Dead or Alive Dimensions is an interesting game. It's Tecmo Koei and Team Ninja's first 3DS game. It has polish, a surprising amount of depth, and it utilizes a lot of the 3DS features. It's a competent fighter that's a wonderful complementary title to go along with
Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition, but is it better?

North American Boxart
(courtesy of Amazon.com)Dimensions isn't a canon game in the
Dead or Alive series. It's more of an arcade all-star brawler that attempts to explain the story in Chronicle mode, a series of tutorial fights, still-frame dialog scenes and CGI cutscenes. For newcomers to the series, this is a great way to learn the mechanics of the game, but trying to tie the whole story together made it into one seemingly big mess.
There are several other modes to play in
Dimensions. Arcade mode is the most traditional of the bunch. Use one character to fight through one of six set paths of opponents in one-round bouts. Tag Challenge pits you and one AI controlled ally against one or two opponents in a tag team match of sorts. Team up with your AI partner to do a team throw, or tag out when you're low on health to let them give you a hand. Survival pits you against between ten and one-hundred fighters. You recover some stamina between opponents, but there is very minimal rest. There's also local play (two-player local wireless), training and Free Play.
Dimensions also takes advantage of SpotPass and StreetPass. If you pass someone else that plays
Dimensions, you'll exchange a ghost fighter of sorts. The game will create a ghost based on your fighting patterns and will send it to passers-by. Any opponent you receive can be accessed by selecting Throwdown. Team Ninja also regularly utilizes SpotPass in two forms. First, staff members send out Throwdown opponents once a week. Second, the team sends out costumes for your characters daily. There are thirty-four in all, and they are regularly repeated.

The environments can be dangerous if you're on the business end of an attack.
(screen courtesy of Amazon.com)For completionists, there are one-thousand mini-figures to collect for all of the various characters in the game. You earn one or two after completing Arcade, Tag Challenge, Survival, or a Throwdown challenge. You can take 3D photos of your mini-figures and save them to your SD card. Then there's the online mode. From my experience, it's smooth and relatively lag free, but it's very bare bones. There's no option to rematch your opponent when you finish, and there aren't any lobbies. There's also no way to communicate with your opponents, something the game could have used.
Dimensions controls well. You can use the d-pad or the slider to move your fighter around the arena. Double tap forward to dash at your opponent, press up or down to dance around them (no jumping). Press X to punch, A to kick, Y to block, and B to throw an opponent. L and R do heavy attacks. Each character's movesets are displayed on the bottom screen, so you can see how to do their combos or touch the combination with the stylus and the character will execute them. I don't use it personally, but it makes the game accessible for newcomers.

Almost every stage hides some kind of secret.
(screen courtesy of Amazon.com)Graphically,
Dimensions doesn't disappoint. With the 3D off, the game runs at a smooth 60 FPS. The animations look good and natural as do the the interactive backgrounds. If you crank the 3D up, like with most 3DS games, the framerate drops. It doesn't make the game any less pretty, and it adds a good bit of depth. I prefer it on.
Sound-wise, the voices are pretty good and the music and sound effects are pretty on-par with other fighting games. My only problem was that the English voices didn't sync well with the character's lips. It's a minor gripe that doesn't ruin the experience.
Gameplay trailer.
(courtesy of G4 via YouTube)Overall,
Dimensions is a solid game that I recommend to fans of the genre. If you aren't into fighting games but want to give them a shot, then this is a good title to start with. I prefer it to
Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition, but both games are excellent and worth your $40 and your time.
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