Fighting Fit.

The fighting game is not dead. It might seem like it sometimes, given the relatively small lineup of fighters available for current-gen systems, but quality stands for far more than quantity in a fighting game. True, the halcyon days of the 2D and 3D fighters on the PSone and Saturn are long behind us, but do we really miss the Toh Shin Dens, the Bloody Roars, The Psychic Forces and World Heroes that permeated the lineup of fighters? Not really, because whilst the herd has thinned, the strongest have survived. And so we present our list of the best fighters of this generation; the best of an increasingly rare breed, perhaps, but still the best.

5. Dead or Alive 4

The most recent entry in the core Dead or Alive series (despite being released in 2005 alongside the Xbox 360), Dead or Alive 4 is the most complete title in the series by a long stretch. It doesn’t wildly differ from the mechanics of Xbox launch title Dead or Alive 3, but refines, rebalances and most importantly tones down the power of counters from earlier games of the series.

DoA might get a lot of attention for its over-endowed, jiggly-busomed female cast, but the merits of its combat system are what make the series endure, not its underdressed femme fatales. Well, maybe they help a bit. Whilst the original game built on the mechanics of Virtua Fighter by adding a counter system and danger zones to arenas, by the time the series reaches Dead or Alive 4 things have come a long way. The Virtua Fighter influence is still there- characters can move in full 3D around arenas and have single punch and kick buttons, but DoA replaces the VF block with something rather more interesting: the counter.  The idea is simple enough; tap counter at the right time and you’ll punish the opponent with a vicious attack; time it wrong and you leave yourself open to massive damage. It’s an effective means of adding a new dynamic to battles, which really can swing from side to side very quickly, and really made the first two games inparticular stand out from the crowd.

By Dead or Alive 3, though, the counter had become too much. Characters like Leon and Bayman could remove nearly half a health bar with a neck-breaker counter, which only required a press of the right button at the right time and little else. Meanwhile characters like Lei Fang were lumbered with weak counters, making them undesirable selections.

Dead or Alive 4 remedied this problem by making counters much more difficult to perform, by introducing a directional input requirement- counter + up/away for high attacks, counter + away for medium attacks, and counter + down/away for low attacks- and reduced the input window to a narrower margin. The result? Much more balanced fights, and more reliance on the rest of each character’s diverse move sets.

The environments also played an important part in Dead or Alive 4, with large, multi-tiered arenas allowing for a range of tactical plays; manoeuvring characters off of ledges and through walls became an important skill to master, and each level hosted its own unique challenges. Though this kind of thing had been experimented with as early as DoA2, it was 4 that really got it right.

DOA4 also featured a somewhat laggy but ultimately enjoyable online mode, and added four new characters – including Spartan-458 or ‘Nicole’ in a bizarre Halo crossover. Throw in expansive move lists, a host of game modes and scores of unlockables and you’ve got a very well rounded package of fighting game fun.

Proceed to Part 2.

Written by :

James Hall