Dead or Alive Dimensions follows the standard setup of a 3D fighter. The gameplay primarily takes place on a 2D plane, but you are free to move around the 3D environment. You can knock opponents through objects, slam them against walls, or kick them off cliffs, utilizing the 3D space to help you dodge. If you have ever played a Virtua Fighter title or games like Sonic the Fighters, you will feel right at home.
Dimensions features the largest roster of any game in the series, with 25 playable characters. In previous entries, several boss characters existed only for the story, but Dimensions finally allows fans to play as them.
The combat system is simple and easy to learn, yet the game features a deep library of combos. Each character has standard punch and kick attacks, as well as grabs and counters. By pressing the Circle Pad or D-pad in different directions, you can perform various strikes, throws, and counters. Mastering these transitions is a vital part of the game; you must learn how to vary your moves to stay unpredictable.
By using common sense, you should be able to judge where you want your hits to land—upper, middle, or lower body—and counters work the same way. If an attack is heading for your midsection, you can hold back and press the counter button to intercept it. For a lower-body attack, you hold back-down, and for an upper-body attack, you hold back-up. These counters are officially known as "Holds." While it can sometimes be difficult to judge where an attack will land, it becomes easier if an opponent repeatedly targets the same area. This is exactly why you should trick your opponents by constantly changing your own attack patterns.
The controls are excellent, allowing you to use either the Circle Pad or the D-pad. The game utilizes the same control scheme the series has used since day one, so long-time fans should have no trouble adjusting to the 3DS. However, if you have used a fight stick your entire life, you may find the handheld's layout takes some getting used to.
The bottom screen can also be used for controls, though it feels somewhat redundant. On the touch screen, you can manually tap buttons or select a specific combo from a list to execute it instantly. While some might consider "one-touch combos" to be cheating, it’s rarely an advantage in practice. If you play against someone online who relies solely on the touch screen, they likely won't have time to find the specific move they need. You could probably defeat them before they even scroll halfway down the list.
Ultimately, the touch screen is there if you need it, but the fast pace of battle makes it impractical. You simply won't have time to go searching for moves mid-fight. Learn the button inputs, and you’ll be set for the long run.
Chronicle Mode:
Chronicle Mode is the story mode of Dimensions, and it attempts to cover the narrative of the previous four games. Although it does a good job of summarizing the plot, it doesn't cover every detail, which may lead to some confusing moments for newcomers.
The mode lasts for approximately 3 to 5 hours and takes you through the major milestones of the series' history. In past DoA games, you could choose which character’s story to follow, but Chronicle Mode assigns you specific characters at different times. Most of the roster appears strictly as bosses; for the majority of the mode, you will play as the game's ninjas. However, the fifth chapter does allow you to play as one other character, but I won’t spoil who it is.
Cutscenes in Chronicle Mode can be cool at times, but they are also a bit strange. Sometimes the scenes are full-motion videos taken directly from the original games; other times, they consist of 3D character models standing still with voice acting—similar to the static "mugshots" or portraits often used in RPGs. While some of the cutscenes are quite nice, I wish they had used full animation for the entire story. I should also warn you that there are a few violent scenes. At one point, Ryu (the protagonist of Ninja Gaiden) actually cuts several people to pieces. Although the scene is very fast and attempts to censor the action, you can still see limbs falling away (yet the game maintains its T rating).
I actually liked Chronicle Mode and thought it did a great job of summing up the story. If you are the type of person who loves a good narrative, you will likely still want more by the time you're done. If you dislike stories, don't worry—you can skip the cutscenes and get straight to the fights. The story mode actually made me want to play the previous games to understand the lore better, but I was fairly happy with what was provided here.
Chronicle Mode also serves as a sort of tutorial; it really is the best place to start if you are a newcomer to the series.
Arcade:
Arcade Mode isn't quite like a traditional arcade experience. There is no story here; instead, there are six specific courses of fighters to play through. Each set is unlocked by completing the one before it, and it does not matter which character you choose. Although I like this course-based setup, it is a bit frustrating that you cannot change the difficulty settings. Arcade Mode remains relatively easy throughout, and it is primarily worth playing if you want to unlock the special Metroid: Other M stage that you receive for beating them all.
Survival Mode:
This is a mode that several fighting games utilize, most notably Super Smash Bros. In Survival Mode, you pick a character and face a series of opponents to see how long you can last. It starts out relatively easy with a set of 10, but soon you will be fighting sets of 20, 30, 50, and finally 100.
In these sets, every tenth fighter is significantly stronger, serving as the main challenge of the mode (for example, the opponents at intervals like 10, 20, and 30). Ultimately, Survival Mode exists for the extra challenge; your rewards are limited to figurines and sound-test voices (or costumes, if you haven't unlocked them already). Even though it wasn't required, I decided to 100% this game before writing this review, so I made sure to complete all the sets.
