Oh man, are some gamers making a stink about Dead or Alive 6 or what? I mean, as soon as they read on IGN that the game was going to tone down the sexualization of the characters, some of these fans lost their shit. I mean, okay, I get it, I am a huge fan of the overly sexualized female characters as well – I’m not some kind of hypocrite here, I know who I am; but some of these fans are outright decrying that they are ruining the game because the developers are taking a more mature outlook with the game and reducing how sexualized the females will be. Really? Give me a break, there are far worse things that can be done to the game to completely ruin it, and I actually rather enjoy the fighting/counters mechanics of the DOA franchise too much to let a little less skin and a lot let bounce turn me off of the game once and for all.
Seriously, did someone turn off all the logic buttons for a lot of the gaming community this past weekend or what? I come on to check the gaming news and C&C is now a mobile app and gamers are going nuts because DOA6 will be less sexy. Bloody hell, people. And the best part of it is that they are almost completely blaming this new development on SJWs or that Koei Tecmo and Team Ninja were kowtowing to “modest western gamers’ sensibilities”. First off, saying that this development is all in part because of the nagging of SJWs is a bit much. I will admit that they have had some loud voices that the gaming community has been forced to listen to, but to say this was all on them is giving them way too much credit. (But even I have to admit that sometimes they do have a point.) But to also say that this is Team Ninja kowtowing to “modest western gamers’ sensibilities” is going way too far. Just look at the recent stink a lot of western gamers made when Valve decided to try and censor what producers and consumers were able to sell and buy on Steam recently, forcing the company to change its mind. That says more about “modest western gamers’ sensibilities” than anything else.
No, I think that Team Ninja taking the franchise in a more realistic, mature design is a good thing. Yes, I am going to miss the sexualized characters, men and women (but especially the women) as much as other fans will, but this will do nothing to ruin the core mechanics of the game or why I fell in love with the game in the first place. When Dead or Alive was first released in US in 1998, I thought that the ability to counter moves was the best fighting mechanic I had seen in a fighting game since weapons based combat was refined in Soul Edge in 1996. It was a fresh and new and something I was genuinely excited for when I played the game. Yes, I did notice the jiggling effect on the female characters, but that was a fun little side note. It was the fighting mechanics that I loved from the start. The women of DOA didn’t start to become overly sexualized until Dead or Alive 2 in 1999/2000 (depending what gaming region you lived in). And by then I was already a fan of the fighting mechanics to really notice it until I bought my home port of the game for the PlayStation 2.
It will take some getting used to a DOA game being a bit toned down in one aspect of the design, but not a lot. I love this series as a fighting game first, waifu material lastly. Nothing about what I read over at IGN is going to fundamentally change my mind about how I feel about this game in the slightest. Does it suck? I’m not going to lie, it does a little – but there are far worse things that Koei Tecmo and Team Ninja could have done with the series to really make this a travesty. And honestly, people – if you didn’t see this change coming, you need to get your head out of the sand. Hey, maybe DOA6 will come with hundreds of dollars of DLC as well and maybe they will include some saucier outfits for the fighters in those releases. All hope isn’t lost for you yet.
Great game as compared to previous series of dead or alive
I think so as well. I just thought too many “fans” made such a big deal about something so minor.