Tekken 6 - Review / Mini-Franchise Overview.

So I've just finished renting out Tekken 6 for 2 days (1 day over the overnight label) and I'm generally impressed with what it has to offer. Note: This review will be my take on all the modes and features of Tekken 6 so if you don't like Tekken or are all together not a fan of "Beat'em Ups" I suggest you don't read on.

I love the Tekken franchise. I started off with playing Tekken 2 at a friends house. I found it was extremely pleasing to button mash with Eddy and when it finally came around to Christmas season the only thing I wanted was the new Tekken game, Tekken 3. I played the hell out of that game but something I never like about it was the "Tekken Force" mode. If you've ever played it you will know what I mean but if you haven't all explain. Its basically a semi-side scrolling set up (Semi-side scrolling = Side scrolling camera with limited mobility on a long thin plain). The targeting is extremely buggy, bosses are extremely over powered and its timed. The amount of time you get is very limited especially when you finishing off a hard boss and it doesn't reset it just adds on a small amount of time depending on how well did the last round. It was brutally challenging and all together not very fun.....but still Namco persisted.

Tekken 6 modes include: Acrade, Team Battle, Ghost Battle, Vs Battle, Time Attack, Survival, Online Ranked and Player match modes and finally Scenario Challenge Mode........the re-made Tekken Force mode. Heres my overview of all the modes. First off Arcade mode, its basically like every other Tekken Arcade mode except re-vamped with new bosses and harder challenges. There is a new bonus stage were you face a giant machine that is nearly impossible to beat (There is an achievement for beating it, but to continue you don't have to defeat it) and a new final boss which is most likely the cheapest in Tekken's history, Azazel. He can block high and low at the same time and attack and block at the same time. The king of iron fist this year is Jin, he's not to hard but at the start of the match he gets to power-up. All together this games Arcade mode is pretty good except for the overpowered final boss. Team Battle: You basically choose a team varying from 1 - 8 and take on another team of that size/more or less. You can play it with a computer controlled or a player controlled on. Its very fun but what ruins it is the extremely long load times.

Next off Ghost Battle. Its pretty simple you pick a character and fight computer controlled "Ghosts" that have varying skill levels, names and costumes. Vs Battle is just basic 1v1 battling with a computer or a player controlled character. Time Attack, its just a timed series of battles and is ranked next to others on a list of "Best Times". I never cared for it. Survival this time is a lot harder. You choose a character and go through rounds fighting enemies and each time you win only a small amount of health is restored. Online, Ranked and Player match's are extremely fun and exciting and only suffer from small amounts of lag but what is really annoying is when people quit in the middle of the game when their losing or when the match loses the connection its frustrating and happened a lot for me.

Lastly and least important is the 're-vamped' Tekken Force mode, Scenario Challenge mode. Agh.....its really irritating and has kinda ruined the Tekken experience for me. The targeting is horrible stages are repetitive, the camera is also bad and bosses and overpowered. In short its not a lot of fun. In conclusion "Tekken 6" is a pretty good game. The modes are well done even if they do need a bit of tweaking and the gameplay is general fun, online mode is a blast but disconnection are annoying. The one thing that ruins it is the scenario mode, they either should of replaced it with a different, better mode. Gotten rid of it all together or made the achievements less focused around it.

Gameplay: 8.0 - Fun Tekken action
Graphics: 7.0 - Its very pretty excluding 2 points for how horrible scenerio mode looks.
Sound: 7.5 - Some cool music but doesn't really fit in with a lot of Tekken's motif's.
Worth: 7.5 - There is tons of content and the multiplayer will last you a long time but it's similar to previous games in the series.
Overall: 7.5 - A polished fighter but scenerio campaign is better left forgotten.

Note: Started on a late night at home, finished period 3 in school.

A response to this comment:

Anonymous said... good try for a review but its lacking many things. i as well as readers expect gameplay, combos, graphics and controller movement e.g is it easy to pull of moves. you say its not a lot of fun. have you finished to game are characters easy to get? i'm sorry but this review doesn't give any information. to make a review you need to of completed a game and tell us about the game and not its the same as the other one but re-vamped. p.s the main point of a new game is to make it challenging for experience players that demand a challenge

Ciaran says.....A good try? Are you saying theres a pass and fail mark of reviewing? Secondly explaining gameplay is a lot like explaining Coke, its nearly impossible to do. So like me and many other reviewers, we try to generalise it with something they've already played, seeing that Tekken is such a well known franchise, I generalise it with previous games. Thridly this review gives information on all the modes and explains the gameplay of the scenerio campaign. Pretty much everybody at one stage in their life has played a beat'em up so you should already know how the genre's is played. Probably the most ridiclous statement in your comment is "to make a review you need to of completed a game" This is completely false, you don't have to complete a game to review each game mode and aspect because you can try out all aspects before completing said game. Finally a new game is not made to challenge experienced players. Its to make additions to a games formula or completely overhaul it. A higher differcultly setting is made to challenge players or if they're even better than that, on the online servers their are most likely people better than said experienced player. Well thats all I have to say in response to your comment.