After a 4-year wait, the newest Tekken game will finally hit store shelves tomorrow. Needless to say, I'm excited. Those who have been following my posts for this past month know I've posted reviews for every single Tekken game (with the exception of the handheld ones). This has become, in a way, Tekken month. I've played more hours of Tekken this month than I've probably played for the 9 months prior. I'm so psyched.

Trying to sum up my love for this series has been difficult to put into words. Back in 1995 and 96, I was still trying to master Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. I had played Virtua Fighter but I wasn't the biggest fan of it at the time. When I played Tekken for the first time, it really blew me away. Before long, Tekken became my fighting game of choice. I think it had something to do with the learning curve. Tekken always struck me as a more accessible kind of game than Street Fighter or Virtua Fighter. It was a challenging game (especially the early ones), but it was easy to get into at the same time.

I always loved playing Tekken with my brother or my friends. I would always destroy them. Seriously, I completely dominated. I loved it. The AI was generally pretty good, but playing against friends was the most fun. I firmly believe that Tekken has the most crisp, fluid and fun fighting system on the market today. Beating the crap out of your opponents is satisfying on a level unmatched by its competitors.

Single player is great too, in no small part because of the storylines. Tekken has built such a mythology around their characters, particularly the main story characters (the Mishima clan), that you legitimately care about these characters, and it adds such a great dynamic to the fights. The only other fighting series that's really done that in my eyes is Mortal Kombat, but I haven't been nearly as impressed with the gameplay in the 3D Mortal Kombat games, especially when compared to Tekken.

A common criticism I've heard many times about Tekken is the lack of change in the series. I admit, Tekken 5 still plays an awful lot like the original Tekken. Sometimes, the changes can be subtle, but the series has been slowly refined and improved over the years. The characters have gotten better (and we've gotten more of them), increasingly powerful combos have been added, and plenty of small refinements have made the game more fun to play. In all honestly, this series doesn't need to change.

Another thing I love about Tekken is the fact that the developers go above and beyond the call of duty when porting the game to home consoles. Unlike most fighting franchises, Tekken is known for having minigames, most notably beat-em-ups like Tekken Force and Devil Within. Tekken Tag Tournament even has a bowling minigame. This stuff adds a lot of replay value to their respective games, even if the quality of these minigames can be hit or miss. But really, it always comes back to the fighting.

All in all, I've probably played Tekken games for, thousands of hours of my life. It's a staple franchise for me. It would probably be in my Top 10 franchises of all time. I've loved every game in the series, except for the lone blemish on the series, spin-off game Death By Degrees. As for the actual fighting games in the series, though, I've racked up hundreds of hours on each of them, and had a great time trying to master this series.

We've waited a long time for Tekken 6. Whether it's going to end up as the best game in the series, is up for debate. But in the end, I'm very happy to see this franchise continue, and I hope they continue to improve and expand on this, my favorite 3D fighting franchise.

My Tekken Reviews:

Tekken (ARC)
Tekken 2 (ARC)
Tekken 3 (PS)
Tekken Tag Tournament (PS2)
Tekken 4 (PS2)
Death By Degrees (PS2)
Tekken 5 (PS2)