A Look At: Dead Or Alive 5 – Collector’s Edition

This is an old item by now, but since I only recently picked it up, I have to admit something: I had never seen this edition before. Dead or Alive has never been my favourite fighting franchise — I was always more of a Tekken and Rival Schools guy on PS1, and before that, Mortal Kombat ruled everything.

Needless to say, I bought the first DOA back in the day for one reason only: the infamous “boobs engine.” And I’m absolutely sure I wasn’t the only one.

Good game or not, titties sell, and Tecmo has always known that.

At first, I thought this was just another steelbook edition… but when I unpacked it and felt the size and weight — woohoo. A huge steel box thingy. Lovely embossed artwork, great colours, and the matte black base really make it pop.

The Game Box

The Game Box

The included game case surprised me. I’ve seen other versions online, and this one is different — mine uses the poster artwork (shown later), while others use the artbook cover. Most likely a region difference, and this Scandinavian version seems to have its own flavour.

The Soundtrack CD

I didn’t expect this at all. I can’t say DOA’s soundtrack has ever stood out to me, but hey — a physical CD is always a cool bonus. I’m not breaking the seal, but I’ll fire up the digital version on my PS3 and give it a listen.

Still, awesome that they included it.

A Swimsuit Voucher

Of course. Gotta love how Tecmo pushes the brand forward with the eternal focus on boobs and ass.

Code redeemed. Controller ready to be spanked.

The Poster

This is the one I mentioned earlier — brilliant stuff. If I had the wall space, it would be up immediately.

The Artbook

This one gave me Ridge Racer Type 4 vibes for some reason. A lovely design, nearly 100 pages of DOA material, and one of those books you flip through “just one more time”… umm.

I’ll admit: I expected the artbook to be wall‑to‑wall tits and asses. But surprisingly, there are lots of normal illustrations too. Sure, there are swimsuit‑calendar‑style pages, but nowhere near the amount I assumed.

The layout and art direction are good, though maybe a bit too “normal” for my taste. There are so many incredible artbooks out there now that this one doesn’t quite reach the same heights — even if it’s still solid.

Final Thoughts

That’s everything from the steelbox package. I honestly expected less at first, thinking it was just a standard steelbook. But this is quality stuff — a very cool collector’s box that will sit nicely in my collection for years.

I doubt it’ll ever become rare, but for fans of the series (and collectors like me), this is absolutely a keeper.

Makes me wonder what a Dead or Alive figurine would look like… Oh well. Maybe in the next release.