While the Nintendo 3DS is seeing a Dead or Alive game very early in its life, the PSP hasn’t seen a proper Dead or Alive title in all its life. Out of curiosity, we asked Team Ninja head, Yosuke Hayashi, what exactly it was they could do on the 3DS that wasn’t possible on PSP.
The answer was simpler than we expected — online play was the reason. “We were looking for hardware which could hold its weight by allowing us to make a smooth network play experience and give players a chance to enjoy going against each other online,” Hayashi told Siliconera.
He continued: “3DS was that perfect candidate since network play puts very little stress on the hardware, letting us implement everything that we wanted to have in the game without sacrificing any of the graphical and technical performance.”
Since multiplayer is such an important aspect of the game, Team Ninja went through an extensive re-balancing process for Dead or Alive: Dimensions. Since the game didn’t have an arcade release prior to a console one, they couldn’t rely on feedback from aracde-goers. As a result, all re-balancing was done based on feedback gathered for Dead or Alive 4, since Dimensions is based primarily on DOA4 and DOA3.
With regard to multiplayer, Hayashi says that some of the characters the development team felt were too powerful in DOA4 have been fixed. He warned, however, that while Dead or Alive: Dimensions will be more approachable to beginners, it won’t necessarily be easy, even in singleplayer mode.
“The parts from previous games that were ridiculously difficult have been made easier and more approachable, though we have prepared some challenges for expert players that will make Dead or Alive 4 feel like a walk in the park!” Hayashi joked.
