Tekken 4: The Weird One
I love fighting games, the competitive nature, facing off against friends, and trying to pull off that perfect combo on your opponent. Fighting games have a rich history and the best ones to me are the games that are easy to learn, but hard to master. Fighting games have evolved since the genre's true introduction in Street Fighter 2. Now it has become a worldwide phenomenon.
There are now many fighting games today to sink your teeth into, anything from beautiful visuals such as Guilty Gear Strive, to combo crushing cult hits like Skullgirls, or 3D fighting games a la Tekken.
Tekken (at the time of this review) has been showing off game play for Tekken 8 and already looks to be a killer entry of the series. Tekken has been around since the mid 90s and is still cool to see the game reinvent itself time and time again while still sticking to its roots. All the Tekken games brought something great over and all have their own personalities and quirks to them. However there’s one Tekken game I think for most or for me at least that kind of stands out like a black sheep, Tekken 4. Many of you might be asking PlayerPandemonium man, why talk about Tekken 4 out of all the other games? What makes Tekken’s 4th entry into the fighting game world so different and unique than the other games of the series? That’s what this review will be about, my retrospective of this strange entry of fighting game history.
Before we talk about Tekken 4, we have to understand how we got here. Tekken debuted in arcades in 1994, and a year later on the Sony PlayStation in 1995 was a 3D fighting game. There were some attempts at 3D fighting games, some being mixed but a few did get some hype such as Sega’s Virtua Fighter. A mega hit in Japan but it was a decent hit here in the US. Tekken however felt like the next step for its time.
What made Tekken stand out was how it played. You had your control stick and 4 buttons, simple enough. But here’s the thing, each button controls each of your fighter’s four limbs independently. So say you wanted to do a low kick with your right foot, you had to duck down with the stick and hit the button designated for your right foot in order to pull off the move. Starts simple but can get very complex for more advanced players. What I think is the secret sauce to a great fighting game. Easy to learn but hard to master.
Tekken ended up being a big hit in the arcade and on the Sony PlayStation, with its simple and fun gameplay and a crazy colorful cast of fighters to choose from. So it was a no-brainer that we got Tekken 2.
Tekken 2 released in 1995 in arcades and then a year later on the PlayStation was… a lot like the first Tekken game but with more fighters and stages to go with it. Honestly this game feels more like an update to the first Tekken game. This was a time where there were no online update patches or DLC. Heck Street Fighter 2 was somewhat of a joke with how many updated versions that game had, but is still seen as the pinnacle of old school fighting games. Tekken 2 was a good hit in both arcades and at home. So Tekken 3 once again, was a must. That’s where things get crazy.
Tekken 3 was released in arcades in 1997, now with the updated Namco System 12 motherboard in arcades, the game had, at the time, cutting edge graphics and used motion capture for the movesets. This blew people’s mind that a fighting game could look this real. Tekken 3 was a major success but was a blockbuster of a release when it came to Sony PlayStation in 1998, becoming one of the best selling games not just for fighting games, but for the PlayStation entirely, selling over 8 million copies worldwide, only having two Final Fantasy games in a golden era of RPGs, and the two Gran Turismo games that revolutionized racing games. Tekken 3 to many is seen as the greatest 3D fighting game or in general their favorite fighting game of all time.
So where do you go from here? The bar was set extremely high and with the new much more powerful PlayStation 2 on the horizon, the sky was the limit, but so was the game’s expectations. Early in the PS2’s life, we got Tekken Tag Tournament. This felt more like an Tekken all-stars with a new tag system and an updated version of Tekken 3’s engine. A simple but very good spin-off for the Tekken series. However, people wanted a full fledged sequel to one of the greatest games on the PS1 on PS2, and now we get into Tekken 4.
Tekken 4 at long last was released in 2001 and a home version in 2002. Now with the power of the PlayStation 2, the game can hit harder and look more realistic. The future of Tekken if not fighting games had arrived. However can it meet the hype and be the game changer Tekken 3 was 2 years prior?
I remember my first memory of Tekken 4 was the arcade I used to go to as a kid before it closed down. It had a Tekken 4 cabinet, but it was always broken. So I had to stand there and let my imagination run wild as to what Tekken 4 was like. I remember this arcade having TWO Tekken 3 cabs and would play those a lot, but that Tekken 4 cab always gave me wonder and let my imagination drift on what could be. I had to wait until it came out on the PlayStation 2 to get my Tekken 4 fix.
