It’s been a long and arduous wait for fans of the Tekken series, as Bandai Namco seemed all but set to miss out on the revival of the fighting genre of the last few years. Since the last numbered Tekken game, there’s been new Mortal Kombat games, the Injustice series, a new lineage of Street Fighter game, and even a number of plucky upstarts like BlazBlue. Oh, and there was of course the Tekken Tag Tournament 2 spin-off as well.
Working through the first handful of chapters in Tekken 7’s story mode, I’m swept up in how barmy it is. Characters return from the dead, corporations are wrested from control by hand to hand combat, the UN has an active military presence, and it gleefully flashes back to the events of previous games. You’ve got to respect any game whose story has characters repeatedly turning up to a gun fight with nothing but fists and a bellowed “You think that’s enough to stop ME?!” let alone one that’s prepared to make you press the buttons to throw a child off a cliff…
Of course, it’s also an introduction to the game’s fighting and takes its sweet time to dole out each little morsel of combat and control. Between the meaty cutscenes that re-establish the world, the characters and the geopolitical situation that leads to a new Iron Fist tournament, you’re alternately battling through waves of dumb grunts using basic combos and fighting other named characters, gradually learning the ropes. For fighting game experts, it’s bound to drag on for a bit too long, but there’s also going to be extra side stories featuring other characters from the Tekken universe.
This is a game that also embraces the ability to customise your characters. Whether it’s a returning fan favourite like Heihachi Mishima or a cutesy newcomer like Lucky Chloe in her cat outfit, you can dive in and buy them new outfits, new costume items, and give them all manner of ridiculous new looks. The gateway to all of this is Treasure Battle, which lives alongside a more traditional Arcade Battle.
Difficulty rises incrementally, with characters that you face potentially donning customised garments themselves. There’s an interesting degree of continuity here, where one particular Akuma in his particular get up appeared in two consecutive Treasure Battle plays, as I fought through the tiers. Winning fights will not only earn you cash to spend on cosmetics, but also potentially unlock new ones from fallen fighters. Then there’s also special rounds to mix things up, such as the ultra-fast Turbo Mode.
I’m something of a button masher when it comes to fighting games. I might know the overall button presses for one or two combos, but actually pulling them off with any kind of consistency? That’s another matter entirely, and you can forget frame counting or any real strategic thought behind my actions.
With that admitted and out of the way, I can very much appreciate what Bandai Namco have done when bringing Akuma across from the Street Fighter series for a cameo appearance on the roster. Where Tekken’s combos are based around the notion of having the four face buttons control a character’s four individual limbs, combining those with simplistic looking movements for each character’s attacks, Street Fighter’s moves are all about sweeping motion across the D-pad or stick.
As Akuma makes the leap into Tekken, he still plays like a Street Fighter character, right down to the button presses to pull off a Hadouken and having a Special attack meter in addition to Rage. For fans of both series, there’s perhaps a few hints here at how the on-hold Tekken X Street Fighter project might have panned out.
Akuma also has the Rage system that all the other characters share as well. As your character’s health drops below a certain threshold, you glow red and the health bar changes colour. Triggering Rage Arts is as simple as tapping the right shoulder button when close enough to your opposite number, letting you launch a cinematic flurry of blows on your opponent that can potentially wipe them out.
Honestly, I’m not sure how I feel about Rage, which I think could be a divisive point with Tekken 7. Many fighting games have sensational super attacks, and the series has seen both Rage back in Tekken 6 and Tag Tournament’s Netsu Power as well, but for me it feels a little too prevalent here, first being available around the 25% health mark.
On the one hand, it’s capable of bringing a fighter on the ropes back into contention, dealing more damage the lower that player’s health is, but on the other, it means that just getting that one hit at the right moment can remove nearly 40% of a health bar. It’s so very strong and means that even if you have the upper hand, you have to be wary of a rapid turn around. Given that Rage was nerfed in Tekken 6 – and that only kicked in at 10% initially – I’d expect it to be dealt with again in due course.
Tekken 7 also features a small amount of support for PlayStation VR, with a character viewer and the ability to play training fights. It’s not the most substantial addition, with training fights simply taking place in a blank arena, but there’s a couple of little twists like being able to put the game into slow motion, and get pretty close to see every attack landing and the fantastical effects of each hit.
I’m definitely very interested to see how the community reacts to the tweaks and additions being made to an age old series, but I must admit that this kind of accessibility made Tekken 7 a lot of fun to play for a relative newcomer, such as myself.
