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It’s been two years since “Tekken 5” was released; plenty of time for developer Namco to create a follow-up that surpasses the fantastic scale of “5.” Sadly, it seems that Namco twiddled their thumbs for a year and a half and then rushed “Tekken 6” out the door with its shirt untucked and shoes untied.

Rather than using Arcade Mode to tell “Tekken 6’s” complicated, convoluted tale about the “Mishima” family as usual, Namco decided to put the series’ “Tekken Force” minigame onto center stage under the new name, “Scenario Campaign Mode.” This mode has players going through a long story about newcomer Lars Alexandersson and his android sidekick Alisa Bosconovich and their quest to stop Jin Kazama from doing something that involves another ancient evil beast. The whole thing is rather uninteresting and really should have been told through Arcade Mode.

Scenario Campaign plays exactly like the “Tekken Force” modes of the past games: badly. While using a controller allows free movement in the 3D plane and the ability to switch controls for battling, the odd camera placement makes movement and attacks muddled and difficult.

Those that use an arcade stick will be in for further frustrations as they cannot roam freely unless there are absolutely no enemies around to lock onto. Granted, things get a little fun, switching from opponent to opponent seamlessly to continue attacking; but poor level design, camera and controls quickly revive frustrations. It’s a wonder why Namco didn’t take the vastly superior design from their PS2 fighting game “Urban Reign” and use that for this mode.

Players interested in Arcade Mode stories will be forced to play this terrible mode in order to unlock not only the opening stories for other characters, but the endings as well. This makes playing Arcade Mode completely pointless. That is, unless players want to deal with yet another insanely cheap final boss that is almost three times the size of any character in the game.

“Tekken 6’s” fighting gameplay also received some unneeded additions, including levels with gimmicky destructible floors and “Rage Mode,” which gives players with low health a boost in strength, causing a potential comeback that replaces player skill with cheap luck. Namco also added online play that more often than not lags and needs to be fixed, and a surprisingly deep character customization system that could have used a few notes from Namco’s “Soul Calibur 4.”

Despite having two whole years to work on the game, Namco has put out an incredibly rushed product. With long load times, bad music and lack of a “Tag Team Mode” along with other problems, only “Tekken” fans may be able to tolerate the trials and tribulations of “Tekken 6.”

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