Aight, so this is definitely a horny game, and obviously your enjoyment is going to vary depending on how much you can enjoy that kind of thing. If you are the type of person that thinks this kinda thing is degenerate/objectifying then yea nothing this game does is gonna change that opinion. But like, idk man playing this 20 years after the fact it's kinda a vibe? hear me out

In todays day and age, I feel like a lot of horny shit has fallen to the blatant and trashy side of things. Should you feel so inclined, you could use the very web browser you are reading this review on right now to delve into all sorts of dubiously degenerate shit from probably millions of sources. Hell, even strictly staying to the console game sphere there's all sorts of "Sakura Succubus 4"s and "Hentai Girls 8"s clogging up digital storefronts on stuff like the switch and Playstation, degen shit is out there. There's also comparatively higher budget shit like the Senran Kagura and Hyperdimension Neptunia series that hit that degen sphere, hell even the later sequels to this game crank up the trash dial with all the different ports and versions of DOAX3 out there. And that's not even considering all the actual eroge/nukige that are on PC. What I mean to say by all of this is that compared to how things are now, DOAX1 is really honestly quite tame, to the point where I feel like I could hardly even call it a trashy guilty pleasure game anymore.

Maybe it's the games self-awareness and goofiness in its plot, as it's just Zack inviting all the DOA girls over to play volleyball on a vacation island he happened to win before it explodes into a million pieces at the end. Maybe it's the aesthetic design being solid, with clear, crisp sunny beaches with sparkling water and bright blue skies accompanied by the most 2000s ass ska/reggae summery music you ever could find. The areas have the same high attention to detail and level of polish that the stages in the main DOA games contain. There are a lot of moments where the game basically gives you a free-cam to zoom in and look at whatever is on the screen, and while it's definitely designed to peep on some polygonal xbox goochie, I honestly found myself using it to look at the environments more than the girls.

The actual gameplay is kinda eh though. Half the time you are playing volleyball with the girls, the other half you are blowing away your life savings at the casino. There's also this lite-social sim aspect to it in that you can talk to other characters and give them presents in order for them to play volleyball with you, but it's all quite shallow. The point of the game really isn't so much in the gameplay, so honestly its whatever.

So like yeah. It's horny, but not aggressively so. I'm honestly rather impressed. They cared equally as much towards making a game that captures a summer vacation vibe as they did towards making an early coomercore console game. It may still basically be softcore porn at the end of the day, but damn is it some vibin softcore porn. I earnestly can't hate it. Sasuga itagaki.

really this games opening says more about it than I ever could, so just watch that.