Dead or Alive 5: Last Round Review (PS4)

The fighting game genre has a lot of classic franchises, from Street Fighter to Mortal Kombat, Tekken, or Killer Instinct. However, while most are known for their iconic characters, gruesome nature, or cult status, none has a reputation quite like Dead or Alive.

The series made by Team Ninja has not only differentiated itself by providing a much lower barrier of entry and complexity than its rivals do but also by having its studio focus quite a bit more on the female fighters and their titillating physics effects, so to say.

Now, after having rolled out Dead or Alive 5 back in 2012, and after subsequent re-releases, Team Ninja is back with Dead or Alive 5: Last Round, which gathers all the previous fighters and modes, adds a few new ones, and makes its debut not just on PS3 and Xbox 360 but also on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

Does the new fighting experience manage to herald a great debut on the new platforms for Dead or Alive 5 or should Team Ninja reboot the whole thing? Let's find out.

Story

Dead or Alive games haven't exactly been known for their compelling plots and the story mode in Last Round is no exception. The fact that it tries to incorporate every character into its campaign leads to scattered plot lines and a lot of back and forth, so don't try to follow everything that's going on.

What's more, some battles just happen for the sake of being a battle, and things get even more outlandish as you go through the whole thing. Then, the fact that cutscenes between fights are composed of several smaller segments that need to be skipped manually makes things even more tedious.

Choose fighters in Dead or Alive 5: Last Round

Gameplay

Dead or Alive 5: Last Round doesn't try to reinvent the wheel, as it retains, for better or worse, the core mechanics of the series. This means that the combat is fluid and easy to perform, even if you don't have a lot of knowledge about the whole fighting genre.

You can still mash buttons and, more often than not, win, but for those who are looking for complexity, there are quite a lot of mechanics that provide depth. From the stun system to the tactical roll or the grapple one, there are plenty of things to master in Dead or Alive 5 if you take the time to go into its mechanics. However, with just a few tutorials, you can still perform quite well in the game, as the barrier for entry is still at an accessible level for newcomers.

Fighting feels fluid and fast on the PS4, as while Team Ninja enhanced the visual effects or the lighting, it didn't go overboard and kept the responsive framerate, not to mention the dynamic stages that can be used against your opponent.

Level hazards include being thrown from the roof of a castle to being pushed around in a circus or even being rammed into a train. Dead or Alive games have always embraced the tongue-in-cheek nature of their stages and Last Round is no exception. Thankfully, it doesn't take things into an extreme direction, so you're still in for a relatively believable time.

You can engage in the story mode that's, as mentioned above, pretty outlandish, but also in a few other modes. These include a simple Versus fight but also an Arcade one that tasks you with finishing the game with the highest score. A Time Attack mode forces you to complete the game with the fastest time, while a Survival one throws at you a series of opponents until you succumb to defeat. Last but not least, there's a Team Fight mode where you can form a group of up to 7 characters and enter combat.

The camera can be set to Action or Classic and follows not just the fighters but also the things that happen around the actual stage. It's quite good when playing but it does pose a few problems when trying to view a replay, for example. Team Ninja also added a Photo Mode that can be used to capture the best moments in the game.

In terms of content, the game brings all the characters seen in past versions, like Ultimate, but adds two new fighters, in the form of Honoka, a new female character with impressive assets and moves, but also Raidou, the main villain of the original Dead or Alive, who's back as an undead cyborg.

There are also plenty of different costumes for most of the fighters, but as you can imagine, the ladies have way more skimpy outfits to wear than the male characters do. Of course, the game also constantly reminds you that there are even more costume DLCs available to dress up (or more like dress down) your favorite fighters.

Animations are really well done for all the fighters in the game, and Team Ninja has gone to great lengths to ensure that the physics for the female characters are as impressive as possible. Of course, you can't talk about a Dead or Alive game without bringing into question the effects added by the studio to the chest area of the female fighters. There's even a dedicated setting in the options menu that allows for multiple presents ranging from Off and Normal, to DoA or LR, which really enhance the movement, up to a ridiculous level.

Battle in new environments in Dead or Alive 5: Last Round

Multiplayer

You can play Dead or Alive 5: Last Round against others online and the experience is pretty good. You can go into a ranked match that affects your grade but also in special lobbies where anything goes. The matchmaking system is pretty robust and allows you to choose how powerful your opponents can be and a few other match settings.

Lag isn't that big of an issue but there were moments where latency really affected the whole experience, or even the matchmaking time extended to several minutes.

Visuals and sound

Dead or Alive 5: Last Round looks quite good on the PS4, but besides a few enhanced effects, a more fluid framerate, and better lighting, there aren't that many differentiating factors between it and the PS3 version, for example. The textures are really poor, and during the story mode cutscenes, their low quality stands out even more. Hopefully, Team Ninja will be able to make a new title that will properly use the power of the new devices and won't be shackled to the last generation.

In terms of soundtrack, a few new tunes have been added to the game and they all back up the fighting action rather well. You can further customize it through a robust Music selection interface. The voice acting, however, is a bit disappointing. Most female fighters sound like they're 14-year old girls and most male ones sound very similar to one another.

Fair play in Dead or Alive 5: Last Round

The Good

The Bad

Conclusion