Classic of the Month - Tekken

Manufacturer:	Namco
Developer:	Namco
Genre:	Beat 'em up/Fighting
Year:	1994

Capcom's Street Fighter II: The World Warriors couldn't have been much bigger and it spawned countless clones, but it also ignited the fighting game genre just as traditional 2D, sprite-based games were on the wane and new technology was pushing gaming into exciting new territory. While there were plenty lacklustre imitators (Fighter's History, I'm looking at you!), there were a few that stood out from the pack. SNK's triple threat of Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting and King of Fighters were a cut above the rest, for example.  Fatal Fury, in particular, used the Neo Geo's superior sprite scaling add an extra dimension to the genre, by allowing players to fight on different planes. Then along came Midway, with their digitized sprites and their ultra-violence. Mortal Kombat gave us a taste of video realism (as laughable as that sounds looking at it now), which terrified parents and Daily Mail readers at the time. Then, in 1993, Sega released Virtua Fighter, a 3D fighting game that used the same kind of polygonal graphics previously only seen in racing and flying games. The sense of space was greater than Fatal Fury, the animation was far more realistic than MK's muddy digitised combatants and, if you were patient, you would find the combat itself was deeper and more technical than Street Fighter II. It was, however, a little pedestrian, lacking any of the fantastical that made other fighting games such silly fun. Then a year later, Namco hit back with Tekken, which used the same kind of technology as Virtua Fighter, but had more eccentric and detailed characters, more attractive environments, more explosive combat and a control scheme that (to me at least) suited 3D combat far better than just having kick, punch and block buttons.

The plot of Tekken, such as it is, tells the story of the King of Iron Fist tournament. Organised by Mishima Zaibatsu, a giant multinational company with questionable ethics, headed (at the time) by Heihachi Mishima, who is also the game's final boss. You take control of one of eight combatants, each of whom had their own reasons for taking part in the competition:

• Kazuya Mishima - Heihachi's son, who used the Mishima form of Karate, like his father. In this first game Kazuya was a heroic character, although this changed drastically in later instalments.
• Paul Phoenix - A hot headed American and rival to Kazuya, who fought using a form of Judo.
• Marshall Law - The obligatory Bruce Lee clone, who fought using Jeet Kune Do.
• Nina Williams - Tekken's "sexy" female assassin, who fought using a combination of Koppojutsu and Aikido.
• King - A massive Mexican luchador in a jaguar mask (although you'd be forgiven for thinking it was his actual head).
• Yoshimitsu - a samurai or maybe a ninja. I'm not really sure, but he does turn up in the alternative universe of Soul Calibur, so maybe he's a robot or a time traveller?
• Michelle Chang - A Chinese girl, in native American garb, who fights using a combination of Xin Yi Liu He Quan and Baji Quan.
• Jack - a Russian military robot, who wildly pummels his opponents then poses, macho man style.

I'll be honest, of all those different martial arts the only ones I recognise are Judo, Karate and wild pummelling. And you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference playing this first game, due to the primitive nature of the graphics engine. 

After picking a character you had to fight your way through the remaining seven, then a unique rival, before you could face Heihachi. The unique (non-selectable) rivals were a great addition and gave players an incentive to try out all eight fighters - though getting to each fighter's rival would take a hell of a lot of practice (and a lot of coins).

Between the hard hitting combat and having control over each limb independently, Tekken was a thrilling game back in the day and at the time, I preferred it to Sega's offering (although by VF4 my opinion had changed). During the course of the arcade sequels, Namco did what all fighting game developers do: add more characters and more crazy. The storyline got more and more ridiculous, with people being thrown into volcanoes, people sprouting demon wings and pandas and kangaroos getting in on the action. Despite being a big Blanka player on Street Fighter, it was the addition of characters like Roger the kangaroo that put me off the series overall. Although I have played the first five games and Tag Tournament, for me the early games were the best - in particular Tekken III. Nonetheless, the series is still going strong on home consoles, thanks to games like Tekken 6 and Street Fighter X Tekken.

There is debate about how and when the arcade scene started to die. While most commentators agree arcades were defunct by the end of the 20th century, some that say the scene had been on the decline since the mid-80s and others say the mid-90s. I'm one of the latter, having seen just how big arcade games became with the release of games like R-Type, Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat, Time Crisis and Sega Rally. However, if you asked me what game marked the beginning of the end, I would honestly say Tekken — not because it was a bad game (it wasn't, it was great) but because Namco's close ties with Sony and their brand new PlayStation console closed the gap between home and arcade gaming more ever before. Sure, the Neo Geo AES and MVS essentially had the same hardware, but who do you know that owned an AES? Exactly, but I bet you either owned a PlayStation or knew someone who did. There was less than 5 months between the arcade and PlayStation releases of Tekken; the PlayStation version was so good, so close to the arcade that you'd really have to be paying attention to notice the differences. And little things like slightly lower resolution textures and the loss of animated character select screens paled into insignificance compared to the ability to unlock rival characters on the PlayStation version. Add in other Namco 3D arcade hits of the time, like Ridge Racer, Soul Edge and Time Crisis, as well as near-perfect conversions of arcade hits from the likes of Taito, Capcom, Midway, Konami and even SNK, and you had, for all intents and purposes, a home arcade machine. So with me winding down the Classic of the Month feature, it seemed apropos to talk about the game that was, for me at least, the thin end of the wedge that lead to the obsolescence of the arcade machine. At the time, we were all too excited to play as Kazuya, King and Marshall at home, in our bedrooms, on our 14" TVs, to realise what having so many "arcade perfect" conversions at our finger tips really meant to the future of the arcade machine.

To finish this month's instalment, here's someone playing through Tekken as Kazuya.

MTW