Free Step Dodge

In a year that brings Team NINJA's exciting and new tournament circuit, Battle Royal 2015, the pressure is certainly on the community to match up to the support the team has provided for it. Winter Brawl 9 (WB9) concluded a few weeks ago in Philadelphia, PA with 32 entrants - an improvement over Winter Brawl 8's numbers by 50%. However, many were disappointed in the turnout at WB9 regardless of the fact the game was released in the same week.


Larry "Shin Blanka" Dixon, organizer for Final Round 18, recently posted the pre-registration numbers on his facebook:

Team NINJA has announced today that the Xbox ONE and 360 patches are now live and are available for download. These patches fix not only the bugs that have been plaguing are save files, but also prevents the game from crashing online so it can show off that fancier netcode.

Also worth mentioning is that your costumes from Vanilla/Ultimate should be fully downloadable, BUT you might have problems downloading the bundles. Thankfully you can download them through the singles on the marketplace. I only had problems downloading the Team DOA pre-order bonuses from Ultimate. Everything else has carried over for me.

Team NINJA's Last Round Version 1.01A Changes

Yesterday the pools were pretty clutch, a great example being Sly Bass vs. Kwiggle in an exciting conclusion to Saturday's Pools on the Bifuteki stream (50 minutes in). Today was no different, on Team Sp00ky (4h 55m in) we witnessed an exciting top eight:

1. Kwiggle
2. Sonic Fox
3. XcaliburBladeZ
4. Jaeger
5. Dr. Dogg
5. Repoman
6. Saion
7. Nestor C.

It was too bad that Nestor was unable to attend, which might explain being last on this bracket, but the community was still treated to a great tournament despite this unfortunate circumstance. Sonic Fox defeated Jaeger in a rematch sending him to loser bracket where he won against Repoman, but was unsuccessful against Kwiggle despite the respectable Bass representation...

Tomorrow is Last Round's first major, and like almost always, our friends at Bifuteki will be streaming the event for spectators. The stream is planned to start at 2 PM EST and will go until about 5. Sunday's stream will be about an hour long starting at 2 PM EST once again, but this time on Team Sp00ky.

Be sure to check out the pools as well to see who's competing, and if all goes well tomorrow with the stream hopefully we learn some really awesome tech that hasn't been seen yet.

Last Round has finally been released, and there are several ways to be involved with the game. We have Winter Brawl 9 this week which is part of Team NINJA's 2015 Battle Royal, a Season Pass that you can buy to save on costumes for Last Round, and a new Get Ready Fight video from Team Ninja which pertains to Quarter Circles, Dashes and Hold Buttons.



Source: Big E Gaming

Sony is hysterically celebrating the 14th with a fighting games sale, and among the games listed is Dead or Alive 5: Ultimate for the low, low price of ten dollars. If you've been too busy to try Ultimate or have been on Core Fighters, now might be the time to upgrade, because you will also get the free Last Round patch.

There are other great games on sale so now is the time to expand your fighting game library. What better way to spend Valentine's Day than beating the shit out of your significant other? This sale will go through the 16th.

Source: Shoryuken

Be sure to check out the new Last Round FAQ from Team NINJA if you have any questions about how the online will work, how long you can be expected to wait for the initial load (30 minutes), and of course how to carry over your DLC on all platforms.

NOTICE: The PS3 version has been delayed until the 24th of this month due to an unexpected issue on the PS Store. Please disregard the PS3's dates until they are updated.

With Last Round's release in the coming days it is no surprise that Creative Director, Tom Lee has been busy day after day with fresh press, interviews and statements for the community. This time he's being interviewed by News 10 at ABC news discussing how Last Round is not milking the franchise and more.

It almost seems like the game is a franchise all its own within the DOA brand. Dead or Alive 5 has four versions of the game that were released more than two years since the original DOA 5 game, and there have been loads of additional paid DLC content that's been released over the years - most of which being costume packs. Some might see this as Team NINJA and developer KOEI Tecmo milking the franchise. Lee, on the other hand, sees it a bit differently saying it's all because that's what DOA fans want.

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"Our DLC program is really based on our interactions with our fans and consumers," he said. "If they don't buy our DLC...

