Dead or Alive 2

A great leader was killed at the end of the 20th century. His name was Fame Douglas, and he was renowned as the sponsor of the legendary Dead or Alive World Combat Championship. Since his death, and in the absence of his charisma and leadership, the world has become chaotic. Yet something appears to be transpiring. Amid this chaos, it is announced that the "Dead or Alive Championship 2" will be held. However, Douglas's passing has taken with it the purpose and significance of the tournament. Even worse, the promoter of "Dead or Alive Championship 2", who is fond of conflicts and jealous of the strong, is responsible for Douglas's death. The new promoter is more than a corrupt mastermind, but a man of pure evil. His involvement in the tournament has brought a sense of terror to the world, resulting in the infamous Tengu disaster that occurred at the end of the 20th century. The climax of the disaster is about to begin with a roaring battle.

Tomonobu Itagaki and Team Ninja were still dissatisfied with the release versions of DOA2, and continued enhancing it on both Dreamcast and PlayStation 2 on each market as they worked towards their vision of the ultimate fighting game. On October 25, 2000, Tecmo released a last major update called DOA2: Hardcore for the PlayStation 2 which was based on the Japanese and second update of Dead or Alive 2 for Dreamcast, this "Limited Edition" was featuring new playable characters, new stages, extra costumes and introduced the "Gallery" option. The Hardcore release was finally the complete game Itagaki had envisioned at the time, featuring many changes compared to its predecessor:

• Characters, pictures and moves were altered to appear more realistic, lessening the anime look.
• Some fighting animations were elaborated upon and some were cut.
• New stages were added (8 more than the Dreamcast update)
• More character outfits were added.
• Survival mode now only took place in the "Danger Zone" arena.
• Overall gameplay speed was increased. The entire game, including cut scenes, now runs at a full 60 frames-per-second (In the Dreamcast version, the game ran at 60 fps while the cut scenes ran at 30).
• A special "Items Collection" feature and menu section was added to appeal to video game collectors. New artworks were added compared to the first update.
• A CG Gallery section, featuring renders of the female characters, was added.
• The player history files were enhanced and now included statistics on how often the player used each character and tag battle pairing.
• Several special moves were added, but left undocumented.
• English voiceovers were added in the U.S. PlayStation 2 version, in addition to the original Japanese voice overs.

The new release extended the success of Dead or Alive 2 in North America and Western Europe, and Dead or Alive became Tecmo's flagship series.

Tecmo also followed up on the release of DOA2: Hardcore in the USA and Europe with the release of DOA2: HARD･CORE in Japan. This last version saw some minor updates, including new cut scenes, a few new costumes, and a new turbo speed option.

As a result, eleven different versions of Dead or Alive 2 were released, the first two were for the arcade market and the others were home versions. The Dreamcast version has been updated two times, first for the European market with new stages, costumes and cut scenes, and the second time was for the Japanese market with a "Limited Edition" featuring two new playable characters, two new stages, stage multipart extensions, new costumes, new cut scenes and the "Gallery" option was introduced. This edition was later updated with eight new stages, some new costumes and extra Gallery artworks and released as "Hardcore" edition on the PlayStation 2. The first PlayStation 2 versions for America, Europe and Japan were updates of the Dreamcast editions, with a few new cut scenes, costumes and stages added on each localization. Comparing the first and the last home versions of Dead or Alive 2, namely the Dreamcast American edition and the Japanese Hardcore edition, would show a lot of improvements including an enhanced game play and a doubled number of stages and costumes. Unfortunately, even with all the changes, Itagaki was still not happy with Hardcore. He is quoted as saying in the DOA 3 booster disc video, "They wanted a launch title in 3 months. I needed 4." In 2004 Team ninja went at it again and created Dead or Alive 2 ultimate. Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate is a remake of Dead or Alive 2 for Xbox with a greatly improved graphics engine. As it was created after the debut of Dead or Alive 3, it takes elements and mechanics from both its original iteration and successor. The action of 3D-axis movement is as free-formatted as Dead or Alive 3, and Hitomi, as well as Tengu are now playable characters (albeit outside story mode), but other elements have been kept intact from Dead or Alive 2. The biggest set of changes instituted in Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate are online play over Xbox Live, and the inclusion of slopes, Ceilings and moves that take advantage of them.

1. Controls
2. Positions
3. Movement
4. Triangle System
5. Danger Zones
6. Critical Stun
7. Launched and Downed states
8. Offense
9. Defense
10. Tag

CG Gallery
The CG Gallery menu option will unlock once 200 Clear Mode Points are achieved. Clearing specific game modes will award you various points as follows:

• Story : +10 pts
• Time Attack : +20 pts
• Survival : +20 pts
• Tag Battle : +30 pts
• Team Battle : +40 pts
• Versus Mode : +20 pts

Characters

• Bayman: Beat Story mode with every character on Normal difficulty or higher.
• Tengu: Unlock Bayman to start spawning the STAR survival item in Survival. Collect 10 STAR survival items to unlock Tengu.

All Costumes
Collect 200 STAR survival items to unlock all costumes.


Characters

• Bayman: Beat Story mode with Leon on Normal difficulty or higher.
• Hitomi: Beat Story mode with Ein on Normal difficulty or higher, with an existing Dead or Alive 3 or Dead or Alive Xtreme save file on the system.
• Tengu: Beat Story mode on Easy difficulty or higher with each character.

All Costumes
Collect all 66 items of Survival mode on any difficulty. All characters must be unlocked.