Tekken 5

The Good
Within the Tekken community, many have been split over which was the best Tekken: 4 or Tag? The reason behind that is because of T4's attempt to try out their faux 8-way run system. The experiment came with mixed results. Some loved T4, others HATED it. (This is especially true of the Tekken veterans who grew up playing through T3 and Tag.)

The result? Tekken 5 seeks to go back to it's roots of Tekken Tag and did away with some of it's experimental mechanics. To many within the Tekken community like the Tekkenzaibatsu.com, T5, whilst it was new, was considered the best Tekken to date.

It boasts a fantastically large cast of characters, each one with an incredibly large movelist. While not as deep as say, Virtual Fighter, the fighting system is fairly deep and is able to endure very high level of play.

The character customization menu, while not as robust as Virtual Fighter Evo, is definitely a fun addition and adds to some of the personal investments into the game. Plus, some of the costumes are just awesomely designed.

The Bad
- Devil Within

I can say without any hesitation that Devil Within was an after thought of a game. Honestly, it was just so bland and boring that the only reason I'd bother playing through it was to unlock the secret items that you can use for customization. (That and the perfect arcade port of the Star Blade game)

• story

yeah, it's a fighting game, so it's not really all that important. But the initial Tekken franchise had so much promise in the story department. Now? They've completely threw it out the window and it now resembles some ape-crap insane sci-fi morph. Not exactly impressive. That and a lot of the characters are just not developed very well. In fact, I dare say most of the story, like Devil Within, was tacked on at the very end to just get right to the action.

The Bottom Line
3D fighting game that goes back to it's popular roots. If you're a Tekken fan, you'll probably like it. Play for the quick action, stay for the tournament. For the rest of you non-fighting game people, there are probably more interesting games out there for you.