I first heard of DOA after borrowing a copy of the xbox ninja gaiden from a friend (I bought it from him after since I didnt want to give it back) as well as a demo of ultimate from an OXN bonus disc and when I learned that Ryu was a character in DOA, I went and got a copy of DOA3 and became hooked in the series ever since. My cousin, who got into NG after playing it on my xbox bought his own and got into DOA for the exact same reason.
While it was playing as Ryu that got me interested, it was when I borrowed a copy of DOAXBV from another friend that got me most interested so for me, I came due to NG and stayed for the girls...
Sounds like a nice story to me, that says you stayed for the characters, which is always a valid reason to be into something
even if its obvious the characters are sexy, if you don't even like them that doesn't matter, at least it seems that way to me, i personally don't like christie or rachel because of their personalities so i don't even like watching them fight, which i guess is a shame since they're considered top tier characters here
If you don't think people complain about male costumes, you've clearly never seen my endless rants about Ein being sexualized like a joke...
ANYWAY; I got into DOA because of 3 reasons.... Ein, Jann Lee and Izuna Drops. They just looked so amazing at the time and my god Ein was a badass in DOA2.
I guess i haven't, its complicated if that makes me happy or upset,lol the biggest focus is always agains't women and sexuality as a joke only seems to work with men for most people, like a man being gay is supposed to be funny? and is used a lot as a joke in sitcoms, but when a womans gay it just becomes a purely sexual thing for people, definitely not the case for everything, but it does seem like the majority, anyway, those are good reasons
First of all, I don't fully agree with what the OP said. Yes, Dead or Alive was always sexy but just since DOAX2 it has reached levels that are imho rightfully controversial and even for me as a long time fan hard to defend sometimes. Now DOAX3 is coming and it might fully ruin what's left of DOA's reputation. It being only released in Japan might do at least some damage control though. Team Ninja/Koei Tecmo seem to be at least aware of that themselves.
Now, what got me into DOA:
When I was younger I never had a Playstation but always Nintendo consoles. I used to buy and collect video game magazines like crazy though and when DOA2 came out for the PS2 it cought my eye in several of these magazines. I thought the game looked amazing and fast and martial arts seemed so grown up and cool to me at that time (no wonder, I only played Mario, Zelda and Donkey Kong). Also Kasumi seemed so hot and dangerous...I had a slight crush. XD I didn't know back then that she was such a soft, even apologetic character.
I imagined her being harder and more badass. XD
Since then I always wanted to play a real fighting game like DOA and my first one was finally Bloody Roar Primal Fury on the Gamecube. It was alright...but it couldn't compare to DOA. I think DOA3 was already out at that time and it looked so much better. Bloody Roar was only a substitute.
My second fighting game was Soul Calibur 2 on the Gamecube which was already a significant step up from Bloody Roar. I loved SC2 and since then the Soul Calibur series.
Just a few years later I finally scraped all of my hard earned money together and I finally did it, I bought an Xbox and with it DOA3. I still remember when I finally got to play DOA3. It was heaven and it was SO worth all the waiting and hype that I built up over the years. *__* Thank God that I wasn't disappointed, that would have been devastating! XD But it was everything and it played so easy, fast and fluid and looked so gorgeous and it had that amazing cinematic spectator mode that I since then don't want to miss in any fighting game...and still only DOA gives it to me though. Also the DOA girls were the most beautiful in all of gaming.
Since DOA3 I bought every DOA and every console a new DOA arrived on. The Playstation 4 (my first Playstation) I also just bought to have the best experience of DOA5 Last Round. Yeah, that's my little story...
Well for me, i feel like its reputation will stay the same, from anyone who's used to japanese games and animation in general and how they've progressed its nothing new at all, it may definitely be that way for people who aren't used to it, but it should be that way with everything from different countries. i mean looking at that shadow the hedgehog game can tell you that thats the impression the developers in japan had on what america was like then based on information and media from it at the time, all about fast action and guns and war and angst, but that doesn't just make america 100% full of people that just want that, hence the game bombed,lol but anyway the same can be said for games and stuff from japan, they'll give off an impression of just being a bunch of pervy material made for men by men, but some may be shocked if they learned how much stuff is actually made by women that you wouldn't think was, like bayonetta, she was designed by a woman, and inuyasha, and the hyperdimension neptunia series also made by a women, and even kodomo no jikan, a show anyone would assume was just made by the biggest pedophile man in the country, and i feel like that changes how people view things, so thats just a thing in japanese culture, bathing scenes may just seem like fanservice in other countries, and sometimes it is, but in japan bathing is just a typical past time and common thing people do not just for getting clean but to relax, even kids shows have them like pokemon and digimon, so its not always a sexual thing, and sexual things like bouncing boobs are supposed to be humorous most times and people not familiar with the culture just dont find it that way, like when someone sneezes after being insulted, a LOT of shows have done that to death, theres even a whole naked festival in japan. So anyway i see your point in how games like that can ruin the image of something else but that image is everywhere, if someone isnt used to it or doesn't like it, theres a good chance they'd never play these games to begin with likely, so i wouldn't worry about reputation, especially if you've seen the costumes they've banned or "softbanned" some dont make any sense.
wow people really liked 3 huh? first one i saw was 4 on youtube once, kasumi and ayane were fighting on a bridge i think i was like "hopy crap what game is this?" it was just so cool, though id already seen some images of games in game informer magazines, but i never gave em much notice cause i was just a typical nintendo playing kid then, didnt actually get dead or alive until 5 had come out, boy did i suck
I was heavily drawn to the interactive stages since no other fighting game really does them like DOA. The whole thing with boob physics and sexy costumes is a nice distraction but doesn't really have anything to do with my interest in the series.
Yeah they are nice, even if everyone doesn't see silly boob physics as funny as most of japan does, the games still deep and in my opinion has the best fighting system ever, i am picky about fighters though, ive never liked street fighter and MK when i did play em, so im sure a lot would disagree