DOA6 Why Leon is Frequently Requested to Return

While Team NINJA is making big moves to bring their casual fan-base to Dead or Alive 6, it's important to remember that there is a list of possible characters that could return in the future. The most requested of past characters now that Momiji & Rachel have been released is Leon, and there are many logical reasons to deduct that he would be the best choice of the bunch even if it would be nice to see them all return. By simply applying the process of elimination to the remaining outcasts of DOA we can all see this become fact by the end of this post - and agree that Leon still has a place in this fighter.

Dead or Alive expects competitive players to be familiar with how the environment works, and how utilizing it well presents you with rewarding and satisfying damage. Can you name a character other than maybe Hayabusa that does this better than Leon? Taking Leon out of this game further cripples the lineup of heavy characters considering both Bayman & Bass are horrible competitively in their current state and couple that with the fact that Raidou just won his first tournament... ever!

Leon was a masterfully designed character for Dead or Alive 5: Ultimate & Last Round. With Leon's unique air-throw you could grab your foe out of the air and direct where you wanted to send your opponent flying. You could continue your damage on the ground and swing your opponent into another Danger Zone or off the edge of a level. This is not only great gameplay, but it showcases what makes 2D & 3D fighting games individual from one another.


While the gameplay is the most important part, the look of Leon should be preserved as well, and he should not be transformed into a female character like Bankotsubo was switched to Nyo-Tengu for DOA5. Though if it meant saving the play-style, players might be willing to compromise with this sacrifice. Alpha-152, Ein, Genra & Genfu are also previous contenders, but there are plenty of reasons why Leon should get to cut the line.

Alpha-152 seems like the biggest contender for Leon, but with one Kasumi-based character already, it begs the question if it would please anyone but save a few people in the offline tournament scene. Even if her look brings some additional color and possibilities to the franchise, we all know that Team NINJA doesn't like characters with NO STORY possibilities!

This brings us to Genfu, and regardless if he's dead or alive, most players agree that his story has concluded and that Eliot took the torch from his master. While it's unfortunate we may never see Sweet Revenge slay a tournament again, it is nice knowing that pieces of this classic character are left in Eliot's awesome bear stance.

This Classic DOA4 Ending Became a Reality with DOA6

With these great additions surrounding the spirit of Genfu from both the storyline & Eliot's stance, it makes sense to leave the idea of bringing him back alone. Team NINJA has mentioned there was a possibility he may one day return, but it seems unlikely at this point considering this space is better filled with something not already in the game.

Ein felt different enough from Hitomi, and was a cool counterpart to Hayate, but what DOA needs now is another heavy and a character that isn't a clone in any way. A clone in the near future could be catastrophic to building any excitement with how long we are waiting for characters, but if DOA6 had a complete roster that felt picture perfect, I think most people wouldn't mind seeing him back.

It might seem like a competition, but it's really not. In the end there is one clear option, and that is the World's Strongest Man.
 
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Maybe they should just give Hayate Ein's costumes and some of his winposes/intro animations and lines, and mix some karate moves into this fightign style, because what is he a human or did the brainwashing act like an on and off switch? lol

Can't suggest the same treatment for Eliot with Gen-Fu, though, but that'd be potentially hilarious.
 
Maybe they should just give Hayate Ein's costumes and some of his winposes/intro animations and lines, and mix some karate moves into this fightign style, because what is he a human or did the brainwashing act like an on and off switch? lol

Can't suggest the same treatment for Eliot with Gen-Fu, though, but that'd be potentially hilarious.
They DID give Hayate some of Ein's key moves in DOA3 (and the remainder to Hitomi). It was in DOA4 when they made his moveset more Ninja-like.
 
Agree with everything but Genfu. His desire ended after DOA2 after he got the Tengu nose with healing properties for his granddaughter. By the end of DOA3 he found his training less important and gave his time to his granddaughter.

He was put in DOA4 to launch Eliot's fighting career. Train him. Now I think they have ended his narrative beautifully.

But yeah I agree with your points overall.
 
Agree with everything but Genfu. His desire ended after DOA2 after he got the Tengu nose with healing properties for his granddaughter. By the end of DOA3 he found his training less important and gave his time to his granddaughter.

