What’s Gone Wrong with Tekken?

There are few things more satisfying in life than punching someone in the face.

Not in real life of course, I mean when facing a virtual opponent in a computer game.

The fighting/beat ‘em up genre is a lucrative part of gaming, which has spawned many franchises which offer gamers the chance to punch and kick their way through many characters in a tournament setting.

It’s a simple but effective set-up for a game, and it’s one a lot of gamers can get a kick out of (pardon the pun) for hours on end. Every year game developers such as Namco and Capcom continue to roll out new fighting games year in year out.

Just this month Tekken Tag Tournament 2, the newest entry to one of the most popular fighting game series of all, was launched for the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 in markets worldwide including the UK.

Some people who know me may figure I’ve been all over this game since it went on sale.

After all, people who know me well enough also know I play computer games, and one series I have particularly enjoyed in my time is Tekken.

The Tekken series was one I originally embraced in the late nineties soon after I first tried a demo of Tekken 3.

Today Tekken 3 remains one of my favourite Playstation One games of all time, while the Playstation 2 entry Tekken Tag Tournament is my personal favourite of all in the fighting game genre.

Sure there are many rival fighting games you might want to make a case for such as Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat or Shaq Fu (at a stretch).

For me though no fighting series has come close to matching the engaging combat, fluid controls, tongue-in-cheek humour and all round playability which Tekken has achieved in its history.

So how come I’m not even a little bit interested in playing Tekken Tag Tournament 2?

It’s because over the past few years, the recent products introduced for the Tekken franchise have done a pretty good job in lowering my opinion of both the series and its developers Namco Bandai.

In 2009 Tekken 6 was launched for current-generation consoles. Since then two Tekken movies have been released, and a crossover game combining Street Fighter and Tekken has been created.

The series went rapidly downhill with the release of Tekken 6 and nothing released since then has remedied this decline, in fact the other products have just made things worse in my opinion.

I can imagine I am in a minority with this viewpoint, and the new Tekken game for this year will undoubtedly, like previous entries, ship millions of copies and make a lot of money. That doesn’t mean I have to like it or just accept it, or adapt to it whatsoever.

While I could just choose to ignore it, I can also explain my reasons justifying my current rejection of this gaming series I have previously embraced.

The problem with Tekken Tag Tournament 2 and its predecessor

Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is basically a non-canon entry to the series, which is based on the same engine, gameplay and setting as Tekken 6.

Straightaway this is off-putting for I find major issues in the presentation, gameplay, style and decisions made by the producers behind this game.

All of this proved to make Tekken 6 a very disappointing entry in the long-running series, certainly by far the least impressed I had been by one of these games since I got interested in the series.

I still played it for lots of hours, played through Arcade Mode, the Story Mode. I gave this game plenty of time to impress me but eventually I got fed up with its stupidity.

Now I am fully aware that Tekken has pretty much always been a somewhat comical gaming series, one which is lacking in realism and shouldn’t be taken that seriously to begin with.

After all this is a game that involves two fighters constantly punching, kicking and throwing each other around yet those involved never seem to receive any injury besides a brief bout of concussion.

This is also a fighting game with a diverse, interesting but frankly bizarre character roster. The line-up includes the typical collection of burly men with gigantic muscles and sultry women with flawless bodies.

But this game also brings a giant bear, a boxing kangaroo, a wooden statue controlled by a mystical force and even occasionally a dinosaur to a hand-to-hand fighting tournament. Oh yeah and the main plot involves some business with a ‘devil gene’ which turns people into laser-shooting monsters.

With this in mind along with all the other goofy humour on show, you know this is a game not meant to be taken very seriously, but you can still highly respect the game if both the gameplay and characters are executed in a appealing manner.

However the way Namco Bandai decided to deliver its gameplay and present its characters in Tekken 6 falls way short in comparison to previous entries in the series. This same gameplay will be applied to Tag Tournament 2.

Changes and failures in gameplay

I could ramble on for many paragraphs nitpicking lots of little details I find annoying about playing Tekken 6; like the stupidly long loading times, the sub-standard graphics, or the story mode which could have been a great idea but was ultimately flawed and at times deeply frustrating to the point it become the complete opposite of fun.

However, to explain why I find Tekken 6 far less appealing compared to previous entries in the series, I will focus on the core gameplay and my biggest gripe with it.

For Tekken 6 there was a noticeable extra emphasise placed on ‘juggling’ your opponents whilst fighting them. In short, this involves punching and kicking your opponents after a hit has already sent them flying in the air.

This means you can continue to take health off your opponent with a long combo attack, which they have no way to respond to until they eventually hit the floor again.

Now I know this is something you have always been able to do in pretty much every Tekken game. However for Tekken 6 the juggling trick is openly encouraged, even resulting in a change in gameplay where fighters spend more time in the air so the trick can be pulled off easier.

This mentality to juggle fighters with lengthy combo attack moves applies strongly to AI opponents now, meaning they can potentially take about 90% of your health away in a matter of seconds with virtually no chance for you to respond!

This makes any fight whether against an AI or real person very predictable if you know the game well enough. To pretty much ensure victory all you have to do is get your opponent off the ground with an attack then unleash a combo (which can be learnt easily with practice) which will likely take away more than half your opponents health.

The overall feel of battle now in Tekken 6, and judging from gameplay footage of Tag Tournament 2, is one of deep frustration for whoever happens to be on the receiving end of another juggling attack.

The gameplay feels less varied now than before, in earlier Tekken games it wasn’t just about learning combos for your chosen fighter, but mastering your timing, movement and ability to adapt to the current situation.

All of that feels less important now. Now just make sure you get your opponent in the air first then just juggle them! KO! You win! I am unimpressed.

