REVIEW – Once upon a time, there was a Dead or Alive. This kid was already reaching its fifth main episode, which got released in several versions, but the Last Round edition finally managed to make the jump to the current generation, keeping the classic style but being presented in a much more spectacular way.

If I say rock-paper-scissors, most of the time I think of the Pokémon series, but then I immediately remember that they are only available on Nintendo platforms. Dead or Alive 5 does the same mechanism here, in a slightly different manner. Attacking beats throwing. Throwing beats defense. Defense beats attacking. This is very easy to remember, but it’s still an easy-yet-effective perfomance. It works quite nicely.

More?

Compared to Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate (which back then was the final version for the previous generation, and this one now is the final final version… uh, let’s just say that DoA5 originally came in 2012, alright?), Team Ninja obviously didn’t skip the opportunity to improve what the game has to offer. I saw two new stages, one of them (Danger Zone) seemed like a remake of an earlier level, and this can be described by one keyword: electric. The other one is Crimson, which is on a rooftop, but with a nicely performed throw for example, we can end up going into the building itself, allowing us to discover what it has to offer for us. There are also two new characters, Raidou is a returning one and Honoka is a brand new fighter, but you have to get to them first…. like through Ryu Hayabusa, because he also returns.

Good basics

What I liked in this game was the easy to get used to, but still ridiculously fast and likable gameplay style. In Tekken, if I don’t pick a character that’s easy to mash (cough Eddy cough), I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t stand a chance on a higher difficulty level, but I do have to add that the audience is a bit different for that game. Here, we see a lot of… breastmoving women, and many of them allowed me to perform some nice combos. (I also went ahead and checked the game on PC, wow, I wasn’t allowed to change the keyboard configuration, I’d like to congratulate for that nicely done PC port…)

The story is basically about DOATEC holding another DOA tournament, there’s also an eeeeevil clone and I’m going to admit it, the whole thing was fairly confusing for me… but maybe it can be ignored, after all, the gameplay makes the game good or bad.

Drown in costumes

Oh my God. How, many, costumes, are, there? I think you can easily end up paying at least the price of the game just for costumes, maybe even a bit more is needed to cough up from our purses – it’s rare to see something like this, but if you have a Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate save, you can transfer your results over from that version.

Online?

Technically (if I skip the fact that the game starts to look visually outdated, it’s not ugly, but it’s slowly aging) the biggest issue is with the online. I either had to wait 15 minutes to get into a match, or I had to encounter lag during a match. If it wasn’t a fast paced game like DoA, I wouldn’t really have mentioned it, but in this game, you can really feel the difference, and the lag can happen at any time over the day. What a shame.

In case you didn’t own the game yet

The game’s one key selling point was meant to be the breast physics (seriously, it even got a separate trailer JUST FOR THAT), and it’s no joke: Team Ninja really has pulled it off, which is a bit ridiculous, but at least it’s unique. The game is good, it’s fast, the characters are designed nicely (aside from the breasts, really) with good details, and it never meant to be inventing new things, but does the old ones in a superb manner. If you didn’t own the game on PS3, it’s worth a try until Tekken 7 or Street Fighter V gets finished. Or you could play Injustice. Or the upcoming Mortal Kombat X. It’s not bad, but there’s better in this genre.

-V-

Publisher: Koei Tecmo Games

Developer: Team Ninja

Genres: fighting, big tits

Publication: 2015 Februar