Tekken
Tekken (鉄拳, lit.
Iron Fist) is a series of
fighting games developed and produced by
Namco. Originally an
arcade game, it has been
ported to the
PlayStation, the
PlayStation 2,
Game Boy Advance and the PSP
consoles with a version for the
PlayStation 3 in the works.
The series is one of the earliest
3D fighting game franchises, with the first game released less than two years after
Virtua Fighter. There are five
Tekken sequel games,
Tekken 2,
Tekken 3,
Tekken Tag Tournament,
Tekken 4, and
Tekken 5. An update of
Tekken 5 dubbed
Tekken 5.1 is now out in arcades. One can easily differentiate it by the red spotlights in the character selection background and green lifebars. A second more major update named
Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection was released in arcades in late
2005. Also,
Tekken 6 is thought to be in development for release on the
PlayStation 3 console. The series also has one game for a non-PlayStation console called
Tekken Advance which was released for the
Nintendo Game Boy Advance in
2001; however,
Namco did not release any more Game Boy
Tekken titles after this due to the franchise's exclusive deal on the
PlayStation platform. A PSP version of
Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection simply called
Tekken: Dark Resurrection was released in July of
2006. [
1]
As with many
fighting games,
players each choose a
character from different, exotic worldwide settings and fight
hand-to-hand with each other. It is primarily a competitive two-player series, but a human player can fight an
AI-controlled character for practice or amusement.
Tekken differs from other hand to hand combat games in some important ways. Traditional fighting games are usually played with buttons that correspond to the strength of the attack (for example, strong punch or weak kick).
Tekken, however, dedicates a button to each limb of the fighter, making learning special attacks more of an intuitive process. The player could watch the animation on screen and figure out the appropriate command (if the character kicks low with his right leg, the move is probably executed by pressing down and right kick, or some variation thereof). Whereas traditional fighting games, such as
Street Fighter, involve inputting commands as rapidly and accurately as possible,
Tekken slows the action down, emphasizing rhythm, strategy, and deception over speed and reaction.
The
Tekken games are popular within the
martial arts community thanks primarily to the fact that most of the characters' fighting techniques can be found in real life
martial arts. However, there is some question as to the accuracy of the style labels ascribed to certain characters. For example, in previous releases of the game the character
Paul Phoenix is listed accurately as fighting using
judo (his fighting style is listed as integrated Martial Art based on Judo...) despite competition judo not generally allowing punching and kicking (striking is known in Judo as Atemi-waza, but it is not allowed in competition). Similarly, the character of
Marshall Law is listed as being a practitioner of "martial arts", yet in fact the fighting techniques of fellow characters
Nina Williams,
Hwoarang or
Eddy Gordo are as much "martial arts" as anything Marshall Law does. Indeed, one who is familiar with the work of
Bruce Lee would not fail to see the similarity between the
Jeet Kune Do founder's fighting in movies and the techniques of his fictional counterpart in the game series as well as the similarities in physical appearance. This misunderstanding concerning Marshall Law's 'martial arts' is commonly attributed to the fact that in the manual for the American PS1 release of Tekken 2, the translator for the manual missed a small pun whereby Marshall Law practiced 'Marshall arts', a reference to his own name. Other Tekken characters also draw heavily from real life action heroes, such as
Lei Wulong &
Craig Marduk, video game analogues of
Jackie Chan & large wrestlers/mixed martial artists such as
Bill Goldberg,
Nathan Jones and
Bob Sapp, respectively. Namco themselves have stated that the styles in Tekken are not supposed to accurately represent real styles but merely give the impression of them.
The original
Tekken bears not much resemblance to the most recent release. The series' trademarks are: the using of separate buttons for right/left punches and kicks, resulting in 4-button combat, while most 3D games (except later Mortal Kombat) used two, throw escapes and, starting from Tekken 2, autoblock. Each iteration was improved upon both graphically and technically.
Tekken 3 introduced the ability to move into and away from the background, commonly referred to as "sidestepping."
Tekken 4 gave players even greater mobility adding true 3D movement whilst simultaneously including geometrically complex arenas of varying heights complete with obstacles and walls to the series. This was a large break from
Tekken tradition, as one of the characteristics of previous games was that all of the arenas had no boundaries - the player could walk forwards or backwards infinitely far.
Tekken 5 saw the return of both walled and infinite arenas, while the very fluid mobility of
Tekken 4 had been toned down to appease many players who felt it made the game more focused on evasion.
Tekken Tag Tournament is not a part of the normal series, but it is considered by some as the pinnacle of the
Tekken series. It involved each player controlling one of two fighters which they could swap in and out of the fight at will, and tag team attacks and juggles which were both damaging and visually appealing.
