Analysis: The Tekken Series

Those who know me know I love fighting games. And, if you don't know me, you need only look at any other blog post here to figure that out. Also, if you don't know me, congrats. Doctors found I'm the 12th highest cause of stress among adult men and highest among women married to me. Getting back to fighters, most incorrectly assume I like every fighting game. Which is, sad to say, kinda daft. Do movie critics like every romantic comedy? Art buffs like every awkward piece of modern art? Porn stars like every three-way?

...alright, that last one was a bit of a stretch, because they probably do. But the point still stands. People don't automatically eat, digest and flush everything from their favorite activities or forms of entertainment. Usually the opposite; people get picky when they get deeper into their hobbies and can recognize when something isn't up to snuff with the rest of the field. Or, at the very least, doesn't fit their acquired and defined tastes. Which brings me to the point of this article (about time, huh?) - why I no longer enjoy the Tekken series in its current form and progression.

Now, even to some of you that DO know me, that bit comes as a shock. I've been devoted to the series ever since I saw the first game in the arcades back in the mid-90's. Sure, going back to it now is a somewhat painful experience, but nearly any 3-D fighter from that era is best remembered rather than visited. The point is, I've thrown more money and time at the game from its very first days than probably any other series. I entered every tournament at the local arcade that I could, played as much as possible, helped others get better, and even took a few tourneys down in my time. I probably put enough late 90's quarters into the arcade machines here to buy each console and home version of Tekkens 1-6 and Tag that hit the market. And I had a damn good time doing it.

Of course, it wasn't until about 2002 or 2003 when I actually started studying what people from outside my local area did. How they played, what characters they used, what moves they avoided using, what movement tricks were available, and so on. This new knowledge was my first step into the true competitive fighting game world. And I mostly have Tekken Tag to thank for that, with the rest of the credit going to Soul Calibur II.

But that was the beginning. Times change. People change. Tekken, however, remained the same. And that's what bothers me. The fact that 13 years since Tekken Tag hasn't done a single "real" change to the series. It's just gotten more and more fat over more than a decade, bogged down with more of the same and less of the evolution I thought would be a part of 3-D fighting games. And Tekken 6 is the worst offender of the lot. Let me get into the specifics.

Too Much Of The Same Person

Does this sound weird coming from someone who plays Street Fighter; a game supposedly filled with "shoto clones" of Ryu and Ken? Maybe. But most of the cast plays in roughly the same way. Do a few 10-frame jabs and 11- or 12-frame mid pokes, maybe your safest low poke, and try to get in your 15-frame launcher for your 50% or more juggle that carries to a wall (if there is one on that stage). The moves differ from character to character as far as how safe they are, and the juggles vary as far as damage and distance, but for well over half the cast this is the main plan. How good a character is depends heavily on how safe the quickest options are and how much damage and/or carry their juggles get. Is that it? Actually, it's gotten worse. The part about how much carry or damage a combo gets wasn't always this bad. In Tekken 4 and 5, not every character had the ability to carry over halfway across the stage or deal over half life off of a single poke. Lee, for example, used to carry for a long way with his juggles in 4, while Jin simply hit hard and had good options after knocking an opponent down. Now, nearly every character finds a wall and deals over half life. Some call it balanced, I call it lazy.

So what about the rest of the cast? Sadly, their more interesting options and styles aren't nearly as potent as the basic but effective options available to nearly everyone else. Marduk, for example, has an interesting game that includes a tackle mix-up and a long range low poke. Unfortunately, it's slow as a sloth and good players can react to it every time, forcing him to play a more basic style that others just do better. Many of the stance-based characters have this problem. Why go into a stance when you can just hit the opponent and kill them? Why pick Zafina when you can pick Bob? Why pick Asuka when you can pick a Mishima? One of the few characters that DOES have a stance game is Eddy, and it's simply because his Relaxed stance makes it difficult to juggle him or even hit him with quite a few moves.

Somewhat related, we have my next point, which is...

Namco Keeps Taking Away Character Differences

Once upon a time, characters had different health bars. Crazy, I know. Heihachi took damage like a little girl, Armor King took a while to kill, and many fell somewhere between. You know, like they do in nearly every other game not made by Namco. In addition, many characters had different speed jabs. Did it suck for characters with 10-frame jabs going up against 8-frame jabs? Yes. Maybe they had other advantages. Or maybe they sucked. Regardless, they were different, and it made your character selection more important. Even more so, in Tekken Tag, as your characters did more damage after getting tagged in by a wounded opponent and the amount of time (or if it happened at all) depended on who your partner was. This made character selection and order a huge factor of the game, and you haven't even had the chance to play yet. Tekken 6? Same 10-frame jabs, 15-frame launchers, and standard lifebars for everyone. BORING. But, with all these similarities, one begs the question of...

