Toronto Thumbs

PlayStation Holiday Preview Event
Tekken 6

I walked into the Playstation Holiday Preview Event with Richard and Don from Gamenorth.ca, and as the elevator doors opened up reaching the venue floor, our eyes all settled on the Tekken 6 setup. The three of us are huge Tekken fans, so this was a very fortuitous moment. Rich and Don sat down on the couch to display the obvious rivalry between them while I chatted with In Joon Hwang from Namco Bandai.

The last Tekken iteration I played was the arcade version of Tekken Tag Tournament, and that was a while ago. But I was a huge Tekken 3 fan back in the day and owned all of the soundtracks to it. Tekken 6, however, is a whole different beast.

First of all, although Tekken games have a history of looking great, Tekken 6 is absolutely stunning. The character designs are incredibly detailed and they come to life with an absurd clarity in high definition. I know describing a giant fighting panda, a boxing kangaroo, and an android girl with mech wings as realistic sounds weird. But trust me; the characters behave and move realistically.

The fight arenas are also full of great eye candy and visual effects. One such level was set in a snowy area, and as the fighters moved around in the 3D field, prints and paths were left in the snow. Each time a character was dropped, more snow was crushed.

From what I could hear, the sound was also pretty decent. The thwacks and slaps of lighter blows contrasted to the deeper thuds of stronger attacks landing.

Tekken 6 appears to have it all. While it’s not the most realistic of fighting games in terms of the actual fights, the mechanics are realistic enough to be fun. It’s like you’re orchestrating a movie martial arts boss fight, which is something that appeals to a lot of fight game lovers.

A lot of comments were made during the demonstration that the movements were slower than previous iterations. I, however, think the movements are closer to the actual speed that people move and fight at, and this will force players to think a little bit more about what they want to do. Still, it remains to be seen if button mashing will actually help you or hinder you in this game.

Tekken 6 has the most characters available out of any Tekken game before it. The roster has 42 fighters who are all customizable (both customized and vanilla characters can be taken online). Each character has his/her own personality, and they’re all fun to see in action. On top of that is the great number of stylish levels, many of which include destructible environments that you can smash your opponent through to reveal other areas to fight in. The best part of this, though, is that you can continue performing combos while you using sparring partner as a wrecking ball to break through. Brutal, fun, and practical!

There are also a number of modes available to play with, in both single and multiplayer flavours. The most intriguing option is the new Scenario Campaign mode. In Joon told me that this isn’t a typical campaign mode for fighting games. This was designed separately and is as extensive as the game itself. Designed for single player or two-player co-op, this game basically and not surprisingly has players moving through levels and fighting enemies. The typical arsenal of moves as well as weapons are utilized, but it’s a gaming experience that Bandai Namco hopes will lure more gamers to the series and to the genre.

People who are already fans of the fighting genre, however, are probably already looking forward to getting their hands on this game. My favourite take on it was actually from one of the Sony gals, who described Tekken 6 like so:

“It’s like they took Final Fantasy characters and Street Fighter and mushed them all together to make this game. It looks awesome!”

Tekken 6 will be released in North America on October 27.

Posted in Awesome, PlayStation 3, Previews, Sony |