Sarah is not "more realistic" or "less bland." She just makes you hornier than usual with this touched-up look, and that's the only reason 90% of you are going apeshit over this. Some of you see that as "better" for obvious reasons. We don't need a 4-page discussion and 20 paragraphs explaining it.

And Sega doesn't need to be taking any notes. Unlike VF, DoA can't afford to not have over-sexualized and touched-up fems in it. (ever played one?) Don't buy into the hype for once. If this was doacentral.com I could understand the reception, but I thought this place was about looking forward to gameplay. With it being a DoA game maybe everyone here is smart enough not to look forward to it, so I'm probably going about this the wrong way. Kudos.

DoA character's problems aren't their outfits or archetypes, it's their portrayel and shelf life. They're boring as fuck unless you're in love with one of them or something. Same blank animu stare, typically drab & overdramatized anime acting/script, and smart people would rather just watch porn than waste time & money playing the games.
With a combination of character/mocap animations, voice acting (good and bad), camera work (see intros & win poses) and fighting styles & attacks in general...characters like Akira, Jacky, Pai, and Brad last forever. Too bad the competitive scene doesn't last nearly as long.

Why Sega even agreed to this crossover is still beyond me; this isn't the exposure they need. DoA never amounts to more than flavor of the month. Shang would agree and so should you.

As a LONG-time Sarah fan and player, I'm HIGHLY digging Tecmo's take on her. I like the sporty/athletic/slightly-muscular look on women, but that doesn't mean they have to have no figure. Sarah's VF5 model would be ok if Sega actually gave her an ASS. I mean c'mon, American girls are all about DAT ASS. And in VF5R/FS, Sega makes a big deal about giving her all these booty shorts and tight-jeans, but still don't give her the ass or hips to go along with them. With what little glance we have of DOA5 Sarah, we can already tell her body is more bangin' than her VF5 version.

Oh and I saw at least one person in this thread who her face looks more Japanese than American..... I don't know about that. Her face looks A LOT like Anne Heche, who is most definitely American.

Why do people seem to believe it would be a tragedy if a game has good gameplay AND good graphics? You're implying that the gameplay of VF would be lessened or even affected at all if the characters were sexier. If the graphics affect gameplay, then maybe the gameplay isn't so great afterall. Anyway, there's no reason why we can't have VF5FS's gameplay with chars that don't look awkward. And no, VF5's graphics aren't off because of the graphic engine's age. Games older than VF5 (DOA2/3/4, Tekken 5) don't have char models that lack figure or contain animations that look good only from one side.

Um... VF isn't popular in the mainstream crowd. At all. So this is EXACTLY the exposure they need. Also, I think Sega is curious to see what "sexier" VF char models would like so they can have an idea on the table for what to do with the VF6 graphics. Sega has shown multiple times that they've got the gameplay mastered. It wouldn't hurt them to at least one time put some more money into the presentation.

Cool opinion, bros. But actually real world data says that a good amount of people are STILL playing DOA4 online regularly nearly 7 YEARS after its release. That's a pretty long "month", wouldn't you say?

Nobody cares about online play, or DoA, or worse: people who play DoA online.

Also, nice avatar, perv boy. That (and some choice words) pretty much tells me everything I need to know about where you're really going with all of this. Peace.

I was lucky enough to see Sarah in action E3. She looks great, and is one of my favorite characters in VF along with Pai Chan and Lei Fei

Beyond looking great though Team Ninja is also working very close with AM2 to make sure her gameplay style if faithfully represented within the context of the DoA world.

I write about it some here: http://bit.ly/KNiSNG

<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua'">"I also noticed that Sarah, not playable in this build, but shown in a closed door build, looked very much straight out of Virtua Fighter with her signature kick combos and style. Sarah, being one of my VF favorites, also looked like she is already sporting new Dead Or Alive 5 techniques which no doubt will be revealed more soon by Team Ninja." </span>

Of course since the VF characters are appearing in DoA they will design around DoA gameplay. If DoA characters came to VF we would expect their gameplay to become Virtua Fighteresque right? (hmm, who crosses over first? hayabusa, kasumi, ayane ?)

I'll cover a bit more in the next part on this interview but one thing is for sure, both Sega and Team Ninja are thinking hard about the not only the looks of the characters but the Gameplay.

Two new vids, one has has akira in training mode, the other is well






Edit: Sarah and Akira in tag team battle

It's really annoying to have something you like compared unfavorably to something that's popular, especially when the focus is on surface elements. So, "make things look more like Tekken or DoA" sounds dumb to people who are already into VF because the appeal of DoA/Tekken characters are pretty easy to categorize as either camp, comic book badass or over-sexualized. In other words, they're there to appeal to teenage guys. It works for those games because that overall look of theirs is well-established. To me at least, replicating the sensibility of more popular games is not much of a solution, not least because it seems like a me-too on AM2's part. They've already tried (and failed to some degree) to go that route with Goh, Brad and Jean, as well as some of the alternate costumes for existing characters.

You'd imagine an aesthetics problem would get mooted by the item/costume system but they could clearly do much better with the items as well. I do agree with you that the first impression any game creates is important, as well as the myths about how it plays (the baseless hurr durr about tekken juggles/VF too complex and/or bland).

I guess my question is what direction should a developer like AM2 take to retool their game when their focus is still on dying arcades and their parent company is bleeding millions? Give everyone a story and CGI ending? It's really hard to combat entrenched perceptions of a piece of media, especially in a niche audience like fighting games.