The Tekken series has a long-standing reputation in arcades, but for
many players it was the console ports that left a lasting impression.
These versions often introduced offbeat, dramatic story campaigns, as
well as more extensive additions such as delightfully odd beat-’em-up
and sport modes. And in recent years, the goal of unlocking and
customizing outfits for the game's large cast rounded out the most
rewarding objective of all: getting good. Tekken 7 keeps most of these
traditions alive and once again delivers the tight, hard-hitting action
for which the series is known. The game has some server-stability issues
at launch, but it's otherwise a great sequel that confidently claims
its position among the best fighting games today.
Similar
to other 3D Fighters like Dead or Alive and Virtua Fighter, Tekken 7
focuses on utilizing space and lateral movement during combat. By and
large this is a game of inches; most fighters punch, kick, and grapple
up close to one another and there's little margin for error. A moment of
indecision or a sloppy move against a more skilled player can lead to a
string of pummeling strikes and a hasty defeat, courtesy of the game's
long combo strings. Though Tekken 7 can be punishing, its fighting
system isn't as difficult to get into as it lets on. With an intuitive
control scheme that assigns one button to each limb, you can learn how
to attack and retaliate, step by step. The long-term trick is putting in
the time to dissect and memorize your favorite character's moveset to
hone your reflexes and diversify your tactics.
The
biggest complaint you can lob at Tekken 7 is that it doesn't do a good
job of explaining the intricacies of its mechanics, let alone how you
should approach learning your character of choice. The move lists for
each character often hover around 100 entries, serving as a mix of
one-off special attacks and combos. Save for a few icons--which
represent attack properties that the game also fails to thoroughly
explain--lists are disorganized, with no categories or hierarchy to
speak of. The best you can do is hop into training mode and shift from
one move to the next. Thankfully, you can scroll through attack hints
live, during practice, and without repeatedly entering menus.
None of this is to say that Tekken 7 is too deep, which
would be a ridiculous complaint--the depth of its roster and fighting
styles is to your benefit. The point is that new players will have very
little help learning anything beyond the basics once they jump into
battle. This is disappointing, given that other fighting games have
demonstrated that the best way to retain new players is by giving them a
fighting chance, and the lack of instruction is odd for Tekken, which
only one game prior (Tekken Tag Tournament 2) gave players Fight Lab
mode--a place to study how mechanics and different types of attacks can
dictate the flow of a match.
But if this isn't your
first King of Iron Fist tournament and you've kept up with Tekken over
its more than 20-year tenure, you’ll find that Tekken 7 delivers the
same great combat you know and love with a hefty batch of new
characters--and a few new mechanics. The game includes notable new
supermoves that can be triggered when a character's health is
dangerously low, which is also the right time to unleash a rage drive--a
powered-up standard combo attack. The most important new addition is
the power crush attack attribute: Relevant attacks can absorb incoming
hits mid-animation, allowing you to risk a little health to increase
your chances of landing a critical blow, which injects Tekken's
otherwise familiar fights with a renewed element of surprise.
With
more than 30 playable characters, Tekken 7 offers plenty of fighters
and opponents to study. Impressively, nearly a quarter of the roster is
brand new. The most conspicuous Tekken freshman must be Akuma, the
red-haired bad guy of Street Fighter fame. The introduction of fireballs
and hurricane kicks might seem like an odd fit for Tekken, but they
don't feel overpowered in light of the fact that every character comes
with their own advantages. And when it comes to facing down Akuma's
projectiles specifically, they can be easily sidestepped given the
game's 3D movement. Street Fighter fans will appreciate how easy it is
to fight as Akuma, since many of his traditional moves and inputs are
present and accounted for. Even Street Fighter's meter-based mechanics
have been carried over for his Tekken debut.
Interestingly, Akuma also plays a pivotal role in the main
story mode. Hailed as the final chapter in the series' long-running
story of martial-arts papa Heihachi Mishima and his quarrelling family,
Tekken 7's narrative will delight Tekken veterans, especially when the
oft-referenced-but-never-before-seen Kazumi Mishima breaks onto the
stage. The only major downfall here is the robotic and stale narrator, a
reporter covering the Mishima family. His delivery is too shallow to
take seriously and not witty enough to make his deadpan cadance funny.
You may also notice that some fights seem arbitrarily difficult along
the way, but thanks to the gift of shortcut commands for powerful
attacks--a system referred to as Story Assist--they’re more of a
temporary annoyance than a barrier.
Beyond the two to
three hours spent on the main story, every character not present therein
gets their own brief chapter, limited to a short text intro, a single
fight, and a unique ending cutscene. Not all are created equal, but
there are gems to find that are purposefully awkward and
light-hearted--the perfect complement to Tekken's pervasive melodrama.
Fans of the alien samurai Yoshimitsu will, for example, appreciate how
he's initially humanized and made vulnerable, only to be subsequently
kneed in the groin by the object of his affection.
Tekken
7 lives up to the series' penchant for tongue-in-cheek shenanigans and
generously gives you access to the series' entire back catalog of
cutscenes, from the very first Tekken's low-res clips all the way to
background movies made specifically for Japanese pachinko machines.
There’s a lot of Tekken history to unlock, and the collection is a
wonderful trip down memory lane.
Using Fight Money
earned by playing the game's various modes you can purchase both
cutscenes and cosmetic items for characters. Tekken 7 offers a lot of
basic variations of hairstyles or glasses to buy, and an equal amount of
stranger outfits and accessories--including neon butterfly wings, a
floating clownfish companion, and automatic rifles, to name a few. While
you certainly don't need to dress fighters up in ridiculous outfits,
doing so will give you a new appreciation for how comfortable Tekken 7
is in its own skin. It's a hardcore, demanding fighting game, but it's
also happy to be the butt of its own jokes.
Items--so-called "treasure"--can also be unlocked rather
than purchased within the Treasure Battle mode, which puts you in a
series of fights with increasing rewards and challenges. There's also
training mode and an arcade mode where you can practice your moves, but
Treasure Battle is easily the most attractive way to spend your off-time
in Tekken 7. If you're going to practice before hopping online to
fight, you might as well have something to show for it.
A
few days after launch, Tekken 7's online modes are experiencing a few
issues across all platforms, and while these are mostly isolated to
ranked matches, it's not uncommon to lose connections in casual matches,
either. It's an issue that publisher Bandai Namco is aware of and plans
to patch, but at the moment, it's not always easy to get into a match
unless you're willing to hammer attempts for minutes on end. When you're
eventually able to get into a match, pray that it's over a
better-than-average connection; Tekken 7 becomes a slide show online
under lesser conditions.
Notwithstanding that ranked
matches are currently a crapshoot, Tekken 7 remains an easy game to
recommend. Its diverse roster is packed with a wide range of
personalities and fighting styles, bolstered by a raucous attitude that
begs to be taken seriously while simultaneously mocking its more
peculiar whims in the process. Tekken fans will find their next favorite
game--one that's the product of decade's worth of refinement. And while
some of this depth will be lost or out of reach for newcomers, there's
enough fun to be had outside of hardcore competition to keep players
from all walks of gaming thoroughly entertained.
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