The
Tekken storyline tends to leave a decent number of
plotholes. For example, in the
Tekken spin-off game
Death by Degrees,
Nina works in a joint operation run by the CIA/MI6.
Anna works in the
Tekken Force, run by the
Mishima Zaibatsu. The Tekken Force was actually established some time after
Tekken 2 to give world leaders the impression that Heihachi wanted to keep peace, masking his true intention of world conquest. What's even more confusing is that this game implies that this was how the rivalry between Nina and Anna started in the
Tekken canon, though an already-present sibling rivalry turned worse when their father, Richard Williams, seemed to favor Nina and taught her the assassin trade, making Anna jealous; both also seem to blame each other for their father's death.
* The
Young and Dangerous series featured scenes where the cast played
Tekken 3. The
Young and Dangerous series was directed by
Andrew Lau Wai Keung who also directed
Kuen sun (a.k.a.
The Avenging Fist) which is loosely based on the
Tekken storyline.
*
Tekken: The Motion Picture, an
anime movie, was released in
1997.
*
Charles Stone III is directing a live-action movie tentatively titled
Tekken which is said to only be loosely based on the games.
* One of the most popular Indonesian thriller movies,
Tusuk Jelangkung, shows one of the actors playing
Tekken 4 on a
PlayStation 2.
*
Tekken 4 is seen being played in the French-Canadian movie
Les Invasions Barbares.
* In the movie
Ichi the Killer, Ichi is seen playing
Tekken Tag Tournament when he's finished killing his targets.
* In episode 7 of the first season of
Spaced, an argument between the the two main characters (Tim and Daisy) is spliced with excerpts from Tekken 3. Daisy wins the argument and acts out
Nina Williams' victory animation complete with a superimposed score/energy bar etc. A voiceover proclaims in true Tekken style: "Daisy Steiner Wins!"
* In the movie
Shaun of the Dead, a reference is made to a night in which Shaun, Ed and Pete played
Tekken 2.
* A TV commercial by the Swiss Milk Producers Association aired in 2000 features their cow mascot Lovely fighting (and winning) against
Tekken character
Forrest Law.
* In the
British soap opera,
Hollyoaks, numerous characters are seen playing
Tekken regularly.
* In the
sketch comedy show
Saturday Night Live, actor
Ben Affleck's character tries to get
Jimmy Fallon's character to remember the good times they had sneaking into the
arcade and playing
Tekken until 2 in the morning.
* In the British gangstar film
Bullet Boy, the a child is seen playing
Tekken 4 arcade mode and again later on playing the first level of the
Tekken 4 Tekken Force Mode with
Kazuya Mishima.
* In the
Great Teacher Onizuka manga vol.15, Eikichi Onizuka endures an arm wrestling match with 50 people, one of them looking like
Heihachi Mishima.
* In popular Japanese manga
Love Hina, the female lead
Naru Narusegawa is a pro tekken player and even has a trademark punch the hero calls "Tekken Punch".
* One of the secret characters in Tekken 3 was
Gon who is the main character of a manga of the same name by
Masashi Tanaka.
* The cirrus video for the track "back on a mission" features a video game parody of the tekken series complete with cliché characters.
* On the Fugees album The Score Wyclef Jean mentions Lei Wulong and his drunken style.
* Rapper
Ras Kass mentions playing Tekken 2, in his lyrics for the song "Ghetto Fabulous".
*
Comedian Dane Cook makes a reference to Eddy Gordo, as he says, when someone gets "struck by a vehicle," that he got hit in the hip and that sent him, "flipping in the air like Eddy Gordo from Tekken when someone doesn't know how to do combo moves and just presses the buttons randomly."
* In the track
Samurai Showdown (Raise your Swords) on the soundtrack to
Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai,
RZA rhymes 'hesitate for one second' with 'break your back like big
Jack from Tekken'
*Tekken Forever, a comic book published by Image Comics in December of 2001 featured a story that focussed on the Kazama family and also the Unknown character from the Tekken Tag Tounament game. Sadly, this comic only has one issue. There was no reason given for the comic's cancellation.
*The comic
Dane Cook mentions the character
Eddy Gordo in a joke on his Retaliation CD.
