DOA 4 is probably the best fighting game to date. "PERIOD"
I reiterate my statement that Dead or Alive 4 is probably the best fighting game to date. Great games achieve a unique balance between gameplay, graphics, and challenge, and DOA 4 has done that. There are two schools of thought on fighting games. One school thinks that the game should be as complicated as the martial arts themselves. In my opinion these are the nerds who have no lives and nothing better to do than to spend thier brain memorizing 20 hit button combinations, just so that they can have bragging rights to something in there lives. To me games are suppose to make you feel like what your not. In a fighting game you should be able to feel like a Ninja, a Muy Thai Boxer, a Master Submission grappler, without knowing a damn thing about how to do it in real life. This is what DOA has done well since DOA 2. With it's simple setup of punch, kick, block and grab, a novice can feel like a contender from the get go, and have absoublutly gorgeous visuals to look at. This is the addicting factor. It's hard to look bad in DOA 4. Even getting your ass handed to you looks pretty. In comparision I knew it would be hard to improve graphically for this series but I guess I did expect a little bit more considering the graphics of games like Codemn and NBA Live 2006, but the character models do have a slight upgrade over DOA 3. Bodies look more solid and more realistic, proportionatly. But in a HIgh Definition TV you won't notice too much difference in skin textures between character models from DOA 3 to there DOA 4 counterparts. You would notice that the faces do have more polygons in them just because they look more natural. The best improvement are in the moves per character and the audio of the blows. All the fighters seem to have more realistic more hard hitting fighting style. Less flash more substance, which is good for a fighting game. The sound of the hits has been changed from a the old western sounding clap to a more denser sounding dud. Which does well to make you feel the pain of the blow. Over all DOA 4 feels more painful than ever before, which is good. While in DOA Ultimate, the fights felt more like a exhibition of moves, in DOA 4 fights, you actually feel like your doing damage to each other.
Tweaks to characters moves have been changed to a more realistic style, that you'll notice during play. Even the Ninja's seem to throw more punches than finger jabs. Zack has a new cool hook punch combo that he murders the body with. Hayate has tweeked his style to mix in more with his Ein Karate syle. He now fights with a perfect blend of the two. Withe the swiftness and unpredictability of this ninjitsu style but his standard attacks seem to focus more on punch and kick combinations from his karate style. But those wishing for classic Ein as myself (personal favorite) he is a unlockable character after beating the game with Hitomi, (how has the most idiotic story in the game so far, "I want that Cabbage, LET"S FIGHT !!! LOL.)
Now to get to the real reason everyone is playing this game. ONLINE MODE. This game IS BETTER THAN TEKKEN 5, AND SOUL CALIBER, YOU KNOW WHY, BECAUSE IT HAS ONLINE MULTIPLAYER. THERE IS ABSOUBLUTLY NO POINT IN MAKING A FIGHTING GAME WITHOUT ONLINE MULTIPLAYER MODE. NAMCO SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF THEMSELVES THINKING THAT THE AUDIENCE THAT GREW UP WITH TEKKEN AND SUPPORTED THROUGHOUT THE YEARS HAS TIME TO GET FRIENDS OVER. WE ALL WORK NOW, THIS AIN'T HIGHSCHOOL ANYMORE !!!
The online mode was weird and jarring at first as your little avatar is trasported to this little DBZ dimension where your watching the game online and making your little Ninja laugh, wash his face. This is actually the game's lobby. At that point you have to press start to actually let the game know you want to play. Why do you even be in the game lobby if you didn't want to play is beyond me. It would be nice if there were minigames in the lobby, but it is a nice place to be in when your changing your settings. There is less Lag than DOA Ulitmate so far, but a serious problem occurs when people try to quite at the end of a match. Like most microsft products, the game has had a tendency to freeze. You have to back to your xbox live dashboard in order to clear it if it doesn't clear up on it's own. I really wish that this game got some dedicated servers in the US, and not share it's servers with XBOX LIVE. If Halo 2 can play virtually lag free at times this should also. Granted it's a more complicated online experiance but considering this going to be one of the most xbox live games ever played, it should get special treatment.
Overall this is the absoublute best fighting game you can get right now. It took getting past the Golden age of Fighting games but the Dead Or Alive Series has finally made it's mark as the premier fighting game to play above the rest, and has the most to offer above the rest.