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Genre: Fighting Publisher: Namco Bandai Developer: Namco Bandai Players: 1-2

By colmwarner (14th Nov 2009)

Fighting games have evolved in increments over the years, and while each instalment has brought minor improvements on the competition and its predecessors, the mechanics and gameplay have always been more or less the same. Tekken has always opted for a slightly different approach to its control system. Where games such as the Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat series gave the options of strong, medium and hard punches and kicks, Tekken has always assigned a button to each limb, and this allows players to create a flow of natural body movement in a way that no other game has ever managed.

From the outset, all anybody expects from a new fighting game is a more polished version of the previous one, with a few extra characters thrown in for good measure. And this is exactly what you get when you play the arcade mode. If you’ve played any of the earlier versions, then you will immediately be able to whizz through the arcade mode, as all the commands and combos you learned in the past are still relevant. The six new core characters and two new bosses can be figured out pretty quickly, and you can get to the credits in about 15 minutes if all goes well. That’s right, I said the credits, not the end screen, the typical story clip that is always about a friend avenged, a score settled or a sunset to be walked into. This set me back the first time I completed a character. It’s not that I’ve ever really enjoyed end screens, but they’ve always been there in every franchise across the genre. With a roster of 42 characters, there is plenty of opportunity for the completionist to keep busy.

In the past, the people at Bandai Namco have tried to give a little more than just the standard fare of characters kicking the pixels out of each other. In the fourth instalment, Tekken Tag Tournament, we were introduced to Tekken Bowl, an entertaining side-game. There have also been various attempts at “story modes”, but these played out as 2d scrollers.



This time, the campaign mode is central to the game and while linear, it is fun to play, its challenging and the story is interesting albeit not that gripping. This follows the story of Lars Alexandersson, one of the new characters who has lost his memory, and fights through minions and bosses in an effort to find out who he is and right all the wrongs of the world with martial arts. When you view the achievement list for Tekken 6 and you see awards for killing people with machine guns, lead pipes and flamethrowers, you know this isn’t just the arcade mode rehashed. While play can be repetitive here, the staggering rendering in the cutscenes is worth the hours it takes to get through. You even unlock items that improve your character, and your customization choices and influence the outcome of certain scenarios.

But let’s get back to the reason people pick this game off the shelves in the first place: the” versus” fighting. The graphics have been sharpened and responses are smoother than ever. Nearly everything can be countered, and a lot of work has been done on the Ukemi (Japanese for break-falls) system. There are now more ways to break falls, recover from knocks and roll out of harm’s way than ever before. The terrain is destructible, so you can start a fight on one level, fall through the floors and the walls, and end up in a completely different setting. The new rage system means that players with low health get a damage bonus to help them get back into the fight. There’s nothing here that hasn’t been done before in the genre, but it’s the first time a developer has put all of the features into one game, and the whole package just makes you want to spend hours at your console whether you are a skilled combo-perfectionist or just an enthusiastic button-masher.



In addition to the standard arcade mode, there are survival battles and team battles, just as in the last few versions, and there is now also a belt-ranking system, following the traditional Japanese system of starting at 9th kyu and working your way through the kyu grades and onto the Dan grades. To encourage online play, a player can only reach 1st Dan in the offline modes. To progress past this, you need to battle other players worldwide in ranked matches. Also, there’s a new concept in beat ‘em up games where you can now upload your “ghost”, and download the ghosts of other players. This doesn’t mean that you just learn by heart what moves they used and avoid and counter them, the uploads capture the essence of your fighting style, so in effect opponents can still fight you while you are offline. You can also upload/download replays of full fights to show off to the world or to see what tricks and tactics other players employ. The online play can be slightly laggy at times, but on the whole it’s an agreeable experience.

Tekken 6 is released for PS3, Xbox 360 and PSP, and along with the standard edition, you can buy an edition that comes with an arcade stick for the purist that wants to recreate that arcade game feel. There is also an edition that comes with a hooded top, although the appeal of this seems harder to grasp.



What shows throughout every mode is the thought and effort that has gone into this game by the developers. Fighting games are normally fun, but retire quickly as there isn’t much to do once you’ve completed the game and unlocked all of the characters. By taking the best elements of the previous releases, blending them with borrowed features from the competition, and adding entirely new elements, we are now presented with a whole new experience, and the injection of longevity into a game that has expanded the boundaries of its genre. This is hours upon hours of fun and an absolute must-have for anybody who has ever enjoyed martial arts-based games.

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