A playthrough of the hidden character Ein in Team Ninja/Tecmo’s Dead or Alive 4/DOA4.
So, Ein returns from DOA3, once more as a hidden character. Something I didn’t mention in the last video is that the player’s attacks seem to come out slower than the opponent’s attacks. If you attempt to initiate an attack, it’s entirely possible that the opponent will counter with an attack despite their input starting after your own. It feels really cheap and artificial; almost to me like there’s a bit of input lag. It may just be in my head (especially after playing this game for around 10 hours or so), I but swear it’s there.
Ein here definitely doesn’t feel quite as competent as he did in DOA3, and the evident reason for that is that he relies on strikes and rather basic combos more than anything else. He’s not by any means a bad character, but in a game like this which is so focussed on its combo engine it doesn’t make him a dramatically enjoyable character. You see, DOA4 has a combo system when was technically around since the second game, but it’s all the more apparent here. Characters can execute combos or critical hits. Critical hits leave an opponent temporarily stunned and unable to move, allowing for a follow-up combo. However, an opponent can get out of a critical hit by successfully countering an attack, which feels like a cheap attempt at balancing more than anything else. If a character isn’t dramatically prone to hitting with critical strikes however, this can leave them feeling quite vulnerable as a character, which I felt like Ein often was. His strikes often seemed to get countered I found, even his rushing attacks which shouldn’t have been as susceptible. He’s still an okay character on the whole, not to mention his rushing attacks come in handy against Alpha-152, but I didn’t find him too special here.
Speaking of Alpha-152, it’s about time I addressed that elephant in the room. Alpha-152 is much worse than anything that’s come before her. At the same time, she’s actually not too bad. That might seem cognitively dissonant, but that about sums up both this game and my thoughts on it in general. You see, it’s important to keep in mind how previous bosses were up to this point. Raidou was a Dural-esque boss who took his moves from other characters. His design was brilliant, but he never came across as a threat gameplay-wise, even if he was so in the story. Tengu was unique, and noteworthy for his projectile attack as well as his flying bodyslam attacks. He was a tedious boss at times, but not to any extent broken. Design-wise he was pretty bland as well, and not a great step forward for the series. Genra/Omega had a lot of potential, given that he was so heavily tied into the main story, but his boss battle was too unconventional to be enjoyable and in general he wasn’t a particularly fun character to fight.
So, we’ve had two conventional boss battles and one limited, unconventional one. Raidou and Tengu were typical fighting game bosses, while Omega was a by-the-numbers boss who could be more or less defeated with a select strategy every time, similar to Onaga in Mortal Kombat Deception. Alpha-152 is something of an outlier however. She is technically quite limited as a boss in the same way that Omega was, having only around four different combos and a couple of different holds and throws. When you start to get used to her playstyle, she’s really not too bad, and is often incredibly susceptible to running attacks. Getting used to her takes a while however, as at first she is one of the most infuriating bosses in existence. Fighting her for the first time was one of those demoralising moments which only the worst fighting game bosses are prone to giving.
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28 сен 2024
