From the abrasive language used in a Call of Duty lobby to the salt farms of League of Legends chatrooms, every big game or franchise has its associated baggage. These are often things so commonly associated with a given IP that even people who don’t play the game can identify them. For Dead or Alive, that baggage is revealing and physics-based. It’s no secret that DOA likes pretty women, and you don’t even need to look at the roster to see that. The character reveal in the next Dead or Alive project announcement paints that picture quite clearly. However, as a new player to the storied franchise, my big question was what the game offers past those visuals. And if this re-released tournament, bundled with five DLC packs from the original, was worth the price of admission.
There is a story in Dead or Alive 6, and it seemingly continues the character relationships and narrative threads from previous games, but, as it appears here, it’s pretty convoluted. Setting aside the weird Story menu navigation, each cutscene and encounter in the game is broken into its own block, meaning you’ll constantly be jumping back to the menu after each story beat, no matter how random or pointless it might seem. You can play through a lot of these blocks in any order once they’re unlocked, but doing so will only make it easier to lose track of the story. The saving grace of the Story mode for new players is that it’s functional. As you play through the mode, you will slowly get introduced to each fighter and their style.
It should be no surprise that Dead or Alive 6 is at its best when fists are flying. The two main moves for every fighter are punch and kick. Also mapped to a single button press is the ability to throw and hold. Using this in combination with the d-pad (or analog stick) will build up a glowing Break gauge. There is a button for Special move as well, which performs an auto-combo. What’s fun about the simplicity of the combat is the rock, paper, scissors style of its design. Each move has a counter move, and while it’s easy to understand, it’s tough to master. Through luck or skill, moments where the tide of a match changes after a series of successful combos are the game at its most satisfying.
When it comes to actually getting into a fight, you have a few options. I already went over the single-player Story mode, but there is also a Quest mode and a Versus mode for local and online play. Challenging myself by fighting the computer to learn combos or versing my wife and discovering her button-mashing skills far exceed my own was the most fun I had in Dead or Alive 6. And as a relative newbie to the genre, I was surprised at not just the differences between each fighter, but how some more easily meshed with my own preferred playstyle. Despite not having any delusions of becoming a professional player, I did also dabble in the in-depth training mode to better understand certain moves and timings.
There is also an online mode to fight with players around the world; however, the experience is inconsistent. Sometimes you can find a match quickly, and thanks to a rematch feature, one quick fight can turn into a five match rivarily. Other times, you just wait. As I write this review, I’ve left the game searching for a match for 30 minutes at a time without successfully getting into a single fight. If you are mainly interested in Dead or Alive 6 for the online play, then it’s worth considering that unless you have friends to party up with, the queue time for matches will only grow longer as the game gets older.
Dead or Alive 6 initially came out in 2019, and Last Round looks not much different. A lot of attention was put into character design, with fighters getting sweaty and outfits getting damaged as the fight drags on. When comparing it with the original, an argument can be made that the old one holds up just as well. To that point, other than the fact that the game is on newer hardware and is a bit more vibrant, it’s hard to definitively say one looks better than the other. One thing I can say about both games, however, is that the way you can transition through different parts of the levels is cool. Allowing you to toss an enemy into a new area or perform an environmental attack brings the stages to life. Sound design is serviceable. Which is to say none of it takes you out of the fighting (if you aren’t distracted by repeated moans and grunts) but isn’t all too memorable by itself.
There is a variety of extra features thrown into the game for good measure. No matter who you prefer to play as, you can customize their costumes and set up outfits for easy access. It is worth mentioning that the game has quite a lot of paid DLC packs. In that same menu, you can also check out the music catalog, rewatch previous matches in theater mode, enter the new extensive photo mode, and more. However, while we’re on this topic, there are a few notable omissions as well. Much-requested features such as crossplay and rollback netcode are nowhere to be seen. Let alone new original content to bolster the repackaging of a seven-year-old game.
All’s that to say, Dead or Alive 6 is (and was) a good fighting game at its core, and Last Round brings it to current-gen consoles. However, it lacks any major upgrades or improvements that would make it a must-play for fans of the series or fighting games at large. If all you’re interested in is a fighting game to master, then you’re still in for a good time. That time just might not be significantly different from playing the original game. Dead or Alive 6: Last Round is available now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam. If you do pick it up, keep in mind that Team NINJA has promised new characters and costumes post-launch. A review code was provided by the publisher.