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In a recent article on Dead or Alive 5 Last Round by Siliconera, Tom Lee is interviewed and discusses some of the reasoning for Raidou's return and Honoka's selection. Be sure to read the whole article for full details, but here are some notable quotes by the Creative Director of Team NINJA:

Siliconera said:

I asked Lee why Team Ninja brought Raidou back. "Raidou was brought back because he is a fan favorite. Team Ninja definitely wants to see more villains in the line up. I personally love seeing more characters like this it brings balance to the cutesy girls [in Dead or Alive]," Lee replied.

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Silconera said:

Lee explained Team Ninja looks at stats and player feedback when creating new Dead or Alive fighters. Team Ninja’s data says in the Western market people have been playing wrestler type characters...

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In this episode of Team NINJA's official tutorial the player is taught the importance of directional inputs, and that mashing single buttons mindlessly, and with little strategy will often result in a loss. This new tutorial series caters to the newer players of Dead or Alive 5 and perhaps fighting games in general. Subscribe to Team NINJA's official Youtube for more updates, and future tutorials in their GRF series.

While you must not forget to check out Team NINJA's "Battle Royal 15" we also have the Winter Session replays from the European scene. This was a great tournament that was put on last month, and saw @Gehaktbal as the winner. If you're interested in Ein be sure to watch Jaycee Chris get to work. Good tournament, guys!




I know that there have been some of you waiting for these replays, and they are finally here and the tournament definitely lived up to the hype. Take a look at the results, after-thoughts from Gehaktbal and more at the Winter Session event thread.

Last Round will be here in about a week, and our first major; Winter Brawl 9 is taking place on the 20th... a few days after release. The competitors will no doubt be studying and hopefully display some awesome tech that we've never seen before. Get ready for the fight! Also check out thoughts on this tournament and Last Round from previous Winter Brawl champion: Sweet Revenge and current champ: Kwiggles.


Kwiggles: So when it comes to last round, I think I can safely speak for everyone that I want this game NAO!!!!!!! Lol this month wait since all the trailers and everything were released has felt like forever. This next week needs to get the heck out the way.

I'm very excited for Winter Brawl 9 since it is going to be the game opening tournament. I hope to see a lot more faces show up since a lot of the community has been waiting for LR to play DOA heavily. I think it's also important that many...

Winter Brawl 9 is coming up this month... and it's coming up fast. There are multiple ways you can be involved with this tournament, but obviously the premier choice is to attend this DOA major by getting registered on Big E's site. This will be Last Round's first tournament, and that in its own right generates a lot of excitement.

If we take a look back in DOA5's history we can explore the growth of our community and Team NINJA's direction for DOA5.

First there was Winter Brawl 7, in which @Rikuto had a strong desire to kill Helena.


Who could forget @SweetRevenge117 and his historic win against @XCaLibur BLadeZ using the guest fighter Sarah from Virtua Fighter. That match I think did a great job of displaying the talent and charisma of our tournament roster of fighters.


Tom Lee also talked about Team NINJA's goals for Dead or...

Today, we are very sad to report that Monty Oum, legendary creator behind the Dead Fantasy series, has passed away at the young age of 33 years old, according to his recent employer Rooster Teeth.


Over the last several years, Monty has worked on and delivered some action-packed fighting series videos, pitting the cast of Dead or Alive against the cast of the Final Fantasy series, which became an instant hit to many fans as Dead Fantasy.


Monty later on went to lend his much talented skills to Rooster Teeth, popular devs behind the Red vs. Blue Halo series.

According to Rooster Teeth, Monty suffered a severe allergic reaction from a recent surgery procedure, was checked into a coma but, unfortunately, he never came out of it and passed away.

From everyone here at FreeStepDodge and all surrounding...

Last weekend the California DOA scene hosted what was likely to be the last west coast Dead or Alive Ultimate tournament before Last Round releases. The tournament was held in Hollywood, California at Twin Galaxies studio. For those that are unfamiliar with Twin Galaxies, TG is the world record keeper of video games. Every Friday night they host a FGC Live event where a different fighting game community is on the show to compete. This was the DOA communities first appearance on the show since September of 2013 (@NukNuks and @iHajinShinobi played an awesome grand finals last year btw)*

This tournament saw the return of some familiar faces such as Commmanda Panda, Vincent Rayne, BLAZE, Boobiebombs, and the winner of last years event, NykNyks, all the while having some first timers to the event such as CrazySteady, EETDERT, and Yubel Uchiha. Everyone who attended or watched the tournament...

