DOA2: Hardcore

"Let this game change your life, as it had done to mine; play the most exciting and amazing 3D fighting game of all time."

Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore - one of the most exciting and electrifying fighting game ever existed, and surely one to jerk your hormones. Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore, created by Tecmo (also the ones that had brought Fatal Frame to you), has evolved from its antecedent to a much more graphically detailed game, amazing gameplay and environments as well as tons of replay value that will certainly keep you back for more. And of course, this game is already improved in certain aspects if compared to the Dead or Alive 2 for Dreamcast. Although there are some aspects unsuitable for younger children (um, kick too high and you’ll see undies, as well as cleavages and pictures of the girls in bikinis will be a bit too much), those are not exactly one of the reasons why this game should be played.

Graphics – 9.6
Every character has been rendered beautifully in, various types of costumes that can be chosen for your characters (once they’re unlocked, of course), remarkable background environments and perfect animation – all in 3D. There won’t be any slow-down at all, and everything is pretty damn colourful too. The graphics are definitely detailed in every aspect; lighting effects for certain parts of the game are all great.

Some areas have a bit of water like puddles and the elements there are pretty great, like the waterfall and splashes of water. Wind blowing around, fire in certain cut-scenes and the rest are striking.

Music and Sound Effects – 9.4
The background music is definitely good, nice fast beat to provide a matching fighting experience, though you’re more than likely not to notice the background music at all due to the intensity of every match, except when the music is really striking. The sound effects overall are all remarkable, like sounds produced by punches and kicks. You can choose between two different voices for two different languages, English and Japanese. The Japanese voices are of course, wonderful with nothing that I can refute. The English voices, however, is okay overall, with the exception of a few characters like Tina. Oh yeah, and consider turning on the English subtitles too; I absolutely love subtitled games, because words that your characters say might not be clear at times.

Gameplay – 10
I absolutely love the fighting style of the game, because it represents various real-life martial arts that actually exist in the world. For example, Lei-Fang’s Tai Chi Kuan, Helena’s Pi Qua Quan and Jann Lee’s Jeet Kune Do. Since I had been impressed and fascinated by martial arts (though I never actually had the thought of practicing it), Dead or Alive 2 had been one of my favourite games of all time.

The controls are not exceptionally hard, there are four buttons on the controller which you can assign them to Punch, Kick, Block and Throw. The L and R buttons are used to switch characters in the Tag Team mode. The variety of moves for each characters are absolutely great, all swift and fast (minus large, big and fat character like Bass), together with the ability to counter your opponent’s attacks, where you will somehow shift their attacks on you into your attacks on them. Some counter moves could push your opponent away or throw them high up in the air.

The environments are large – though not absolutely huge – but enough for you to move about in the limited area. Some of the areas have some sort of ‘connection’ – like in the icy area, you might fall down to the ground below if you stepped into the wrong place; another example is in a tower, where if you successfully hit your enemy to the circular window-pane, the glass will smash splendidly and your opponent falling down below, resulting in more damage. Here, there are many new stages added as well as modified stages to make it bigger and better, compared to the Dead or Alive 2 in Dreamcast.

The various modes in the game will not bore you for even a few months later, considering the fact if you did not have the chance to play the game often. I’ll review the range of modes available in the game.

Story
Well, you can see what happened to your characters here and their story behind here, though there is not much to see. In Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore, there are more scenes added in compared to the normal Dead or Alive, though they are mostly not important but added for the sake of style and coolness. You will be able to unlock more of your characters’ costumes here, including other modes as well.

Versus
So basically, this is a 2 player mode where you’ll be able to keep on fighting with your human-controlled character, and keep playing and playing in various large stages.

Tag Team
Possibly the best mode available in this game, because I kept playing Tag Team often enough. You can play up to 4 players (if you have the multi-tap and enough controllers) and this call for quadruple fun. This mode is now exceptionally amazing because now, there are more and more Tag Team partners than the Dreamcast counterpart. Examples are like Helena and Gen-Fu, the original compatible and suitable partners but now, you can team up Helena and Lei-Fang together! Look out for both of them as their Tag Team combo is very beautiful (in martial arts terms). You use the L and R buttons to switch character, and therefore, your previous character will be able to regain a little of their health, while using another character.

Survival
In Survival mode, it’s obvious (hence the name) that you’ll need to defeat as many opponents as you can before you are defeated. You can also collect items that are dropped by opponents that you had defeated to gain health or points, and there will be even a menu that will show you what you had collected so far. As you defeat more characters, the items will be much better and you’ll gain more points!

Time Attack
There won’t be too many limitations on the time (you can change it anyway in the options), but all you got to do is to defeat all the eight enemies (default two rounds) as fast as possible. Even if you lost, you can keep trying again until you succeed but the time will still be accumulated to the total time.

Sparring
Sparring had already explained itself; it’s a mode where you can train up your characters. This time around (again, compared to the Dead or Alive 2 for Dreamcast counterpart), you can choose whether to train in a single mode style, or Tag Team style (where you’ll be able to train your Tag Team combos, which is excellent). But the move lists for your character is not available though (although they have the directional and attacking buttons showing up as you press them), which is a bit disappointing. You’ll have to press buttons (perhaps randomly) to see which move had been executed.

Spectate
This is a mode that will allow you to see your favourite characters fight, with the computer controlling them. It’s just nice that you’ll be able to view your characters’ moves (which you might not already know).

One of the amazing things would be the loading times, because the game will load rather quickly without waiting too long, like Dead or Alive 2 for Dreamcast. This might be due to the immense hardware of PlayStation2, or else the storage size of the DVD is big enough to handle all the files quickly, or even the amount of RAM in the hardware (I’m not entirely sure whether these are correct or not, it’s just an assumption).

And yeah, there are character profiles that are rather interesting, especially the name of each character’s martial arts.

Replay Value – 9.0
Considering that there are lots of costumes to unlock for each character (and I tell you, they look great! – at least, most of them), and two hidden characters and modes to unlock, this game has a vast lasting appeal to most of you. Incredible as it seems, Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore will last longer than you might expect. Of course, with more friends to play with, it’ll last even longer.

Overall – 9.7
Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore is a must and will appeal to fighting games fans and the most perverted (easily guessed). Its excellent and highly detailed graphics, wonderful music and sound effects, combined with the almost no loading times (the game loads in a matter of seconds), with tons of things to unlock, Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore is definitely and will always be the game for you. Let this game change your life, as it had done to mine – you’ll definitely be addicted to it in no time.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 08/07/02, Updated 08/07/02