Dissection: Tekken 6

The year of 2009 has been a resurgent one for fighting games in Australia - additions to the Street Fighter and King of Fighters franchises along with the debut of Blazblue have kept the masses of joystick denizens relatively happy.

But now with the release of Tekken 6 we see a game without a clear goal – a game so muddled in what it wants to achieve it leaves a long time fan with a feeling of disappointment. To be clear, there is nothing really wrong with Tekken 6’s game play – the offense-heavy, pick up play fun remains with enough depth for tournament play. Everything else surrounding it however threatens to bring it’s mechanics down.


The first kernel of confusion you might come across with this game is its single player. While Tekken’s Tekken Force/Devil Within modes were fun light-hearted unlockable mode’s in the guise of a 3D beat em’ up - it was never the reason people flocked to duke it out as Marshall Law or Yoshimistu

Tekken 6 on the other hand brings with it Scenario mode - a beat em up “adventure” where you play as Lars Alexandersson – the newest addition to the Mishima family – accompanied by Alisa, the robot daughter of Dr, Boskonovitch. As you clumsily fight your way through hordes of minions which include Jacks, soldiers and even baby cubs you gain nonsensical upgrades to add to your character you unlock other characters to use in the separate Arena Mode by defeating them along the way – as well as progressing through the games story. The problem is that the story in the series has always been separate to the action – nothing more than a crazy backdrop - so it’s baffling that they’ve brought it to the forefront here.


What’s disappointing is while in the past Tekken had been about straight-up arcade play (with the exception of Tekken Tag), that was enhanced by Tekken 5’s ranking system and customisation. However in this installment it is pushed into the background as an afterthought complete with the usual fighting game trope of a cheap boss. Tekken 6’s online mode has been given similar treatment with bare bones match options (albeit with the option of downloading ghosts to fight) and enough lag to often turn it into a stop motion affair – obviously learning nothing from the problems Capcom faced with Street Fighter 4 or SNK with King of Fighters XII.

Namco has also mishandled it’s game play additions – unlike Street Fighter 4 which introduced its tweaks in game play through it’s challenge and practice modes, the rage system in Tekken 6 is near superfluous due to its negligible increase in damage and parries are present but barely mentioned to the player.

So before the hordes of purists shoot me down with all their frame-counting, roman-canceling nous, I will re-state that nothing is broken in Tekken 6 – local play will delight many for a long time to come I’m sure - but the heart of my disappointment is that this latest installment doesn’t re-invigorate the series. Instead it makes changes that don’t make it a better experience and stumbles in the same ways as other fighting games before it. With Super Street Fighter 4 on the way it’s hard to see how the series will stay relevant.

What they got right:-

A wide range of characters: With 43 different characters, each with their own distinct (and large) move set Tekken 6 provides players with the ultimate fan service by including nearly every single character from throughout the series history.

Customisation: Despite being borrowed from the Virtua Fighter series, Tekken’s customisation options gives the player the option to make their player as goofy as the series’ storyline or as bad ass as Heihachi’s hair cut.

Visuals: While not quite matching the visual fidelity of Virtua Fighter 5, Tekken 6 takes a leap forward from Tekken 5 with much better looking levels, a higher level of detail on clothing and improved animation and collision detection.

Good range of modes: Tekken 6 contains enough modes to keep any player happy – online and scenario mode join Arcade, Time Attack, Team Battle and Survival Mode to make most other fighters look barren.

What they got wrong:-

Online play: Now deemed the staple of any modern fighting game – Tekken 6’s online mode suffers from consistently heavy lag and a lack of options despite offering the option download ghosts of players from around the world.

Cheap Final Boss for Arcade Mode: In keeping with every fighting game in history, Tekken 6’s final boss Azazel is a cheap, infuriating and screen filling addition.

Scenario Mode: In what should be a side dish to Tekken’s arcade mode, this beat em up adventure is a clumsy avenue to tell the games’ story. Also not welcome is making Arena Mode (a shorter version of arcade mode within scenario mode), the only way to watch each characters ending.

Lack of tutorial/guidance: To compound Namco’s meagre changes to the series like the Rage system or parries, they are never fully explained to the player but instead sit in the background on a loading screen. With Street fighter 4 offering a much better introduction to its changes, their inclusion will be lost on many players.