Dead or Alive: Dimensions (Nintendo 3DS) - Review by Chris

Introduction

After what could only be described as a slow start, the 3DS' software line-up is thankfully beginning to pick up pace and the bigger games promised by developers and publishers worldwide are slowly drip feeding their way into stores and into gamers' hands. As one of these games, Dead or Alive Dimensions hopes to bring the series to a Nintendo console for the first time with a bang and take the fight to the handheld's other big fighting game, Super Street Fighter IV. As the second big fighter for the console, is it different enough to justify a place in your library or has it already been dealt a knock-out blow?

Gameplay

Fighting games have always been an intimidating genre for anyone new to it trying to get to grips with pulling off combos against not only the computer but against those who've been playing the games for years. The Dead or Alive series, however, has prided itself in presenting a simplistic gameplay setup which is easy to get to grips with yet has a huge amount of depth for those looking to create the perfect combo. Dead or Alive Dimensions carries on this tradition by sticking to the series' formula of providing you with a single button for kicking, punching, grappling and blocking.

It's an incredibly simple setup that just about anyone will be able to get to grips with and allow you to jump into the game and not feel like you're fighting against a brick wall. But there's also a good amount of depth to the fighting as not only are delays and directional changes necessary for combos but a robust counter system for countering opponents attacks adds a surprising amount of depth. Thankfully, for those new to the genre, the Chronicles mode here acts as a way of introducing you to all of these techniques over a period of time rather than presenting all at once, which is a fantastic touch that makes the game that bit more accessible.

Although a 3D fighter, allowing movement all over a stage and its multiple tiered areas, fighting largely takes place on a 2D plane as you and your opponent battle it out in typical fighting genre rules, with either single round or best of 3 round battles, depending on the mode you'll play through. Alongside the Chronicles mode, which acts as a story mode chronicling the events of the previous Dead or Alive games into a series of 5 chapters with an incomprehensible story, there are standard fares such as Free Play, Arcade mode, which features a number of progressively harder courses which you unlock for beating the one previously available, and a Training mode for you to hone your skills. There is also a Tag mode, whereby you can take on opponents, either controlled by your friends or by the game, in a tag team style match, as well as a Survival mode which pits you against increasing ways of enemies and asks you to defeat them all. It is the former of these added options, the tag matches, which come off the worst, never truly gelling with the gameplay.

There are a total of 25 characters to play as, each of which provides a varied move set that differentiates them from one another, although the main focus as with all of the Dead or Alive games seems to be on providing female combatants. Each character also has a large number of alternate costumes locked way that you'll unlock through the various modes and couple this with special stages that need to be unlocked and a massive 1000 trophies to collect, each of which depicts the roster in various poses which can be viewed in the Showcase mode allowing you to take pictures and save them to your SD card, and there's plenty of content here to keep you coming back for months on end to ensure you unlock it all.

Multiplayer options include both local, although there is unfortunately no single cart download play for the game, and online, allowing you to take on friends or anyone in the world or limit your search by region to gain points which work towards your rank. The local play comes off without a hitch, running smoothly as you'd expect but the online does suffer from quite a bit of lag, as fighting games are prone to do. Of course, the amount of lag you experience will depend on your internet settings and where you're opponent is located, with minimal to no lag for those closer to home.

Controls

As you'd expect, both the d-pad and the circle pad can be used for play through the game's many modes, with it simply coming down to personal preference which you'll choose. The circle pad does work better here than expected, although it can still be a little finicky to hit diagonals for combos, although that resolves itself after you get used to how the pad works with the game. The face buttons are mapped to a single action each, and when looking at combo lists they're much easier to understand than in other fighters making it accessible. The shoulder buttons have specials mapped to them but at times, you'll often forget to employ these in battle simply because of how easy it is to get to grips with the face buttons. Touch screen control alternatives for attacks are included and while they work, the standard button based controls are easy enough to understand to make the touch one feel redundant.

Graphics

Showcasing some of the best 3D work on the console, even at this early stage, Dead or Alive Dimensions looks fantastic. Character models have been created to an extremely high standard, looking every bit the part as they do in the home console titles regardless of which costume you put them in, with each character housing a considerable closet full of them to be unlocked. Some fantastic work has also been carried out by the animators in making each and every attack that they can launch look as fluid as in real life. It's a shame then that this animation for battles isn't carried over in the cutscenes for Chronicles mode, where you'll often see the characters standing lifeless and mouths shut while dialogue is being spoken. This is, however, a small detractor from otherwise stellar work in creating the characters.

Environments follow a similar suit, providing a wide array of multi-tiered locations for you to fight in, each of which has received an extremely high finish to look fantastic on the 3DS' screen. Occasionally, your eye will be drawn to a blurry texture momentarily but other than some slight frame rate drops when things can get a little hectic on the visual effects front, each of the environments look great with or without the characters fighting in them.

Sound

Music suitably fits the action taking place on screen as well as being suited to the stages you're playing in, sounding of a high quality but never truly grabbing your attention although that's a good thing. English and Japanese voice-overs have been included in the package and again, both are of a high standard even if the dialogue itself is a bit on the cheesy side. One area that may grate with players is the sound effects, where the grunts and groans from the characters being hit can begin to irritate.

Special features

While the 3D effect is noticeable and adds a sense of depth to battles, there is a significant trade off between using it and not with a more stable 60 fps frame rate occurring when not in use. As such, you'll opt to play without the effect as it isn't ever needed for play. Extensive StreetPass and SpotPass features are included in the game, with player data being swapped while the console is in sleep mode and downloadable trophies and throwdown challenges being made available every day and week respectively. Even some gyroscopic controls have made it into the title, whereby you can move the 3DS around on the menu screen to get different angles of the stages appearing on the top screen or for choosing different photo angles in Showcase mode. It's a small inclusion but definitely a nice touch.

Final comments

Even with the bar for the genre already set so high on the 3DS, Dead or Alive Dimensions easily matches that mark by offering up a much more accessible, but still surprisingly deep, gameplay experience than its competitor. The wealth of gameplay options on display, including those already on the cart and those which become available when you activate the 3DS' wireless features, ensure continued and challenging play for months to come and makes this another one of the slowly expanding collection of games which deserve a place in your library, especially if you didn't take to Street Fighter.

Pro: Accessible but incredibly deep gameplay, huge amount of content, looks fantastic, makes great use of the 3DS' wireless features
Con: Online matches can be quite laggy, tag matches aren't great, some of the sound effects can get a little irritating
Final score: 8.5

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