Dead or Alive: Dimensions (3DS) Review - PAGE 1

In Dead or Alive: Dimensions, Team Ninja takes a page from NetherRealm's handling of Mortal Kombat by retelling the classic Dead or Alive story with a whole new game and bringing together every playable character in the process. Series veterans and fighting game newbies will find plenty to do if they’re willing to put up with a few issues.

The Dead or Alive Tournament Executive Committee (DOATEC) seeks out potential candidates to develop their biological weapons under the guise of the worldwide Dead or Alive fighting tournaments. Members of the Mugen Tenshin clan have been kidnapped and forced against their will to help create DOATEC’s weapons, prompting the Mugen Tenshin to send in some of their own to deal with DOATEC. Highly skilled (and oddly dressed) ninjas Kasumi, Ayane, Hayate, and Ninja Gaiden’s Ryu Hayabusa are tasked with participating in the tournaments to put a halt to DOATEC’s plans and eliminate their creations.

Gameplay & Controls

Dimensions uses Dead or Alive’s oft-used countering system that grants players some recourse against their opponents’ actions. Strikes (punches and kicks), throws, and parries can all be countered if you’re able to correctly predict what your opponent is doing and time your actions properly. This is all made easier to pull off thanks to the control scheme, which assigns each basic attack to a single face button on the 3DS. Whole combos can be pulled off just by pressing one button, moving the D-Pad or Circle Pad in the proper direction, and propering timing your attack sequences. 

During matches, the touch screen displays your character’s complete move set, and all the player has to do is tap a specific move to execute it on the above screen.  Between that and the controls, it's difficult to imagine anyone having trouble with Dimensions.

Chronicle Mode

For those new to Dead or Alive or wish to revisit the main plotline, you’ll be spending a few hours in Chronicle Mode. While Chronicle Mode does a decent job of retelling Dead or Alive’s leading story, you’re only playing with five of the 24 characters for the entirety of the mode and left in the dark about all the remaining character backstories.  This mode also has a tendency to make sudden jumps from one scene to another so don't be surprised if you go from a little chatter then having to fight a few random tournament participants in the middle of your raid on DOATEC.

One thing you may happen to notice when playing against the computer in Chronicle and Dimensions’ other modes is that CPU opponents are very easy to beat. As someone who hasn’t touched a fighting game since Tekken Tag Tournament, I was able to constantly hold my own against other fighters on Hard difficulty (the second toughest difficulty available), even with the occasional difficulty spike rearing in to take a good chunk out of my health meter. New players can start on Normal without a problem, while longtime fans may want to dive straight into Insane for a proper challenge.

Arcade Mode

Outside of Chronicle Mode, there are plenty of other modes waiting for your attention, although Team Ninja’s implementations of them are fairly unusual. For instance, when you hear “Arcade Mode” for a fighting game, you expect to barrel through a certain amount of fighters before encountering a boss character to finish the session. In Dimensions, however, Arcade is better likened to a Time Trial mode with set courses of characters to fight through as fast as possible. If you really want "true" Arcade gameplay, you’ll have to endure certain amounts of them back-to-back in Survival Mode.

Continuing the mode implementation weirdness is the actual Tag Team Mode, which limits players to offline tag battles with AI partners. While in Tag Team, your AI partner will randomly jump in to take your place whenever your health falls between half and one-quarter, leaving you on the sidelines to wait on your health meter to regenerate. Given that games such as Marvel Vs. Capcom and Tekken allow players full control of their team, it’s baffling to see Dimensions be this restrictive with a longtime feature within the Dead or Alive series. I'm left wondering why Tag Team is its own mode rather than a feature that ought be used in other modes.

Online Mode, which does a good job of providing lag-free matches against human opponents, is in need of some refinement of its features. For some odd reason, Team Ninja opted to make the touch screen movelists accessible here, allowing newbies and unruly players get away with flawlessly executing their characters’ moves with impunity. There is no way to differentiate who is using the touch screen so everyone has to tough it out.  And when the current match is over, you’re dumped back to the Online Mode menu without being able to ask for a rematch. Dimensions also has a tendency to match you up with players who too far out of your rank, forcing you to beat up newer players and getting pummeled by experienced brawlers.

Dimensions takes a performance hit when you enable 3D, halving the framerate down to 30 FPS. Bear in mind this is purely cosmetic and has no effect on gameplay, so you can continue to fight as usual. Fights already looks great without 3D so it’s up to you to decide if it’s worth sacrificing the framerate for some extra depth.

Final Thoughts

Barring Team Ninja’s quirky gameplay modes, the surprisingly easy AI, and Chronicle Mode’s strict plotline focus, Dead or Alive: Dimensions is a fighting game that many 3DS owners should look into. The simplified controls makes Dimensions accessible for gamers who are new to fighting games while fans will appreciate having a familiar control scheme. Dimensions compliments Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition nicely and can be considered a worthwhile alternative if you find Capcom’s flagship fighter too rough to handle.