Guys and gals, it appears we need to talk about Dead or Alive.
First, some facts – Dead or Alive 2 was an early release for the Dreamcast, Sega’s final foray into the console business. It was developed by Team Ninja, the folks behind the generally great Ninja Gaiden series. Its story, which is as ridiculous as fighting game stories usually are, revolves around a new “best fighter in the world tournament” following the death of Fame Douglas, a ridiculously named leader who was key to world peace or something.
The Dead or Alive series is generally fast-paced, heavily focused on counterattack-style tactics, features gorgeous multi-tiered stages, and is typically a lot of fun. Of course, none of those things are what the series is most known for.
Series creator Tomonobu Itagaki set out to create a franchise that would immediately garner a fan base, and made sex appeal one of its primary features. Itagaki is a very good designer – the games he makes are technically impressive and very enjoyable. For better or worse, though, he knows how to appeal to his audience, and that’s with absurdly proportioned (and often-scantily clad) female characters.
I’ve grown a bit uncomfortable with this series. From a fighting standpoint, it portrays women as equals, but the visual portrayals of said characters are still absurdly sexualized. DoA isn’t the only series to do this – Soul Calibur, Street Fighter and numerous others have their share of salacious characters – but it’s probably the one that most thoroughly goes all-in on the concept. You might want to argue that it simply aims to celebrate the female form, but I’d argue that it merely celebrates *a* female form – specifically hyper-sexualized, supermodel form that has its own set of issues.
Team Ninja cut straight to the point with their ridiculous Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball series, which removes the male characters entirely (as well as most of the clothes). In recent years, the Xtreme series has drawn backlash over its brazen sexualization – the third entry in the series wasn’t released in the US at all, a decision that prompted this impressively tone-deaf explanation from a Tecmo social media rep:
Yikes. To be clear, the game was still released – it just wasn’t released to a market that would take the most issues with its content. There are certainly cultural difference between Japan and North America, but if a game is too problematic to even release in a major market, it may be a sign that something’s very wrong your approach. Perhaps sadly, changing this formula – perhaps by incorporating different female body types or toning down the sex appeal, would alienate its fan base. Toning it down would, in essence, deprive the game of one of its core properties.
It’s for that reason that I struggle to see DoA’s place in the gaming world going forward. Dead or Alive 2, and the core series of which it is a part, is very fun. If you like fighting games of that era, it is among the best. I’m just saying that in some non-gameplay respects, it has seriously not aged well. While the industry begins to improve its portrayals of women, it seems like DoA may end up a relic of the past. I’m pretty fine with that, honestly.
Dead or Alive 2 is still indisputably a well-made and enjoyable game, and part of a stellar lineup of fighting games on the Dreamcast. If any of the above rings true to you, though, it may be worth looking elsewhere among that lineup.
Next week, we’re going back to the early 1980s to clown around with some much lighter subject matter. I’ll see you then!