Dead or Alive (game)

Dead or Alive (デッドオアアライブ) is the first installment in the Dead or Alive series.

Developed by Team Ninja and published by Tecmo, Dead or Alive was first released in arcades in 1996, using the system board and was later ported onto the Sega Saturn home console in Japan on October 9, 1997.

In 1998, a PlayStation version of Dead or Alive was released in Japan, North America, and Europe, with a different graphics and fighting engine, new background music, and two additional characters.

Dead or Alive++ (デッドオアアライブ++) was also released in 1998. This arcade-only release used the Sony ZN-1 arcade board and, while graphically similar to the PlayStation port of Dead or Alive, plays more like Dead or Alive 2. The game introduced a bigger emphasis on stuns and to that end, two separate hold systems were included, one inside and one outside of critical state.

In 2004, the Sega Saturn version was ported onto the Xbox as part of Dead or Alive Ultimate.

Dead or Alive was followed by the series' first sequel Dead or Alive 2 in 1999.

Prologue
A girl catches her breath and stares down at the gathering of warrior gods below. What she feels is not light, but darkness. Her mind wanders with thought. She's made it this far...

She's traveled this far...

on just a few clues...

to avenge her brother.

The chance for revenge is near.

The insatiable ambition of the human race has lead to the abuse of scientific knowledge. Foolishly setting up the stage for the extreme battle on the land. Now, a new Dead or Alive battle is about to begin.

A girl calmly closes her eyes. She hears the vibration of the colliding power and the uncontrollable, violent melody.

She envisions numerous obstacles set ahead of her. The shadow waves to the courages men and the dignified women.

Kasumi, trusting herself...

Throws herself...

into the wind.

Disappearing,

the only thing left,

the whistling noise of the wind.

Playable characters

 * Kasumi, a kind-hearted kunoichi who ran away from her clan to avenge her older brother Hayate, who was left crippled when their village was attacked.
 * Zack, a happy-go-lucky DJ with a taste for the finer things in life. He joined the tournament simply to win the large cash prize and publicity.
 * Ryu Hayabusa, a stoic master shinobi and member of the Hayabusa clan's head family. He joined the tournament to protect his best friend Hayate's little sister, Kasumi.
 * Bayman, a cold and determined assassin who trained in the style of Command Sambo. He posed as a participant in the tournament but, in truth, he was hired by Victor Donovan, a member of DOATEC, to exterminate Fame Douglas.
 * Lei Fang, a spunky college student and taikyoku-Ken prodigy from a wealthy family. Six years before the events of Dead or Alive, Lei Fang was challenged by a gang of thugs but was saved by Jann Lee before she could fight them. Annoyed that someone would assume she could not handle things herself, Lei Fang entered the tournament to fight Jann Lee head on and prove her worth as a fighter to him.
 * Gen Fu, a wise and honorable old master of shini-rokugo-ken. He entered the tournament in order to win the cash prize, which he would use to get medical treatment for his gravely ill granddaughter Mei Linn.
 * Tina Armstrong, the driven women's pro wrestling champion. A year before the tournament, she almost gave up on wrestling, but her father and trainer Bass convinced her to join Dead or Alive. While Bass thinks Tina joined the tournament for the glory of winning, Tina's real goal was to be discovered by Hollywood and snag a more glamorous career.
 * Jann Lee, a hot-blooded Jeet Kune Do martial artist who works as a bouncer at a club. He first learned to fight as a child to make up for the feelings of loss over his deceased parents, but now fights for the sake of fighting. He entered the tournament to prove that he was the strongest fighter in the world.

Unlockable characters

 * Raidou, a ruthless exiled shinobi and the paternal uncle to Kasumi and Hayate. Banished from his village and clan, Raidou traveled the world "stealing" moves and techniques from others fighters in order to grow stronger. It was he who crippled Hayate stealing the Torn Sky Blast.

PlayStation and Dead or Alive++ characters

 * Bass Armstrong, the proud all-time pro wrestling champion and the father of Tina Armstrong. Bass joined the tournament to stop Tina from pursuing the lifestyle of a Hollywood starlet and convince her to stay in wrestling.
 * Ayane, a strong-willed and honor-bound kunoichi from the same clan as Kasumi and Hayate sent by her master to kill Kasumi for running away from the clan, consequentially putting the clan in danger of being discovered.

Gameplay
Dead or Alive was unique in its debut in that it featured fairly different choices in gameplay than other 3D fighting games at this time. Its most defining features were its speed and countering system. Unlike Tekken, Dead or Alive put an emphasis on speed and relied more on simplistic commands and reaction time rather than long combo strings. Furthermore, its countering system was the first in the fighting genre to utilize different commands that corresponded to each type of attack.

