Dead or Alive 5: Last Round (PC) Review

Dead or Alive has been primarily an arcade and console-only offering up until now and March 30, 2015 saw the release of the game on PC after a delayed initial release of February 17. While the hype surrounding Dead or Alive 5: Last Round was primarily centered on the visual aspect of the game, it has been met with much criticism with the developers porting over the arcade version that features graphics that are inferior to the PC version. Still, we take some time to check the game out for ourselves and see if Dead or Alive 5: Last Round is worth the asking price.

Dead or Alive 5: Last Round is the latest and currently most content-packed version of Dead or Alive 5 with 34 characters and over a hundred costumes to choose from. For those unfamiliar, the Dead or Alive series is a 3D fighting game franchise originating way back in the turn of the millennium. Many iterations of the game have since been released with this one being the latest installment.

Dead or Alive features a dynamic fighting system that focuses on the trio of move sets defined for each player. Each character is given a huge library of move sets and understanding these moves are key from going from button mashing to actually playing Dead or Alive. Knowing when to effectively pull off strikes, holds and throws are the basics at which the Dead or Alive gameplay revolves on. Other fight mechanics include cliff levels, danger zones, walls and in later versions, Tag Battles which include double team moves and quick tag combos. Historically though, the most note-worthy feature of the game is breast physics which gives an incredible sense of life and realism to the female character’s chest area.

One of the main attractions of the Dead or Alive series has been its rich array of costumes for its characters but as every DoA fan knows, the biggest appeal are:

The lovely ladies! In Dead or Alive 5: Last Round there are 19 female characters and over a dozen of which feature quite revealing costumes. No nudity though yet the game still gets an M rating.

Going back to Dead or Alive 5: Last Round PC version, the game features support for up to 4K resolution and anti-aliasing giving the game a smoother look. The PC version doesn’t feature the Soft Engine though which gives the characters a more lifelike feel and also provides clothe-tearing as damage is inflicted. Still, the DoA5: LR on PC maintains 60FPS on capable systems and doesn’t have much hiccups in terms of core gameplay mechanics.

What bothers most players is the fact that Tecmo Koei decided to gimp the PC version regardless of the fact that a superior next-gen console version is more viable on the PC. While it is a sound argument, development hurdles could easily be the main reason and while we can wish for it to be so, as a fighting game fan the game still delivers nicely on the action.

Online play is currently absent on the PC version but a patch is on the way to bring this functionality on a later date. We highly advise to use that time to practice.

For its price of $39.99, its cheaper than its console counterparts and even more so considering the DLC inclusions.

Its easy to hate on the devs for not choosing to go down the arcade port path rather than next-gen versions for the PC release but it is a fresh market and there are plenty of lessons to be learned from this release. One of which is despite the advanced depth of DoA’s fight system, people are still after the visual appeal of the game than anything else.

That said, as a fighting game fan on PC, we highly value the opportunity of having the PC being home to fighting game titles and despite a lot of nitpicks and shortcomings, Dead or Alive 5: Last Round for PC is still a solid game that delivers the core gameplay experience we want from Dead or Alive. Those that are after ecchi should stick the the next-gen console versions.