Before I continue, I want to highlight one downside to this mode that could also affect other areas of the game, including online play. Ryu has a somewhat cheap or "broken" attack that can be spammed to win easily. By holding back and pressing the L button, you can charge and throw a fireball. Computer players—and many people online—have a very hard time avoiding this, so they usually get hit. Besides the high damage it deals, the attack sends the opponent flying, often into a wall. To make matters worse, the Survival Mode arena is electrified, meaning they take even more damage than usual. Simply spamming that move solves most of your problems.
While you can certainly play Survival Mode the way it was intended, this lack of balance is frustrating.
Tag Challenge Mode:
Tag Challenge Mode is exactly what the name suggests. You team up with one other player (controlled by the AI) to face 20 powerful opponents. In some matches, you will fight a single character with significantly higher strength and HP, while in others, you will face opposing tag teams.
The strategy involves attacking and dealing as much damage as possible until your health starts to drop. Once your HP is low, you switch out so the computer can take over while you heal in the background. When you are ready to return, you simply press a button to jump back into the fray, allowing your partner to rotate out and recover. This cycle is essential for victory in almost every match; you must constantly switch in and out to keep both characters alive while chipping away at your opponent's health.
Early on, the challenges are quite easy and provide free lives so you can return if you die. However, there is about a five-second wait time before you can respawn; if your partner dies before you can return to the fight, it's game over. Later challenges provide no extra lives whatsoever. This mode is definitely difficult, but I found that the Ryu "spam" strategy works here as well. Even so, I decided to play through the mode using my main character, Kasumi.
As I mentioned above, you unlock costumes in this game by beating different modes with various characters, and this is actually the best mode for that. By playing the first challenge with each character, you can defeat the opponent very quickly and unlock costumes at the same time. It only took me about 10 minutes to get every costume using this trick.
If you beat Tag Challenge Mode, you will unlock a secret character who doesn't appear on the standard roster. Once you finish the mode, go to the character select screen, highlight "Random," and hold L + X before pressing A. Instead of a random fighter, you will play as the game's secret character—someone who has never appeared in a Dead or Alive game before.
Free Play:
Free
Play is your standard versus mode which allows you to choose your own characters, opponents, and stages. There are also customization options available to increase, or lower, the difficulty, allowing you to create your own experience. Those familiar with fighting games will already have an idea of what Free Play entails, but that doesn't change the fact it is great to see it being included.
Training Mode:
Training Mode is one of those features that seems to appear in every fighting game. You pick a character and square off against a training dummy to practice your moves and combos. While you can adjust how the dummy attacks and moves, I found the settings to be a bit limited.
The training dummy is configured by adjusting three groups of actions: COM Action, COM Reaction, and Counters. Essentially, you can set the computer to perform specific actions (such as punching or kicking repeatedly), determine how it guards, and choose how it counters. While this is somewhat restrictive, you can also set a COM level if you want to engage in a standard practice fight.
Overall, Training Mode isn't bad; I think I am just used to other fighters that offer more granular control, such as adjusting health bars or choosing exactly how the computer recovers from a hit.
In Training Mode, you can still unlock figurines and your damage dealt is saved to your Fight Record, but the mode is primarily designed for practice.
Local Play:
Similar to Free Play, Local Play is the mode that allows you to customize your experience and compete against opponents in a standard versus mode—except you are playing against real people. Although the game does not support the 3DS Download Play function, others who own a copy of the game can connect wirelessly to battle it out. Of course, this isn't as simple as playing a fighter on a home console, as it requires multiple 3DS units, but it works very well if you know someone else who owns the game.
Internet Play:
Internet Play is the online version of Local Play. Like most Nintendo titles of this era, you can choose between Regional or World play to be matched against random players. There is also a Friend Battle mode, though I haven't messed with it yet (however, you can expect it to work similarly to other online Nintendo games).Online play features a ranking system, but it is currently quite glitchy. The game tracks your win-loss ratio and your total points (which you gain for winning and lose for losing); based on those points, you are assigned a letter grade.
Currently, I have won 91 out of 157 battles and have around 2,000 points with an E- rank (you start at F, progress to F+, then E-, and so on). You might wonder why my grade is still so low. Well, this is where the biggest problem with the online mode comes in.
Imagine you have over 3,000 points, as I did, and you’re heading into a match. Your plan is to win, gain points, and rank up, right? Well, how would you feel if you won the match but lost 500 points instead of gaining them? It happens. Normally, you gain or lose about 100 points per match, but a lot of the time, these glitches occur.
