Many fans of the fighting genre all have had their favorites in the past. This Fall, one may come as a surprise, especially to Xbox owners. The guys over at Namco Bandai are finally releasing the Tekken series on a console other than the Playstation. That’s right, Xbox has managed to snag another favorite arcade title, Tekken 6. What a great way for the series to make a comeback too, considering they haven’t released a new version for consoles since Tekken 5 hit the Playstation 2 back in 2005. Fans of the series are getting hyped up, especially considering the new things Tekken 6 is going to have to offer. For those unfamiliar with the Tekken series, the fighting series started out back on Sony Playstation and in the arcade. Now, it returns with all the previous content plus more, including up to 42 playable characters. Of those characters, six of them are brand new. Included in those are Zafina, a “bird-style” female, Leo, a German fighter, Miguel Rojo, a vengeful Spaniard, and Bob, an American Martial Artist.
One of my favorite things Namco Bandai has always been able to give us in this series is an assortment of characters that are unique. They each have their own individual fighting style, as well as personalities. I’ve seen some of the game play and still images, and the characters look as good as ever. Besides always having a great art department, Namco has decided to focus on graphics and animation in this version, making significant changes to literally every frame. Tekken 6 is going to raise the bar by having a full motion blur effect while still keeping the 60 frames per second. Another thing looking good are the stages, which appear to have an insane amount of detail going into each of them. They also are going to be bigger and more interactive than any other fighting game. With things like multi-tiered destructible environments, breaking floors and walls, throwable items, and day to night transitions, players should look forward to more than just a stand still button mashing contest. In fact, the fighting system has been changed slightly to allow for more combos, too.
One thing Tekken has always allowed for is amazing combos, air juggles, and chain attacks. The only thing that broke that was the “tech rolls” that would allow a player to get out of those combos with ease. With the new “bound” system, your opponent is prevented from “tech rolling” and escaping in the middle of a combo. This will most definitely give players the possibility to do aerial juggles, wall combos and chain attacks for dealing quick, large amounts of damage. What’s to stop matches from being one sided then? Fortunately, they’ve cunningly countered this by extending the health bar due to the combos allowed by “bound”. Another big change to the fighting style is the new “rage” system, in which characters will have an increase in power when they are “in the red” and low on health. This allows for opponents to swing a comeback too. As far as character customization, a lot will be returning from Tekken 5, with better options and more items.
Many of the costume options are interchangeable by characters, but there are also character-specific items that can also unlock “item moves”. Also, some unlockable new KO animations will have us beating down our opponents in fashion, especially in the much-anticipated multiplayer. Not much is known about the multiplayer, except that there definitely will be a “versus mode”, which in fighting games sometimes can be a little lack-luster. Lag usually makes it hard to pull off combos, and in situations where a hundredth of a second can make a difference, the connection can kill an online versus mode. Fortunately, Xbox Live should be able to handle the graphics and connection issues. Namco has also mentioned they are experimenting with a new multiplayer feature that will allow friends to play something other than versus. No detail yet on what is expected, but a co-op campaign or time trial is possible. While there are a lot of changes for the upcoming version, fans shouldn’t be worried. All the well-received elements from previous versions are returning, with more content then you can shake a fist at.