Today our community manager, Matt Ponton got to play some Last Round complements of Shack News. Thanks Shack News for displaying our game on many different occasions even if I wasn't too thrilled about some of the casual inaccuracies tossed left and right from a creepy guy that said rectum like literally 1,000 times during the stream.

We now have some balance adjustments, and while some of them are mentioned in the forum, I'm sure there are some that haven't been discovered in the video. The command training can also confirm that there are definitely some new moves in the game, which was actually kinda starting to worry me.

You can watch the stream in their archives here. Be sure to post any changes you may have found, and thanks again Shack News.

The Dead or Alive 5: Last Round store page on Steam was updated today with an announcement of the game being delayed until March 30th. To compensate, Koei-Tecmo will offer the Halloween 2013 Costume set (All 28 costumes) for free of charge ($25 value) to all users who purchase Dead or Alive 5 Last Round on Steam.

Change to Release Date
In order to provide you with the best experience possible, the expected release date for Dead or Alive 5 Last Round on Steam has been changed from Feb. 17 to March 30. In appreciation for your patience, we'll be offering the Halloween 2013 Set (28 costumes) free of charge to all users who purchase Dead or Alive 5 Last Round on Steam.

Thank you for your understanding!

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Previously, the steam version was set to be released with all other versions of the game on February 17th. Currently, this has not affected the Online Mode patch scheduled for the game within three months of release.

The Steam version marks Team...

We might not be on the main stage, but we will be at EVO. Big E, one of our biggest supporters outside of Team NINJA and one of the most prolific Tournament Organizers in the country, is working to put on a "side tournament" at EVO. I use quotes because this man isn't a side tournament kind of guy. This is all extremely early but there is already aggressive movement to make this an impactful event at EVO. Lines are open and parts are moving to make this successful. From Big E himself on one of the Facebook groups:

Ok we didn't make it this year but I want to have a side tournament at EVO. We have to show them we belong at Evo 2016. They watch every major that Doa is at so we have to step up big time this year. It starts at Winter Brawl 9. I need everyone's help. Who's behind me? I WANT TO GET GREAT NUMBERS AT EVO. Let's show the POWER OF DOA FGC.

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The conversation has already brought up possibly working with MarkMan of MadCatz and other options will, of course...

Releasing a day earlier than its original January 15th reveal date (all in part to yesterday's scan/screenshot leaks), here is the official reveal trailer for Honoka, "a sweet, easygoing kind of girl," Koei Tecmo subtly points out.

Her fighting style looks strikingly similar to a few of the cast members, doesn't it?

Eric Small of @BigE Gaming recently made an announcement on Facebook that the next big DOA5 event, Winter Brawl 9, will be played on PlayStation 4. Previously, Dead or Alive 5 Last Round was set to play on the PlayStation 3 so this is an interesting change as it sets the tone for the first Last Round tournament event.

Winter Brawl 9 will be taking place on February 20th to the 22nd at the Clarion Hotel & Conference Center (76 Industrial Airport, Essington, PA 19029). Be sure to pre-register for the event if you'd like to participate in the first Dead or Alive 5 Last Round major tournament. High pre-registration numbers determine not only the pool sizes and times, but also the streamers and stream times for the game. Help the community by getting Last Round shown off on the big stage...

There are several massive events on the horizon for our community and a lot of you have had some pretty legitimate questions come up regarding things. More of you have had some completely insane questions, so if you fall into that particular camp, pass right on by. For the rest of you, we've been able to work out something I'm going to avoid calling an interview for a variety of reasons. That non-interview will be with Team NINJA directly.

We could have just whipped up a quick Q&A and posted it as an article, but we wanted to try something a little different. Those of you who've been around for a long enough time may have seen something similar in the past, but this is a different situation we're working with in 2015. We're going to open this up to all of you guys to ask the questions here. Before you get too excited, though, let's lay some ground rules.

First, we have to respect the fact that the Team has a plan in place for the new character regarding the media. You have to...