Tekken 6: Scenario Campaign Mode is THE WORST GAME I WILL PLAY THIS YEAR

Hey kids! Want to know how to get fight money fast in Scenario Campaign? Take a look here!

Well, guys, my store broke street date, and I have Tekken 6 a couple of days before I should. Barring online mode-- which I presume will be patched in when the game actually launches and the servers are up-- everything is in my hands. Considering the situation, I figured it would be cool to write something up. I haven't played Tekken with any enthusiasm since the mid-90s, so you'll have to excuse me for knowing very little about the game. But this post isn't really about the home version of Tekken 6, it's about the terrible, boring thing that Namco decided to tack onto the game. This post is about Scenario Campaign mode.

God, that name. It sounds like it went directly from a marketing guy's bulleted list to the game. "We'll have a, uh, Scenario Campaign mode! For the longevity!" Scenario Campaign mode has but one design goal: to make the average buyer's experience with Tekken 6 longer. Whether it's fun or not isn't really the issue: it's about keeping your ass in the chair long enough to keep you from selling the game to somebody else (or at Gamestop, if you're a sucker). It's filler.

Now it's common practice, and usually a good idea, to puff out a home port of an arcade game with extra modes and content. Blazblue did this very well with it's limited edition package and big story mode, Street Fighter IV did it lazily with unlockable items that were more a chore than a gift for the player, and Tekken 6 has this. It tries harder than, say, Street Fighter IV did, but that's not saying much. Even if they were trying, this idea would be fundamentally flawed: it tries to shove Tekken 6 into a genre it's just not suited for.

Namco's been doing this since the Tekken Force mode in Tekken 3 about ten years ago, and they haven't gotten it right any time since. This wasn't much of a deal back then, because Tekken games have been overstuffed packages for years and Tekken Force was but one of many silly bonus features every game got-- I believe Tekken Tag had a volleyball mode? I'm particularly harsh with Scenario Campaign because it gets this game's top billing: it's the first item menu, and the whole rest of the game is practically hidden in a sub-menu. Most of the achievements, even, are things you will do in Campaign mode. The people who put together this port of Tekken 6 expected that everybody who bought it would play Campaign at some point. As such, there's really no excuse for how lousy it is.

Tekken 6 is a one-on-one fighting game, as you probably know. Scenario Campaign mode is a one-versus-many fighting game. From a design point of view, these genres have to be handled in completely different ways: control, character design, stage design, everything. That is, if you want the game to be a quality piece of work, you do that. If you're Tekken you just lazily graft one onto the other and call it a day.

The resulting game is really sloppy and uncomfortable: because your character wasn't designed to deal with a big crowd, you typically have to take guys down one at a time. As in a fighting game, you're locked in a straight line to your target. The problem with this is that you've got five other guys locked on straight lines to you too, and you can't very easily move around them. Fighting game controls are great for getting to one guy and beating him up: they are not great for getting around a room. Get ready to find yourself unable to reach that too-close, too-far lifesaving weapon or health item... repeatedly.

On top of that, the fixed camera is working against you, regularly making it unclear where to go, where your dumb AI buddy is, or where the enemy you're supposed to be fighting right now is. If you've got guys in front of you you're often completely unable to see yourself. Also, the one-button targeting system often picks the wrong guy, and inexplicably doesn't shift from enemies you've already killed. And don't get me started on what happens when you're too far away from a guy with a gun! Level and enemy design are essentially the same every time, and there is one level for all of the game's 40 (!!) characters.  It grates, and it grates fast. Little annoyances like this pile up on top of each other until you're pulling your face off. Especially if you're me, and you're running through it really fast so you can tell your internet friends about it before the game formally comes out.

And then there's the story: this is the story mode, after all. If you're absolutely obsessed with the Tekken storyline (which, like most fighting game stories, is total nonsense not worth telling) and don't mind long cutscenes about it, then you're the target audience for this and maybe you won't skip the majority of them like I did. I never skip story cutscenes in games, but when I realized that the ten-minute history of the entire Tekken series was only the first cutscene, and that three more cutscenes followed, I started hitting that skip button, and hard.

In a nutshell, new protagonist Lars Alexandersson, the Scandinavian, illegitimate son of Tekken patriarch Heihachi Mishima, goes out on an adventure of revenge with his moe robot girlfriend, Alisa Bosconovich. They're always posed the exact same way as they talk before every level. With the ridiculous costume items you put on them to improve their stats (yes, there are tacked-on RPG elements too), they kind of reminded me of the protagonists of a very dry gag manga-- a Cromartie or something. Except instead of a delinquent and a monkey, it's a spiky-haired Japanese videogame hero and a space hooker wearing star-shaped sunglasses and a cowgirl hat. Perhaps they're more like the Fuccons?

So this mode kind of sucks, is what I'm saying. Games shouldn't try to be all things to all people, because shit like this happens. If I could just avoid it, I would, but I can't. See, the game has this "fight money" system going. If you want to customize your character (ie. dress them up and make them fancy), you need a ton of fight money: there are single items in the in-game store that cost more than I got on my entire run through Campaign mode. The fastest way to get fight money, as far as I can tell, seems to be to keep playing this crappy game. Actually playing Tekken 6, the pretty solid fighting game, gets you peanuts by comparison. Even beating Arcade mode repeatedly-- this is still boring, but at least the game you're playing doesn't suck-- yields relatively small gains.

