Tekken 6 Review
- Posted November 3rd, 2009 at 08:36 EDT by Mike Harradence
- 11,308 views
- 34 Comments
Review Score
- PSU Review Score
- 8.5
- Avg. user review score:
- 7.1
Summary
While offering only incremental upgrades to the formula, Tekken 6 is a worthy successor to Dark Resurrection and ultimately one of the best entries in this venerable franchise to date.
We like
- The superb fighting mechanics
- The heaps of game modes unlockable goodies on offer
- The sprawling and diverse character line-up
We dislike
- The dodgy Scenario Campaign
- The lag during online matches
- The load times
See PSU's review on Metacritic & GameRankings
(continued from previous page) ...however, nothing is more paramount to your survival than the ability to juggle – that is, keeping your opponent in the air for as long as possible while dealing as much damage in the process. Pretty much all characters have a specific move – colloquially dubbed “launchers” - that sends their opponent flying helplessly sky-bound, allowing you to subject them to a thorough airborne pummeling. However, Tekken 6 ups the ante in this particular aspect with the introduction of the bound system, allowing you to bounce your opponent off the ground while you continue to juggle them for a couple more seconds before they can roll to safety. Given their inherently tricky nature to pull off, it’s particularly rewarding to unleash a seven-hit, health-draining juggle leaving your opponent a cripple on the floor after an arduous practice session – the sense of accomplishment when you actually take your skills against a living and breathing opponent is worth the trouble alone. Needless to say, we found some particular brutal ways in which to apply this new feature with some of our old favorites, notably Kazuya and Heihachi Mishima, who both possess a copious and destructive range of juggle attacks at their disposal. There’s also a Rage system similar to the one that appeared in Tekken Tag, which powers up your character when they’re about to hit the dirt at around the 10% health mark, though ultimately this is the least impactful of Tekken 6’s new features for the simple reason it kicks in too late in order to facilitate a miraculous recovery. Still, pros may be able to use it to tip scales in their favor in times of desperation, though we found it had little impact on our fortunes.
In terms of game modes, Tekken 6 offers your bread and butter Arcade experience, along with the obligatory offerings such as Ghost Battle, Team Battle, Versus, Time Attack, Survival and Practice. As in Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection, Ghost Battle again pits you against an endless stream of AI bots masquerading as real-life players (by that, we mean your opponents are kitted out in outlandish costumes and sport their own, unique identities in an effort to simulate an online experience) in order to increase your rank. As with previous installments, Tekken 6’s AI can be tweaked in accordance to your playing ability, ranging from the absurdly easy to insanely tough. Still, chances are you’ll want to pit your skills against the world’s finest, so taking the action online is a must. Here, you’ll able to compete in both ranked and unranked matches, though if you want to increase your reputation beyond a certain point you’ll have to participate in online matches, offering further incentives to tread beyond the offline component.
Unfortunately, while we were itching to mix it up with the rest of the Tekken 6 community, our online experience was marred by some noticeable lag, essentially rendering each and every bout all but unplayable. While it would be disingenuous to suggest we’re not able to put up with or expect a little lag now online in this day and age, it’s difficult to make a compromise when it comes to beat ‘em ups of Tekken 6’s caliber (or any fighter, for that matter), where timing is instrumental in pulling off the complicated juggles and other in-depth techniques. As a result, however, we had to make do with relying on bog standard punches, kicks and throws, which accomplished very little given our character performed the moves a few seconds after we input the command. When you take a look at the robust offering Capcom put up with Street Fighter IV, it boggles the mind how Namco wasn’t able to replicate that same stability with one of their own flagship brawlers – and we’d like to point out that we’ve only just upgraded our connection, too. Suffice to say, however, we left the online arena with our arses kicked and our tail between our legs.
