A bit of a let-down, thanks to some mislaid priorities.
~
Pros:
+ Satisfying Combat: Yes, it's still Tekken, so of course the fighting is fast, brutal and satisfying!
+ Rage: The Rage system, which makes your attacks more powerful when you're on the verge of being KO'd, is a great new addition that can lead to some thrilling fightbacks from the brink of oblivion.
+ Multi-Tiered Levels: Some levels allow you to smash your way down to another tier, which although not used particularly well (as I will go into later), is still a nice new quirk (albeit pilfered shamelessly from Mortal Kombat).
Cons:
- Iffy Scenario Mode / Plot: Besides not being an especially new thing for Tekken (it's really just a tarted up version of the sub-game in Tekken 3), the fact that the great majority of the game is based around the scrolling beat-em-up story mode is a pretty bad idea. While it's quite addictive unlocking the characters one-by-one by fighting them as bosses, the majority of the gameplay is awkward to control and repetitive, far overstaying its welcome where its ancestor was at least over before you could get bored of it. Another problem is that it spends a lot of time focusing on the actual 'plot', which is grim since the plot is god-awful even by Tekken standards!
- Neutered Story Mode: A side-effect of having so much of the game revolve around the Scenario Mode is that the Story Mode has been cut back to a shadow of its former self - besides the utterly atrocious interface of having to enter Scenario Mode before you can even start it, you only have to play 4 fights to win, making the whole thing feel rather less epic, to say the least! This is even more bizarre when you consider that they've included an Arcade Mode, which is basically what would traditionally be the Story Mode, except you don't unlock any endings for playing it!
- Difficulty Spikes: The regular fighting is roughly the same difficulty as always, but suddenly it can become truly unfair in difficulty - the main offenders being the Nightmare Train level after completing the Scenario Mode, which is utterly impossible as far as I'm concerned, and in particular, the final boss: it's alright having something so insanely tough as a non-essential win (as in the robot in Arcade Mode), but as something you have to beat to unlock endings, it's a real controller-smasher!
- Chaotic Backgrounds: The level design for the standard fights is a bit over the top and wacky, with too much happening all the time (particularly when you smash through the floor, which sadly has no real affect on anything); the result being that none of them stick in the mind quite like the sleek minimalism of Tekken 4's, or the imagination of Tekken 5's. Plus, for everything that's going on, they're still basically all the normal box-shapes at the end of the day - how about some objects in the middle like Tekken 4, or introducing boundaries you can knock opponents off for a KO?
- Over-Pricey Costumes: I appreciate that they want to inspire people to play obsessively, but you would have to play til the end of time to afford all the bits of clothing for each character!
- Long Loading Times: They're not murderously long (if you install the game like I did), but when you have to redo the same incredibly irritating final boss 15 times in a row, it starts to feel like an eternity spent looking at a loading screen... Remember the blink-and-you-miss-it loading screens of Tekken 2? So much for progress...
- No Imagination: Really, even by Tekken standards, there's not much of anything new here - even the disappointing Tekken 4 introduced proper closed-3D levels, and Tekken 5, for all its throwbacks, still had some fun introducing customizable costumes and a more full-fledged survival mode. And what happened to the wacky side-games like Tekken Ball and Tekken Bowling? And why not bring back the Tag mode?
~
I wasn't expecting anything particularly mind-blowing from this game - after all, when you've gone through 7 games in a series where all you have to do is kick each-other til someone falls over, where else can you go? Still, even considering this, Tekken 6 was a disappointment, backtracking in more ways then it steps forward. It still satisfies thanks to the core brilliance of the actual fighting, as well as the great addition of Rage; but this was equally true of the previous Tekken games, so why upgrade? I've been a long-time fan, but I'm starting to wonder if our love-affair has exhausted itself...