He was put in DOA4 to launch Eliot's fighting career. Train him. Now I think they have ended his narrative beautifully.

But yeah I agree with your points overall.
Or just not take out characters so there's always more choices ☺
 
Or just not take out characters so there's always more choices ☺

This. I mean, I'm no fan of big bloated rosters, but I'm also not a fan of bringing in characters and then taking them out (unless they're boss characters who have been killed off, maybe, but I like the Nyotengu solution). Bloated rosters wouldn't be a problem in FGs if devs weren't more in love with bringing in new characters or guests rather than fixing/refining or the characters they already have to work with or better induvidualizing "clone" characters. Unless they're guest characters I see no reason why every DoA character in the past can't come back. Lack of story has never been an issue in bringing characters back in either DoA or any other FG out there, but how hard is it to come up with new stories for them, honestly? Then again they already have a hard time these days coming up with any story for this series at all. Not bringing characters back is just another reason why I see the development on this game as lazy. Well see how things look by the time the inevitable DoA6U happens, but I have my doubts it'll be to DoA5U's levels.
 
DOA has that almost rare situation where nearly every character returns in each game so it leads to TN being sorta forced to bring cut fighters back. Ein being in any game past 2 makes no sense but he's returned in every installment so that should tell you. I personally wouldn't care if the game cut those non essential fighters as long as they replaced them with new, relevant ones like almost every other fighting game does. It's always just been a very conservative game in that way, not much evolution throughout when you look at it which can either help or hurt it. Sometimes I feel like they sacrifice a lot of their creative freedom to pander to fans in these instances.
 
Using story as a reason to not add certain characters is so weak, especially when you look at the all the character's stories in 5 and 6. Like c'mon, Leifang felt so random in 6 just popping up and fighting people. Almost everyone had a weak and flimsy presence in the story. And wow, Leon wants to prove he's the strongest and he has a dead partner. That's such a high bar and so unique...

Here's one for Ein: Hitomi reminiscences about her time with Ein. Bam a little arc for Hitomi and Ein is playable. This is already 10x better than whatever story Mila, Rig, Honoka, Marie, Kokoro, Nyo, Phase, and whoever else not important to the main ninja story had. It isn't hard to create a story for DOA characters when the story has no weight to it.
 
Or just not take out characters so there's always more choices ☺
This. I mean, I'm no fan of big bloated rosters, but I'm also not a fan of bringing in characters and then taking them out (unless they're boss characters who have been killed off, maybe, but I like the Nyotengu solution). Bloated rosters wouldn't be a problem in FGs if devs weren't more in love with bringing in new characters or guests rather than fixing/refining or the characters they already have to work with or better induvidualizing "clone" characters. Unless they're guest characters I see no reason why every DoA character in the past can't come back. Lack of story has never been an issue in bringing characters back in either DoA or any other FG out there, but how hard is it to come up with new stories for them, honestly? Then again they already have a hard time these days coming up with any story for this series at all. Not bringing characters back is just another reason why I see the development on this game as lazy. Well see how things look by the time the inevitable DoA6U happens, but I have my doubts it'll be to DoA5U's levels.
I don't mean to just bloat the rosters I mean they could bring back Ein and evolve his karate move set and spice up his move list , add some different mix ups in , doesn't have to need a story element at all, just there for the people that like to play as him , and doa 6 or any doa isn't really bloated compared to most other fighters to my current knowledge, pretty sure games like tekken 7 have a lot more characters unless I'm mistaken, but even if they don't bring back classic characters they've gotten rid of I'd love at the very least to see more guest characters from other fighting games , i like seeing how they male it work bringing a fighter from a different universe in and making it work.
 
Someone doesn't understand the character loyalist way of life too well l0l
True but you just have to suck it up sometimes, i only like 2 characters my self out of all , but if they took out jann and hitomi is just learn some one else lol but I do understand having a fav that you've put time and sweat into
 
I'm someone who was worried about DoA6 because I thought there was a good chance Lisa wouldn't come back, and she's not even my most played main. I thought if she didn't come back I wouldn't buy the game out of principal and/or spite, even though I'd still have Tina, but also in combination with any other grievances I had. That said, even if both Tina and Lisa weren't in DoA6, I'd probably at least download Core Fighters or buy the game used or something just to check it out because I'm a fan of the series and I liked the games themselves before liking any one character (hell, this is EXACTLY the situation and what I did in the case of DoAX3, bought it for $50 cash off someone somewhat local), I'd just be curious at least.