Chief among Tekken 6’s fresh offerings comes in the form of the Scenario Campaign. Playing in a similar vein to Tekken Force and The Devil Within from past games, this cut scene-heavy adventure focuses on new boy Lars and his robotic sidekick Alisa, as he attempts to recover from a bout of ... (continued on next page)
Comments
-
-
dc89 |
Stiss- 8:37am GMT - November 3rd, 2009
- 2
1st.
I thought this game would never come out. Im not a big fighting game fan I will pick it up when it goes down in price though!
Edit: Im not first! I was beat by the post above which was initially YES and then was edited to something worth while. -.-
-
supergamer |
SilentNightz- 8:37am GMT - November 3rd, 2009
- 3
I don't know if it's worth it anymore... :(
-
-
-
wetfbbqchiken
- 9:45am GMT - November 3rd, 2009
- 6
lmao @2
dont think i will be getting this as theres a few other games out soon that i want :P
-
-
-
-
-
Ellezzdee |
Ellezzdee- 11:55am GMT - November 3rd, 2009
- 11
i got this game as a gift, im after playing it for about an hour im ready to toss it in a trash can. i LOVE soul calibur, but i just cant get into this game at all. the gameplay itself is pretty aweful in my opinion, but the complete nonesense of a story mode just made it completely worthless to me. i guess ill just trade it in at gamestop for $20 and be done with it.
-
melvinmilquetoast
- 12:24pm GMT - November 3rd, 2009
- 12
After all this time waiting for this game, I was expecting radical changes.
Some of the moves have been redefined - Law's are particularly more interesting, but the graphics haven't improved that much. There's also a lot of jagged edges. It would have been nice if they had anti-aliased the characters.
-
gwmayar
- 1:19pm GMT - November 3rd, 2009
- 13
The game is not perfect, it must be remembered that it is primarily a port from Arcade. And Namko done a tremendous job, especially if you compare what was done in Suolcalibur 4. At the moment better 3D fighting game does not exist in principle. I think that lag will be fix soon. I'm playing it already 3 day and get real pleasure.
Believe me no one will do nothing better for a long time, if you're a fan of Tekken, you simply must buy it, my score 8.5.Why is 8.5, well, because the graphics could be better, but remembering that this is the port with the Arcade and if they started to alter engine, the game we were in the best case in late 2010.
Good job Namko.
-
-
-
-
iplayonlysony
- 4:32pm GMT - November 3rd, 2009
- 17
I expected the game to look better than this. What makes this Tekken better than the old ones?
-
Bigdoggy |
Gypscrew- 5:09pm GMT - November 3rd, 2009
- 18
bleh, just download Tekken: DR off of PSN, practically the same damn thing. out of all the videos I have seen for this game, I see no difference besides the graphics. I think these developers need to really get their heads out of their butts and do some "true improvements" on these fighting games. We should be so far suprassed this same crap they dish out over and over again, it's really pathetic to say the least.
-
-
-
Staude |
Staude- 5:49pm GMT - November 3rd, 2009
- 21
Tekken 6 is completely different from previous games. The Rage mode changes it up radically with me having played multiple matches since i got it friday where the tides were turned because of it. The scenario mode isn't looking perfect and the camera isn't perfect either. But it's 100 times better than tekken force or devil within, it's fairly addictive and fun. Depending on your char, the conversations ingame also changes (not the cutscenes)
I really gotta say that I don't think your review does this game justice. If you play t5 dr just for an hour and then go into this, you'll see how monumental the change is. They redid all char animations, finally fall animations were done properly. Chars moves are way more fluid with lei sprawling into drunken boxing in various new ways and paul not being able to perform his old power attack (atleast not how he used to do it.. I'm sure he can still do it, but i dunno how.) they changed the gameplay up radically and it's awesome. Any tekken fan who doesn't get this is cheating themselves of an amazing experience. Everything about this game is awesome, except for the camera and enviromental visuals of scenario campaign, and the load times.
It really is a huge jump. Story is epic aswel. Atleast for anyone who's been able to keep up with it like me :p But even so, they give you a prologue of the main story from all the old teken games which is cool for any newcomers.
