Reviewer's Comments: Summary:Not enough flash... Pros:
+My favorite females from the DOA games in skimpy or classy bathing suits for my eyes to enjoy gazing upon.
+Support for custom soundtrack.
Cons:
-Pretty much everything except the pros.
This is a typical "all flash, no substance"-game, but sadly the game has an extremely limited amount of flash...
The graphics are far from impressive.
There are some kind of half-neat effects but nothing stands out or impresses at all.
Shadows are simple stencil-on-ground only, water effects only use half the resolution of the rest of the game giving the water a very pixelated look, the girls hair is far to low in quality and looks really weird and unnatural all the time and there isn't even any anti-aliasing to ease the pain of looking at the jaggy edges of everything.
The only good part in the graphics department are the girls bodies, that all have a fair amount of polygonal detail, though they still don't look that much better than they already did in Dead Or Alive 2 on Dreamcast... if that's a good thing or a bad thing is a matter of perception seeing as DOA2 on Dreamcast was a very impressive game graphically and still looks good even in this day and age (2009)!
The gameplay is even more limited than the graphics, boiling down to a volleyball experience, that allows you to press two different buttons in total while barely moving around the small square area of the half of the volleyball court you're playing on, and a shopping spree that allows for pretty much nothing at all other than a myriad of useless junk and some swimsuits.
Keep in mind that there's a VERY limited amount of swimsuits that each character has available to them, unless you're willing to spend A LOT of time and energy on manipulating the unpractical friendship system to transfer swimsuits from one character to another. Girls will not accept gifts from other girls that they are not friends with, so just playing as one character to get a certain swimsuit and then giving it to the character you want to see wearing it is out of the question, you have to take the long road EVERY TIME, going through the process of befriending the characters and earning the money to buy the gifts and swimsuits to actually make it possible.
Remember that this game is a very shallow experience, strongly focusing on the eyecandy, not how much fun the game is to actually play!
So spending all that time doing all those mundane things just to see your fav girl in a specific swimsuit may just not be worth it after all, I know I stopped caring about it a looong time ago.
The saddest part is that there's not even a dressing mode where you can try on the different swimsuits!
All you get to do is go to the items menu and click on an icon of the swimsuit you want your girl to wear. That's it!
If you actually want to SEE her wearing it, you have to play one of the two available games (volleyball or pool hopping) or start a short sequence with the girl sitting or walking on one of the locations the game has to offer.
These location sequences only last a few seconds each and add absolutely nothing to the game what so ever, they just make the days go by even faster.
And speaking of days going by too fast...
You only have a very limited set of events you can do each day, and if you fail at one of these things then it still counts and the day goes on, and you also have a very limited amount of days that you stay at Zack's Island making everything as limited as possible.
But here's the thing... I never bought this game because I thought it'd be a great gaming experience or even remotely FUN to play, no, I bought it ONLY because I'm a fan of Helena Douglas of the Dead Or Alive series, nothing else.
And not only did I buy this game, but also it's sequel, Dead Or Alive Xtreme 2 for XBOX 360, and I know full and well that it's pretty much the exact same thing with very little added.
Also, the girls only have japanese voices, not that I mind it that much but I would've at least liked to have the ability to hear the non-japanese characters (like Helena) speak in their native tounge (for Helena that would've been french, which would've been kinda hot) and/or english.
In short, get the game if you like the characters enough to spend the money on some short-lived eyecandy, otherwise skip it and buy one of the fighting games in the series instead because at least they have some gameplay to back up the pretty ladies.
Personally, as long as I get to see my lovely Helena in a classy swimsuit making her look like the goddess of the beach, I'm good.
And one day I'll get that nude mod too! But I don't have a chipped XBOX or any of the other things needed so sadly that'll have to wait...
