What's your worst mainline game, though?
I enjoyed your post, but it doesn't answer the OP completely. That's all.
Mainline 1, but still Death by Degrees is definitely the worst and if not, probably one of the mobile tie-ins.
Tekken 1: Was my introduction. Wackiest characters for a fighting game. I haven't touched this in years so I can't comment a lot about it much like 2
Tekken 2: Slightly better
Tekken 3: The most improved so far with almost an entirely new cast, faster, included alt game modes, Tekken Force Mode and Tekken Ball. Best Yoshimitsu design. Why you think Capcom chose this one out of all to represent him in Street Fighter X Tekken?
Tekken Advance: WTF is this shit with horrible controls and only ten characters? Even the first Tekken had more characters than this.
Tekken Tag Tournament: Huge roster with almost every character in it. Players had to focus on tagging out members and could not let one member fall. Had Tekken Bowl which was a lot of fun.
Tekken 4: Massive change with a smaller roster, but dope designs, walled stages, and beautiful stages at that. Tekken Force mode wasn't as fun this time around.
Death by Degrees: Oh cool a Nina Williams spy-action game. Oh, the camera is shit, the controls are weird with attacks being initiated through the analog sticks and it's also mundanely simplistic, you won't need to learn anything other than the basics to beat most enemies. Weapons deal so little damage considering how long they last that there's no point in using them.
Tekken 5: Biggest roster yet in the mainline games going to the extreme opposite of 4 and now we can customize characters. Gameplay felt a bit slower than 4 if I remember properly, and was a bit more juggle heavy, but not as nearly as it was going to become. It also came packaged with the arcade versions of all the previous mainline games. Devil Within was kind of ass and I sort of liked the vertical shooter demo at the beginning. Jinpachi was a cheap boss. Half the time you got a perfect, but the other half he'd get a perfect on you for stopping your attacks anytime he wanted to and hitting you with a fireball that took half your life. A small gripe, but still a great game.
Tekken 5 Dark Resurrection: Four new characters, more customization, no alt game modes unfortunately other than the standard survival and time attack.
Tekken 6: Even bigger roster than 5's. Introduced bound and rage. I had no qualms with either of these two mechanics. Juggling enemies was a lot of fun for me and rage never felt like it really mattered to me considering it only activates when the opponent is near death and in which case I can just knock them out with a small combo if one hit doesn't do it. When I have it and I win it wasn't due to rage, but to my opponent giving me opportunities to low parry or launch and juggle. Scenario campaign seemed fun at first and the opening scene had me hoping for a good story, but unfortunately the gameplay was mediocre only beating out Devil Within, and the story turned out to be as bad as ever.
Tekken Revolution: Only played this for about two weeks, but I found liking it more than Tekken 6 because the removal of rage and bound was refreshing after playing 6 for so long. The new counter properties added to certain moves was also fun to utilize. I did not like the rpg elements however which didn't put players on equal footing.
Tekken Tag 2: I only played a little bit, so I can't comment on it.
Overall from what I played, the only bad games are Death by Degrees and Advance. Not a single bad game in the main franchise. Other franchises can't say the same.
