Jerry, it's Gen Fu! Tengu's here, Fame Douglas is dead, call me back!

Confession time: though I've repeatedly touted Dead or Alive 2 as my favorite game in the series, the majority of my playtime comes from the demo available on the second volume of Dreamcast Generator sample discs. Look, I was about 13-years-old, my parents weren't buying me the jiggle game, but despite DOA2 being patently Gooncore, I swear I liked it because it's fun to play. Jokes on them, anyway. They bought me Sonic Adventure 2. They couldn't have possibly anticipated Rouge the Bat! Nobody could've anticipated Rouge the Bat.......

Part of why DOA2's demo left such a strong impression on me was my total lack of exposure to 3D fighters at that time. I hadn't really played anything like it, and the game's relatively low difficulty coupled with its smooth controls made it a perfect way to ease into a new genre. I've played the full Dreamcast version via emulation over the years, but prior to installing a GDEMU in my system (which I just finished only a couple weeks ago), a copy of Hardcore that I grabbed for the PlayStation 2 was set to be my new version of choice... Until I played Ninja Gaiden Black and had realized Ultimate probably looks about as stunning.

Confession 2: I abhor people who tie their personality to media, but I will forfeit my finances and grant power of attorney to Itagaki if it allows me to fill my life with more Dead or Alive 2. I am as bad as those I criticize, if not worse.

The sharpness of the character models and environments, smooth performance, and glut of additional outfits (with Ninja Gaiden (2004) costumes available for Ayane and Ryu, a nice bonus after just finishing Black) might just make this my favorite release of the game if it weren't for one little thing... Aerosmith. The bulk of DOA2's backstory is bottled up in this opening, and I gotta listen to fucking Steven Tyler? Horrible. The sound of his voice is enough to ruin my day and is a stain on an otherwise flawless game. I'd hit him in the mouth if I weren't so sure he'd unlatch his jaw and swallow me like a god damned Kirby. I can't tell you how much I don't want that to happen to me again.

Thankfully, you can find an incredible amount of story in the game's manual, which might be a useful read if you want to know why there's vats full of Kasumi's or what Tengu's like, whole deal is. It's also completely unnecessary. I suggest you just watch the Dead or Alive movie instead and treat it as the series bible. That's what I've been doing for the last 15+ years and it's been working out just fine.

DOA2 is an arcade fighter through-and-through; easy to pick up and unlikely to demand much more than ten to fifteen minutes of your time if you want to run through a character's single-player campaign. That's exactly what I want from a game like this. Give me enough fun side modes (which DOA2 has plenty of, Survival being my personal favorite), make it feel good to play, offer me some outfits to unlock, and I'm happy. Just don't put Aerosmith in your game. That's all I'm asking, and for the most part, Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate delivers.

Finally, the 7th and last version of Dead or Alive, or is it?

Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate is a remake in the style of Dead or Alive 3 for the Xbox, and it's pretty much what you'd expect it to be, it's Dead or Alive 3 but with the Dead or Alive 2 cast + Hitomi because why not.
On paper this remake sounds kinda pointless, doesn't it? I mean the UI, Combat, and characters are pretty much the same as 3 and I guess the main difference would be in the Stages since they don't feel like Dead or Alive 2 anymore and that's a good thing, they work more like Dead or Alive 3's stages which is just a straight upgrade, but other than that and a ton of costume to unlock there isn't much to say about this title. It's just more Dead or Alive 2, if anything it's Dead or Alive 2.5 and obviously, it doesn't erase the previous releases, Dead or Alive 2 Limited Edition and Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore are still more than valid ways to play the game, this game's existence is a nice little quirk and who would say no to more Dead or Alive.

I guess what I'm mostly angry about is Dead or Alive 1 Ultimate just being the shit Sega Saturn version, why can't we get a remake like 2? All you had to do was put the 8 characters that already exist in Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate/3 and just make a modern version of Raidou, that's all there is to it but they just gave us an unpolished port, and not even Dead or Alive++.
But then again making Dead or Alive 1 Ultimate like Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate would be weird because then it would be like having 3 different versions of Dead or Alive 3... I'm thinking too hard about this.

So yeah this game is good, it's just Dead or Alive 3 part 2.

This was such a blast to play!

I played this for way longer than I originally thought I would; DOA3 hasn't got shit on this! It doesn't suffer from the same framerate dropping issues, the costume unlocks don't have psychotic requirements, and I know it's the same engine, but I swear it even looks better. The redone stages look GORGEOUS and the new stages are very welcome as well. Simply put, this is everything I loved about DOA2 but better in pretty much every way. The gameplay is still super fun, smoothe, and GOTCHA-ing your opponent with a well-anticipated Hold to turn the tide of the fight has never felt more amazing.

I played as Leifang a lot this time around; enough so that I unlocked (almost) all her costumes. I really like Costumes 3, 9, and 18 for her. I played some Kasumi, Tina, Hayabusa, and Ayane too, as well as dabbling with Bass and Jann Lee. It was pretty fun branching out with different characters in this entry, as opposed to playing the same 3 as I had previously.

After ignoring it for a while, I dipped back into the Tag Battle mode this time and I rather enjoyed it. It's still not my favorite, but the Tag attacks you can do with your partner are really fun. And while I didn't even come close to getting all the Survival Mode items, I can easily see myself coming back to this game to do just so I can get that so I can unlock everything.

I do have some complaints though:
1) The screen blurring + the white flash that happens during Tengu's boss fight (the same blurring effect was also used in Omega's fight in DOA3). It sucks. I hate it more than anything else; it makes Tengu's fight harder than it already is because you're just blind for half a second while he rushes you.

2) There's a weird rubber-banding kind of effect going on with the game's difficulty. Generally, I felt the game is quitea bit harder than DOA2 on Dreamcast. Now, this would've been fine in and of itself; I adjusted just fine, even though Tengu is pretty bullshit this time around, he's much harder than before. However, the real problem is that the CPU (ESPECIALLY Tengu) will outright read your inputs on Normal sometimes and even moreso on Hard. It's kind of just such a crock of shit that can result in you losing the same fight 3~7 times in a row before the CPU decided it's had enough of obliterating you and then lightens up.

Despite my problems with it, I can safely say this is my favorite entry in the series so far, even moreso than DOA: Dimensions.