The following is a list of titles in the
Tekken series:
Tekken -
Arcade (
1994),
PlayStation (
1995)
Tekken 2 - Arcade (
1995), PlayStation (
1996)
Tekken 3 - Arcade (
1996), PlayStation (
1998)
Tekken Tag Tournament - Arcade (
1999),
PlayStation 2 (
2000)
Tekken Card Challenge -
Wonderswan (1999)
Tekken Advance -
Game Boy Advance (2002)
Tekken 4 - Arcade (
2001), PlayStation 2 (
2002)
Tekken 5 - Arcade (
2004), PlayStation 2 (
2005)
Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection - Arcade,
PSP (2005, 2006)
Tekken 6 (working title) -
PlayStation 3 (
2007)
*The characters
Paul,
Nina,
Yoshimitsu,
King (different person in Tekken 3),
Kuma (Kuma Jr since Tekken 3), and
Heihachi have been in all Tekken games. However, both
Forrest Law and
Marshall Law have the exact same fighting style and both look similar, but are father and son so therefore Law cannot be accounted for, in which the same goes for
Michelle Chang/
Julia Chang.
* The
Jack robots were all present in all titles of the Tekken series but appeared in different incarnations\models, also the fourth incarnation was not playable on
Tekken 4.
* Like the Jacks,
Lei,
Kazuya,
Lee,
Marshall Law, and
Anna missed only one out of five Tekken games. While Lei debuted on
Tekken 2 & became a playable character ever since, Kazuya, Lee, & Marshall Law were not present on
Tekken 3 and Anna Williams was not present on
Tekken 4.
*Although
Jin Kazama has emerged as the main
protagonist of the series, he does not make his first appearance until
Tekken 3.
*The game
Karateka is misattributed to Tekken on the
Power Player Super Joy III albeit lacks technological advances that Tekken has.
*Creator of
Mortal Kombat Ed Boon revealed in one of his recent interviews with
GameDaily, that his favorite fighting game is Tekken and he likes to play it in his free time.
*It has been announced that Tekken will be the next fighting game series to be featured in the
trading card game Epic Battles, which currently features
Street Fighter and
Mortal Kombat.
*
Yoshimitsu appears in all of the games from the
Tekken series and in
Soul Calibur,
Soul Calibur II and
Soul Calibur III (though they are usually represented as different characters), and one of
Tekken's main villains
Heihachi appears as a "guest character" on the PS2 version of
Soul Calibur II. Furthermore, both
Tekken and
Soul Calibur characters appeared in
Namco x Capcom, a crossover
RPG involving various Namco and
Capcom franchises.
*Apart from Yoshimitsu and Heihachi, there are many cross-overs between Tekken and Soul Calibur series, such as King's mask available for custom characters in Soul Calibur 3,
Isabella "Ivy" Valentine hairstyle for Anna in Tekken 5. Yoshimitsu and Heihachi, being originally Tekken characters, obtained many new moves when brought to the Soul Calibur series. In later Tekken versions some of these attacks were added to their moves lists.
Kunimitsu in
Tekken Tag Tournament has a leaping uppercut slice move very similar to one of
Taki's (from Soul Calibur).
Tekken 5 celebrates the 10th anniversary of the original game and includes the first three games in the Arcade History mode of the PS2 version as well as the
Star Blade arcade game (a portion of this is playable while the game loads right after it's turned on), later also unlockable for Arcade History. It is also the first in the series to feature character customizations, color palette choices and additional items that can be added to give an extra degree of individuality to player's characters.
Tekken characters
Law and
Paul make appearances as unlockable playable characters in the
Namco made brawling game
Urban Reign.
* The PlayStation version contained two sets of soundtrack; arcade and remixed. Namco kept the tradition with Tekken 2 and Tekken 3. However, due to the decision to put Tekken Tag Tournament on a CD-ROM for the PlayStation 2, that version only contained a remixed soundtrack, which wasn't favored by many fans to the original arcade soundtrack.
*
IGN awarded
Tekken 5 the "Best PlayStation 2 Fighting Game For 2005" award.
*
GameSpot awarded
Tekken 5 the "Best Fighting Game For 2005" award, and nominated the game for the "Best PS2 Game For 2005".
*
Mishima Style Fighting Karate*
Devil Gene*
Tekken (2006 film)*
Tekken Official Website*
Tekken Zaibatsu*
Tekkenomics*
Tekkenpedia.com*
Tekken Portal Site*
Tekken at The Killer List of VideoGames*
Former GamesMaster commentator Derrick Lynch on a UK television in 2001, giving his thoughts on the Tekken/Virtua Fighter rivalry
*
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy entry on the first 5 Tekken games*
PSPeeps.com's Tekken: Dark Resurrection PSP GHOST FILE ARCHIVERegional
*
Arcadepimp (
Australia)
*
Tekken Australia (
Melbourne, Australia)
*
TekkenChile (
Chile)
*
Tekken Forces (
France)
*
Tekken Central (
Korea)
*
Tekken Poland (
Poland)
*
SBTEKKEN (
Santa Barbara)
