Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion (2008)

Tekken 6 is an excellent installment of the series. It adds a fresh new look, many different game modes and overall, a very rewarding experience.

The story continues in this game. After his battle with his great grand daddy and banishing him back to the afterlife, Jin Kazama is now the head of the Mishima Zaibatsu family. He uses his new position to declare his company (including the military Tekken Force) completely independent and declaring war to every other nation (way to go Jin). His daddy, Kazuya, places a bounty on his head, which his G Corporation is aiming to collect. In response, Jin hosts the King of Iron Fist Tournament 6 to lure Kazuya out.

Meanwhile, the world is in chaos and a brave soldier called Lars Alexandersson rebels from the regular army with some of his solider to take up arms against the Mishima Zaibatsu family and the G Corporation. He gets pummeled in a G Corporation raid, losing his memory. He meets an android, called Alisa Bosconovitch, and tries to recover his memories. In an epic plot twist, it is revealed that Lars is actually the illegitimate son of Heihachi and that his goal was to take over the Mishima Zaibatsu family. To make matters worse, Alisa was actually sent by Jin to spy on his every move and after being beaten by Alisa, Jin flees with Alisa to Egypt.

Lars follows the duo to Egypt and meets Zafina, an archaeologist who warns Lars of a great evil living in the temple that Jin is heading to. Lars goes to the temple and awakens the great evil, who is a demon called Azazel. He whoops the floor with him and meets Jin. Jin reveals that his plan was to awaken Azazel himself, so he could get destroyed by him and get rid of his Devil Gene. As only a demon could achieve that feat. Lars understands, takes of with Alisa (who is now your friend again) and Jin continues his battle with Azazel. The plummet to the depths of the sand together and all seems to be over. However, beneath the ruins and sand, Raven (the cool ninja dude from Tekken 5) discovers Jin’s unconscious body, still with the Devil mark on his arm.

And that brings me to the second, most frustrating and unfair boss fights in the Tekken series. After the monster God called Jinpachi from Tekken 5, the developers learned from their mistakes by making Jinpachi weak as a floor mop in the latest port of Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection for the PlayStation 3. However, in Tekken 6, they even made it worse with Azazel. Apart from being a giant beast like monster that blocks half the screen, this dude can shoot crystal spikes trough the floor, always hitting you, it shoots laser beams and rolls towards you, hitting you at least three times. This guy is somehow even worse than Jinpachi.

The roster in Tekken 6 is fair. You got most of the characters, including all of the Tekken 5 characters. You can now play as Zafina, Lars, Leo, Bob and Miguel. These additions are really well implemented and each one of them feels great to play with.

In terms of graphics, Tekken 6 looks beautiful. It is, once again, a big, next gen upgrade from the previous game and features polished textures, smooth animation and detailed environments.

The music is, along with Tekken 5, the best of all the installments. It is a varied mix between dubstep, pop, orchestra and metal. It is just epic. The sound effects themselves also have been upgraded and sound spot on.

When talking controls, they work perfectly and responsive. The speed of the attacks has been improved as well, making the controls feel even more fluent.
Tekken 6 introduces some new stage mechanics in which you can break walls and floors, revealing more of the stage and changing the environment.

Tekken 6 also implemented the rage system. When low on health, you enter rage mode, giving you a damage boost in order to get a chance of turning the tides against your opponent. This mechanic can be fair but also very frustrating. When you pummel your opponent to five percent HP, and are ready to finish them off, they can still counter with two or three hits, winning the match.

Tekken 6 introduced the Scenario Campaign. In this mode (similar to Tekken Force), you choose a character and complete story missions in third person mode. You use all of your attacks, but perform them in 360 style movement. You beat up generic G Corporation soldiers and earn rewards for completing each mission. It is a nice distraction from the main fighting modes, however, I thought it was a little broken and chaotic. The attacks, performed in free movement instead of left or right, was really disorientating and worked badly. But at least they tried to add something new.

In Tekken 6, you can now fight online against other players in ranked or unranked battles. This way, you could increase your rankings and statistics. It was fun while it lasted, however the skill of players that I encountered online was legendary. I got my ass handed to me more times that I could count. They land two hits, I fall on the ground and thus begins the ragdoll pummel game, in which my (not dead yet) corpse is being tossed and kicked around like a football. I had a miserable experience online, but this was for me personally and does not say anything about the quality of the online play.

In the end, I loved Tekken 6, it was, once again, a big upgrade over the previous game and the new modes, the fresh look and the updated character roster was excellent.

Definitely recommend this gem.