Dead or Alive 5 Last Round

Dead or Alive 5 Last Round is an entertaining fighting game developed by Team Ninja and initially published by Koei Tecmo for arcade before making its way to PlayStation and Xbox. It was first released back in February 2015, but still looks and feels like an excellent game over 6 years later.

New Characters and Updated Graphics

The “Last Round” edition of Dead or Alive 5 has all the content from Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate, but also adding in new hairstyles, costumes, characters, and fighting stages. In addition to the same 32 characters from Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate, there are four new characters from the Virtua Fighter series and three new characters from the arcade version. The current-gen (then, next-gen) consoles like the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One got upgraded graphics at with the new Soft Engine. This game engine allowed for better graphics at 1080p resolution and 60 frames per second. This made the characters look that much more realistic, looking increasing war-torn as they battle each other. The lady characters themselves are badass, but their ridiculous over-the-top sexualization wouldn’t be appropriate for some players, especially younger kids.

Not-So-Captivating Storyline

As for the story itself, there isn’t much noteworthy to be said. The plot jumps back and forth so much, and between so many different things, that it’s hard to keep it all straight. The first few acts involve some of the fighters being recruited to fight in the Dead or Alive Tournament, and the second half of the game is about ninjas taking down an evil corporation. In between that, it’s a bunch of random cut scenes that are hard to piece together into a coherent story. Its very hard to take it all seriously, especially when the characters themselves fight over silly or simple things. If the developer’s intention was to create a forgettable plotline with no real impact on the player, they did their job.

Addicting Gameplay

Where Dead or Alive fails in captivating storylines, it makes up for it in the gameplay itself. This fast and fluid brawling game has distinctive fighting styles that allow it to hold up over time. Though it takes a little while to get a solid grasp of, its intuitive mechanics make it great for both novice and experienced players, especially of fighting-style games. It perfectly captures that addictive interplay between the mechanics themselves and identifying your opponent’s weaknesses. The fighting moves themselves are vast, branching from a more traditional, martial arts style to elemental attacks and teleportation. These engaging moves allow the Dead or Alive franchise to hold up a flame next to more popular games like Mortal Kombat, but unfortunately, the same can’t be said of its characters.

A Few Complaints

Though most of these classic characters feel fun to play and integrated within the game’s world, several of the later additions felt like cheap, uncreative fan service.

Pros:

• Addicting brawl-based gameplay
• Well-designed environments

Cons:

• Ridiculous and hard to follow plot
• Forgettable characters