The Tekken franchise may have previously graced a current-gen console with Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection on PS3, but Tekken 6 is the first to truly take advantage of current-gen technology. Tekken 6 looks great, plays well (for the most part—more on that in a bit), and sounds good. But is that enough for fighting fans to part with their hard-earned money when there are so many other great fighting games circulating on consoles today?

My answer is “yes,” but with a few caveats. Tekken 6 offers a fighting system that is easy to pick up and play, like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat; and also like those games, it takes time to master. For example, I’ve played every Tekken game since the original and I still don’t fare well in tournament scenarios. There are only four buttons to worry about, including two punches and two kicks (one for each hand/leg), but plenty of combinations exist. Experimenting with combos often yields better results than simply jamming on the left punch button ad nauseum, but player are welcome to do so.

If you plan to just play with friends, Tekken 6 provides a richly rewarding experience. I say this because playing with strangers invites the possibility of discovering a horrid flaw in the Tekken fighting system: juggling. It’s often far too easy to set up an opponent for a juggle, then keep them in the air for so long that up to 90% of their health is whittled away without a chance to counter or parry. Sure, experienced players can counter the juggle before this onslaught occurs, but newer players will be hard-pressed to get out alive. Also, the online mode is a bit wonky at the moment, with random disconnects and horrible lag occurring far too often. Hopefully these issues will be patched out very soon. In the meantime, playing online with a friend (preferably with a strong connection) is your best bet.

There are offline options for players that get frustrated from losing to some random guy online for the hundredth time. There is the obligatory arcade mode, which functions exactly as one might imagine: fight a bunch of dudes until you reach the final, ridiculously cheap boss. Thankfully, Azazel—an Egyptian monster-god thing—isn’t as cheap as Seth from Street Fighter IV. There’s also Survival, pitting you against a stream of fighters; Time Attack, which is exactly what it sounds like; Ghost Battle, in which players fight AI-controlled characters based on “ghost” data of online players; and course the usual offline 2-player versus mode. There’s also a Team Battle mode that lets two players create teams of up to eight characters and fight it out.

There’s a large roster of fighters available, including a few new characters. I played around with every character to get a feel for how old standards such as Heihachi and Kazuya have changed. They haven’t changed a bit, so take that as a positive or negative. The only new fighter I cared for was Bob. He’ll no doubt remind fighting game fans of rotund Rufus from Street Fighter IV. In fact, Bob plays similarly to Rufus, moving quicker than a man his size is realistically capable. I pulled off more online wins than I thought possible thanks to Bob.

Probably the biggest extra in Tekken 6 is the Scenario Campaign Mode, which allows players to fight through various beat-em-up stages with a partner (either AI or an online buddy, but sadly no offline friends can play along), experiencing the convoluted and ridiculous Tekken 6 storyline. The vast majority of achievements/trophies in the game derive from this mode. Players who, like me, realize that the SCM feels like an old-school brawler without the charm—or functionality—of such a game will likely skip the mode altogether. SCM gets to a point of frustrating difficulty with no real reward for pressing on, other than a few atrocious unlocked fashion accessories for fighters, and money to buy more accessories for other modes. These accessories give fighters health and fighting bonuses in SCM but are purely cosmetic elsewhere in the game.

Ultimately, Tekken 6 takes a few steps forward but stumbles a bit. For your hard-earned $60, you get an online mode that doesn’t work well enough (yet) and a terrible story mode, but you also get a good fighting game core attached to fun offline modes. If that’s enough for you to part with your money, spend away. It goes without saying that hardcore Tekken fans should pick this up (and probably already have). Everyone else should consider Tekken 6 a rental and nothing more.