Introduction

My, oh my do we have a controversial one this month! When Harada of Namco announced that Tekken 6 would have the largest cast the series has ever had, to my surprise, the announcement was received with a mixed reaction. Sure on paper the idea sounded well, for me anyway at the time, but it wasn’t until I had the game in my house that I saw the arguments against the large cast. This is not to say that I’m now “for” removing characters, in fact I’m neutral on the subject.  I’ve yet to decide where I stand on this matter. However I will put forward the top points, in my opinion, for both sides of the argument, just to invite those who are new to this debate.

Arguments For:

More Focus on Characters

This debate insists that Namco would find it easier to make the characters more balanced had the roster been smaller. Although you will always find noob tactics in fighters, it is argued that it could be heavily reduced with a shorter cast. We could also see the back of “certain characters” that appear cheap or broken. Namco could have more time to focus on the smaller cast, there’s no doubt about that, and we wouldn’t need to wait 5 years for the next game either.

Better Story and Endings

For all its flaws, Tekken 4 will always be remembered as the Tekken game with the best story and endings. For me the story for Tekken took a down turn in Tekken 5, and Tekken 6’s story was, incredibly, even worse. Many blame the large cast for the story’s decline and shoddy endings. Not that the story is everything, but  don’t forget that the majority of the trailers we got for Tekken 6 were story based, and so I understand the disappointment for the story lovers out there. With fewer characters Namco could provide us with Tekken 4 like cut scenes and endings that actually feel worthwhile.

Opportunity to focus on other features

 

With fewer characters to worry about, Namco could focus its efforts in providing us with other fun and beneficial features. For example they could build a Street Fighter 4 like training mode, with a character roster small, Namco may well be encouraged to give us such a treat, more likely so then giving us a detailed training mode with a 40 plus character list. We could also see the return of Tag mode or Tekken ball etc. PS3 fans will always blame the Xbox 360, whether rightfully or wrongly so, as the reason why the game was watered down. So freeing up some space might be the way to go, if you’d like to see some of those features in future Tekken games.

Arguments Against

Fine we’ll remove your character!

Which characters do we remove? Ok say we do reduce the characters to 25, Namco will obviously introduce new characters, so let’s say 5 of the 25 characters are new. This means that only 20 of the 40 characters in Tekken 6 make a return. The removal of your favourite character will be devastating for some, if Armor King was to be removed; my gaming ability would be reduced heavily. It would be annoying if you trained with a character for 3 years, only to have him or she removed in the next game. Jun Kazama fans had to wait until Tekken 5, to play as their preferred move set in a cannon game again. It would be horrible to find out that you can’t be your best character anymore.

Story who?

There’s the argument that the story was always garbage anyway, and that it shouldn’t matter in a fighter. Many would point out that the Virtua Fighter doesn’t even have a story, and yet it’s well received and praised for its gameplay. Those who favour this debate are usually those, who couldn’t really care about anything but 1 v 1 fighting in versus mode.

Longer Replay Value

With more characters, there will be more moves to master and counter. The game would take ages to memorise all the possible juggles and combos etc. If you get bored with your current crop of fighters, you could easily move on to another and start fresh.

Conclusion

I hope I managed to summarise both sides of the argument for you, as I said above I’m mostly on the fence, but if I had to choose between the two, I would favour the reduction of characters. Just as long as the characters I’m best with stay in the game...