WHY ARE THERE A BILLION CHARACTERS?!

Seriously. Why? Why make a game where so much of the cast plays the same have a roster that rivals a metropolitan phone book? In my opinion, the game had roughly the right amount of characters in Tekken 4 (18, I believe). In a game that depends heavily on reading and reacting to certain animations more than probably any other game out there, having around 40 characters puts you in the position that a lot of players find themselves: spending 100 hours learning what each character's move does (and I mean EACH move of EACH character) in addition to practicing your character's juggles or not knowing what hits high/mid/low, what is/isn't punishable, and so on when your opponent throws a move out. Yes, that borders on sounding a bit scrubby, but when I hear things during high level matches at tournaments like "does that hit high?" or "can I punish that?", it really goes to show that there's just too much there to remember. Really, if Super Street Fighter II Turbo can last 20 years and counting with 16 characters, games today can do it with 25 or even 20. I'd rather have a roster of two dozen or less properly balanced and thought-out characters than a bloated one made to pad the bulleted list on the back of the case. Or, while you're thinking of things to put on said list...

How About Something That Doesn't Just Extend Damage For A Change, Namco?

When I think of the Tekken series as it is today, I start with Tekken 3 and Tag. T1 and T2 were pretty bad in comparison and, for the most part, just 2-D games with polygons. Tekken 3 and Tag introduced players to the wonderful world of sidesteps, evasion, backdash cancels, and so forth while taking away that awful ninja jump everyone had in 2 and 1. It was the beginning of a great system. But where do you go from here? Well, with Tekken 4, players saw walled stages, obstacles, uneven ground, sidewalking (similar to 8-way run in Calibur), wall-techs, and the use of 1+3 (LP+LK) to position your opponent rather than simply throw them. Great ideas that, unfortunately, were part of an incredibly broken game. Jin was overpowered, some stages allowed wall-based infinites, one stage had an old Mortal Kombat-style infinite (launch, LP until dead), and it all turned out to be kind of a mess. A mess that, sadly, was a step in the right direction but not one that would be followed up.

Instead, the series went to Tekken 5 and saw, in my opinion, a sort of step backward. The ability to tech off of walls was removed, instead allowing your opponent to continue their combo. Positioning throws were taken out and replaced with normal throws again for 1+3. The obstacles and uneven ground was taken out as well, making each stage either a normal walled stage or an infinite stage. Indeed, the only real addition was the fact that you could throw someone out of the air...and you'd only do that during a combo anyway. Oh, and you could play Pretty Pretty Princess with your fighters now and tart them up. The game felt more like Tekken 3 than it did a new Tekken but with longer combos. Surely Tekken 6 would create something new, right? Well, no. It wouldn't. Instead, it just threw in two new "mechanics". The first is Rage (pronounced RAAAAAAGE) mode where, if your character is down to his or her last 10% of health, he/she does some odd percent more damage. That's right. Getting your butt kicked helps you in this game. The other mechanic is the Bind mechanic, where certain moves put your opponent in a ground bounce state and they can be juggled even further. One, this is only done during juggles, so it has no effect on the neutral or pressure game in any way. And, two, it just makes every character carry to a wall and get over 50% on optimal juggles. In other words, your opponent is bored longer while they can't do anything. Tekken Tag 2 does more of the same and adds one more mechanic where, during a juggle, you can use your partner to extend your combo and go back to using your point character to finish it. Nothing to do with a neutral game. Nothing to do with a pressure game. A keep away game. Hell, nothing to even do with your opponent.

Less Interaction = The Dealbreaker

And that, right there, is the worst crime a fighting game can commit. Why dis-include your opponent from the actual game for so long? Why continue to add mechanics that actively tell the players that interaction is less important than juggles, damage, and simple button-pressing? Seth Killian once wrote that the fireball is important in a 2-D fighting game because it forces the opponent to react. Do they block? Do they jump? Can they punish? Will whatever decision they make fall into your plan? Or did you just put one out to gain time to think? All this from a simple thing that by itself does very little damage. All this interaction by moving the joystick in one certain motion and hitting a button. No fancy mechanics. No flashy damage extensions. Just pure space control and mind games. I won't say Tekken is completely without those last two things, but the evolution of the game seems to go more toward the flashy, longer combos and less toward what Tekken 4 seemed to be doing: becoming a more interactive and mindful encounter for the two competitors on that stage of battle.

And that, if you're still here after all this, is why I'd rather play other fighting games than the Tekken series as it is right now. Interaction.