All you can beat
THE TECHLIFE TEAM REVIEWS THE LATEST GAMES FOR PC AND CONSOLES, BEGINNING WITH A GRAVITY-DEFYING PUNCH TO THE FACE.
Tekken 7 OLD, FLAWED, BUT STILL IMPRESSIVE — SAY HELLO TO THE HEIHACHI OF FIGHTING SEQUELS. $79 | PS4, XO | tk7.tekken.com
IT’S STRANGE GETTING excited about a game because it plays just like it did 20 years ago, but that’s the case here. Yes, it’s still Tekken, and yes, it’s still brilliant. The only problem is that every time Tekken 7 tries to do something new to keep up with modern fighting games, it slips into ‘How do you do, fellow kids!’ catastrophe, and then its age shows.
Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first. Tekken, like Street Fighter, resembles a revered fighting game professor, wistfully recalling a time when the only narrative a beat-’em-up needed was written in the instruction manual. That may technically still be true, but most modern players need more than that for a full-price release. Tekken 7’ s answer is the Mishima Saga, and it’s abysmal.
Firstly, this squanders a great cast of preposterous characters. Heihachi Mishima is one of gaming’s greatest baddies, but instead of pulling his story together into a satisfying whole, we get a convoluted muddle which introduces too many unnecessary characters. The ugliest surprise is that the fighty bits are bad. Most of the battles have you fight the same opponent multiple times, and you only get one chance — lose and you start the section again. To make things easier, you can execute specials with simplified inputs in story mode, but it feels like you’re cheesing your way to victory.
It’s frustrating stuff, especially when you get a glimpse of the cheerful nonsense that Tekken excels at in the character episodes. These are unlocked as you complete the story, and they act like bespoke endings for each character. They’re absolute bobbins, obviously, but essential for anyone missing their ‘humans accidentally fighting bears’ fix.
So why is the score so high? Because the actual fighting is great. Tekken wants you to enjoy yourself. Matches flow. The momentum is exhilarating. But most of all, there’s a tangible sense of powerful characters kicking each other about like bins of meat.
Much of this is down to the degree of control you have. Once you’ve learned the system, everything becomes intuitive. You’ll know when it’s safe to stand up, because you’ll get smashed back down until you learn. And when you do learn, it becomes an empowering, elemental fighting game.
Rage mode, the most notable addition to Tekken’s fighting system, is back, giving every player the chance of a heroic comeback and is a great tactics shake-up.
As a whole, Tekken 7 gels into something brilliant, even if the tweaks and additions feel clumsy. It’s best to bash through the story and then forget about the sorry saga forever. Find friends of a similar level to fight, and Tekken 7 will last you indefinitely.