For the last ten years I've always thought of Tekken 6 as the bad one. It's the disappointing one. It's the one I didn't like as much. It would go on sale for dirt cheap constantly and I never considered re-buying it because of all this, even though we play pretty much every other fighting game good or bad. Well, Tekken 6 was an Xbox Games With Gold title so I played it again and was surprised. This isn't bad. It's just more Tekken, and that's a good thing. What the hell have I been doing for the last ten years? And what are other games that "everyone" says are bad that are actually good? Read more and watch Tekken 6 gameplay right here.
Like I said, I've spent the last ten years thinking Tekken 6 was bad. I distinctly remember being somewhat negative in my review, but I can't remember what score I actually gave it. I do know a couple things - it was marked down for the scenario campaign being bad (which it definitely is) and for not being a big change or improvement over previous entries (which is debatable). I can see how paying $60 for mostly similar gameplay and largely the same roster as Tekken 5 would be a negative, and I assume that's the stance I was taking back when I reviewed it. I, apparently, forgot to follow my own rule of "reviews matter less the cheaper a game gets" and "every game is worth playing for cheap". So, I'm sorry Tekken 6. I've been riding the online hate train for ten years and didn't even know why.
The thing about being a game reviewer is that you play so many games, and move from one to the next so quickly, that you don't really remember anything about most of the games you play. You remember the great ones, and the terrible ones, but most games fall somewhere in between and become just a soup of vague feelings that all blend together. You remember "I didn't like this much" or something but you can't actually remember WHY. Reading online discussions clouds your memories even more as the tone of discussion at the time morphs into a feeling of "everyone thinks (blank) about (blank)". Don't deny it, everyone slips up and lets the zeitgeist alter their opinions every now and then.
It's harder to notice this happening when it's about something you were negative on to begin with. When everyone is dunking on something it's fun to just pile on to feel like part of the majority. You definitely notice it when you like something that suddenly everyone changes their tone on, though. You feel like an outcast, but for me that always just galvanizes my opinion and makes me want to shout from the rooftops how everyone else is wrong. That's, uh, kind of how a TON of these Eric Vs. 365 games are, actually.
Anyway. Rant over. Tekken 6 is fine. It plays good - which was never the problem - has a big roster, and you can ignore the rest.
