When interviewed last week, Team Ninja studio head Yosuke Hayashi said the team would be interested in a crossover with Sega's Virtua Fighter. We couldn't have imagined that we would actually be seeing the start of the collaboration this soon. Dead or Alive 5 now joins the ranks of other fighting games with guests characters from rival games with its new character reveal trailer.
After defeating her sister Ayane on a huge fenced in flat boat that looks pretty reminiscent of the River stage in the Virtua Fighter 5, Akira interrupts the trailer to come on screen and face Kasumi. Not skipping a beat in crossing over, Akira uses his Virtua Fighter move set, and can be seen attempting to counter Kasumi's moves with DOA's infamous countering system. When boat approaches a water fall, having some of the sides of its fence have been destroyed we see that this stage is actually another multi-tiered level. The trailer ends with Akira running towards Kasumi, who is dangling off of the ledge after being knocked over.
Being based off a variation of the Virtua Fighter 2 engine, this collaboration brings things full circle between the series. Dead or Alive 4, introduced a character that was a homage to Akira, Kokoro, who also utilizes the Baji Quan martial art. Akira marks the first time a male character has guest starred in a DOA title, previous guests being a Spartan from HALO and Samus (cameo) from the Metroid series. Hayashi has also hinted at more guest characters, whether or not those come from Virtua Fighter remains to be seen.
This collaboration seems to be the start of a bigger partnership between Koei Tecmo and Sega, who is taking care of localization of the game in Europe. Hopefully this alliance culminates in the production of a proper Dead or Alive vs Virtua Fighter title (Fighters Megamix 2 anyone?). With how quickly a Virtua Fighter character appeared in Dead or Alive, could something Dead or Alive related appear in Sega's upcoming port of Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown?
[Source: The Magicbox;Electronic Theatre]