Feb 25, 2015  Available on Xbox One, PS4 (reviewed) Two things can’t help but dominate the conversation about Dead or Alive 5: Last Round: the series’. Review Dead or Alive 5: Last Round is a surprise underdog title of the fighting game genre.

One of the most divisive fighting game series makes its way onto the new-gen consoles with Dead or Alive 5: Last Round. Often criticized for its oversexualized female cast and “fan service” costumes, Dead or Alive contains one of the most approachable, unique and entertaining fighting systems around.

With new fighters, stages and a ton of previous DLC packaged in, Last Round is one of the best packages available on new-gen consoles for fighting game fans. Let’s Get This Party StartedGraphics receive a boost in fidelity using Team Ninja’s new Soft Engine, which results in better skin textures and lighting. Character models, which look amazing, still retain a bit of the previous generation feel. Still, Dead or Alive 5 is a beautiful game. Textures are reworked and are slightly sharper, and the boost in resolution paired with a steady framerate makes it that much better. Don’t expect it to look worlds apart from the previous iteration, but it’s nice to have another fighter with this much content on new systems. Updated character models still look a little a last-gen.Gameplay remains largely untouched from Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate, the updated version of DOA5 on previous generation consoles.

For those unfamiliar with how the DOA fighting system works, you have a mix of punches, kicks, grabs and holds, which all work to counter one another. The traditional rock, paper, scissors system is still well intact and has been tweaked to be better balanced even with the increased roster. New fighters Honoka and Raidou bring their own personalities into the mix, but their fighting styles are less original than the other characters that were introduced in DOA5 and Ultimate. Who Do You Think I Am?Honoka plays as a “greatest hits” album of the best signature moves from the other fighters on the roster. She takes a little from other fighters and it’s a lot of fun to play her without any foreknowledge of what button combinations do which moves. It’s a joy to hear her scream like Jann Lee while going into Dragon Stance or recognize Brad Wong’s drunken boxing from a girl in cow overalls.Raidou plays as a heavier ninja, a sort of mix of Hayate’s acrobatic Mugen Tenshin with Bayman’s heavy Sambo fighting style. With more of a focus on strong direct strikes, he can punish even the fastest of fighters.

Knowledge is the best weapon with Raidou, which makes it harder for new fighters to use him right away. New fighters Raidou and HonokaNew stages The Crimson and The Danger Zone return from past games with better graphics and richer detail. Both are a nice addition, but a wholly unique stage would have been preferred. Still, more content is a hard thing to complain about. Stages in Dead or Alive have always been interesting with their interaction, and these are no different.The first drawback is that the game is less than stable, as some glitches appear more often than not when playing online. Some glitches hang on menus and force a restart in order to keep playing, while others completely shut the game down.

With future patches, it’s hard to imagine these issues remaining in the coming weeks. The game still offers players a rich fighting experience to sink their teeth into for a decent price with tons of content to unlock before trying their skill online. Returning fighters will have a harder time dealing with the freezing, as their game time will almost exclusively be online.Another issue is that of fighting stick support as there is a lack of hardware on the market, which means most will have to do with the standard controller. It’s not a problem that affects many, but a problem nonetheless. This is Mugen Tenshin!Dead or Alive 5: Last Round may turn off some people with its quirky characters and focus on mammaries, but wrapped in this $39.99 package, it is an insane amount of costumes, characters and stages to keep even casual fighters entertained for a good long time.

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With a fighting system that is easy to wrap one’s head around and as deep as any other fighting game, Last Round is a package well worth the time and money. Some of the shortcomings hinder the online experience, but should be smoothed out with time. Still, there has never been more DOA in one game than this, and that’s a great thing.

System: PS4., Xbox OneDev: Team NinjaPub: Tecmo KoeiRelease: February 17, 2015Players: 1-2Screen Resolution: 480p-1080pPartial Nudity, Sexual Themes, ViolenceOn the downside that’s basically all you are getting in this upgrade. If you haven’t been keeping up with the other Dead or Alive 5 versions like Plus and Ultimate, then you are actually getting a lot as you’ll pick up every new character that premiered both on disc and as DLC in those iterations. However, if you have been a Dead or Alive 5 faithful, then these fighters and two new stages are really all you are getting.The mode suite is basically exactly the same. You still have local multiplayer, score attack, survival modes, online play, and an incredible training mode. I still applaud Tecmo Koei for putting so much thought into its tutorials and training options, but this isn’t anything we haven’t seen in previous releases.The one thing I am most disappointed in is a lack of any real update to the game’s story mode.

We have a ton of new characters to play with now through all the Dead or Alive 5 updates, and the story mode hasn’t changed one bit. Even a couple side stories would have been nice.

It just feels like something should have been included other than just the characters and stages.Honestly, if there is anything that you should purchase Dead or Alive 5: Last Round for, it’s the graphics. It looks far, far better than previous iterations of the game did on the PS3 and PS Vita. Of course, this only applies to the current-generation versions of the game. While last-generation versions of the game are not out yet, I cannot believe that they would look any different from what we have already seen.

Dead or Alive 5: Last Round is a hard game to review, because honestly it’s a good game. However, it’s only a good game because of everything that Dead or Alive 5, Dead or Alive 5: Plus, and Dead or Alive 5: Ultimate did. If you want to upgrade to a next-generation version of this fun fighter, go ahead. If you really really want two new characters, go for it.

But if you are looking for something truly new and different, you are unfortunately looking in the wrong place. I would like to say that Dead or Alive 5: Last Round is the definitive version of the game, and if it were the last version of the game to come out it would be, but there’s nothing to say that Koei Tecmo won’t release Dead or Alive 5: Super Mega Ultra Deluxe Edition a year from now, no matter how many times we hear this is the last one.ByAngelo M.

D'ArgenioContributing WriterDate: February 19, 2015.