Changes and failures in characters

Another thing I’m unimpressed with is the ridiculous ways a lot of characters are presented in recent Tekken games, particularly the female fighters in their latest attire.

I am not going to criticise a game for having sexy characters or for delivering fanservice to its players. The truth is that sex sells, and whether you like it or not it sells well in virtually all forms of media including games, movies, music and so on.

However when you play a game and you find one or several characters with an appearance that is such a blatant and in-your-face attempt to turn you on, it can prove off-putting or offensive even to the player.

I don’t know about you, but if I am playing a fighting game such as Tekken, I don’t really want anyone who happens to pass by to possibly think I’m just perving out. If I wanted to do that, I would just play the Dead or Alive series.

I’m referring mainly to the outfits you see now, particularly on the female fighters in Tekken. Outfits which have become so sexualised and impractical, that no one with any real dignity would wear them to a fighting tournament or possibly anywhere in public actually. They are just laughable, and not in a good way.

For instance here are two prime offenders which appear in promotion art for Tekken Tag Tournament 2.

Exhibit A is Nina Williams, a “veteran” of the Tekken series.

Just in case you didn’t already know, in the game Nina is a fighter who has frequently been hired as a contract assassin. Her most defining characteristics are that she’s ruthless and cold-blooded. Also she usually wears some sort of military style gear.

Now here’s how she looked back in Tekken Tag Tournament (to the right):

Now here’s her main outfit in official art for Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (below):

I’m willing to overlook certain things about her outfit above, such as the purple camouflage pattern. While it would prove useless as camouflage in virtually any environment, purple has become Nina’s trademark outfit colour throughout the Tekken series.

What’s harder to look past though is some of the unnecessarily impractical features of this outfit.

Like what the hell is going on around the “lower back”? You know what I mean! About half of it is fully exposed to anyone who happens to stand behind her. The only thing stopping Nina from giving everyone a full mooning is a crude thin and narrow piece of material held in place by a single belt clip.

Not only would this outfit give anyone an uncomfortable wedgie, but there’s a fair amount of bare skin on show, including around her shoulders. Yet she plans on fighting people hand-to-hand like this?!

Exhibit B in Tekken’s blatant efforts to increasingly sexualise its female characters is Christie Monteiro.

Christie was first introduced back in Tekken 4 and probably the only reason she exists is so the makers could include a character with a Capoeira fighting style which didn’t piss off the game’s fans.

This was never going to work considering Christie, like her predecessor Eddy Gordo, has a fighting style and set-up which proves rewarding for people who simply mash the buttons on the controls like a complete amateur.

Nevertheless how did the game makers try to appease fans? Why by making her sexy of course! But while Christie started wearing revealing outfits from her first appearance in Tekken, it was clearly decided she hadn’t been sexualised enough as her outfits got even more daring in Tekken 5 and 6, and her chest got heavier too, if you know what I mean.

Compare her look in Tekken 4 (left) to how she looks in Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (right):

Now not only do her pants show more skin at the hips, but Christie also apparently decided to swap a bikini bra with two thin straps which only just about suffice in preventing an X rating for this game.

However when you’re throwing kicks and pulling off spinning jumps constantly like Christie does in this game, then she would probably want to keep things “secure”, yet a nip slip in this outfit would be inevitable in any sense of reality.

When you playing a computer game you’re often suspending your sense of disbelief to an extent, but when you take a major dump all over the laws of physics, not to mention female dignity, then it can easily become an unwelcome distraction.

My point with all this is that seemingly in order to entice existing fans, or lure new ones in, the makers of the latest Tekken games have decide the female characters have to be extremely sexualised to an extent it all turns undignified.

Now this did become noticeable before either Tekken 6 or Tag Tournament 2 arrived, but it’s only gotten worse and is becoming a focus for advertisement now with recent games (see the images above).

Maybe this sort of thing looks like a great idea if you’re really horny and unashamed, or you just recently hit puberty. However if you’ve been following a game series for a long time and you’re looking for more out of your games, stuff like this could just seem unnecessary and degrading even.

If a developer for Tekken ever asked you what you would do to make the next game entry better, would you come up with something along the lines of ‘I want to see bigger boobs and more bare skin please’. Like I’ve previously stated; If that’s all I was looking for, I would just play the Dead or Alive series.

So what now?

The issues I have touched upon in regards Tekken 6 and Tag Tournament 2 all add together to create an unpleasant mess which I don’t want to get involved with anymore, and I question why more gaming critics don’t feel alike.

And it’s not like other recent products have helped to change my stance either. The Tekken x Street Fighter crossover for instance comes across to me as nothing more than a cynical marketing ploy.

In the last couple of years there have also been two recent films based on Tekken as well: an awful live-action flick from 2010 and a computer-graphic animated flick from 2011.

The CG-animated film, called Tekken: Blood Vengeance, was meant to make people forget the live-action flick and give Tekken fans and non-fans alike something they could actually enjoy.

However having watched it, I doubt viewers unfamiliar with Tekken could possibly make any sense out of the majority of this bizarre, unbalanced and surprisingly boring mess.

The Blood Vengeance film actually came part of a collection called Tekken Hybrid, launched in the UK near the end of 2011. The Hybrid disc also came with a demo of Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (ugh) but most interestingly an HD (or at least better looking) version of Tekken Tag Tournament.

Actually this HD remake is a positive thing I will give Namco credit for; at least finally I have the chance to play this PS2 classic on my Playstation 3!

The HD remake serves as a reminder to me as to why I ever took interest in this franchise in the first place. It’s a throwback to a time when the gameplay was more varied and engaging and things like sexualising the characters were lower priority.

I guess in some cases it’s better to be stuck in the past.

This article was written by .

Category : Funny, Video Games
Tags : , , , , , , , , , , ,