So, now I’m down to 2,500 points, right? It can't get much worse, right? Actually, it can. Imagine going into your next battle and losing your internet connection—even with a 100% signal—as soon as the round starts. The person you’re fighting gains zero points, but you lose over 500 points simply because you were the one who disconnected.
The ranking system is glitched, there is random lag at times, and you will sometimes disconnect for no apparent reason. There are quite a few technical problems.
Despite these issues, the game is fun when it works. I’ve played 157 battles, and while I’ve won a lot, I’ve lost a fair share too. The gameplay is pretty balanced (though I have been beaten by spammers), and it’s a great way to kill time. My only real complaint, besides the ranking system, is that the physical Wi-Fi switch on the 3DS effectively acts as a "Quit because I don't want to lose" button.
Many people will simply flip that switch right before you hit the "Winner" screen, which causes you to gain zero points.
Throwdown:
Throwdown is the StreetPass component of the game. If you pass someone who also has StreetPass enabled, you will exchange data and receive a "ghost" of their character to fight. The game can store up to eight Throwdowns at a time, but since you can only fight each one once, there is really no reason to save them up.Throwdown matches do appear on your online record, and some challenges even arrive via the internet as a form of "SpotPass" DLC. I haven't been able to experiment with it much since it seems no one in my area has the game (I even walked through stores and drove through various towns looking for hits), but I did fight a DLC Throwdown. From what I can tell, they are much stronger AI opponents; I suspect their difficulty level is based on the other player's record, though it could be random.
Showcase:
In Showcase Mode, you can view the figurines you have collected throughout the game. These figurines are awarded at random after you finish various game modes or play online, and there are a staggering 999 of them to collect. In the Showcase, you can adjust the camera angle to view your figurines from different perspectives and even change the background.
Personally, I’m not a big fan of this mode since the figurines are simply character models in different poses, but it is a nice extra feature to mess around with. I just wish it were more like Super Smash Bros., where they provide background information and lore to go along with each trophy. That would have been a great touch.
Fight Record:
This is where you can view all of your in-game statistics. You will find your Overall Stats, which cover your online ranking, total matches played, win percentage, rounds won, winning streaks, and more. You can also view your Mode Records, such as your fastest completion times for Arcade Mode, the number of figurines collected, total damage dealt in Training Mode, and your completion percentage for Tag Challenges.Additionally, there are statistics showing how many times you have used specific types of attacks, how often you’ve taunted, your longest combos, and other minor details. It also tracks your fastest wins with each character. (Interestingly, my fastest win is 00' 00" 00 as Kasumi, because an opponent disconnected right before the match started!)
Ultimately, this is just a place to track your progress if you are interested in the data. While some of the information feels a bit redundant, it is still a cool feature to have.
DLC:
Dead or Alive: Dimensions is one of the first Nintendo 3DS games to receive DLC, with new costumes releasing as events. Unfortunately these can only be downloaded by playing the game during select specified times, and once they have been missed they will likely be gone forever. It is more of an early purchase bonus than anything else, and many players late to the party will simply have to do without them.
The 3D Effect:
The 3D effect is the last thing I want to discuss, though it might have been the first thing you wanted to know. Sorry for the wait!Generally, the 3D effect creates a sense of depth (sunken in), but occasionally things do "pop" out at you—such as a character’s fists during a victory pose. The 3D looks great and noticeably improves the visual quality; the graphics can look a bit flat without it. However, there is a significant downside: when the 3D is off, the game runs at a silky-smooth 60 FPS, but it drops to 30 FPS when the 3D is turned on. Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide which you prefer. When I’m playing offline, I tend to leave the 3D on, but for online play, I keep it off to ensure the smoothest possible performance.
On the home screen while selecting modes, you can see different arenas displayed on the top screen. In addition to the 3D depth, the game utilizes the 3DS gyroscope, allowing you to physically move the handheld to look around the environment. It is a bit limited, but still quite cool. Just keep in mind that since you are moving the console around, the 3D effect won't stay in focus very well.
Should you play it?
Dead or Alive: Dimensions is a solid 3D fighter that is perfect for newcomers and long-time fans alike. The detailed, visual novel-style Chronicle Mode covers and expands upon the entire plot of the series, while the large roster ensures there is at least one character perfect for everyone. Although there are some balancing issues—particularly with Ninja Gaiden’s own Ryu Hayabusa—the game remains an enjoyable experience and a great Nintendo 3DS title to add to your collection.
If you enjoyed previous Dead or Alive titles or other 3D fighters such as the Virtua Fighter series or TEKKEN, then there really isn't a reason to skip out on this one.
VERDICT: Recommended
Reviewed on Nintendo 3DS
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