Tekken (1994)

Tekken is a good game that, in its foundation, is a tournament fighter like many others at the time. What sets it apart, however, is its excellent story with brutal plot that was kind of dark at the time.

It all evolves around Kazuya Mishima, the most iconic and memorable fighter of the series, who is tossed off a cliff as a five-year-old because his old papa, Heihachi Mishima, the leader of the Mishima Zaibatsu family and clan, wanted to test if his son is strong enough to lead the family. Perfectly normal way to determine one’s strength if you ask me. Kazuya survives but is heavily scarred. Filled with hate and a thirst for revenge, he climbs back up the mountainside. To humiliate (and motivate) Kazuya more, Heihachi adopts an orphan called Lee Chaolan and trains him to be Kazuya’s biggest rival.

When Kazuya fell, he literally released his inner demon, a gene that grants him unbelievable strength, fed by rage and hate. He now travels the world, training and competing in various martial arts contests and becoming one of the best fighters alive. Heihachi sees his son develop and wants to test him in the ultimate contest, the King of Iron Fist Tournament. Kazuya blasts his way through the opponents and faces his old man in the final battle. He crushes him and, in an ultimate act of revenge, picks up his knocked-out body and throws him off the same cliff he did twenty-one years ago. Just epic.

The principle of Tekken is simple. Pick one of the eight fighters and start beating people up. You face different fighters throughout seven stages, then a sub-boss, who are clones of your character (but stronger and with slightly different moves), followed by the great Heihachi himself. If you beat the game with each of the eight original characters, a cutscene unlocks and you have access to seventeen playable characters, including Devil, Kazuya’s alter ego. This is basically a costume for Kazuya himself.

The graphics in Tekken are all right for the time. The game is old, but I felt that a little more detail could be added to the fighters, even for the time. Mainly because this is the only aspect on screen to focus on. The historical accurate locations in the background, however, are greatly done. The animations are a little slow and stiff, but hits on your opponent’s land where they need to and are overall not bad.

There is no music, but the sound effects are nicely done. Hits and grunts are on point and satisfying. The final blow sound is epic when you yeet your opponent to the ground.

Although still a simple game, Tekken features a lot of content and for the completionists among us, offers you the satisfaction of unlocking many more characters then the original eight the game begins with. This is a game from the good old days, in which you actually need to work for your content instead of it just being there.

In the end, Tekken is a great game with a solid story and a lot of content. I must admit that it did not age that well because of its slow and stiff movement, but this is because of the time period back then.

It is still a great classic and, of course, the foundation for a great series. Definitely recommend this blast from the past.

Game: Tekken
Genre: Fighting
Developer: Namco
Publisher: Namco
System: Playstation (PS1)
Year of Release: 1995
Length of Playthrough: 2 Hours

Total Score: 79/100
Value Score: 7.9/10

• Story: 6/10
• Characters: 8/10
• GamePlay: 8/10
• Graphics: 7/10
• Sound: 9/10
• Music: 8/10
• Length: 7/10
• Replay Value: 8/10
• Player Value: 8/10

Pros
+17 Playable characters +1 Alternate skin character for Kazuya -
+Endings for Characters

Cons
-Only 8 characters have endings out of the 17 playable characters
-One character can only be unlocked via the Galaga mini game completed perfectly
-To unlock the other characters, must complete a character playthrough with no continues
-Gameplay can be tedious even at the easiest of settings
-A lot of clone characters