There are two kinds of holds, an offensive hold (OH) and a defensive hold (DH); furthermore, these commands are executed by holding back or forward on the directional pad along with the guard input to either force away or counter-damage an opponent. Finally, the game used an environmental addition called the danger zone, which surrounded the outer edges of the fighting arena (depending on the options, it could also completely consume it), and when a character came into contact with it, it sent them into the air so the opposing player could execute a juggling air combo. However, this can be avoided with an Ukemi (defensive roll).

Development
Tomonobu Itagaki has stated that he was dissatisfied with the way modern fighting games were presented; he missed the old arcade style of play and had another vision for the fighting game genre. Having worked for Tecmo for a long time, Itagaki was eventually given the opportunity to develop a fighting game.

The game, the first Dead or Alive, was released in 1996 as an arcade game for the Japanese market. It was a success in Japan but not in the West. This was possibly because of the competing game , which was already a popular fighting game series for the.

Versions
Four different versions of the original Dead or Alive were released:

Arcade version
The original version of Dead or Alive was released in arcades in October 1996, utilizing Sega's Model 2 arcade board (it was also the first time Sega licensed their hardware to a third-party company; in this case, Tecmo). The game ran on a modified Virtua Fighter 2 engine, featuring eight playable characters with three costumes each, and the boss character Raidou.

Sega Saturn version
It was later ported to the Sega Saturn in Japan on October 9, 1997. The game was never released in North America or Europe. This version added an FMV intro, Time Attack, V.S., Survival, Training and Kumite modes. Unlockables included the ability to play as Raidou, new costumes for each character, and Kasumi's System Voice.

However, this version was downgraded graphically compared to the arcade version. In contrast to the original's fully 3D modeled backgrounds, the Sega Saturn conversion used bitmap tricks and overlapping layers in the same fashion as the Sega Saturn version of Virtua Fighter 2 did. Some details in stages were removed altogether, such as the roof of L's Castle and the swaying bridge in Hayabusa's stage. The characters also had lower-polygon models.

PlayStation version
On March 12, 1998 in Japan, Tecmo released Dead or Alive for the PlayStation. This version included numerous differences compared to the arcade and Saturn versions; a different graphics engine with Gouraud shading, a revamped fighting engine, new background music, and new stages. Similar to the Saturn version, the stages consisted of 2D bitmaps, but could now extend infinitely (similar to Tekken), which eliminated ring-outs.

The most notable addition was the two new characters; the wrestler Bass who was available from the start, and the unlockable Ayane. It also included more costumes to unlock (only for female characters), Kasumi and Ayane's System Voices (as "Sakura" and "Wakana", the first names of their voice actors), and additional voice clips.

The PlayStation version was released in North America on March 31, 1998 and later in Europe on July 1998. These versions omitted the text-only epilogues at the end of Arcade Mode. The European version added even more costumes, typically one or two per character.

Dead or Alive++
The final revision, Dead or Alive++ was released in arcades in September 1998, running on Tecmo's TPS arcade system (Capcom ZN-1 with custom bios). It is commonly considered a half-step between the first game and Dead or Alive 2. Although aesthetically similar to the PlayStation version, it featured many changes to the gameplay. These changes include being able to position characters before the start of a round, changing most throws to Hold+Punch, and a six-point hold system, the most complex in the series.

This version added a "Tag Battle", although it was more like Team Battle with two characters. Ayane was playable from the start and Raidou could be unlocked fairly quickly. Each character had four costumes, two from the original and two from the European PlayStation version. A few of the costumes were exclusive to this version of the game and some were slight recolors.

Dead or Alive 1 Ultimate
In 2004, Tecmo released a revamped version of the Sega Saturn port made to run on the Xbox, along with an updated version of Dead or Alive 2. Named Dead or Alive Ultimate, it was basically the original Sega Saturn game ported to the Xbox, making graphics slightly more colorful and smoother, sound from stereo to surround, and adding Xbox Live Online Gaming. The Saturn version was chosen as it was Itagaki's "personal favourite".

Voice cast
Dead or Alive features the smallest voice cast in the main series, as it only features nine on-screen characters, although this number is increased to eleven in the PlayStation and Dead or Alive++ remakes of the game.

Trivia

 * Kasumi is unlocked as a trainable monster in Monster Rancher 2 by going to the Shrine and inserting the Dead or Alive disk in the PlayStation Disc Tray.
 * In the prototype version, there was a Muay Thai character named Kelly. It is believed that he later became Zack. The photos can be seen here.
 * On the cover of the PlayStation release, Kasumi has white hair. It is unknown why this is.
 * Early posters and screenshots of the game shows Kasumi wearing a red variant of her default costume and without stockings.
 * The name of the training dummy in the Sega Saturn version is "Toreko-chan" (トレ子ちゃん), as stated in the official guidebook for the game. "Tore" comes from the word "training" (トレーニング, torēningu) and "ko" comes from the kanji (子) for "child".
 * In the West, it was believed for many years that the training dummy was Ayane due to her having the dummy's bodysuit as a recurring costume in later games, starting off in the PlayStation remake.