First appearing in 1995, Tekken was the second 3D beat-em up to be released behind Virtua Fighter and was just as popular, as a new sub-genre of beat-em ups was born.
As the years went by, the Playstation dominated the gaming scene with Tekken 2 and 3 at the forefront. Arguably this was the peak of success for the franchise, branching out with Tekken Advance on the Gameboy Advance hardly brought any new fans in.
Tekken Going Stale
Even with Playstation 2 selling more than one hundred million units, it can’t be said that Tekken Tag Tournament, Tekken 4 or Tekken 5 are in the top ten most bought games or the top ten rated games.
Following on from the latest beat-em up craze of online fighters, Tekken 5’s upgrade, Dark Resurrection, has been released on PSP and the Playstation Network. It’s been met with a certain degree of approval and at the same time proving to gaming fans that the same old formula is getting stale. Speaking of which...
Tekken 6 Arcade impressions
The sixth instalment can be found in arcades, this version played in the Namco Station Trafford Centre.
It features three new playable characters, Bob, Zavina and Leo. Also making their debut are the new Tekken 6 Rage system and Tekken 6 Bound system in the gameplay, complimented by nice next-gen graphics. That’s where any hopes of revolution for the franchise ends.
Once again the tired idea of slightly tweaking Tekken characters and dropping them into new surroundings has been used. Even pre-fight animations are the exact same as featured in Tekken 5, 4 and in some cases even 3.
As an average arcade game, Tekken 6 fits in perfectly with the competition, but just the fact that the machine wasn’t crowded around as its predecessors used to be shows how it’s losing its influence with a generation of First Person Shooting gamers.
Tekken 6 on the X-Box 360
The recent announcement of Microsoft acquiring Tekken 6, was not much of a shock. The series no longer belongs to Sony exclusively.
This has come following a year of Microsoft and Sony exclusive titles jumping ship in order to make ends meet. No genre more so than fighting games, with the other titans Virtua Fighter, Soul Calibur, Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat all released as multi-platform games. Now Tekken branching out completes the list.
This can only result in even more time away from improving the game, making the possibility of a complete rebirth of the series even less likely.
Fighting Game Gimmicks
To make this transition of sacrificing improvement for results complete, you only have to look at the competition. The sheer amount of Street Fighter/Capcom Vs games and Soul Calibur’s console specific guest characters are quickly becoming the only way for companies to make any money out of the genre.
Finally the new Mortal Kombat VS DC Universe title that will be relying on the people in the game rather than how it plays speaks volumes for the current situation. It’s only a matter of time before Tekken falls into the fighting game gimmicks trap too.
The Future, or Lack of, for Tekken
The fact that the Tekken franchise and the beat-em up genre in general are both proving to be excellent metaphors for each other, is a perfect way to describe this sinking ship. As long as developers are too stubborn to change the formula for the stimulation of the genre, this franchise will soon be on the endangered species list.
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