It has been in Japanese arcades since 2015 but we had to wait 2 years for the release of Tekken 7: one of the most crazy but fun fighting game series of all time. It has been a while since there was a Tekken game released, but Tekken 7 joins the what appears to be the summer of Fighting games: Injustice 2, Ultra Street Fighter 2, Arms and Tekken 7. The rivalry is huge but will Tekken win this fight?
Ever since I started playing videogames fighting games has been my favorite genre. The first game I played on a home console was Tekken 3 on the PlayStation at a friend’s house. It was love at first fight and Tekken became my first videogame love. The Tekken franchise has been a big part of my youth, I and my little brother spend thousands of hours fighting each other trying to be the best. And when my mom made us play outside because we had been playing games all day, we were just acting like we were in the Iron Fist Tournament fighting each other.
Tekken really was a big part of my childhood, but I have to admit I kinda lost interest in the franchise because of other fighting games and the lack of new Tekken release. So finally here is Tekken 7, but did it restore my formal love for this amazing franchise?
To give you guys a short answer: Yes it did! Tekken 7 is a love letter to all the gamers who fell in love with the franchise a few decades ago. When I played my first round, it felt like coming home, controls are familiar most of the combos still were in the game and fan favorite characters were still on the roster and some new surprising characters were added. The roster itself is very versatile and everybody, veteran or newcomer should be able to find a character that fits his play style and have great success with it. Tekken is famous for their hit animations and this is again perfectly done in this installment.
I was very hyped to play the story mode and learn more about the Mishima Saga. The story started very promisingly when you start with fighting as a young Kazuya fighting his dad the younger Heihachi Mishima. Eventually, you lose this fight because let’s be honest you are a child versus a martial arts master and you get thrown off a mountain (Dad of the Year Award).
After this fight, I was very hyped for the rest of the story but I was disappointed in the end. You play with multiple characters but most of the time you play with Heihachi who is a character that doesn’t fit my playstyle very well. The story itself if pretty good for a fighting game but feels a bit random sometimes and once you have the feeling the story will really take off it is over and you have no idea what to think. The story mode is way too short and the ending is too open which let me to think that there will come a sequel to the Mishima Saga. Besides the main story there are short story modes for each fighter that was not playable during the playgtrough of the Mishima Saga. Short is an understatement because it is only a prologue that you have to read a short cinematic, one fight and an ending cinematic. I hoped that you should at least fought 5 other characters until the ending but Namco decided that just one fight was enough.
The story mode was disappointing but at least it had a story mode at launch (yes I am talking to you Street Fighter 5) and who buys a fighting game for the story mode? You buy it for the fighting not the talking and trust me the fighting is amazing. Core mechanics feel the same and that is good but they added a new mechanic called RAGE. RAGE is not filled with a meter like in most fighting games but is ready for use when you are at very low health and you can do two things with it: use it to make combos strings that would normally not be possible or and this is my favorite, use it to perform a special cinematic move that does a lot of damage based on how low you are. So holding this until the last is risky but allows for a spectacular comeback. The rage art felt very fair and balanced. It is easy to perform but it is also easy to block or avoid and is available in every fight.
The offline game modes are very straight forward: an arcade mode, a versus mode, a ver basic training mode and the mode coin rush, a mode where you can earn money and chest that contain items for character customisation. The longer your win streak the more money and rare items you get. The character customisation in Tekken 7 are very versatile, you can give your favorite fighter outfits from previous games or give him a deer head and a pizza on his back. There are tons of crazy options during the character customisation and it really suits this game.
People who really like Tekken will spend lots of time playing this game Online and it is very good in my opinion. you can play, casual, with friends , ranked matches and even tournaments. During my time playing online my fighting experience was very smooth and I almost never had any problems with lag or input delay. I could have been lucky but I think the online mode is very good. I only have one thing to say, you have to pick a character and you are not able to change fighters between fights. For most people this will not be a problem because they stick with just one character but I like to change characters sometimes and I like to have this option open.
Verdict:
Tekken 7 is a very good fighting game that definitely does honor to the Tekken franchise. There are a few things missing from this game but the core fighting is perfect. Tekken 7 is a love letter to everybody who enjoyed playing Tekken from Tekken to Tekken TAG Tournament 2.
