Dead or Alive 5 review

[Administrator]

If a fighting game sequel is going to be a critical and commercial success, it has to offer tangible progression for a wide variety of players. For dabblers who tend to dismiss the online arena in favour of solo modes and local multiplayer, the new iteration needs to deliver an enticing range of new characters, a cosmetic upgrade and a weighted helping of single-player content that lasts more than an afternoon. For ardent fans, the mechanical changes need to strike an even balance between familiarity and innovation.

This last point is particularly tricky, because if you add something that's redundant, cheap or gimmicky, you risk unbalancing an otherwise stable foundation - but by the same stretch, if you release a fighting game that handles almost identically to its predecessor, you risk a backlash of apathy.

Dead or Alive 5 appears to understand this dilemma without finding a conclusive way to solve it. It doesn't tarnish the series' solid and sassy reputation - far from it - but it falls short of an evolutionary leap in terms of combat mechanics and a substantial expansion in terms of single-player distractions.

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