I'd say the jump is in some ways as big as it was from tekken 2 to tekken 3.. maybe bigger.
-
-
PS3-The Ultimate Machine
- 6:56pm GMT - November 3rd, 2009
- 23
The truth is,this game IS a 2 YEAR old port to consoles,delayed half due to the lovely RRoD happy 360.If this game came out 2 years ago,it would have had it's impact,but sadly now it is just too little too late...
-
-
-
Lethalmind |
Lethalmind- 12:38am GMT - November 4th, 2009
- 26
I've been on the fence about Tekken 6. Not a big fan of the juggling system. If the lag is anything like the lag from Tekken:DR on PSN, I may have to pass on this altogether because I'm addicted to Online Play.
-
Bigdoggy |
Gypscrew- 8:36am GMT - November 4th, 2009
- 27
@21, sorry but the character movements are not "WAY fluid" they tweaked the movements slightly, and when I mean slightly, I mean slightly. Not much of a notice unless that is what you are looking for. game is definitely not worth $60 and the developers should have taken a lot more time since it took them forever to come out with this game for the PS3 and Xbox360. They could have done a lot more, A LOT MORE. This is the reason why I don't support this game, it's nothing but cheap rehashed characters with maybe 2 or 3 new characters. All the secret or bonus characters have the same moves as previous character = lazy cheap crap. What needs to happen is a new fighting game to come out that sets the table and makes other companies evolve there previous fighting games.
I have yet to see anything in Tekken 6 that makes me go "WHOA! this looks awesome and it's improved a lot".
-
-
niz32iqbal
- 3:18pm GMT - November 4th, 2009
- 29
only bad thing about the game is load times and online lag. scenario shouldnt really be the main focus of the game, as its a vs beat em up, know a campaign game, so this shouldnt really be used to put tekken down. its like saying, call of duty 5 is good, but the tanks dont drive that well. and the game is worth it, as long as there are challengers and challenges out their. i feel its got the real next gen technical fighting system, and a cast of characters, so varied, and balanced, and popular might i add, than any other beat em up in history... 9/10 for me
-
Dangerzone
- 9:04pm GMT - November 4th, 2009
- 30
Tekken 6 da best fighting game ever wtf it deserves a 10 its balance unlike sf4 g@y @ ss sf4 he cn spam haodukens and punish dem wen dey jup unlike TEKKEN u have 2 straigtigise if suk dnt play its just dat simple psu pis sed me off on dis review
-
sosa2123
- 11:43pm GMT - November 4th, 2009
- 31
this was my first tekken game i ever purchased so i was happy with it, the loading time is much faster if you install it to the hard drive, my only disapointment was that i thought the story mode was co-op since the previews made it look that way, but then i tryed playing the story mode with my brother and...OMG ITS ONE PLAYER ONLY O.o
-
-
Gedetecunleashed |
ss4maronza- 3:18pm GMT - November 10th, 2009
- 33
I definately luv this game. Am gonna get 1.
-
Ergunno
- 1:15pm GMT - February 3rd, 2010
- 34
Lol, only just now read this review. I voted a 4 for 1 sole reason which is what I loved from Tekken 5 DR and I think Tekken 4 as well but that's too long ago for me to remember. WHY THE **** CAN YOU ONLY GET TO 1ST DAN WITH GHOST BATTLES! Yeah, I have to do the rest from online but if you want me to, then give me no lag at least. And if there wasn't lag in the online gameplay, then there would be infinite spammers or something and that takes away the fun. I was able to play Tekken 5 DR from 11 AM to 5 PM by only playing ghost battles because I had the constant drive to get all my characters to that "Divine Fist" rank. I prefer Tekken 5 DR with it's game modes above Tekken 6 every day. I got it, I played it for a week but there was no drive for me as I couldn't get past 1st Dan. I don't give a **** about online gameplay with Tekken personally so this game was probably my biggest letdown in a game in a couple of years...
Advertisement