Petchulant: A Love Letter To Tekken

Callum Petch — @CallumPetch

Oh, Tekken.  How I love thee!  Whilst others may pledge their allegiance to Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat or Dead Or Alive, I stick to you like… something… sticky?  Wait, that’s gross  (Shut up, it’s a hot day and my brain has shut down already).  What I mean is, whilst others may boast superior story modes (Mortal Kombat 9), or better graphics (Dead Or Alive 5), or deeper fighting mechanics (Virtua Fighter 5), or the wondrous power of the Capcom money train (Street Fighter, a series that I just can’t get into, no matter how hard I try), I will forever be yours and you will forever be mine.

My love affair with you began way back on the original PlayStation, when Tekken 3 first stormed onto the scene.  You were on the bundled demo disc that came with my PS1 (side note: remember demo discs?  Extremely useful little buggers) and I played the Ling Xiayou/Eddy Gordo demo constantly.  Eventually, I managed to borrow a copy of the actual game from a friend of mine and you became a regular staple of my PlayStation (alongside Muppet Monster Adventure and Bugs Bunny: Lost In Time…  shut up, I was six).  I spent hours mastering characters; unlocking end movies of the strange, the serious, and the hilarious; hunting for your many secret modes; grinding to unlock Gon (that tiny, game-breaking bastard)…  I was in love.  Everything about you appealed to me; you looked great; there were a ton of modes for hours of replayability; the AI was always one step ahead of me, meaning that I could never be too good at you, keeping the challenge and the fun intact; and you awoke a love of martial-arts cinema that I didn’t know I had (a love that is still worryingly under-served today).

I was never a fan of Soul Blade, Namco’s other PlayStation fighter (which eventually morphed into the, initially, critically-preferred Soul Calibur series).  Yeah, it was pretty, but I never liked its combat, which I found stiff and too complex, and the game’s initial difficulty (which, according to my extremely hazy memory–or that might just be the onset of heat stroke–was akin to trying to knock down a mountain by headbutting it repeatedly) turned me off the series completely.  Tekken, though, you were devastatingly simple to pick up, especially with characters like Eddie Gordo and Hwoarang (who was my go-to character of choice once I mastered him and people wanted to play against me).  Anyone could jump into a game and at least have a shot at winning a round.  You were that accessible.  But your system was also far more intricate than you let on and dedicated players soon went from randomly mashing buttons, to having four or five go-to combos, to eventually learning the very subtle intricacies of Eddy’s various capoeira stances, the kind of differences that separated a Tekken newbie from a Tekken lord.

You also released an ill-advised third-person action spin-off that we’d all prefer to not talk about, but moving on…

Years passed, but my devotion stayed strong as you went from a fun tag spin-off that inadvertently served to catch me up on your history, and is likely best remembered for the throw-away bowling mini-game which was anything but (Tekken Tag Tournament), to a slightly awkward transition into the PS2-era that nevertheless was still a strong and highly-underrated entry in its own right (Tekken 4), to inarguably the best instalments in the series (Tekken 5 and its updated-PSP entry, that would later double as a PSN launch title in Japan, Dark Resurrection).  All the way, I remained under your spell due to your continually rock-solid mechanics, your large variety of modes, your endless little secrets and a tone that was serious when it needed to be (the Mishimas, whose saga has no right to be this compelling) and full of wacky Japanese humour when it didn’t (a style of humour that I’m a fan of, having grown up watching a ton of Takeshi’s Castle) Tekken, you were fun, the kind of fun that kept me playing long after I should have stopped caring.

Then, however, something changed.  Tekken 6 dropped onto home consoles in 2009 but something felt… off.  You weren’t grabbing me like you used to.  I wasn’t as madly obsessed and in love as I was with Tekken 5.  Consequently, I started picking faults.  The decision to cap Ghost Battle rankings at 1st Dan for each character unless you took them online was a stupid idea.  Trying to find a match that didn’t lag to unplayable proportions, or just simply drop altogether, was like trying to find a brain cell in a Geordie Shore cast member.  The lack of a traditional Arcade mode to progress through, instead replaced by a mini kind of “boss rush” only accessible through Scenario Campaign, made unlocking the various ending movies a lot more unfulfilling (and the quality of said endings was also lacking this time around, too).  Load times, even after the 5GB optional install (which you absolutely must take if you want to get through a fight before you reach 50), were inexcusably long.

And then there was Scenario Campaign.  Oh, what a mess Scenario Campaign was.  I mean, the idea was sound, bring back that old Streets Of Rage style brawler but in 3D, but there is a reason why you don’t take fighting game characters and plonk them in a 3D scrapper whilst keeping the same control scheme for moves as you’d have in standard one-on-one gameplay.  The camera was operated by a drunk Michael Bay, the targeting system seemed custom-designed to pick the wrong person at the worst time, your AI partner (Alisa Boskonovitch) might as well have been a sack of potatoes because a sack of potatoes would have been useful, the story was way too self-serious to laugh with and placed far too much emphasis on the dullest character in Tekken history (who also happened to be a newbie, Lars Alexandersson), the difficulty was brutally unfair at many points, and it looked like arse compared to the main game.  Yeah, it lasted a while, so you couldn’t say that you weren’t getting your money’s worth, but the lack of quality doesn’t make it worth it.

