Last Round is the final update to fighting game Dead or Alive 5 which adds new stages from previous installments, costumes and characters, giving this the largest selection in a Dead or Alive game to date.

The game introduces Raidou, the boss from the first Dead or Alive who has been revived as a cyborg and Honoka, a high school student and newcomer to the franchise. As for the stages, Crimson returns from Dead or Alive 2 and Danger Zone from the original title.

For those who have Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate, a free update will be released for Last Round. Sounds sweet, however, the new characters brought in this iteration won’t be available in said update and would have to be bought separately.

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The new stages will be only available in the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game. This is also the first time the series makes its way into PC, excluding Dead or Alive Online and cameos in the PC version of Virtua Fighter 2.

On top of the 400 costumes available in 5, an additional 31 costumes have been including in this version as well. If you buy the ridiculously expensive Season Pass, you will also receive more costume sets throughout the months.

Players can also change the hairstyles for some characters including Kasumi, Kokoro, Hitomi, Tina and Mila. This feature is only available for the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game, though. While some hairstyles do look pretty nice, I wouldn’t consider it a major reason to get the game sadly.

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Naturally, the gameplay is still the same as the previous versions, with similarities to other brawlers such as Tekken, Soul Calibur and Virtua Fighter but with different button layouts -- five different attack buttons, a throw button, and the Guard button.

If used at the right time and in the right direction, you can immediately counter your opponents, which provides some additional layers to the fighting.

While this isn’t my favorite 3D Fighter, it's still fun enough to play and features nice character diversity and depth. Additionally, the title also runs at 60 FPS, which is a must for all fighting games to play at their best -- gameplay is still smooth at 30 FPS, however.

Initially, the game’s online servers were terrible, at least on the Xbox One version of the game. Every time I searched for a lobby, the game crashed and I had to restart the game. Luckily, after a few patches, the game became more playable and I was able to play online without any hiccups.

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While graphically the game didn’t vastly improved over the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of Ultimate (or their Last Round counterpart), the current-gen versions definitely look prettier since it uses the Soft Engine", to make skin appear softer. It would probably look really good on the PC Version of the game as well.

It’s hard to recommend Dead or Alive 5 Last Round as it doesn’t bring much new to the table in the way of features, but if you need your Dead or Alive next-gen or PC fix, then I'd say go for it.

For those who never purchased Ultimate (such as myself), then Last Round is definitely worth the purchase.

You can check out our reviews of Dead or Alive 5, Dead or Alive 5 Plus and Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate as well.

Dead or Alive 5 Last Round
8 / 10