Blog of Pawn  

I’m long overdue for a Tekken 6 review. I mean, I’ve owned it for like 2 months now. Ridiculous!

First thing’s first, Tekken 6 isn’t likely to make a hater start liking the series. Likewise a Tekken fan will find plenty to love about the latest entry. In other words, Tekken 6 is more evolutionary than revolutionary.

For those who haven’t been keeping track, it’s been 5 years since Tekken 5 was released on the PS2. If one were to compare Tekken 6 to Tekken 5 (which I did), the first thing you will notice is that its designed for widescreen TVs. Yay! You’ll also find that the graphics have been given a considerable update. Not that Tekken 5 looked bad…it was one of the finer looking games on the PS2. But you can tell that this is a game for the newest console generation.

See for yourself!
Tekken 5 screenshot:

Tekken 6 screenshot (click for full size):

Talking to people, I’ve learned that many of you didn’t even realize that the Tekken series has been a relatively story-rich game since Tekken 3. It’s no Final Fantasy, but I’d put its depth above the likes of most games that are actually hailed for their stories. Tekken 6 gets a story mode in the form of a 3D beat’m up. The story mode will probably be what you spend most of your single player career on. They actually ensure that by making you face each of the characters before you can fight as them in a tournament mode to see the character’s ending.

Spoilers!
You play as series newcomer Lars and assisted by another new character, a female robot named Alisa. Initially in the story, Lars loses his memory. As he’s trying to remember who he is and what his purpose in life was, he learns that the world is now ruled by two opposing factions. Jin Kazama now runs the Mishima Zaibatsu, while Kazuya runs the opposing G Corporation. For reasons that are eventually revealed, Jin has declared war on the world and is winning with his own army. (One thing that’s kinda fun about the multiplayer stages is that chaos is happening in all of them.)
End of spoilers!

There are a few dozen stages that all end with someone from the Tekken series either choosing to fight you or help you fight random bad guys. Like any good beat’m up, you have health boosts in the form of chickens, and weapons in the form of metal bars, flame throwers, and gatling guns. The weapons are extremely satisfying to take out enemies.

In order to allow for progressive difficulty in this storyline mode, you’re given random articles of clothing to wear that boost your stats in some way or give your attacks different status effects like freezing, stunning, or setting them on fire. For the patient, there’s a lot of customization that you can give to a character. It can take a lot of time playing though just to change your favorite fighter’s look.

On the subject of characters, there are a lot to choose from in this game. In fact, there’s more in this game than in any other Tekken – 42!

40 are playable

Newcomers include the aforementioned Lars and Alisa. Jack technically counts because he’s Jack 6 instead of Jack 5… There’s a new girl named Zafina who I think I could learn to have fun with. Her attacks are kinda weird and hard to read. Leo is another new character who I’ve had decent luck with so far. Miguel looks like he could be a fun character. He’s got this drunken bar brawler air about him. Finally, Tekken 6 get’s its own American fat but fast guy named Bob. Bob’s not quite as hideous or nearly as obnoxious as Street Fighter 4’s Rufus, but one has to wonder if this trend is going to continue indefinitely. Of these, I personally find Zafina, Miguel, and Leo to be most likely to make my frequently used list.

Zafina vs Jin (click to enlarge)

As expected for a fighter in this generation, Tekken 6 introduces online fighting to the mix for the first time in the series. I used to think I was halfway decent at this game. I now know that to be false. *sigh* Lag wasn’t noticeable. It was also pretty quick about putting me in a match.

Some final things worth noting are that the music is particularly outstanding, from metal to techno to…you know what? I’m not too good at categorizing music. Stuff that isn’t metal or techno. How’s that? Where was I? Oh yeah. Tekken 6 has a lot of single player and multiplayer modes to keep you busy. Also, the game is very generous with achievements. In the first 3 1/2 hours of the game, I already had 435 points. Some of you kids care about that kind of thing, so thought I’d let you know.

So that’s about all there is to say about Tekken 6. Will you become King of the Iron Fist? Or will you leave it to Bob?