http://katiejurek.com
Pros
- I love collecting swimsuits for these girls that I've now known for a good portion of my life.
- The volleyball minigame is still fairly therapeutic.
- Love the beachy feel still.
- There's a free English-subtitled demo version available online, wherein only Kasumi is playable, you can't gift swimsuits to other girls, and you can't play at the casino. It's on the Hong Kong store, but this involves you making a Hong Kong PSN account (and going through a fair bit of Chinese) to download it since it's not available on the western PSN stores.
Cons
- Complete grindfest. Getting Owner Money in this game is like pulling teeth. Any way to get money fast (like the casino) is lame. For example, one way to play for Owner Money is to forgo actually doing activities yourself in order to "watch" them from Owner Mode and get money that way instead. Which basically involves just waiting and pressing the continue button (which in this game is O instead of X, given that it's the Asian version).
- This game is only available in Asia. If you want the full version in the west, you have to import it, or buy it from e.g. the Hong Kong PSN store. The Japanese version doesn't have English subtitles, the Hong Kong one does.
- No Lei Fang! They did a Japan-only top 10 poll to gauge interest in each of the girls, and the girls that scored highest in the rankings were the ones put into the game. I'd gladly switch out one of the newer girls for Lei Fang, one of the old classics; DOA just doesn't feel complete without our favorite bratty Chinese martial artist who loves yellow and complicated hairstyles. Tina, Christie, and Lisa are also gone, but nothing compares to my disappointment at the lack of Lei Fang.
- A lot of content was actually removed. For example, you can't jetski anymore, and the Brilliant Jungle area doesn't even exist! That means you only have two areas that you can play volleyball now. It just feels emptier than the last two versions.
- The story is ridiculous. Not that that's why we play it, but it does take an immersive hit when the game tells you that Zack got yet another island...yet somehow keeps some of the exact same areas looking basically completely the same (e.g. Niki Beach and Tranquil Beach).
- Giving items and getting them accepted in this game is made atrociously tedious.
- There's no licensed music anymore, so you get only really boring, trite tracks that play over and over, except for maybe one. They don't have a homey feel to them at all, unlike the old music.
- The girls still have the same bodies with absolutely ridiculous measurements (Honoka being a good example of huge breasts that dwarf her tiny waist), the only real difference between them being their height and the size of their breasts (which are all supple no matter the rest of their measurements). No birthmarks, no asymmetry, no freckles, absolutely nothing to make them look more than negligibly individual if you ignore their faces. Even though it's still nice to get the swimsuits for them, this fact takes a lot of the fun out of it.
Overall, I can't say I recommend this game, and definitely not for the listed price. I like collecting the swimsuits, but it takes forever, and not having Lei Fang is just sad.