Let’s not kid ourselves, folks, Tekken 5 (and its spin-off/update,  Dark Resurrection) is still the best Tekken.

Don’t get me wrong, I still played the hell out of Tekken 6, but always with the thought in my brain that it could have been so much better.  Other fighting games started to grab my attention.  The deep and technical fighting of Virtua Fighter satisfied my craving for a fighting game with challenge.  Mortal Kombat’s legitimately great story and gothic horror vibes gave me a fighter with a stronger personality.  Dead Or Alive 5’s (initial, yes I did realise my mistake upon playing the damn thing) promise to tone down the ridiculous sexualisation made me no longer ashamed to be a fan of the fast-paced arcade brawler.  You and I, Tekken, drifted apart.  Other fighters were satisfying my needs and doing it better than your underwhelming current-gen entry.

Then, finally, I picked up Tekken Tag Tournament 2 last week and realized exactly what my fighting game life had been missing since I replaced you with various pale imitators: fun.  From the opening movie (just try watching this without laughing in stupid glee) onwards, the fun had been brought back to Tekken.  Scrolling through the ridiculously comprehensive character list (short version: if they’ve been featured in a Tekkengame at any point, they are playable here), the memories came flooding back, and blazing through the Arcade Mode for the first time (with Asuka Kazama, one of my two default characters) had a palpable sense of fun ricochet through my being.  I was kicking arse in an arena designed around Snoop Dogg backed by a rap song he made specifically for this game!  The tongue was most definitely in cheek this time, and almost everything was designed with the goal of having fun.  75% of the ending videos are just plain crazy, money is practically dumped over you to encourage you to customize your fighters to death, stages are often the right kind of silly (two words: Magic Show), and Tag Throws carry often their own individual personalities.

On more technical levels, TTT2 is challenging, yet fairly balanced.  I can tell when the AI is getting tougher, but I know that I can honestly blame myself if I lose because, at least 80% of the time, it’s my fault.  I went to the well on that combo once too often, or I didn’t tag out fast enough, or I should have seen that combination coming, or I really shouldn’t have backed myself into that corner.  And then there are the little touches.  Characters having specific tag throws or reaction animations when paired with certain other characters, the return of even the most obscure characters who get their own ending videos and everything (and, in Violet and Combot’s case, their own Training-cum-Story campaign) or how [mild spoiler, but who cares] Unknown really is a corrupted Jun Kazama (oh how I would love to have seen initial fan reaction to that reveal).  The kind of little touches that, rather than supposedly making up for a crap fighter (oh hello again, Cartoon Network Punch Time Explosion XL), instead enhance a great fighter and make my years of being a devoted Tekken fan seem rewarded.

And I haven’t even mentioned how amazing the music in this is!  I could waste hours sat listening to the customization theme alone!

It was about the time, Tekken, when I had unlocked Hwoarang’s ending video (who of course challenges Jin Kazama to a motorcycle race and gets busted whilst Jin gets off scott-free because of course) that I realized why you, Tekken, still hold my heart after almost 15 years.  Whereas other games focus on deep mechanics; high-quality story-telling with a side order of blood, guts and jump scares (f*ck the Krypt demon); and making me feel ashamed to be playing said game (I’m pretty sure that when you first boot up Dead Or Alive 5, you’re immediately added to the Sex Offenders Registry); you, Tekken, always focus on fun.  Everything you do is in service of fun.  Sometimes your attempts at fun don’t work out as intended (I’ll stop shitting on Scenario Campaign once you physically erase the memories of slogging through it from my brain), but that’s okay because most of them do.  Even after all of these years, you are still the one arcade fighter I would happily take to my grave because you know what you want to be: you want to be fun.  And you are fun.  Stupid, chaotic fun and a balanced, challenging, accessible, yet deep fighter custom-designed to keep the fun running.  “Fun” is something that is sorely lacking in current videogames and you, Tekken, thanks to Tekken Tag Tournament 2, have brought that fun back, and I could not be happier for it.

I haven’t taken it for a spin online, yet, but I’m looking forward to my first incredibly one-sided thrashing from somebody on the other side of the planet who eats, sleeps and breathes Tekken because I’m going to have fun whilst it happens.  Thanks, Tekken.  I do love you so.

In Actually Important News, This Week: Microsoft have released My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic avatar items!  There’s even a prop Rainbow Dash that you can use!  It is the greatest thing ever and why don’t I own an Xbox 360. IT’S NOT FAIR DAMMIT!!

In ACTUALLY Important News, This Week: Microsoft have once again reversed course and are now allowing indie developers to self-publish on the Xbox One.  Now, admittedly, there are caveats and drawbacks (indies can only do so through Windows 8, which developers are not a fan of), but it’s the principle that counts and said principle is showing that MS are reversing course on policies almost as much as the current UK government.

I’m hilarious.

Callum Petch made a meal and threw it up on Sunday.  Follow him on the Twitters (@CallumPetch), listen to the Pupcast (iTunes link) and read a brand new Petchulant every Friday here on GameSparked (yes, I know it’s Saturday today)!