It's that much worse because not only will I have to play this thing, I'm going to have to play it a lot, when I'd much rather be playing the real game. You know, the one-on-one fighting game that's a distant memory by now. I grudgingly accept a little grind here and there, but this is just not acceptable. It's poor design, plain and simple. I'd be surprised if Bandai Namco, greedy fuckers that they are, didn't charge people five bucks to unlock the items without the work. I'm going to go ahead and call that a prediction. Watch it happen.

(My second prediction, by the way, is that Tekken 6 gets great reviews in the mainstream gamer press for Scenario Campaign because it adds replay value and hours are very important. The PS2-grade graphics will probably be the main complaint.)

11.8.09 Update: I was wrong about the second one, by the way! Nobody in the gaming press liked Scenario Campaign either. This is like that time I said "A $200 videogame? They're crazy! Rock Band won't sell!"

Comments

[schneider]

Tekken Tag had a bowling minigame, which was kind of fun in its own right.

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=818909452]

I disagree with you about the controls.

The way they set up the controls this year is the best way they've ever done it. When locked onto an enemy, you have standard Tekken controls using the D-pad (back blocks, double back backdashes, up and down sidestep, etc) and you can press rb to change who you are locked onto. If you want to run around and grab a chicken or a super-electric-soda or something, you can move with the analog stick which gives you free run. I can't think of any way they could have improved this control scheme and still give you full Tekken control (they made "Devil Within" mode from T5 completely seperate, and it sucked).

[Sam]

I can't believe after developing this mode no one thought it would be a better idea to just scrap it, its embarrassingly bad. What is even worse is its billed as the top game mode not the "unlockable" throwaway crap which it really should be.

Imagine if resident evil 5 had the mercenaries mode as the only way you could upgrade your weapons in single player, except the slight catch is mercenaries mode is actually a 3d sudoku game using resident evil enemies instead of numbers, it's that retarded.

I would have been more than happy for a standard arcade mode where players are unlocked and you can earn a good amount of money, instead even that appears to have been broken or made worse than past games. For instance no matter what happens you always face Nancy, the final boss is perhaps even more frustrating than SFIV's and there's no character endings for this mode.

The last SoulCalibur was fine, standard arcade mode with a an ok boss (read as; non spamming, playable, normal sized and not just a mix of past characters moves). Not to mention each character had an ending. The problem with this mode though was it was far too easy however additionally there was the tower mode (going up and down) where you got to use all you mods and items. Why they didn't just do a similar thing with Tekken 6 and refine it more I have no idea, perhaps added some slick (but very brief) in game cut-scenes to the arcade mode, made it much longer and more of a challenge..OH WHY!

[Benjamin Reed]

THe only shit I can really talk on Scenario Mode is that it does indeed hand out a disproportionate amount of gold and items compared to actually PLAYING Tekken 6.

Other than that, I think the mode is actually pretty fun and coherent. The serious-business plot cutscenes are terrible, sure, but the controls are actually pretty intuitive (I beat the entire mode on Medium before I learned about the free-walk button, which helped immensely), and the AI partners are usually pretty competent (although on stages with balconies/waterfronts they sometimes get a little overexuberant in their combos and ring themselves out with a flying knee or something).

Assuming they make good on the (rumored?) co-op mode, I think Tekken Force Part 6 is actually a pretty decent little beat-em-up. The only thing really dumb about it is that it hands out items and money far faster than actually learning/playing the real game, and definitely doesn't require all that much in the way of Tekken skill even on Hard to make a shitton of money (read: where in a player match I'd actually have to get fairly creative with Nina and her all-too-steppable/duckable offense, in Scenario Mode I can basically kill anything that moves by abusing 1,4,1 with occasional 1+4 (I love that move), f+1+2 (TIGER SHOT), and jab strings thrown in (and maybe d+2,3 against those stupid fat guys who can't be thrown). Just cycle targets rapid-fire, break up crowds with fast knockdown moves, and keep Alisa alive and by the end of the game you're basically free-walking around the stage looting while Alisa kills everything in sight.

To be honest, I love this mode. Of course, I can't really play Tekken all that well to begin with, so I have very little incentive to play the game for real except against people like Sub, particularly when the game runs in slow-mo and I have around 2 seconds to break throws/duck/low parry. NOW we're working at the speed of MY reflexes!

[jono]

This article is dead on. Scenario campaign is a joke. Namco really needs to quit jamming this garbage down our throat's every "new" tekken that comes out and try working more on refining existing gameplay and presentation. Why should customization be such a chore in this game compared to soulcalibur! rage thing is dumb also. Nothing like snatching defeat from the jaws of victory over and over again due to a cheap game mechanic... Despite the excellent core of tekken this game is full of crap that supercedes it

[jack]

i find this mode very fun. subatomic brainfreeze, YOURE AN IDIOT! A COMPLETE FREAKING IDIOT!! the reason you don't like it is because you suck at it. if you hate this mode, you pretty much hate tekken 6 altogether, get your heads together you stupid hacks!

[Jawsh]

1. this article is like others have said
2. the game mode is just aweful in every way possible
3. The actual fucking "KING OF IRON FIST TOURNAMENT 6" wasn't even important in the least to the goddamn story and was short as hell
4. When well they stop putting damn dragon demon things that shoot lasers at you? This is the fighting genre, not devil may fuckin cry.

[Joe5]

i agree with jono, i love scenario campaign. i find nothing to hate about it. anyway i only have a psp so i cant play the mode.

[jay-e]

where can i find that scenario mode haist....