Tekken on the system

Tekken 6 is just that: The sixth iteration of the franchise. By now, you should know full well if it's worth your money or not.

For long time fans like me, the complaints have nothing to do with the fighting, which is where it must excel. They instead reside in things that, I'll admit, I never thought I'd have a problem with. For instance, you don't have your normal menu. You have "Online mode" and "Offline mode", which isn't exactly self-explanatory. Then you go into Offline mode only to find your cursor highlighting the Scenario campaign. The long version: You get to watch a bunch of Story mode schlock, complete with Metal Gear length cutscenes, and then you get to play a side-scrolling beat-em up version of a fairly technical fighter.

The short version: I hope you liked The Bouncer, motherfucker, because you're going to play it again.

And the reason you'll play it again is because you will wish to unlock things, which simply doesn't happen at a very fast rate- this is actually the fastest mode to do it in. Even stranger, if you want to unlock an ending, this is where you do it. Not through arcade mode, or even through the store. Here, and only here, by fighting in the "Arena". Oh, and you can only use people you've already unlocked in the Scenario campaign. It's actually somewhat humorous to leave the arcade mode, with its huge brigade of characters to head into a mode where you have two.

Speaking of characters, there is a robust character customization in place, even allowing some cosplaying to go on. This is important to people like me, who actually think KOF characters aren't in enough (good) games. However, this process is kneecapped by the pittance of cash your fighter is paid for victory: I've but in a fair amount of hours, and, god willing, by the end of this month I might be able to afford a new shirt for Asuka. The wide canyon between how much money you get and how much things cost puts fucking minibars to shame, except for certain accessories, which is my way of saying you'll be able to afford a sword long before you can get your character a hair cut.

So, yeah, the fighting game's intact, and the online's alright, but I'd be lying if I didn't wonder what sort of bizarre experiments were going on at Namco.