Review by: Mitch Dyer

I’ll be honest up front: Tekken isn’t my fighting franchise of choice, though I’ve enjoyed each game in the franchise, I’m not good enough to pull off sweet moves for every character, or to dig into the lingo of the genre. But I like playing these games, and Tekken 6 is no exception. I spent a ton of time trying to learn (or re-learn) how to play Heihachi, Jin, Eddie and crew. It ultimately resulted in the rejection of most of what the game had to offer, and a weird dedication to the simplest attractions.

Most importantly, silly hats, sweet new clothes and other loot items, which seem oddly placed in a fighting game. But Tekken 6’s seemingly limitless unlockables are a great way to tinker with the look of your favorite fighter. The sad part of it is that you’ll have to endure the practically-unplayable scenario campaign to access a lot of that stuff. Switching from Tekken’s expertly handled one-on-one fisticuffs to the scenario story mode, which shifts perspectives to a pulled back, almost-third person adventure point of view, is jarring. In this mode you’ll wander around small, linear environments as enemies begging for a beating drop in front of you, not unlike a random battle in a JRPG. The angle you’re forced to look from ruins to flow of whatever fight may have been there because the camera often gets stuck in awkward spots. My eyes were focused on bushes or hallway walls rather than on the action. I also struggled to land my hits against the army of enemies because my character’s attacks rarely went where I asked them to.

I ended up sticking to fighting my friends most of the time, and most of that time was spent together locally since the online multiplayer is prone to disconnects and the odd bit of lag – something that’s completely unforgivable in a fighting game, especially in late 2009. I preferred the uninterrupted flow of back-to-back fights to the arcade mode’s drawn-out and incomprehensible character stories, each of which caps off with one of the worst boss fights in gaming history. The gargantuan neon-pharaoh-dragon-thing takes up almost the entire screen, is difficult to land hits on and deals punishing damage that had my Hwaowrang dead before he could lift his leg to kick.

It’s Tekken’s standard, vanilla flavor that I enjoyed most about the latest edition, even if it is the same as it’s ever been. The biggest issue is that the obscenely long loading times, especially during the cinematic-heavy adventure scenario, are genuinely longer than the fights that follow them. Be ready to keep yourself occupied away from the game between bouts.

Tekken doesn’t get as much attention as something as, say, Street Fighter, but it’s deceptive. On the surface it’s an easy-to-play button-masher – I still remember the first time I played Tekken 5… my sister whupped my ass – but the longer you dig into it the more you’ll discover. Complex, 10-hit-combos take a lot of precision and practice, and are absolutely lethal when executed. But I can’t help but think I’d have been better off with my Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection instead. To me, someone who isn’t an insane, hardcore fighting god, Tekken 6 feels almost identical, with a few improvements here and there. The loading is more tolerable, the loot as gratifying to unlock, and the character roster is largely the same, save for a few new characters that debut in Tekken 6. Both games suffer from embarrassing online issues as well, so there really isn’t an advantage on either side.

There is a very specific audience for Tekken 6 that will eat it up. Everyone else will see it as more of the same, but with a garbage new game mode and long load times. This is a game for the patient pros, even if it is casually accessible.