gah! got this game on PSVR years ago. Super boring crap other than a few of the minigames. DoaX2 is much better.
In what way? I'm curious. Only played 1 before and am starting to grasp, what this game has become.
Essentially, its all a front for what opens up around level 30..
Which is a full on, get the girls in any location, at any tan level, at any skin wetness level, in any outfit - in deshoveled state or not, in loops of animation capture (and I am talking about 100s of poses), reacting to your presence not saying much, but enough, while you pan around them - the game. This is what VR is for. People literally laying themselves next to their virtual idol. On the hotelroom bed, or in front of it.
At that point the motivation for playing the game shifts entirely. You start to think more about min/maxing, because its a grind fest, and when you do - you will do repeat vacations, that only have you do outside activities to cancel them, to get back to your suite faster, to be able to buy and gift suits. This might be aided by the endless money cheat - but once you've done that loop twice, you'll start looking differently at you and the game..
From a design point of view, this is a marvel of delayed gratification, there are five or six economies in the game, all pitched against each other, and against you grinding the poses for what I'll call "VR mode".
Its: Do you want to buy suits. Do you want the girls to take them from you. Do you want them to take them from other girls (different suits). Do you want to grind for money? Do you want to Grind for Zack money? Do you want to grind for level (unlocks), do you want to grind for satitsfaction (one girl or multiple?), do you want to grind for chance of gift acceptance, ... and then you need all of it for the 'girls' to "learn" the more outrageous poses.
Once you are in that loop - youll spend approx 100s of hours with the game to unlock stuff for a single "girl". Those motivation curves are in there. Its remarkable, how its crafted.
If you play a long and input intensive vacation, rewards will be greatest, but then you usually dont have the motivation for the repeat menuing at night times and if you do, youll burn out against simply maxing the amount of times over time you can offeer gifts (with a set refusal rate).
The design is impeccable... Its always a push and pull between what you want and getting there.
And it doesnt stop there. The favourite food items? And names? And gifts? They dont have "so and so likes it" item descriptions at first. They get drafted in once you "successfully gifted an item", after you reach a certain character level. This leaves you with the impression, of actually learning the girls tastes, if you are in on the 100 hour grinds.
And it doesnt stop there. The girls have birthdays. Around which the game allows you x7 grinding rate of the only value that "never drops" and thats actually somewhat important to be able to grind "better".
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/252387-dead-or-alive-xtreme-3-scarlet/77584536
x7 is significant, and cant be bought. So now you are incentivized to look up the birthday weeks of the girls, and mark them in your calendar...
Trust me, I didn't know what the fuzz with Sony censoring bathsuit failures (= "for the entire game", but for VR mode really) was all about, now I know.
This game has become the "life service" that set out to give you a "virtual relationship experience".
If you play for 10 hours and didn't get "hooked" you know nothing. Essentially.
There are postings from people on gamefaqs, that the announcement of Leifang being in the game "made their day". And then supportive postings from others who feel the same way. And the announcement pic, is a side profile of her face. And you ask yourself why - do they do that. And then you play the game (about 17 hours in), and you start to understand.
This - on many levels, is a devilishly masterful piece of "gamedesign". And its not much of a game (gameplay) at the same time.
And with every little part of the game design that gets revealed you start to understand, that they FULLY understand what they have at their hands. (Zacks (?) voice, when catcalling the girls in picture mode, zoom levels being higher in VR mode, with the girls having "you are too close" responses (bodylanguage, getting flustered), tooltips, that tell you to buy a cheap white swimsuit, because it gets you know what (seethrough), when wet, ... None of it makes any sense on the "game level" - until you hit VR mode.
Its has become that kind of game.
They didnt design it broader over time - they designed it "deeper". And if you don't understand the meaning, watch this: