All in all, Tekken 6 is a solid fighter. It gets the important aspects right as the characters and overall gameplay are easily the best the Tekken series has ever offered. But it falters in other areas such as laggy online play, the terrible Scenario Campaign, and sub-par graphics. If you don’t have a PS3 (and therefore access to the still superior Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection), are new to the Tekken series entirely, or just want a new local multiplayer fighting game, Tekken 6 is definitely worth a look. There are some rough spots, but pure 3D fighting gameplay doesn’t get much better than Tekken 6 and that is what is important.
Tekken 6 offers 40 characters, plenty of modes, and the great Tekken gameplay that the series has always been known for. It doesn’t look as nice as other Xbox 360 fighters, and the Scenario Campaign is pretty darn awful, but the core gameplay is still really, really good which makes Tekken 6 worth playing even if there are some rough spots in other aspects of the game. Find out all of the details here in our full review.
Tekken 6 has the largest roster of characters that the series has seen yet, which means that all of the series standbys are present along with an interesting cast of newcomers. It is kind of disappointing that all 40 characters are unlocked from the start, but that seems to be a trend among fighting games these days. I have to admit, I preferred the days where unlocking everyone was a big part of the fun of a new fighter. You can’t really complain about the characters themselves, however, as despite the large roster every character really feels unique and the game overall is really balanced.
The characters all have different ranges and different speeds and different damage levels and greatly contrasting styles (basically every real martial art and fighting style you can think of plus plenty of unique ones are represented), but everything in the game has a counter so no character really has an advantage. With the exception of end boss Azrael (who is cheap and overpowered and awful like all fighting game bosses) the characters are very evenly matched which is why the gameplay is so exceptionally good.
The Good
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Really, the gameplay is deceptively simple. The four face buttons each control a limb, which makes the game pretty darn intuitive. The fighters generally move and behave like you think they should based on their stance and where they are and what attack you just performed. This makes the game easy for new players to pick up because it is generally easy to understand how everything works. You can use just the basics and do well. There is a lot of depth to Tekken, however, and once you start digging into counters and combos and fakes and sorting through the huge move list for each character the game really opens up. And considering that there are 40 characters that all have different moves and all play differently, this is a humongous game with an ocean of depth that takes ages to master, and that is why it is so great.
What can you do with all of those characters and deep gameplay? Tekken 6 offers a wealth of modes to play with. There is a normal arcade mode where you fight through a few opponents en route to a final boss. There are practice and survival and team modes (but not tag, unfortunately). And there is a ghost battle mode that lets you fight against A.I. that are basically CPU controlled copies of real human fighters. There is also, of course, local multiplayer, which is as amazing as ever.
The Bad
The two other main modes in the game, however, are where some disappointment sets in. First is the Scenario Campaign. This is a beat-em-up where you walk through a level and beat up generic thugs on your way to a boss character. The problems start with completely stiff and awful gameplay (the free flowing, smooth fighting of the rest of the game is nowhere to be found here), bad targeting which makes fighting multiple enemies difficult, and poor A.I. for your CPU controlled partner make the just plain not fun. Even worse, this is the mode you have to play to unlock character ending videos (a highlight of all Tekken games), new outfit options, and is the fastest way to earn money to buy character customization parts. Bad times.
The other major gameplay mode is online play and, unfortunately, at the time of this review it suffers from some pretty terrible lag. The lag is too consistently bad to be solely blamed on individual players’ connections and seems to be a problem with the netcode for the game. High-level play is completely dependant on timing and having complete control over your character, but when lag interferes and you have an input delay or something you have to completely change how you play and it just isn’t as fun as it could be. A patch is coming to hopefully fix the online lag, but we’ll have to wait and see what impact is has.
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Graphics
The only other real area of disappointment in Tekken 6 is the graphics. The characters look okay and are animated well, but the environments have bland textures and really don’t look good at all. There are some lighting effects on some levels that make things look a little better, but overall it isn’t too pretty. The game does run at a solid 60 FPS, which is great, but compared to other Xbox 360 fighters Tekken 6 falls a little behind in terms of visuals.
Sound
The sound fares quite a bit better. Tekken has always had great music on each stage and that is definitely true here as well. Sound effects during fights are also really well done. Voice acting isn’t anything special (and the story overall is just plain incomprehensible at this point unless you are a die hard fan), but it gets the job done.
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