There was a time when Tekken was the king of 3D fighting games.  No way around it.  Not without reason, of course.  Tekken was the flashy, three dimensional 'Street Fighter' that people had wanted for years.  Sure it was a little sluggish, but each new version consistently added and improved to the complexity of it all, something that its competitors (Battle Arena Toshinden, anyone?) rarely accomplished. 

 

In fact, the only series that held a candle to Tekken was AM2's Virtua Fighter series.  While popular in Japan, American audiences seemingly preferred button mashing over actual gaming skill.  Tekken 4 seemed poised to take the throne as the next great fighting game.

 

Then, Virtua Fighter 4 came out.  And it was awesome.  Very awesome.

For the first time, the Virtua Fighter name was well-known on both sides of the pond, and all the little Westerners realized just what they had been missing.  Why so much talk about Virtua Fighter 4?  Well, I'm sorry, but it's completely inescapable.  Any way you look at it, the reign of Tekken is finally over.

 

Everything starts out just peachy.  We're treated to a high quality opening movie, in true Namco fashion.  The character select screen promises a wide variety of characters, along with several '?' boxes, reassuring us that there are, indeed, a lot of hidden characters to unlock.  We quickly discover that the graphics are incredible.  Not just the character models, but the backgrounds as well.

 

However, it doesn't take very long to start noticing the flaws.  Perhaps the biggest problem I have with the game, is the fighting system, in general.  Not only do your characters shuffle slower than flunkies from the school of retarded bums, but their 'diverse' move lists consist of pretty much the same attacks with only minor alterations.  The collision detection is very questionable, and since learning a few similar moves isn't exactly fun, button mashing will serve you just as well as those who take the time to master them.

 

The beautiful environments are very large, but needlessly so.  Since moving around in true 3D fashion is fairly difficult, you'll be spending most of your time in close quarters combat.  It kind falls into the Dead or Alive 'how much excess can you stand?' policy.  In a departure from the infinite, flat, arenas of the previous games, you sometimes knock your opponents into pillars or walls, but like I said, you'll rarely see the need. 

 

The most unusual thing about Tekken 4 comes in the form of its character specific ending movies.  Somehow, they actually take a graphical step back from Tekken 3's cinemas, a game that's at least 5 years old by now.  I couldn't help but ask myself, "Why didn't they just use the in-game character models instead of cheap, clippy balloon animals?".  If you ask me, they should have stuck with the infinitely cooler anime sketches used in the character prologues.

 

Mini-games?  Well, there's an updated version of Tekken Force, where you go around and beat up a bunch of faceless Mishima Army goons for a few stages.  It'll keep you entertained for a while, but it quickly becomes tedious and repetitive.  I finished the third stage and just couldn't stomach any more monotony.

 

Sound?  Well, the attacks and whatnot sound great.  A heavy punch sounds very heavy, indeed.  The music on the other hand, ranges from tolerable to brain rupturing.  The ending theme and prologue/epilogue music is so incredibly grating that I wanted to shove a pencil in my eye to relieve myself from the pain. 

 

So basically, I found this game to be a big letdown.  Considering fighting games are a rarity these days, I'm guessing Namco didn't feel the need to pull out all the stops with this one.  With weak gameplay, limited extras, and only minor additions to the wayside storyline, Tekken 4 isn't a great deal of fun, and is only worth a rental at best.

 

-James Napier