Finally, an addictive long-lasting Fighter from the minds of Team Ninja. One of the best DOA games made.
As some of you might know, DOA Ultimate is really two games in one, DOA 1 Ultimate and DOA 2 Ultimate. Both of them have been upgrade to take advantage of the Xbox hardware. So I will be reviewing each of them.
I'll start with DOA 1. This game that you see in the package is a port of the Sega Saturn version of DOA (released in Japan only. US version of the game is for the Playstation). While the DOA games are now recognized as a great fighter series, it certainly did not have a great start. DOA 1, for the most part, was a slightly-above average Fighter. The attacks, combos, and some of the throws seem to resemble Virtua Fighter 2. Then there's you basic selection of characters. You'll go through rounds to take out your opponents and repeat with different characters. Aside from the arcade mode, there isn't much left to interest you. You'll get time attack, kumite, survival and training. However, I shouldn't forget to mention that DOA 1Ultimite has the DOA Online option where you can fight off against people on Xbox Live. But I'll go into detail with that later. Aside from the DOA Online option, nothing new has been added to the first game in the series.
DOA 2 Ultimate, however, has a vast majority of extras and technical improvements over the original game. The stages were borrowed from DOA 2: Hardcore for the PS2, but were given a complete makeover. Then like most DOA games nowadays, you'll get modes like Story mode, Time Attack mode, Tag Team Mode, Survival, ECT. You'll also get brand new features that add value. Such features include Record mode, which you can record battles and save them to the hardrive, Collection, which is where the items you find in survival go, and Watch mode, which you can view CPU's fighting it out in many different camera angels. It's also worth mentioning that DOA 2 Ultimate has A LOT of costumes. This adds a lot of value in this game since you'll be playing story mode and time attack on many different difficulty levels and with different fighters. There are even a couple DOA 3 characters that are unlockable. More unlockables include a CG Gallery and the DOA 3 booster disc features, which give you new costumes to DOA 3 if you have that game. And don't forget DOA Online of course, where you'll been duking it out in matches while waiting for competitors and go through many rounds on multiple different modes. So with all these features to play around with, it's obvious that DOA 2 Ultimate is going to be more played then DOA 1 Ultimate.
Sure you'll mostly play DOA 2, but DOA 1 is still a nice game to play sometimes, just to see how the series started. This sums up with a great game package.
Graphics:
Team Ninja never disappoints when it comes to graphics, however, they aren't really a vast improvement over DOA 3. In DOA 2, the character models look smoother, and the special effects on the lighting and wind are great, but you'd expect a lot more from Team Ninja. Regardless, DOA 2 does look very impressive, and it's nice to see a huge graphical jump from the PS2 and Dreamcast versions of DOA 2. DOA 1, however, has rarely any improvements to match up to the Xbox's capabilities. The only thing that was done to the graphics was improving the coloring and getting rid of the "jaggies" that were common during the 32-bit era. I'm not complaining though, since it does look decent for Xbox players, and DOA 1 looked great on the Saturn. DOA Ultimate produces a very nice graphical package.
Sound:
The music in both games is great. Sure the songs are kinda standard in fighting games, but they do sound catchy and cool. The sound effects get the job done, and that's all that matters there. The trademark Japanese-only voice acting is back and great. Sure they are mostly archive files from the old games, but the voice actors did do a nice job with their lines. However, it would've been nice if there was an option for English voices. No matter what, though, DOA Ultimate has a great audio setup.
Conclusion:
Since there are a lot of modes to play in, a lot of costumes to unlock, characters to unlock, and DOA Online, this is definitely one of the best DOA games to come out. Normally, DOA games don't have long lasting replay value, but this game is an exception, as you'll be playing it for many hours. The staff at Team Ninja keeps giving to us, and they give to us great games. This is a fighter fans must-have in their collection, and certainly worth trying out for casual Xbox gamers.
Pros:
-Ye olde gameplay, but it still pwns (translation: the gameplay still rocks)
-Outstanding visuals (for DOA 2 at least)
-A lot of new modes and unlockables
-DOA Online is a real treat
-Long replay value
-We finally get to see the Saturn version of DOA 1 (since it was never released anywhere else from Japan)
Cons:
-Well...the actual gameplay for both games may seem a bit outdated for some gamers.