage extra.. just 1 ... its Aerial Gardens.
Then there's those little things in other stages, Tiles breaking on the floor rain effects... even the footstep sounds on different surfaces... what a great game!
DOA3.2 ...
We hooked the game up and remembered straight away why we loved it so much and why it was our most played game. We were having trouble getting it back to our system that it was a 3-point hold game (especially vs wakeups) but it got back to us and we enjoyed the hell out of it and started doing all our old shenanigans which exploited the game, from the free launcher after wall slam, to the awesome juggle system..one thing noticable to us was the huge number of entrance, win and lose quotes the game had. Another thing we noticed is how the games gravity kept getting less and less with every iteration .. characters in 1 were heavier than 2 and in 2 they were heavier than 3 .. and so on.
( oh and I want Lei Fangs "great" win pose back ... and the CHOU DEKI ! one too .. lol .. )
As far as mechanics go, the threshold system was obviously different than 4 and 5, I believe Matt pointed this out a while back. Was it better ? honestly .. I can't say for sure. For its time and what the game had.. yes .. but implementing it now ? I don't think that's a good idea. I still believe what we have in 5 is great.
Despite the game being great, playing it now after all those years reminded us of how the system could be exploited. Mainly with low holds.. or just throwing out a hold straight away and how your stun game gets eliminated and the situation gets reset. That isn't exactly a good thing. and returning to neutral all the time is not exactly good.
it made us appreciate the change to the stun system done in 5 .. where a hold is not as exploitable, despite the punishing damage being less. You just have more punish options.
Then came DOA4.
- random factors in stages ... SUCK ... (im looking at you, you flying fucking thing in the dinosaur stage)
- 3 point wakeup is SHIT !!!
- the ground game was greatly improved over DOA's 2 and 3 ..this I have to admit.
- the fact that everything caused you to hesitate... sucked so much. This included nothing guaranteed after wall slams and hardly anything guaranteed. it was clearly a step back from DOA2 and DOA3 ..
- The Launch system however changed and the juggles seemed higher .. again the gravity ..became slightly less...
- The graphics were a step back from 3 and certainly DOA2U (which was still the most visually superior so far) .. Paper hair effects sucked ..
- the Character evolution itself was great .. despite the blatant shitty nerf to grapplers and losing everything guaranteed for leifang (wtf).
- then we remembered the forcetech game and unholdable situations.. and thats when we said ... fuck this game and switched it off ..
DOA5 ...
I have to say this now and I dont care whether people would agree or disagree.
- the system is the most superior. It is well thought out and it is refined. Yes, it could use a little tweaks here and there, nothing is perfect. be we already have seen positive steps taken in that direction for DOA5U.
- despite the superior frames to holds .. low holds in stun were still stupid, especially with just frame timing (holding at the 1st frame of stun) where in some cases it would make you recover from a stun faster than an SE.
- Gravity may not be more than 4, but relaunches and rebounces make it feel so.. and this is great.
- Stages... we noticed that we were having the most fun in the stages that had something going on in them ... this includes Home, Scramble, Sancuary, Hotzone, Zack island and Flow. but the problem was that the game itself lacked ... color! its just too dark and gritty and dry ..(except zack island) .. also, fuck the clown stages .. the first one is enough with the big giant mouth and bouncing balls .. the one with nothing going on is seriously pointless.
- Character move sets are the most superior ..(maybe not so much hayate... )
- Entrances and exits are limited to 2 max for some characters and get a bit repetitive and boring.
- recent 1.03A update improved the ground system and nerfed wakeups by adding the VF rule: if 2 hits collide on the same frame, the move with the more damage wins. This of course changed the properties of many characters.
- no matter how much this game gets updated.. something about it will always feel incomplete .. and thats just the way it is.
after taking that step back... lets take a look at what DOA5U and what it has done for us so far and if some of these things were addressed ..
- The tweaked superior stun system is still in check, with added scenarios of guaranteed situations with the more implemented flop stuns. (+1 DOA5U)
- Juggle system, ground system, and guaranteed scenarios still in check ..
- Entrances and exits are back, varied and interesting.(+1 DOA5U)
- LOW HOLD IN STUN ADDED 5 FRAMES OF RECOVERY (by the way, you're welcome guys...
) (+1 DOA5U)
- Stages with more life in them added lost world and forest ..3 new stages made.. is it enough ? I dunno but its still a step in the right direction.
- Moves for characters added, rebalancing aND MORE CHARACTERS. (+1 DOA5U)
- some characters were excluded, which might be a minus for some (including myself) but lets face it... there are way too many +es in this game )
- Net code promised to be superior .. (still in debate.. lol )
- favorite modes back and more focus on tag ... (+1 DOA5U)
The game finally feels complete... (despite not playing it yet)
Honestly ? I dont see what anyones complaining about ...
but if theres one thing I would like to add to the game ... and would benifit it greatly ... its Aerial Gardens. Just put that in, and I wouldn't want anything else more from the game.
Lorieli is great .. but after playing DOA3 again... I honestly feel Aerial Gardens has more flavor to it .. (although I like the sloping part at the bottom of lorieli.. maybe if the top floor was shinier and reflected the characters ? I dunno )
That, and MONICA back as system voice ... PLEASE !
