One recent major release is all about gratuitous violence and bared flesh, while another is sunhine, rainbows and music straight out of Blue’s Clues. The brutal, sexy fighter Dead or Alive 5: Last Round is another last-gen remaster with its rough edges smoothed out for a re-release, and Kirby and the Rainbow Curse is an adorable and addictive Wii U platformer. Surprisingly enough, both games might well appeal to the same type of player — those up for repetitive and familiar yet insanely addictive and rapidly ramped-up challenge.
On the download tip, a pair of boardgame-styled games have emerged in The Dungeons and Dragons-style card/combat title Hand of Fate and Risk, the strategy game that made you punch your older brother in the arm.
Reviews by Phil Villarreal. Phil is an author, blogger and Twitterer. Publishers provided review copies.
Dead or Alive 5: Last Round
(PS4, Xbox One, $60, Mature)
Order Dead or Alive 5: Last Round here
Seeking to fill the colossal fighting game void on current-gen systems, Dead or Alive 5: Last Round beats rivals Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Tekken and SoulCalibur to the punch. A wholesale revamp of the 2012 Xbox 360/PS3 slugfest, the expansive roster of characters get a stunning visual makeover and loads of new levels. The franchise is known for its buxom, jiggly female cast, but the looks tend to overlook the rock-solid fighting mechanics, which are some of the tightest and best-balanced in the genre. The result is not only the best fighter on new systems, but one of the best on systems of any generation.
You can choose between one-on-one and tag team battles, through numerous online and offline modes that let you rack up the unlocks as you pour hours into honing your strategy. There are more than 400 costumes to mix and match, once everything is unlocked. Last-gen players who don’t want to let go of all their progress are in luck, because all unlocked and downloaded content transfers over to the new systems (Xbox 360 to Xbox One and PS3 to PS4). The disappointment is that — unlike the custom of most last-generation remasters — the previous-gen DLC isn’t all unlocked to begin with.
Hand of Fate
(PS4, Xbox One, $20, Teen)
Spawned from a 2013 Kickstarter that eked its way past its $50,000 fundraising goal, Hand of Fate appeals to fans of Magic: The Gathering, Diablo and Dungeons and Dragons with its unique blend of card deck management, RPG loot collecting/stat-building and turn-based, randomized combat. A brooding, taunting dealer doles out cards, which you stack, arrange and play in order to give yourself the greatest edge on the battlefields you encounter by moving your game piece and selecting choices presented to you by cards you’re blindly dealt. Once the cards are played, you grab your weapon and hack away at the enemies in your path. Depending on your cards, you could be in for an easy romp or near-impossible odds.
While the mixture of playstyles can be jarring, the diversity keeps things fresh and lively. The suspense in the doling out and presentation of new cards becomes a tension-filled thrill. Crafting and arranging your deck to strengthen your character and up your chances can easily become an obsession, and the live-action combat is quick and brutal, never wearing out its welcome. Hand of Fate is a geeky game for the geekiest of geeks, and its antisocial paradise of stat-crunching and item hording is a gleeful waste of time. Thank the Kickstarter backers for bringing this strange and glorious game to life.
Kirby and the Rainbow Curse
(Wii U, $40, Everyone)
Order Kirby and the Rainbow Curse here
Kirby games are too few and far between on Nitendo systems, so it’s a joy to see the first Wii U entry, and first mainline series entry since 2010’s Kirby’s Epic Yarn. Making excellent use of the Wii U GamePad’s touchscreen, you guide the inhaling-obsessed puffball by drawing rainbow-colored platforms on the screen. The ramps, walls and ceilings you make help you bounce, float and roll your way through the imaginative, claymation-textured levels. As is always the case in Kirby games, you swallow enemies and items that give you different power-ups you use to solve puzzles and obliterate bad guys.
Designed mainly as a single-player romp, the game takes on additional life when other players join the mix. Up to four players can join in on the frustratingly offline-only co-op action, but as with many Wii U multiplayer games, it’s the GamePad player who has the most control. Those stuck using Wii controllers are forced to play backup roles and are generally at the mercy of Player 1. The upside is that the mode lets veteran players easily tug newbies who don’t contribute all that much along through the game. While a bit too easy in the beginning and a little too challenging in the later levels, Kirby and the Rainbow Curse is vintage, well-calibrated and creative platforming that Nintendo is known for.
Risk
(PS4, Xbox One, Xbox 360, $15, Everyone)
Set aside any fond memories of hours hunched over a table, maneuvering armies to conquer the world in the Risk board game as a child. Play the digital version and you’ll wonder what it is you ever saw in the plastic-and-cardboard strategic epic. While it’s nice not to have to deal with stray cards and game pieces, cumbersome menus and frustrating design choices make it tough to get absorbed into the spell of global domination.
Playing against the computer is a mind-numbing chore, with A.I. choices limited to pandering idiocy and preternatural cheating. It’s better with human competitors, but it takes so long to execute turns that you’ll find yourself playing something else on your phone as you wait for your turn to pop up. The straight-up, dry presentation is a crushing disappointment, especially when compared to Risk: Factions, the lively re-imagining from 2010.
