Dead Or Alive 5: Last Round review for Xbox One, PS4, PS3, Xbox 360

When it was announced that Dead Or Alive 5 was coming to next gen platforms, I expected a huge change from the previously released titles. After all, DOA 5 Plus for the Vita and DOA 5 Ultimate for the Xbox 360 and PS3 really expanded over the original. This time however, there isn’t really that much to get excited about, and has left me questioning this release.

First off, if you have the disc version of this game (like I have), you will have to endure a lengthy install process. You see, the disc does not contain anything other than security codes for your system and some DLC codes that auto-download. When you first put in the disc, you can’t play until your system downloads “DOA5 Core Fighters”, a sort of demo of DOA 5 with only a few fighters to use. After a confusing download and install session, you then have to wait until all of the fighters for DOA 5 Last Round are downloaded into your copy of Core Fighters. It took nearly 45 minutes to an hour to begin playing the game with the full roster.

Once I began playing, I really could not see much of a difference between this one and the previous game, except for 2 new fighters, Honoka, a shy looking Schoolgirl, and classic DOA boss Raidou. All of the modes from Plus and Ultimate make a return, including online play (which we’ll dive into later). Other than the 2 new characters and some interesting new stages to fight on, the only changes players will notice is more objects to break and interact with, and a slight polygon increase on the characters. There are some new costumes for each of the fighters, and you can now change some of the characters hairstyles once you unlock the option. The sweat and scuffs on the characters after a fight are a bit more detailed and the colors seem brighter but overall there isn’t really much difference between this one and the previous releases. All of the cut scenes in Story Mode still run at about 45 FPS (on the Xbox One) while the actual game runs at a full 60 FPS. This is largely unchanged from previous versions, and if I recall correctly, not what Tecmo was promising leading up to release as they stated that everything was going to be 60 FPS.

Control and gameplay are as solid as ever. With the same moves set and combos you?re used to, with some really nice ones for the newcomers. Being that this is basically DOA 5 Ultimate with some new stages and a couple of new characters, there isn’t really much to write about as I raved about in my previous review. It’s the same gameplay and experience you’ve come to love, with a few minor tweaks.

One big drawback for this version, however is the online component. Online play is a big part of DOA 5, and Last Round has all of the same Online Modes as before, but it is now more buggy. I spent a large amount of time looking for opponents and suffering through multiple kicks and lock-ups while trying to connect. As before, you can set the options to find you online opponents while you play any of the single player modes, but I cannot recommend this for Last Round, as almost every time it tries to locate a player, my game would crash. Now this will hopefully be fixed in an update so it does not affect my final score much, but as of right now, online play is largely broken.

As I stated before, this is merely DOA 5 Ultimate with more characters and some minor graphic bumps. Not a “Next Gen” DOA by any means, but also not a bad release (with the exception of the online mode in its current state). However, if you are looking for a decent fighting game for your new Xbox One or PS4 then you can?t go wrong with this one. It’s smartly priced at $39.99, and is a decent, albeit minor upgrade to the original versions. There will be (or already is) an upgrade version for DOA 5 Ultimate for the last gen consoles so if you still have your copy of that, then there is really no need to upgrade. But if you skipped playing Ultimate, or just have never experienced a DOA game before, then you owe it to yourself to add this to your library.