Showing posts with label Dead or Alive 2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dead or Alive 2. Show all posts

Dead Or Alive 2: Final Hits Dreamcast (Updated)

Fan-made mods are just a part of life when it comes to PC gaming, but on consoles - and especially the Dreamcast - they are fairly uncommon. Enter aptly-named modder Green Ranger who has taken it upon himself to heavily modify Tecmo's superb 3D fighter Dead Or Alive 2 and create DOA2: Final.

This project is the result of several years' worth of work and pulls together two previous mods to the game (DOA2 Special Edition and DOA2 Ultimate Edition), and adds lots of new features. These new additions are mainly visual - new character costumes and designs, plus additional character dialogue which allows for new single player storylines. The story in DOA2 was pretty confusing in the first place, so maybe this new narrative will help to make things a little clearer. Here's a full run down of the new features and character costumes added to DOA2: Final:

  • New Title Screen that reads - DEAD OR ALIVE 2: FINAL
  • Stage Slideshow during Title Screen sequence has been altered
  • New music throughout the game - Stages, Training Mode, Mode Select Screen and Ending Credits have new music
  • Character dialogue changed extensively to give some fighters new storylines, and also dialogue changed in general to sound less confusing when interacting with characters.
  • New/edited costumes for nearly every fighter (costumes from my previous mods were tweaked/updated for this release) 
  • DOA3 character stances for Zack and Genfu
  • Bass & Tina's storyline now have a new Tina Poster on the brick wall and in Bass' room
  • Stage layouts differ for various characters in Story Mode - nice way to spice things up!
  • Bigger Dummy file in CDI image to allow for faster load times
  • In Versus & Watch Mode the Aerial Garden is automatically night, press R-trigger to access daytime Aerial Garden

A Guilty Pleasure

If you are a regular visitor to the Junkyard you might have noticed that I rather like the genre of versus fighter. I love its immediacy, its shock factor, its brutal disregard to conform and evolve with the rest of the gaming industry. It reminds me of a time now passed, when gaming culture was crafted in the furnace of the local arcade, when "winner stayed on", names were taken and friendships were forged through endless competition beneath flickering marquees.

Its interesting really that right now, after over a decade’s neglect, the versus fighting genre is appearing to be undergoing a small revival. Kick-started by the release of Street Fighter IV, a series of old, battle-weary names have been donning the gloves once more, with Killer Instinct, Mortal Kombat, Tekken and Dead or Alive all returning to the ring. I've played most of them too and, on the whole, they manage admirably to recapture what cemented the genre as a classic in the 1990s.