A one-stop shop for fighting bears, cyborgs and melodrama
So this is how it ends; with women who can throw literal tiger uppercuts. You didn’t think that the Tekken series would attempt to wrap up the Mishima clan saga with an earnest and heartfelt confrontation between Heihachi, Kazuya and Jin alone did you? No, Katsuhiro Harada was never going to let the premier 3D fighter in the world go out like that. Only the very best in logic-defying, fist-exploding and animal-anthropomorphising gameplay could possibly do for the triumphant and epic conclusion to this story, and you can even experience it with VR.
That’s right, virtual reality. The King Of Iron Fist Tournament is not only returning to consoles in 2016, but also embracing the 3D world like never before by making itself compatible with PlayStation VR. Series creator and chief Harada has kept the exact details of how this will work close to his chest, however, the game’s senior designer Michael Murray told Wired that it’s more likely to be a means of appreciating the character design, rather than riffing on the first-person experience you got to try out in Tekken 2. We’re envisioning something between the Autovista mode in the Forza Motorsport series and the idol videos of Dead Or Alive 5 at the moment and rather hoping we’re well off the scent. Expect to hear more about that soon.
But the game itself has plenty of key gameplay changes to help modernise it for this generation of systems, not least being built with Unreal Engine 4. It’s interesting to note that it shares this base engine with Street Fighter V, a very different fighting game in terms of perspective, style and art direction, but all the same much of the flash and polish of Capcom’s fighter is matched by Bandai Namco’s effort. Epic has once again constructed an engine that looks likely to dominate the generation, albeit this time without homogenising the look of the games we’re playing. Tekken 7 retains the core spirit and animation style of the series with some added fluidity and setpiece spectacle.
This is most apparent through the new Rage Arts, which are pretty close to Street Fighter’s own Supers or the Critical Edges of SoulCalibur V. You gradually build up rage during the fight and can unleash it as a Rage Art at any time to deliver a series of unblockable attacks that will knock off around 30 per cent of your opponents health. Very Super-like, in other words, and much like in Street Fighter they can be added to combos. After use, the Rage meter is drained and you have to begin building it up again, but tactically it will feel very familiar to anyone who’s been dabbling in the fighter world for the last generation.
It’s the kind of attack that, as long as it connects, can turn a match or deal the finishing blow in style. Watching these Rage Arts added into the mix feels like there’s a little added drama to encounters, reflecting some of the melodrama of the story itself. With some combo-extending elements of the series removed from this iteration, which we’ll get into shortly, these new special attacks are a focal point of attention and a new tactical consideration as you enter a stage. Do you wait for a clear opening or attempt to surprise your opponent? Do you fight cautiously expecting the attack or make sure you’re on the front foot quickly?
So, what has been lost? For a start, the bound state, which was a key element to extending combos, is no longer a part of the game. In its place we have Rage Arts, of course, but also the Power Crush that allows you to attack while still taking damage and the Screw Attack, an airborne hit that sends your opponent spinning and is not dissimilar from a bound state. It’s a totally new dynamic however, and it will take some getting used to. Mixed with the varied styles of the fighters themselves, these new considerations should add a significant amount to the gameplay experience and has already seen some interesting bouts in Tekken competitions using the arcade version of the game.
Tekken 7 has actually been available in arcades since March 2015, seeing a number of updates and roster extensions in the time since. Harada has used this public forum as a testing bed for gradually adding characters and making adjustments to gameplay before he launches a final product on consoles. As this is intended to close off the story of the Mishima clan there’s definitely a sense of Tekken 7 being a greatest hits of the series mixed with the most modern and expressive new flourishes the team can bring to bear.
A good example of this is the fantastic roster of classic and new characters, many of whom have seen designs by some of the great artists working in games today. For instance the Filipino fighter Josie Rizal, a response by Harada to fans in the Philippines asking for someone to represent them over the years, was conceived by Mari Shimazaki, Platinum’s lead character designer and the woman behind Bayonetta. Additionally, No More Heroes artist Yusuke Kozaki added the somewhat controversial Lucky Chloe and Anarchy Reigns designer Kenichiro Yoshimura was tasked with reinventing the immensely popular series-hopping master of the sword, Yoshimitsu.
There are 28 playable characters in total although one of our favourites, Kuma the fighting bear, is not among them at present. Expect DLC to feature him pretty quickly, though. Instead we’ll have to make do with Kazumi Mishima, the wife of Heihachi, mother of Kazuya and thrower of aforementioned tigers in other people’s faces. Her tiger attack is one of the most ridiculous things we’ve seen from Tekken 7, but also one of the most glorious. She summons the beast as if from nowhere and it launches into clawing its adversary or rolling up and knocking them down. Kazumi also happens to be the final boss of the game, which is no great surprise given her abilities and relation to the primary characters of the series.
For all that’s new about Tekken 7, though, and all the ways in which it is looking to modernise the series, it still harkens back to the best of this universe too. On the whole, Harada has compared Tekken 7 to the darker narrative of Tekken 4 for instance, so don’t expect things to turn out great from the story of this game. It will be closing off the family drama of the Tekken series and revealing the origins of the Devil Gene that’s been at the centre of much of the conflict so far. Similarly, the movement in the game has been favourably compared to Tekken Revolution, not least thanks to the lack of bounding, which is going to have a massive influence on how you learn to build and express yourself through combos if you haven’t played a Tekken game in a little while. Tekken Tag Tournament 2’s stage effects and item moves also make an appearance, drawing in another popular and potentially game-changing mechanic for the main series. It’s been noted that Asuka, King and Xiaoyu all retain the item moves they enjoyed from this previous game. Stage effects, on the other hand, add an interesting element of dynamic environment changes, moving from walled to infinite stages and generally altering the landscape in ways that can have a significant impact on gameplay depending on how you prefer to build your combos.
Tekken 7 is drawing on all of the strongest elements of this series to offer the most comprehensive and intensive version Harada can possibly muster. That said, the real fun of the game will be in competition and the adjustments that have been made so far are already proving popular on the competitive circuit as it battles it out on the arcade version of the game, acting as a beta test for the console experience. Tekken 7 is as ludicrous and precise as it has ever been, mixing dark motifs, silly characters, precise controls and over-the-top action into a cocktail that could only have come from Harada. In a year that will see the launch of Street Fighter V on PS4 and PC, the addition of Tekken 7 to 2015’s fighters is most welcome indeed and having been fashioned in the furnace of arcades and sharpened by professional competition, we should all be expecting one of the best games in this franchise to date.