Dead or Alive is one of those Tecmo arcade titles that went farther than the competition. At its heart, this is a one-on-one fighting game using a 3D engine. On the surface, you probably knew about Tecmo’s fighter first based on the attributes of the female fighters. There is a good fighting game here as well. Otherwise this would be a 3D Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties fighting game. Dead or Alive home ports are unique and hold a first time in gaming award to them as well.

Double meaning name, Dead or Alive

It seems that when Tecmo were developing Dead or Alive, they were in financial trouble. The head of the company looked at what was popular, saw a standout, and then ordered into production their version. That popular standout was Virtua Fighter 2 by Sega, a hugely popular (in Japan) 3D fighting game.

Tecmo were known for edgier content so they pushed that envelope even further.

Pushing that envelope

Dead or Alive was going to go for word of mouth advertising. Seeing how this worked so well for Midway with Mortal Kombat, Tecmo wanted to go a unique route. Gaming, outside the 3DO console, has never really embraced the “adult” market. While Tecmo was not willing to go that far (Strip Fighter is entirely a different game), they wanted free advertising.

That led to endowing the female fighters with larger than life breasts. Breasts that jiggled with nearly every move performed, including just walking.

Beating the competition at their own game

Tecmo, not being able to create new arcade hardware, were also in a unique position here. Sega had just started licensing out the Model 2 arcade hardware. That just happens to be the hardware that Virtua Fighter 2 was running on.

Dead or Alive would be one of the first two arcade titles to use Model 2 hardware outside Sega.

What is interesting here is the home ports. Tecmo brought Dead or Alive home to Japanese gamers who owned a Sega Saturn. In North America it was a different story though. Tecmo would bring their arcade fighting game to the Sony PlayStation console.

This made Dead or Alive the first Sega Model 2 game to be ported to the PlayStation platform.

Time has been kind to Tecmo

It seems that this game helped bring Tecmo back from the edge of bankruptcy. They have gone on to create a franchise out of this fighting game. There is a DOA movie, arguably better than the bottom of the barrel Street Fighter movie. I know, that is not saying much but still. There are spin-off titles in the franchise covering beach volleyball – because of physics folks. Physics. There are of course many fighting game entries in that mix as well.

What is your first experience with the DOA franchise? Mine was the original arcade game. Got a favorite entry? Let me know I the comments below.

Carl Williams

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