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.

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.

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.

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: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.