I was playing Dead or Alive 2 on PCSX2 again and kept getting distracted just by how much of a jaggy mess the game was even when upscaled. I assumed it had something to do with interlacing, but even with the deinterlacing patch applied or trying out PCSX2's various deinterlacing options the very noticeable stair-stepping remained. I chalk it up to just some weird early PS2 jank since I had similar problems with the first Onimusha where I just couldn't get the 3D to look clean.
It bugged me enough that I had to check out the DC version, so one download of Flycast later I was surprised by how much less aliasing was noticeable at 1080p and how much crisper the overall look of the game was.
While the DC version lacks the "next-gen" lighting from the PS2 version, I'm not actually sure if it's a detriment. On DC, the colours on the characters just pop more whereas the PS2 version can look a little washed out. The lighting is simpler on DC, sure, but at least in the stages I played it feels like the original lighting system is what the game's assets were designed for, and the PS2 port just slathered everything in fancy next-gen Emotion Engine sauce.
It's kind of hard to pick between the two since the PS2 has more content but kind of fucked controls, but on the other hand the DC only has two shoulder buttons for macros.
As a bonus, enjoy the weirdly different PS2 and DC iterations of the same cutscene and leave your best argument as to whether this makes the PS2 version censored/woke 🤔
https://streamable.com/zz93l1
neither. it's probably 3's engine since they got rid of the free step button and all the stages are different
It always annoyed me that despite DOA2U basically being a mod of DOA3 they got rid of Christie and Brad and left only Hitomi in. Just kind of sours the package