This time "eros factor" is stronger than in any other DoA episode.
And, the most important detail, characters were only feminine fighters of DoA series, the male ones were simply forgotten. Sincerely, DoAX could only partly be described as a sport game, because it’s also a way to admire Kasumi & C. in tight swimsuit, wet shirts and shorts.
It could be interesting for male gamers; and just take a look at the introducing movie, with Christie diving naked into water, or with Helena in a sexy white blouse, to understand immediately what I mean.
The story: Zack gets rich playing at a casino and with that money he decides to buy an island (“Zack Island”) in a tropical paradise.
After the island was made full of every kind of modern comfort (a casino, a hotel, a swimming pool, many shops and so on…) Zack decided to organise a tournament of beach volleyball, so he invited all the feminine characters of Doa Tournament.
That’s the story, pretty banal, and it’s just an excuse to the real game purpose…
Many readers probably agree that one of the main reason for great success of DoA were the girls…and the girls themselves are the REAL purpose of DoAX.
The girls are eight (the classical Doa characters Kasumi, Ayane, Tina, Helena, Lei Fang, the ones from Doa 3 Hitomi and Christie, and the newbie Lisa, never seen before), to create four different teams.
Graphics are the second reason that make DoaX worth playing: since you start playing the first match your eyes will open wide seeing the brilliant colours of the environments!
These include beaches at blinding sun of noon, at sunset, tropical forest, shores of pure and white sand close to a cabins village, and with a high attention to small details, such as the sand moved by girls’ feet, or the water reflexes on the rocks.
Only a powerful video chipset like the one in Microsoft console could exhibit a water effect like the one visible in the poolside, both in the pool itself and on the ground.
But the best vision you’ll see, if you play this game, are definitely DoA girls: it’s impossible to avoid to fall in love with’em, they look real!
Their moves, playing beach volley, are extremely detailed, fluent and natural, and, while they are waiting for the ball you could see them tidying their hair, or their dress, or moving sand with their little feet.
In the swimming pool it’s possible to see them from various angles, and a zoom option on girls’ bodies is possible as well… The main game is to play volley ball, and this is quite easy and immediate to do, but after a while I must admit it gets boring because the moves are few (you only use the directional levers to control your players and push two buttons) and sometimes I think they are not very precise.
Sincerely, I think many points are scored more because of a kind of “random-sequence” created by the cpu, than because of the player’s skills…
And another lack playing volley matches are visual angles: these generally are quite close to players (hmmm… everything in this game seems to be thought to admire DoA’s kunoichis bodies…), but, exactly for this reason, sometimes it’s quite hard to follow the action and to move our players to the right zone of the field.
But DoaX is not only beach volley ball because there are many mini-games in it.
In the poolside you can play jumping on floating cushions: it’s extremely simple just press any button with different strength, depending on the distance of cushions.
When the day comes to an end you go to your room in the hotel, but before going to bed you can drop in on the casino, and try to win some extra coins (or lose money gained playing volley ball…).
In the gambling house it’s possible to play poker, black jack, slot machines, and roulette.
Another feature of the game is to buy new clothes and accessories in the two (at least at the beginning) shops of the island: after you buy them you can dress your player as you prefer, and there are so many items that combinations are virtually endless!
Music is another good point of the game: apart from the official soundtrack, with suitable, relaxing and cheer songs by Spice Girls, B-Witched, Christina Aguilera and others (ok, maybe these artists are not your favourite ones, but Slayer tracks were’nt the most suitable for a game like this!!!) you can always play listening to your favourite music, previously saved on the Xbox hard disk.
Girls’ voices are only in Japanese language, they are sweetie to hear but probably many of us won’t understand anything, so luckily subtitles are available.
Another feature of the game is that you start playing in team with Lisa, the newbie, but during your stay on the island you can give presents to other players, so that they will begin (if they like your present) your new team mates: after the 3rd day a new place is available, Zack’s Shop, and you can buy items according to the other character’s tastes you want to know to be friend.
Beware because if you are not a good player enough your team mate will leave you alone and you’ll have to find someone else to play volley with!
And your character could not be the only bad player, because the one controlled by cpu too, your team mate, will make some mistakes!
A good point in this game is its duration: I started playing in January 2005 and still now I must unlock a lot of new accessories and swimsuits (ok, I play it only sometimes, between a fps and another, not continuously, because after a while it gets a bit boring, but anyway I’ve been playing it more than a hundred hours).
In order to better comprehend this Tecmo game a little consideration: in Japan are perfectly normal kind of erotic games in cartoon style (just think about hentai), and many adolescents go crazy in net-forums talking about their favourite heroines.
Playing DoAX sometimes I felt like a stupid: when my sister was a baby and enjoyed herself dressing her dolls, I never understood what could be funny in something like that, so why now I waste my time playing this game!? That’s DoAX, a not usual game, maybe a bit hard to understand, and to appreciate, for occidental gamers: that’s a matter of culture, I suppose.