Review #83: Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate

 This game...

 Fighting games are not known for their tasteful portrayal of women, in fact, Dead or Alive is quite infamous for it. Dead or Alive 5 does NOTHING to help it's cause. There's no other game that let's you choose from four different types of "Breast Motion" at the Options menu, that's how silly it gets. Luckily, one of those four options is to turn it off, which I did, because "Natural" and "DOA" are downright silly while the unlockable "OMG" is just ridiculous. This is Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate, a game that panders to the lowest common denominator, and don't you even dare suggest that the reason people don't take the game seriously is it's sexual pandering, else you'll be called a feminist(Do they even know what that is?) or a conservative prude. As for the game itself, Ultimate is not a sequel to 5, it's just an expansion that was released only in retail. Is it worth it? Yes and no...
 As far as Modes, this game has every feature that Dead or Alive 5 had, namely: Story Mode(Which is silly and presented in a disjointed and confusing way, not worth it), Fight(It consists in Versus, Arcade Mode, Time Attack, Survival and Team Battle any can be played in both Single Player and Multiplayer variety) and Training(Tutorial, Normal Training Mode and Command Training, in which you are to complete a character's movelist).  The only new Mode is Combo Challenge, where each character has a set number of combos that you are to clear. There's a decent amount, but there's not a whole lot to it. There's also a really neat feature called "Exhibition Mode" that unlocks every costume for Multiplayer play, but disables stat tracking and trophies, pretty neat if you take the game to a friend's.

 The basic gameplay remains unchanged save for the obligatory balancing done to each character's moveset. Each character received at least one new move called "Power Launcher", which behaves exactly like a Power Blow(You can only use one of them in a given round). The Power Launcher deals less damage than the Power Blow, but leaves the enemy in a juggle state, leaving them open for a full un-counterable combo. New options include the previously mentioned Breasts Motion(Sigh...) and the ability to simulate lag during normal single player gameplay, pretty cool.
 The game adds a total of 5 new characters: Leon, who was considered a Bayman clone by many and probably the reason it was missing in the first place, Ein, often times considered a Hitomi clone(Although Ein came before, and they are not that similar) and is Hayate with a different Moveset, Jacky from Virtua Fighter and Momiji and Rachel from Ninja Gaiden. The new characters come with new movesets, and everyone but Bayman is quite fun to use. Some may want to count Ein among the "Bland new movesets", since he shares moves with Hitomi and Hayate, but he was my favorite character from the DoA series, so I can't complain. Momiji, Rachel and Jacky have totally unique movesets and they are very fun to use, specially Momiji with all of her aerial attacks.

 There's also a couple of new stages, and they are not too bad. Dead or Alive 5 had a pitiful amount of costumes, taking into account the massive costume lists characters had in previous installments. In Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate, every character saw his/her wardrobe doubled. This also means that most guys have 8 costumes at most, while gals get about 12, Team Ninja's priorities are quite clear. Oh, and the 5 new characters only have 3 to 4 costumes each. Almost, if not every, new costume was DLC from the previous game, and what's worse, not every piece of previously released DLC was included, still, what they left out were the Swimsuit DLC as it's probably what earns them the most money, the DoA average fan is amazing. Most of the costumes aim at some demographic, you get the "sexy cop", the "sexy nurse" and so on, and they even had the gall to have many costumes shared among characters, which makes the amount of costumes less impressive.
 Is Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate worth it? If you don't own Dead or Alive 5, very much so. As stupid as the sexual pandering is, Dead or Alive is a very easy to pick up and play game, you can just mash buttons and make stuff happen, and if you delve deeper you can find actual depth. And hey, now you can turn off the breasts jiggling, it's a start! If you own DoA 5, however, it's a harder sell. The new movesets are pretty fun, and at least 3 of them are very different from the rest of the cast, and quite fun to use, but there's not enough new content to justify buying it again if you don't really care about fighting games. All in all, Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate is what Dead or Alive 5 should've been from the start, but there's no real incentive to buy the same game again.
 7.0 out of 10.