Tekken 4, much like the first 3 games, is a 3D fighting game, but added a few new things into the game. First being you can move around before the fight starts, to get a competitive advantage of placement before the fight starts. This is the only Tekken game to have this.
The biggest thing with Tekken 4 that made it stand out was the environmental rich stages to fight on. Rather than being in an endless field at a location, the stages of this game had objects and walls to them that you can use to your advantage. Now only did players have to focus on who they were fighting, they had to have stage awareness as well. These stages would be in places such as a jungle, a boiler room, a mall, or a rooftop along with other locations. However the focus on environmental hazards and settings came with a price of the game’s speed. Tekken 4 feels much slower than its earlier entries of the series, turning Tekken fans a little sour.
Another change with Tekken 4 is the game’s tone. The other games were serious but did have some fun in there with some of its fighters, rather it would be a fighting bear or kangaroo. Look, Tekken can get weird sometimes ok? Tekken 4 goes for a much darker approach, maybe even too dark. Not in the sense of violence, but rather the game’s story move for some fights involves loved ones dying or them getting in a drunk depression. Tekken was serious but never THIS serious. Having a darker tone for a fighting game is never the worst thing, heck look at Mortal Kombat. But this felt a bit much for Tekken. Another thing that might have also soured community fans of the game.
Another thing that came with mixed reviews was the amount of fighters there were. Tekken 4 had fewer fighters than Tekken 3, and Tekken Tag coming out before it with an even larger roster than that really didn’t help Tekken 4’s argument.
The game also goes for a more atmospheric ambient tone with its music, another mixed change that came with Tekken fans. I love it as it gives the stages more of a atmospheric setting, but I know that’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Don’t worry, there’s still some rocking tracks in this game too.
So how’s the gameplay? Minus the slower combat it’s the Tekken that everyone grew to love, but there are a few issues here and there. The game has some balancing issues with how better some fighters are than others. Also the wall combos can get very cheap very fast, as you can find yourself in a corner very quickly. This also means each stage was not equal and could change your approach to a fight based on where you were. Kind of a catch 22 in fighting games as it makes you learn new things depending on the stage, but if that one stage has a bad exploit in it, oh boy there’s going to be problems, especially in a competitive fighting game like Tekken.
Tekken 4 was received by gaming review sites and magazines as a worthy successor to one of the greatest games of the last generation in Tekken 3, but the community and hardcore fans of Tekken did not think so. The slower gameplay and environmental hazards along with the games bad balancing was too much for the true Tekken fan and was seen as a disappointment. For a casual fan Tekken 4 is a fantastic game to play right off the heels of Tekken 3, but for the true fan, it was a massive letdown.
But as of late, people have noticed a charm with Tekken 4 and respected it for the innovations it had. I’ll admit there was some swing and misses, but you know what? I at least give it points for trying to do something different and taking advantage of the power of the PlayStation 2. Today I’m kind of glad Tekken 4 is getting a little more love but as a serious Tekken game for a competitive player, I can see how this one feels…. off with the balancing issues. It really feels like the black sheep of the Tekken series.
In 2004, Tekken 5 would be released at arcades that kind of took a step back and the voices of the hardcore Tekken players were heard. Tekken 5 feels like a perfect balance of what made both Tekken 3 and 4 fantastic and personally is my favorite of the series, speeding the game back up along with adding some new mechanics. Walls are still a thing but they are not as in your face or a major factor in Tekken 5 as they were in Tekken 4. Getting the best from the older games while still keeping the good parts of Tekken 4 to make an amazing fighting game.
In the end Tekken 4 is kind of a weird entry of the series. I like that it tried to do some things that were different and for a casual fighting game fan, it’s aged not the best but it still holds up. However I can understand after the major success Tekken 3 was that I could see its community being very mixed or even betrayed by Tekken 4 with them trying to simplify and mix the formula up, but not adding much in return. Tekken 4 is far from flawless but there’s some charm in there that the other Tekken games lack. Tekken 4 is good in a casual sense, it’s just very different from the other Tekken games, keep that in mind going into this if you’ve never played it before.
P.P.