I guess I can see both sides of this argument. I'm sure every fan has their reasons for the decision they make.
 
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Not necessarily. In most cases that's usually no different than playing a game out of spite. Lots of players from many other different fighting games do not return because of a single missing character, which is also fairly common.

I mean, it's a loyalist.
If Christie really was taken out of the roster, I'd just support the community in another way like making trailers for tourney events or making story mode parodies and shit.

But picking up a new character to compete with? Forget it. That would take me 7 years, and I'd lose whatever identity I had as a player. Even so, I've been in the community too long to just disappear completely.
 
If Christie really was taken out of the roster, I'd just support the community in another way like making trailers for tourney events or making story mode parodies and shit.

Right and you can, though this is also a question of tolerance. There are people who joined into DOA based off another game alone. Ryu Hayabusa as an example, and people till this day is still around for the character. Which is the yang opposite of when a character gets removed, they'd have a huge chance to not stick around if such character isn't available. Can't exactly throw those people under the bus because they bought a game for an actual reason.

People can have genuine reasons to not stick around and immediately find something else with a similar option. If a loyalist vanishes for a character he does not see around, he/she will immediately find another to a game franchise where they'd think the character may have a bigger window / indefinitely to stick around in the roster to not try anything else, hence any options for a loyalist is deemed a better option for them regardless. Most of us can play multiple characters to usually not care if 1-2 characters go missing, but people are not obligated to try multiple characters to begin with or to even deal with that tolerance. Which is pretty fair. On top of it, this is extremely common in fighting games to not play a game based off a single missing character.
 
I've had a serious liking for Leon ever since DOA2.
And he was actually my main at the end of DOA5 because I enjoyed his playstyle so much.

I would really, really like to see him return. Easily top 5 fav chars for me.

I would also like to see alpha return, I thought he polarized character type was undeniably interesting.
I always felt like she was removed from doa6 moreso because of extreme casual feedback.
Within low skill matches, alpha is quite strong.

However I also really like kasumi-alpha, but sadly... since doa dimensions she has never returned :(

Bringing back leon would probably entice me to play doa6 significantly more frequently and regularly.
Big fan!

ROLLAND FIGHTING!!!!!
 
I actually HATED Leon back in DOA2. A strong man trying to prove the world he is strong. So deep. Wow.

But then, I realized how much :
- he represented the DOA2 era, which is my favourite and first game ever
- he embodied a complex feeling, which is mourning over your soul mate
- his gameplay in DOA5 is unique and fun, which people should understand
- he has potential in terms of story, which Team Ninja should consider now

+ Baeman/Leon

+ This costume
Leon_DOA2.jpg
 
I actually HATED Leon back in DOA2. A strong man trying to prove the world he is strong. So deep. Wow.

But then, I realized how much :
- he represented the DOA2 era, which is my favourite and first game ever
- he embodied a complex feeling, which is mourning over your soul mate
- his gameplay in DOA5 is unique and fun, which people should understand
- he has potential in terms of story, which Team Ninja should consider now

+ Baeman/Leon

+ This costume
View attachment 30319
This! >>> +Baeman/Leon
 
I am an Ein Veteran through and through..
Since his first appereance in DOA2, I LOVE this character!
And damn he might be just a failed experiment of Hayate, but I like his persona MUCH more that of his Ninja alter Ego.
Ein is cool but MAINLY a "focused fighter", whilst Hayate is a deadly but "ARROGANT Ninja".. no me gusta

But even I have to admit that, instead of Ein and ESPECIALLY all these new loli girl-characters, Leon should be the one to return!
He fills a role that is severly lacking in Dead or Alive these days... MANLY FIGHTERS
I really think if more characters like Leon or Ein were in this game, people would take it more serious in generell.

So in short, give me characters like this Team Ninja:

Thanks! :cool: :thumbs up:
 
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