鉄拳６

I was initially worried when Namco released the first Tekken 6 previews with the game looking like nothing more than a slightly-tweaked version of Tekken 5 DR. Thankfully, Tekken 6 is shaping up really nicely with the non-test versions slated to hit the Japanese arcades in early 2008.



The images sort of speak for themselves, but the game is looking beyond crisp in motion too - check out this video. The sheer impact from the striking is almost flagrant (read: good thing), and you can really see the bubble and flare effects ripple off when the big moves connect. Plus - and maybe it's just me - the awesome BGM playing during the fight gets me a smidge amped =) So it's all peachy aesthetically, but aside from the new "rage" system, the gameplay unfortunately looks nearly identical to that of Tekken 5. While I'm all for doing minor tweaks on the engine, I just hope that Tekken 6 isn't to Tekken 5 what Soul Calibur 3 was to Soul Calibur 2. While Tekken 4 was just silly with the absurd stages and balance issues, at least it took measurable steps away from Tekken 3 and TTT (which in hindsight, were the vastly superior fighters) and did things to warrant its title as a true numerical sequel. Of course, the DR engine was nearly perfect, and there's really not much that hasn't already been done with fighting games at this point...so perhaps it isn't particularly fair to clamor for innovation in this genre. Let's just enjoy the pretty pictures. Guess I can start saving up for that PS3 and HDTV w/ 5.1 set-up now :-/