Bouncing Beauties and Dead or Alive 5

Dead or Alive 5 is back with even more brawn, brass and bounce....well, actually the bounce has been toned down, but there's still plenty of it.

This isn't your grandma's fighter!

First thing players may notice  are the overhauled graphics. Dead or Alive 5 drops the cartoony, anime-style character designs of past games and introduces a rougher, realistic look to DOA 5's colorful cast.

Character faces are sharper and no longer doll-like. Environments look dazzling and very crisp. Fighters also suffer the wear and tear of combat and, like Mortal Kombat, players are able to finally see that grime within the fight. Patches of dirt collect and spread as characters are beaten down on dingy streets and rough dirt, blotches of snow stick to clothes for ground fighters and characters even sweat ( sweat equaling a total plus considering one of Hitomi's costumes consist of jeans and a thin tank top!)

Yup...

Among the new content, several new faces high-kick  their way into Dead or Alive 5. This contemporary cast of 24 characters include Akira, Pai Chan, and Sarah Bryant, all three guest-starring from the Virtua Fighter series, and two new characters exclusive to the DOA franchise.

The first new DOA character is Rig, the foreman on an offshore DOATEC oil-rig whose fighting style harnesses raw elements of Taekwondo. He favors strong kicks that seamlessly stream from one combo to another. While the second new face, and my personal favorite and main character now, is Mila, a mixed martial artist whose moves transcend the kick and punch game into grabs that bring her opponents to the mat and delivers a flurry of knee strikes and holds. And even though Rig and Sarah Bryant essentially share the same fighting style as one another, just like Akira and Kokoro do, these new additions to the DOA roster are welcomed. They add a greater variety of character selection and help expand the DOA universe.  

Mila! Mila! 

Though new characters are introduced and graphics were upgraded, the triangle-system combat basically remains the same. This "triangle" form of combat is broken down into strikes, holds/counters, and grabs. Like rock, paper, scissors, DOA 5 follows a similar guessing game style. Strikes beat grabs, grabs beat holds, and holds beat strikes. It's a very simple system. Of course, this is a good thing because DOA 5 remains a methodical, albeit a slower-paced, fighter that can cater to casual, button-mashing players, but still have enough depth for the hardcore audience.

As always, and like the lovey ladies of this series, the environments are as beautiful and as destructive. DOA relishes in the infamy of its stages and their exploits. An endless, white arctic mountain, a New York rooftop adjacent to runaway trains and an unfinished skyscraper are just some of the dangerous playgrounds fighters can punch, throw or crash each other into. These moments are not just action sequences tacked on, as any DOA veteran knows, but the control of environment is pivotal for strategy as it can be the source of a comeback for the losing player or the pitfall for the winning fighter. (Check  out the mayhem and destruction for yourself in the video below beginning around 1:25)

The biggest difference in combat this time around revolves around the addition of critical bursts and power blows. Each character has at least one critical burst and one power blow. A critical burst is essentially a charge move, used after a combo, that will stun an opponent, rendering them completely defenseless and open to a second combo. A power blow, like the name implies, is a power attack that can only be executed when a player's health bar has been diminished in half. What separates this move from any other strike is the attacker who lands a power blow delivers a cinematic onslaught. (Think super moves in the Marvel vs. Capcom and the Street Fighter games)

Dead or Alive 5 is packed with content. Players have the laughable story-mode, that amazingly clocks in around two or three hours, survival mode, arcade mode, time attack mode, offline versus mode and, the caveat of any fighting games in this generation, online mode. Unfortunately, the latter is where DOA is marred as "could have been" fighting game. Players who can connect to others using decent internet will find no fault in its online aspects, save for the frustration of losing battles you know you could have won. However, that is not the case. 

Hadouken!

Lag seems very frequent in Dead or Alive 5. I have had many matches where bouts ran as smooth as butter on a marble floor, but if you are unlucky enough to run into another player with lag, matches can jitter so slowy, a ninety-second round may last as long two or even three minutes because the game fails to catch up. During these moments, DOA 5 feels completely unplayable. The controls during lag are unresponsive, jagged, and outright frustrating.

Nonetheless, I still have to give my hats off to Dead or Alive 5. It's a fun fighter with deep mechanics that's still as accessible as the previous entries.Team Ninja delivers a solid game with its fifth rendition of the fighting series. But however strong Dead or Alive 5 may come across as a fighter, the lag issues of online play leave a blemish nastier than the perverts who play this game only to ogle digital women.

Dead or Alive 5 gets 3.5/5!

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