Tekken 6

A version of this review originally appeared in The Murray State News.


Sometimes, you just want to beat the ever-loving hell out of something. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I really don’t condone violence. I feel that there is a non-violent resolution available in any situation if one is smart and/or charismatic enough. But, sometimes, you just want to punch something in its stupid face. That’s where fighting games shine for me. Oh, and lucky for me, one of my personal absolute favorite fighting game franchises just released a new title. Oh yeah, “Tekken 6.”

 
Now, plot-wise, I’m a little bit behind. The last Tekken (which translates to iron fist) game I actually played was “Tekken Tag Tournament.” It was a complete shock to me to see that Jin Mishima was now a bad guy and the leader of the Mishima Zaibatsu. Also he declared war on the ENTIRE PLANET. Oh, and just for shits and giggles he reinstated the King of the Iron Fist tournament, wagering his position as leader of the Mishima Zaibatsu, as is customary. So, around 40 playable characters enter the tournament, beating the hell out of each other at literally every possible opportunity.

 
So, “Tekken 6” is an arcade fighting game, like the other Tekken games, right? Well, technically, yes. However, the main “story mode” type mode of gameplay is called “Scenario Campaign” mode. No worries, that just means there are unique rules in place for matches, like campaign mode in “Soul Caliber II,” right?

 
No. Very no.

 
For some reason, the developers at Namco decided that for their next arcade fighting game, they wanted to get rid of all that pesky fighting. Also the arcade-type gameplay. Enter “Scenario Campaign” mode, which is basically an action/adventure RPG. As in, free-roaming maps in basically one direction and killing enemies for money and loot. 

 
Oh, and you don’t control the camera, ever. So, it’s impossible to see bad guys coming up behind you. Oh, and you automatically lock onto enemies, but don’t automatically face them or anything pesky like that, so your attacks wind up hitting empty air about 70% of the time. Oh, and you pick up weapons like miniguns or flamethrowers and completely blow away bad guys who (idiots) brought their fists to a flamethrower fight. And there’s the whole five to 10 solid minutes of cutscene between levels, after the 20 minute cutscene before you ever even touch the buttons at the beginning. I’m sorry, is my desire to play the game cutting into your anime? How rude of me.

 
Scenario Campaign mode is infuriating. The Tekken franchise has some of the best fighting mechanics in the world. Real life flesh and blood martial arts badasses praise the game for accurately recreating actual martial arts. The buttons map to body parts instead of attack strength, making for incredibly intuitive gameplay that’s easy to pick up. This mode completely opts out of what makes Tekken great.

 
The game, thankfully, still contains those things. You can play classic arcade mode, versus mode, team battle, time attack, survival mode and something called “Ghost Mode,” with unique, named versions of the fighters. These modes are the only thing I spent any great amount of time playing, because, frankly, they’re why I paid for a Tekken game to begin with.

 
Unfortunately, these modes are largely thankless. A staple of the fighting game genre is the cinematic ending, a “what if fighter X won?” In most games, you unlock these by completing arcade mode with a particular fighter. However, the only way that I have found to unlock them is by playing baby arcade mode in Scenario Campaign, consisting of about half as many fights, and you can only use characters you’ve unlocked in the plot. Most of the achievements for the game are unlocked in either Scenario Campaign or online play.

 
Online play, at the time of writing, is a joke. The Interwebs are abuzz with complaints. There is server lag, completely unforgivable in a game where fractions of seconds can make a difference between victory and defeat. There isn’t much to do online, besides play the same things as offline mode. You can customize your characters with costume pieces and items unlocked in Scenario Campaign mode, or purchased with points won in all modes, but the connection issues are such that the fun is sucked right out of it. 

 
The developers have promised that in a future patch, players will be able to play Scenario Campaign mode with friends. First of all, who would want to? Second, any time a development team promises something “in a future patch” before the game is released, it means exactly one thing: “We didn’t have time to finish the game.”

 
Another thing to note: “Tekken 5’s” boss Jinpachi Mishima is widely considered to be one of the hardest, most unfair video game bosses in history. I think that “Tekken 6’s” boss, Azazel is up there. He manages to block almost every attack made against him, even when he is in the middle of an attack animation. He has an attack that I’ve found to be unstoppable unless you can punch him during the animation, which doesn’t always work because he sometimes still blocks the attack. The only time he’s really vulnerable is when he’s laying on his back, if you’ve managed to knock him down. Unfortunately, if you try to attack him then, he teleports to the opposite side of the screen, reappearing in the middle of an attack. He also has a grab that he can use from the opposite side of the screen. More than once I’ve been reduced to swearing incoherently, finally opting to just turn off my Xbox.

 
“Tekken 6” should be awesome. It manages to almost destroy my faith in the Tekken series, but the core gameplay is still awesome enough to keep me playing. I mean, where else can a boxing kangaroo face off against a small robotic girl with chainsaws in her arms?

 
The ESRB rated “Tekken 6” M for mature for alcohol reference, crude humor, mild language, suggestive themes, and violence. It is available for the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 with a planned Nov 24 release for a PlayStation Portable port.