The Five: Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion

Tekken a hard look at Tekken.
10/9/2008 1:35 PM | 0 Comments | Page 1 of 1

The Skinny: Following Namco Bandai's release of Soulcalibur IV on the consoles earlier this year, the company's other famous fighter is now prepping for the transition from the arcades to the home consoles. The arcade version of Tekken 6 is already in its second iteration -- Bloodline Rebellion -- which will add even more characters to the stable. Who will ultimately become champion of the King of the Iron Fist Tournament?

1. Boasting over 40 characters to choose from, Tekken 6 will have the largest stable available in a Tekken game to date. The team knows that there are different fan-favorite characters in every territory, so it's bringing back almost every character to try and please the masses. There are new characters that should appeal to both the hardcore crowd and newbies.

2. What happened to the floor? Some stages in Tekken 6 will have multiple tiers. While you won't be able to roundhouse your opponent through a window or down stairs as you can in Dead or Alive or Mortal Kombat, you might be able to smash someone through a floor to open up a new arena to duke it out in. We're hoping this has some sort of gameplay merit and isn't just cosmetic.

3. While Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion has some nifty lighting, haze and other eye candy, we can't say it's the best-looking fighting game we've seen. Some of the character models didn't look all that great, and when fighting in water, fighters' steps somehow didn't have much effect on surface tension. Bleh.

4. Yep, it's still Tekken. Even with the added item attacks, which allow combatants to use weaponry such as machine guns or saw blades, don't think Tekken has gone the way of Soulcalibur -- item attacks seem to act just like regular attacks. Bloodline Rebellion hasn't changed much of the formula, which is good news for Tekken fans, but it's unclear whether it'll bring newcomers into the fold.

5. Tekken goes multiplatform. Looks like Microsoft wasn't going to let Sony have another exclusive. Namco Bandai's going to have some work on their hands, considering that Tekken 6 was basically developed for the PlayStation 3 and the PS3 architecture arcade boards. (Must have been a nice check.)

The Big Question: Do people still care about Tekken? Personally, Tekken has always seemed like a mediocre contender to Sega's Virtua Fighter series, and nothing in the arcade version of Bloodline Rebellion has changed my mind. Tekken fans will be happy with the massive roster, and subtle additions to the franchise -- but it may be time for the team to make some radical changes. At this point, the series is feeling a bit stale.

This preview is based on hands-on play of an in-progress version of the arcade game at Tokyo Game Show.