Let's talk about DOA5LR Reviews on steam

For real. Are there a lot? Yes. Too many? Sure. Does it fundamentally change the way the game plays? Fuck no. DOA5 is excellent. And too often, DOA is overlooked in the fighting genre. And now that we see how SF and MK have monetized their games, I'd much rather just buy outfits outright. (Since unlocking most outfits nowadays via gameplay has been nearly taken from us.)

Screw these reviews.

They need to release a Dead or Alive 5 Last Round Definitive Edition so that way people don’t need to buy the DLCs anymore.

People don’t understand when it comes to DLC you don’t have to buy every single piece of dlc unless you want too doa is no different. People just like to hate on doa for no reason. I’ve never bought all the dlc for doa just skins for my mains and/or skins I thought that looked cool.

They downvote cosmetics but never the fact that they buy dlc characters that were in base previous games. Brainwashed people imho

Yes, DoA5LR is a fantastic game mechanically and gameplay-wise and should absolutely be praised as such. But I also think its absolutely fair game to still point out and focus on the DLC situation which is arguably one of the several factors that led to the series eventually being put of ice.

Keeping in mind the precedent and expectation set by previous titles with having large amounts of outfits unlockable by simply playing the game. You could argue all this was a key unique selling point and even consistent with the series' original "Sex and Violence" mission statement set out by Itagaki at its inception back in the 90s. Even if its just cosmetics, I'd argue that collecting/unlocking all cosmetics are a far more important and central asset in this series than probably most other series, especially fighting games, so naturally it will be a point of contention when this is aggressively paywalled or kept out of reach.

And with that in mind, you can no longer hope for a completionist approach of gathering all the outfits without spending a sizeable chunk of money, even if spending efficiently via season passes which rarely go on sale especially nowadays anyway from what I've heard. It likely only appeals to the F2P folk who'll commit to collecting for only one character (which isn't the most economical approach given the season pass-focussed layout for cosmetics anyway).

Also, this game set the precedent in the genre for more egregious monetisation of cosmetics which other series like Street Fighter and Tekken are really capitalising on at the moment, ie. DoA has enabled negative industry-wide consequences which are gonna be incredibly difficult to ever reverse or mitigate to a point that would ever reach a majority consensus of being viewed as fair.

Is it annoying to see review after review pointing this out? Maybe, but its testament to the consumer distrust and backlash. Tekken 8, SF6 and MK are likely gonna continue to see similar, too. But its probably also a sign that subjective reviews alone may not be enough to judge a game which is now no longer mainstream and currently in the unusual niche category. A shame considering everything DoALR has done well after optimising and growing after each of its successive iterative releases.

While I understand your point, I also do not support this kind of DLC.

It is not a matter of optional or not, but when they release this DLC and generate revenue, KT kept going forward with this kind of DLC. Instead of an actual DLC that introduce new game mode or new character or additional story, etc.

Of all DLC contents, costume DLC is the least amount of effort ... hence we have so many costume mods.

Now, adding new character or new story take real effort, and people are willing to pay for it.

tl;dr Cosmetic DLC is fine ... but if that is the only thing your DLC focuses on ... people will have enough and leave negative review.

It is a pity though. DOA5 LR is one of the best fighting game out there. It has interesting rock-paper-scissor mechanic, attractive characters, smooth animations, sufficient offline mode, great musics.

Alas, KT focused on the wrong side of the game. It generated short-term profits ... but nobody takes DOA seriously after that.

I don't understand that people keep saying, "doa5 has too many dlcs :("

so... many costumes = bad? how? since when "many costumes" being bad?

They should critic "shitty lazy pc port and the dlc price is higher than other platforms even it's not including new costume change feature" like this. not "too many dlcs"

I saw nobody exactly critic doa. they just think "I heard there are many costume dlcs, probably it's bad because many people say it's bad".

Even I saw many people posted reviews about "this game only has 4 default characters and others are dlc. how greedy."

