Not very complex. Competition to see who can mash two buttons in the correct order the fastest. Pulled out my hair.
Gameplay. The most important part of the game. Unfortunately, DOA4 gets quite old very fast for people who prefer more complex fighters. As i mentioned before, there are only two main attack buttons as well as a throw and a block. Lets start with the block. It is not very useful as the enemy always strings their attacks at lightning speed and will throw in some high and low attacks. This already negates your block and will quite often put you in the dreaded stun stance on the ground. If that werent enough, as usual, throws will negate a block as well. Now, there are ways around blocking in every fighter, not just this one, but the thing about DOA4 is that the attacks are incredibly fast and younger people with lightning reflexes will be the most likely to have some chance at blocking. For the most part it is punch punch punch punch punch kick kick punch punch roundhouse kick and ko. Not that technical, but it is really hard, but not in a challenging way. Looking at the moves list, it is almost all yellow and red, for kicks and punches. Most combos are five or six button presses, so if you ever wondered how many unique linear combinations two buttons can be pressed, look at the moves list and you will have some idea. I did mention being stunned before. With just about every kick that lands, the enemy or yourself will be knocked to the ground. You use the directional control to get your character on their feet, but you will be waiting painfully while the enemy pummels you with cheap shots.
The audio gets very samey. The soundtrack consists of mosty heavy guitar songs with the odd japanese techno-pop tune in between. The other unusual thing is that the game has not been re-dubbed to english. All of the characters speak and taunt each other in japanese, which can make the game feel a little impersonal at times. Lip-syncing is not too great either.
I have never had to bring this up before, but if you need to look at any of the documentation for any reason, DOA4's is awful. I thought there must be more than just two buttons, so i looked at the booklet and not only are kicks and punches the most used, but the buttons on the paper have different letters to the game pad's usual abxy. Also, to make it even more difficult to get your head around, two of the buttons are not even colour co-ordinated with the pad. And even further, the colours of the buttons in the booklet are completely different to those in the move list in the game. No idea what happened there. Otherwise, the booklet is filled with junk that you just do not need to know.
I have been playing fighters for a very long time now, and DOA4 is definitely not one of the best i have seen. I would recommend on 360 SoulCalibur4 or Street Fighter 4. For crying out loud, even if you're in a pinch, i would recommend ClayFighter 63 1/3 on N64 over this. Either you click with this game or not, but it should not take so long for you to do so.