Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 Review (PS4)

Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 has hit our shores, in the form of imports, and although it’s been a long time coming I’m excited to see what the latest installment offers.
 
I want to preface with saying I’ve had fun with Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 but there is so very little to do. You can play with nine different girls, each over the course of two weeks, as you play several mini-games and try to earn their affection via gifts and taking part in missions such as giving a girl her favourite food. Each character has a brief introduction as to why they’re on the island but they all agree that they want to relax and have fun over the span of a fortnight, and as their owner (a manager-like figure), it’s up to you to ensure that they love their holiday.
 
You can play the game one of two ways and that’s in ‘Girl Mode’, where you control your selected girl, or ‘Owner Mode’, which sees you take on the role of the island owner as you, well, basically act super creepy. I enjoyed ‘Girl Mode’ where it’s chill and a relaxing way to spend your time as there’s no stress involved in this game, but I found ‘Owner Mode’ to be pretty cringeworthy honestly. As the owner, it’s fine that it’s your job to ensure that girls are having a good time but otherwise the mode is mostly used to take pictures of the girls – I’m not against this in the game really, but I wish it was a feature that was there without the owner’s inclusion. I’m not offended or repulsed by it, I just found myself cringing at it – I didn’t spend a lot of time taking photos, and I didn’t spend much time in ‘Owner Mode’ past completing certain missions that required I take on the role of the owner. You unlock ‘Event Paradise’ and ‘Pictoral Paradise’ when your owner level is high enough, which gives you the ability to rewatch scenes and gives you the luxury to look at the girls in their outfits, etc – it’s a huge grind and I didn’t unlock it all, as the repetition had set in far too hard for the sake of a better way to take photos. It’s a lot of work for very little reward, especially as it’s a short game and you’re rarely not looking at the girls.
 
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During the day you can play several mini-games including beach volleyball, beach flags, rock climbing, butt battle, tug-of-war and pool hopping. There’s a small selection to play and whilst they’re certainly fun, they’re quite brief and there easily could have been more games included. After playing through two girls’ routes, the repetition was starting to set in and I found myself taking a day break after one day of playing it – yup, after one day I was starting to grow tired of it. I got back into it and have spent quite a lot of time with it, learning the best way to increase affection and unlock other events (such as the pole-dancing scenes) but overall there’s very little to do and how the RRP isn’t half of what it is surprises me. If you loved the other Xtreme games then you’ll love this one but, other than visuals, it hasn’t done much to shake things up. If anything, it’s nice to have a Volleyball game to play!
 
There’s customisation in the form of swimsuits, changing your hairstyle, changing the design of the volleyball and more, but this isn’t very in-depth although I had fun picking out swimsuits – the girls will like some swimsuits more than others, and this will have an affect on their affection for you. These carry over each time you start a new vacation, no matter what girl you play with, although you’ll have to buy swimsuits and other things individually for each girl – you’ll have to play a lot or be very good at card games to earn money for everything! I found that volleyball was the best day time mini-game for earning points, and you even earn points if you lose at any mini-game.
 
Visually it’s spectacular and, as advertised, the tan and breast physics are really good and pretty spot-on in my experience, and I found myself admiring them (and no, I’m not talking solely about the breasts!) as I imagine a lot of work went into bringing realism here and they deserve praise for it. The beach, water and weather are bright and warming, the hotel rooms are luxurious and the girls are looking better than ever. If taking photos is your thing then you’ll find plenty to take pictures of, and you can opt for the girls to relax by the pool where they’ll do various things such as sunbathing or playing around. Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 is visually great, and it was a delight to see in motion.
 
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There’s no English voice-over but there’s not much dialogue anyway, and everything has been perfectly translated into English down from the menus to the subtitles – it’s a game that is ready for an English release if Koei Tecmo ever saw fit to release it. Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 is a tricky one because I do enjoy it but the minimal content and price tag are tough to swallow, especially as the novelty wears off pretty quickly. I’m sure to boot it up every now and again and it’s good and harmless fun but had I paid money for this release, I believe I would have been sorely disappointed.

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