....

HAVE THEY EVER HEARD "DEMO" and "FREE VERSION"???? wtf is wrong with the people? it feels like they just want to say something bad about the game no matter but they don't know about the game at all.

Nah, they're right. Just because it's normalized doesn't mean they deserve a pass. "JUST COSMETICS!?" is a shit excuse in a game where looking good is half the appeal and the fact that they got to the point where each season pass costs more than the goddamn game is ludicrous. Not to mention that this is also one of the reasons why we're now paying $10+ for a single skin in games now and if DOA7 happens, you know Tecmo-Koei are gonna be on that trend. Fuck this game's DLC model.

Its crazy how optional additional content can be considered a downfall

I don’t believe these fake dipshits even played it, and are just repeating what other people say

In hindsight, the problem with KT was that they were too honest and upfront, putting all the DLC on the front shop. More recent games were devious instead and hid cosmetic DLC in-game, where marketing for it is also very aggressive, purchases are made through an in-game currency that requires you paying more than the actual price of the items, and reportedly a corrupt save data may result in you losing everything you've bought.

I don't understand some of the comments here either.

Yes, in previous games you could unlock all costumes just by playing. The thing is you never had this many outfits: DOA2U had about 20 costumes for each girl and 7-8 for each guy, but DOA3 and 4 had a lot less (8 or less for each girl, 3-4 for each guy), whereas DOA5LR offered +20 costumes for most of the girls, 12-13 for most of the guys, with characters that were added later still getting 8 or so. So, for me, base DOA5LR still feels very complete, with each character getting a large variety of looks from the outset, including a Halloween outfit. The DLC really feel extra.

Also, a positive aspect that deserves praise is how, other than the Private Paradise videos, you couldn't even tell there was stuff locked behind DLC. Only the costumes you've purchased show up.

So, other than a discrete banner on the opening screen, DLC doesn't affect one's enjoyment of the game in the least. If you want more costumes, you can purchase them; if you don't, you're not even exposed to it, and what's in by default is a lot more than you get in other games, including past DOA entries.

Also, blaming DOA for the MTX in the latest fighting games, really? If anything, the underperformance of DOA6 should have been a cautionary tale. The main reason those games are loaded with MTX is they feel they can get away with anything. Tekken 7 for instance is one of the most barebones fighting game ever released, but people gave it a pass, even when it charged for frame data; no wonder they took it a couple of steps further with T8.

The Steam version of DOA5LR certainly deserves some criticism though. It's an inferior port, with worse visuals, lacking five stages, soft motion, and the destructible and morphing features in costumes (certain outfits that in PS4 and 360 have two variants because they morph, on the Steam version only get the first one, when they could at least packed both as a separate costume). Also, DLC is sold in an even less consumer-friendly fashion: no individual costumes, no character sets, no season passes, certain packages overlap in some outfits (e.g. if you want to purchase the Ninja Clan costumes you must get the very expensive Variety set, but the rest of the outfits in this are also in the Ultimate set).

With KT releasing complete editions for some of its games on Steam (recently, Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate and Samurai Warriors 4 DX), maybe one day they'll also release the superior version of DOA5LR and with virtually all DLC.

DOA5LR is a great game, but it deserves all the hate it gets and negative reviews for the basic fact that Team Ninja/Koei Tecmo decided to release the inferior engine ver on PC vs the more robust updated engine that the Playstation got with the cloth physics and other graphical upgrades.

Plus the game never got a definitive edition that had all the DLC, and they triple dipped that shit. I remember, I bought it 3 times on Xbox 360 (and one copy on PS3). Still don't have a complete game, unless I decide to sail the open seas.

Fuck Tecmo Koei. They are a bunch of greedy bastards.

They killed this franchise with DOA6 and their greed.

This franchise deserves all the hate it gets. Both DOA5 and DOA6 had fantastic gameplay, but everything around it was complete dogshit, especially on PC.