As Dead or Alive 2 is a Dreamcast port it manages to step out of its shadow and stand alone, with new levels, costumes and voices. DOA2 consists of a variety of modes, which though are at core the same, do provide a little variety. These modes include a story mode, a versus mode, tag-team battle, sparring and survival. In story mode you play the story of the Dead or Alive championship through battling as a single character. Whilst many of the characters, despite their general annoyingness, are interesting and have developed since the last game, the story is not. Story mode is really just a series of fights with the occasional pretty cutscenes between and a tale is not told at all. Fortunately, thanks to terrible voice acting and dialogue it provides some comic relief. Versus Mode allows you to battle against your friends. Tag-team battle is rather good as it is multitap compatible, and also allows for devastating tag combos with characters, which are surprisingly easy to pull off. Sparring is also noteworthy, as not only are you able to train, but to record your battle and save them on your memory card, they can take up a lot of space and so I would personally advise against it. The gameplay is button-mash friendly making it easy access, and frankly just plain fun.
The game, on its release, was also visually stunning. The environments are fully explorable, amazing graphically and the animation runs smoothly. Most notable of all is the character models which were fantastic, the moving hair and the sleekness of their motion physics was incredible for their day. The sound of the game is laugh out loud funny, but laugh at not with. The voice acting is absolutely dire, in delivery and it doesn't help the script is so bad and half the stuff they say is pointless anyway. The soundtrack is a mix of uninspired guitar tracks which to wear on the ears after a while. The only convincing audio-work in the whole game are the amusing fighting sound effects, from character screams to slap whiplashes. Overall, a fun, slick, 3D fighting game, which makes up its lack of depth with its sheer hilarity, and inability to take itself seriously.
Other Helpful Reviews for DOA2: Dead or Alive 2 (Platinum)
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