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CG rating |
The Bad
- Very entertaining
- Loads of characters and game modes
- Interesting music for the most part
- Smart control scheme
- Few stages
- Limited environment interactivity
- Average voice work
Review
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There was a time, long ago, when hordes of children would gather around in arcades to have fun playing games such as Street Fighter, Double Dragon or Mortal Kombat. Given the reader demographic, odds are you, yourself would remember that time. A time when you’d dig around in your jeans for spare change, if only you’d scrap out a dime before the countdown on the screen reached zero. When you’d hold notebooks through your drawers, noting down various combos and neat fatalities, a time when you’d wait for the school ringer to sprint out and freeze your enemies with Sub-Zero or fry their butts with Blanka.
I remember that time with a sense of nostalgia, but I do not regret its passing, in the same manner I don’t regret not being 8 years old anymore. I’ve grown; up some would say I’ve become more mature, and I found other pleasures in the meantime. Question is – did the genre grow up as well – or is it still just a nostalgic rush for impressionable schoolboys?
The first five minutes that Dark Resurrection spouts at you would suggest the latter, for the plain reason that they’re identical to every Tekken title so far – a well-crafted intro movie that describes a montage of a few central characters, the same menu format and the same game modes. I’ve grown quite resentful towards titles such as FIFA, NHL, NFL and other abbreviations of the sort, mainly because I don’t really like replaying the same thing made worse every year, under a different number suffix. In Tekken’s case though, the changes are of entirely differently nature. After the 5 minute déjà-vu, notable differences start surfacing.
We’ve got an especially large character selection palette, including the classics’ alternatives, with the slots summing up to 34, plus the option of random selection. There are two new characters, Dragunov and Lili, and while their fighting styles aren’t entirely original, their tempo and handful of new combos are interesting and their execution itself can be a challenge. The main drawback of the series ever since the beginning has been its slow pace compared to the competition, but the last few games have emphasized fluidity and style variety, so well tied together that, in my humble opinion, the game’s speed is arguably appropriate enough for you to have time to think a successful tactic through.
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The game modes themselves are many and very satisfying. I’m pleasantly surprised by the fact that Namco succeeded in cramming up the tiny UMD with so many options, proof of it being me still intrigued by some of them, over a month since the game’s purchase. The classic Story Mode features a series of illustrations narrated by the character we selected and an epilogue that, in most cases, is a cinematic animation of photorealistic quality. Alongside it we can train, play the Arcade mode or rush into a fight by selecting the Quick Mode, but the game’s pearl is actually a set of tournaments in the Tekken Dojo mode.
Basically, this mode represents a league throughout multiple dojos, with the player being rewarded with points after every victory, which determine his ranking. As if Tekken Dojo wasn’t interesting in itself, we can download or transfer various Ghosts, which insure a varied and interesting game even after a long while. In the end, we’ve got the minigames that the series has gotten us used to: Tekken Bowling and Command Attack, a mode that gets you points if you complete the combos displayed on the screen.
Most of these additional characteristics are unlocked either by finishing the story mode a number of times or by purchasing them with the game’s monetary unit, which you can get by winning various modes. Even so, the unlockable content is disappointingly slim and easy to get.
“The boiling monkey at the Happy Oak” style
The game’s story describes, as always, a new edition of the King of Iron Fist Tournament, spiced with the personal agendas and dramas each character goes through. As the title suggests, dark forces resurrect Jinpachi Mishima, who, for reasons that dodged my logic, organizes a new tournament. Each character has a purpose, varying from revenge to power tripping or bloodlust, but to be fair – since when is the storyline this genre’s strong point?
What truly got me hooked on Tekken the first time around was the existence of various different fighting styles that were somehow balanced. The fact that I could scrub the floor with a boxer while my character was kung fu-ing all over the place. That was interesting and exotic in my eyes, even more so considering it would take multiple fights against multiple opponents to learn my character’s ups and downs.
From that point of view, Dark Resurrection doesn’t let down. Largely because of the many available options, but also because of the AI’s knack of modeling itself after each recorded ghost, the result being that not too many fights resemble one another.
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Comments [Add a new comment]
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| Haven't decided | |
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Total: 1666 votes
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