Hardcore = Bad?

I started playing Dead or Alive 4 yesterday, and I've been pretty disappointed so far. For a game that is so well known and got positive reviews, I am shocked at how frustratingly difficult and poorly designed it is.

Most of you probably know Team Ninja's reputation as a "hardcore" game developer. Their leader, Itagaki, is famous for his arrogance and his skill at designing games. He and his team make it quite clear that they think their products are the best, and that their games are not meant for kids or "casual" gamers. But since when did being a "hardcore" game mean that the game had to suck?

The first thing I noticed, and the first thing I tried to change, is that their is no English dialogue in the game. At all. The characters all speak in Japanese, and their is no other language choice or option to turn off the voices. I have nothing against Japan, but when you're playing a game all day and all you hear is some gibberish that you don't understand, it gets annoying. Is this part of their hardcore plan, that they refuse to translate the game from its original language?

Because if so, its a stupid plan. The translations on the subtitles are awful, which only makes it worse, as everything is either confusing or painfully cliched.Then there is the gameplay itself. The fighting started out pretty smooth, and coupled with the excellent graphics I was enjoying myself. Until I got about halfway through the story mode (which is a series of 8 opponents), and I reached the incredibly cheap and frustrating enemy AI. The game purposely takes it easy on you for the first few matches, but after that, its all over.

The AI enemies can counter anything you do, making it impossible to pull of long combos. They can also interupt any of your attacks with throws, which they can then chain together. They can also spin around you while attacking, something I don't think human players can do. They also do far more damage in Story Mode than they otherwise would, while you do less damage than you should. Which all makes for a completely unfair experience, that is ridiculously frustrating. I almost threw my controller through our 4-foot HD TV. And I love that TV.

I managed to get to the last fight, the final boss, through a combination of some skill, a lot of luck, and the unbeatable AI getting bored of beating me. I wish I hadn't reached the boss though: the frustration got worse, way worse. The boss can teleport at will, while running, attacking or defending, making it nearly impossible to even hit it. It ALWAYS teleports away when it is near a wall, so you can never hit it into something to do extra damage. It can also leap across the arena in a single bound to tackle you into a wall, killing you. A single throw takes away half of your HP, or more if you hit a wall. Suffice it to say, I have NEVER fought a boss as difficult, cheap, or frustrating as Alpha-152.

So... the game is looking pretty bad so far. I also looked up some of the achievements, and saw that this is one of the hardest games on all of 360 to get achievements for, which is just fantastic. Something in this game better redeem the Story Mode, or this will be the 1st Xbox 360 game I trade away.

- Scott