As most people will tell you, nostalgia can be a dangerous thing. I remember the summer of 1999, during which I spent most of my time mastering the moves of such Tekken 3 luminaries as Jin and Hwoarang. Punches and kicks flowed together in a seamless blur of fighting precision as enemies flew left, right and centre to their defeat. I became good. I became very, very good.

It was, of course, Tekken’s last bow on the original PlayStation. By the time Tekken Tag and then Tekken 4 hit the streets the PS2 was out and about, and by then I was far more concerned with SSX and TimeSplitters to care. In fact, that general feeling of not bothering with fighting games extended until last year when Street Fighter 4 was released, upon which I dedicated some time and actually found that I could enjoy a bit of brawling now and again. Then, this past week, a copy of Tekken 6 found its way onto my desk. It was like coming home to find an ex-girlfriend who you had walked out on a decade ago standing on your doorway giving you the evil eye.

As it turns out, Tekken 6 initially seemed somewhat of an old, haggard ex girlfriend who doesn’t look or act as nicely as you remember. Over time, though, the old moves start flowing back into your mind, the combos start flowing together and some of the old magic comes back. Not all of the old magic, obviously, but it’s still a mighty fine fighting game.

Of course, the main positive is that it still feels relatively similar to older Tekken experiences. Picking a character like Eddy or Jin from the get-go enabled me to crank into gear quickly enough and I found myself remembering combos from some dormant part of my brain with relative ease. Each character has a 10-hit combo that can be learnt too, and it is good fun learning the rhythm of the button presses needed to unleash them.

Initially, this is all good fun. Chaining whirling kicks and mega punches into attacks is fun, and learning when to parry to get in an extra shot or two is very rewarding. The main problem when it comes to Tekken’s particular style of fighting is when you start having to play around with Bound moves and the aerial juggling, which will annoy/impress you depending on which side of the fence you sit.

The general idea is that each character has a selection of moves that will hit an opponent into their air, at which point a combination can be used to keep them there and stop them getting a chance to attack. You also have Bound moves which, when used properly, will bounce your enemy off the ground in order for you to carry on with your chain. It’s an interesting idea, sure, but I found it all rather frustrating, especially when someone proficient came up against me in the (horribly laggy) online mode and used it to basically render me helpless very, very quickly. It’s not a particularly friendly tactic to use against new players learning the ropes, but I suppose you could argue that everyone can learn juggling and Bound moves, so it is possible.

The line-up of new characters is pretty mixed, with personal favourite Zafina being particularly useful with her bizarre style and rather deadly kicks. There’s also a chunky young fella called Bob who may or may not be a slight dig from the Japanese developers at their American audience. Obviously, alongside all these you get a pretty fine roster of returning folks to test out and re-learn, and it’s to them that I dare say a fair majority of the series’ fans will turn to as their characters of choice. Heck, even ol’ slaphead Heihachi is still there for all you old timers to enjoy yourselves with.

There’re plenty of modes to kick and punch your way through too, although the Scenario Campaign mode is something rather more miss than hit. You basically trudge around a selection of environments in-between story scenes and kick arse in something similar to Tekken 3’s Tekken Force mode (or 3D Streets of Rage, for those not sure what the heck that was), but the storyline is somewhat convoluted and pretty uninteresting, and the parts of the mode where you must deal with a number of enemies at once is undone by clumsy opponent tagging, which is supposed to be done by tapping R1 to choose your target. In reality, you often end up facing the wrong person or completely the wrong way altogether, and it gets frustrating very quickly.

It’s to the Arcade and Team Attack offerings I ended up spending the majority of my time enjoying, with the former being your standard ‘pick character X, progress through a number of fights to see the ending’ offering, and the latter giving you the chance to pick your favourite squad of characters to take into battle against another team until one side has been completely eliminated. You also have your standard Practice mode so you can attempt to learn the move set of any given character free from the rather pressing matter of being punched in the face, although you can select for that to happen if you wish to practice defence tactics. A particular favourite of mine is the Survival mode, in which you have one health bar to make last as many fights as you can. Best get those parries and blocks sorted for this one, guys.

The game also offers you a fairly basic customisation mode, in which you can spend cash earned in the Scenario Campaign on a selection of clothing items for each character. Interestingly, it also allows you to equip items for use in battle, although anyone thinking giving Bryan Fury a shotgun is going to lead to them enjoying a life on easy street might want to think again given how weak each of these pieces of equipment doles out.

Talking of easy street, let me digress for a quick second before I curtail this review. See, the final character you’ll be fighting in the Arcade mode is a… well, a ‘thing’ by the name of Azazel, who’s some sort of hulking great evil demon. Problem is, he has so many cheap attacks – firing tentacle things upward through the floor being one of them – that even on easy mode he’s an utter, utter bugger to finish off. It’s not quite in the same league as that annoying thing from Dead or Alive 3 that can bink around the screen at will, but it’s a close one. Namco, for this one character alone I want to cause you some sort of physical bother.

Yet, even despite this, and even despite the nagging feeling that it’s not Tekken at its finest, it still feels decent enough to drag itself through and retain a good deal of fun for fans of the series. Newcomers might balk at the confusing lore and array of moves on offer, but it’s pretty forgiving and the moves are easy enough to pick up. It might not like too lovely, it might not leap above former Tekken games and define itself as the series’ best iteration to date, but it’s well worth picking up if you fancy a 3D fighter.