Dead or Alive Creator Badmouths Tekken

Dead or Alive creator and leader of Team Ninja Tomonobu Itagaki spoke with 1up.com about the DoA series, tournaments, and other fighting games. He had some very pointed things to say about Tekken 5. From the article: "First they put in all of these half-finished "features", then they take them right out again. Tag fights, elevation differences, walls. I don't know if it's because they're impatient, or because they lack the ability, but no matter the reason those guys are a pretty weird bunch. Any of those things would have become a bonafide feature if they took the time to do it right."

Comments

pr0n

[Dragoon412]

So, Team Ninja Criticizes the Tekken guys for trying to make a better fighting game?

How could the Tekken devs possibly retort? Point out that DoA's boob jiggling physics aren't realistic enough? I mean, this would be like the Myst devs bitching about Doom 3 for not having enough shooting.

Team Ninja needs to stop beating (heheh) around the bush (heheh) and just start making porn games, because a desire for a solid fighting game is the last thing on someone's mind when he buys a DoA game.

Re:pr0n

[Jeff Reed]

Indeed. Team Ninja clearly can make excellent action/fighting titles (Ninja Gaiden is proof of this), but for whatever reason they refuse to do so with the Dead or Alive games. Then, they turn around and whine when people want to see the busty female characters in their games completely naked, instead of as close to naked as you can get without showing any naughty bits.

The jab at Death By Degrees, however, was quite deserved. What a stinking pile that game was.

Slow news day, Zonk?

[Keith Russell]

Itagaki disses Tekken. In other breaking news:

Kerry badmouths Bush
Gates calls Stallman a "damn hippie"
Dog bites postman

All this, plus your HyperKillerStormWatchDoppler5000 forecast, tonight at 11.

Re:Slow news day, Zonk?

[mausmalone]

"Hello, Pot? Yes. This is Kettle. Guess what. You're BLACK!!!!"

Re:Slow news day, Zonk?

[Keith Russell]

Tekken has been Itagaki's favorite punching bag for years. Try this 2001 IGN interview on for size. Search IGN for Itagaki's name, and you'll find plenty more where that came from.

Right to talk

[Apreche]

Because the creator of such a fantastic fighting game like DoA which boasts a bouncing boobometer as a game innovation has a right to talk about which fighting games are good and bad. Not that Tekken 5 is any masterpiece.
Street Fighter 2 CE, Soul Calibur (any), Mortal Kombat II and maybe Virtua Fighter are still the defining games of the genre. All the other fighting games are just wanna-bes.

Re:Right to talk

[ZephyrXero]

Are you on crack..lol? MK2 was the best one in the series....although that doesn't really say much. When they took the story into left field with 3 it just felt much cheezier to play it. All the ani/friend/baby -alities sucked too. Most people I know would play MK3 long enough to see all the *alities and then never play it again. c'mon man... but I guess everyone's entitled to their opinion. ;)

MK4's gameplay was slow and clunky, but looked nice at the time. The new ones play a little better now, but there's too much going on to enjoy it. We don't need 3 different fighting styles for each character... why can't anyone "Keep It Simple Stupid?" in the gaming world anymore.

While I'm here... the original Mortal Kombat Movie was kinda cool...but Annihilation blew complete ass ;)

I almost wish DOA *didn't* have the breasts...

[Chris_Jefferson]

While that title might look shocking, wait just a few sentances :)

I've always thought Dead or Alive's playing was far superiour to Tekken. In Tekken the only way to play well seems to be to memorise a fixed set of increasingly long combos, whereas dead of alive feels much more flexable (sure, you can still learn combos, but it feels much less like you are forced into a small fixed number of patterns.)

While I do love the breasts and semi-nakedness of DoA, it makes it much harder to convince people that there is one of the best 3d 1-on-1 beat-em-ups under there as well :)

What are you talking about!?

[scottind]

Mortal kombat II is not a game that defines the fighting game genre, maybe in 1995, but not nowadays. If you look at any big tournaments i dont see any that have ever used mk in their roster of games. If there is any similarity from mk2 to tekken, is that it allows some pretty ridiculous juggling. If you want to talk about entries into fighting games, there are only two: Street Fighter 2 CE, and Marvel 2. If you want to know about the current popular fighting games, its Marvel 2, and 3rd strike.

Virtua Fighter has improved quite a bit, but the learning curve is so high that its pretty hard for newcomers to play.

So anyway, Itagaki is basically doing the exact same thing he did when Tekken4 came out, and all he's doing is just stirring some riot, and making some name out for DOA. That being said, DOA's fighting system is nothing to write home about either since it's just some fast paced dial-a-combo, luck countering fighting game. Oh yeah, and its eyecandy. Tekken is slightly the same except it allows for a lot of creative comboes to connect, which is (my guess) the biggest appeal. It was a bit shocking when he did it last year, but this year, "Grow up, Itagaki!"

Conclusion, if you are talking about a game that is what would be considered the "Rennissance" of fighting games, i'd put it down on Street Fighter 3 3rd Strike. If you want this years bandwagon game, look no further than Tekken5.

Re:What are you talking about!?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you ask me, Soulcalibur provides the best combination of accessibility and sophistication.

Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks so because the Soulcalibur II machine was so popular at my school's rec room that they added a second one. The Marvel vs. Capcom machine never drew crowds like Soulcalibur and of course Tekken 4 never came close.

Soulcalibur II is also one of the most balanced fighting games I've ever seen. While there are a few characters that could be considered strongest, their advantages are relatively small and skill at predicting one's opponent and avoiding being predicted is vastly more important than character selection.

hypocrite

[scottind]

DOA badmouths Tekken for putting out a crappy shiny new game. In the meantime, Teamninja recycles DOA2 into DOA Ultimate.

You notice how Itagaki never says anything about the actual gameplay? you wonder why DOA is not taken as a serious fighting game in competition.

Re:A careful observer would note...

[Golias]

That under all the low self-esteem and jiggles, DOA Volleyball had an extremely simple, but robust interface, and is probably the best volleyball game out there.

Best of all, it's a great volleyball game that comes with low self-esteem and jiggles! You can play that game for hours on end and never get bored with it. ... er... or so I've heard.

Re:Uninteresting Article

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the people involved will be Americans, latency issues, and costumes. The last question involves Tekken and is present just to flatter the him.

Hey, are you the guy who wrote my VCR instructions back in the 80s?

You know it's bad when...

[ReverendLoki]

You know it's bad when you're own commercials smmarize the games biggest draw as:

"She kicks high"

Assuming I'm not the only one who remembers this anyways...