Tekken 5
Ten years later, we're all still buying the same game.
Published: March 15, 2005
So, Tekken's back. Apparently it's already been a decade since the first game stormed the arcades. I still remember getting stupidly hooked on the game, pumping way way too many quarters into the machine at the local Federal Way arcade, watching in amazement as most of them sunk into nothingness, evaporated in mere seconds at the hands of some guy who put a hundred times more quarters in months before I ever started playing.
It was fun, though and the start of an addiction it would take three more games to finally rid me of, not because the games got any worse, it was just that they didn't get any better. As fighting games have introduced multi-tiered backgrounds and destructible environments, Tekken has rested on minor tweaks to mix up the balance of characters, lopping off moves that are too powerful and compensating for overzealous limitations to others. After 10 years and five games, it's time for something more, and Tekken 5 isn't it.
It is, of course, arguably as good as the series has ever been, and certainly stands as one of the most impressive games on the PS2, if not the most impressive visual example of what can still be done by a gifted art and design team, but it's nothing you haven't seen in a Tekken before, and that's probably what's going to cause fans of the series to blindly pick up the game (hey, I did), and the haters to go right on hating, while perhaps pausing to raise an eyebrow at how amazingly freakin' good the game looks.
For those keeping tabs on the series' adorably convoluted storyline, an absolutely gorgeous pre-rendered intro shows Jin and ol' pappa Heihachi battling a seemingly never-ending army of JACK robots ejected en masse from helicopters hovering over their building. After some tasty demonstrations of exactly how powerful both fighters are and even a little tag team action, Jin grabs Heihachi's head, uses it to throw him under a dogpile of JACKs and then dives out a hole in the wall seconds before a JACK's head pops open and four second countdown ticks away, resulting in a massive explosion that apparently kills Heihachi.
And thus starts the introduction of a trio of new characters (also done through damned impressive CG work); Raven is a dead ringer for Wesley Snipes in Blade garb (and even busts out some Blade-like ninja moves, though I don't recall Blade being able to teleport), Feng is a grimacing Kenpo fighter with the usual bad guy intentions (read: stealing stuff from the Mishimas), and Asuka is a cutesy schoolgirl who's well equipped to wield the Kazama style, making her a nice replacement for Jun (but, y'know, less of a MILF vibe and more of a general schoolgirl hotness).
I suppose it's not really fair to over generalize the changes that Namco has made to the Tekken forumula. In nearly every aspect, Tekken 5 feels like a successor to Tekken 3 or Tekken Tag Tournament rather than a continuation of the crap that was introduced in Tekken 4 like uneven floors and the overly-tweaked character balancing, yet it still preserves some of the best parts of the last game, namely the enclosed arenas and destructible bits of sideline scenery.
In fact, it's probably safe to say that this is the combination of the best parts of the older games with the miniscule advancements the gameplay made in the last one, all sped up significantly and delivered with hands-down the best graphics the PS2 has ever seen. It really is that impressive, and most of the time, it just doesn't seem like the PS2 should be able to render the amount of detail, lighting and articulation in the characters and environments without the system just spontaneously combusting.
Make no mistake, though, the gripes that I had with the last game pale in comparison to how I feel about the series' staunch denial of acceptance of new things to push the genre forward. Enclosed arenas and stuff that can crumble when you slam fighters into it is nice, but half the levels in the game are begging to be DOA-style multi-tiered arenas. Little touches like the ground or glass cracking underfoot when fighters go down hard are nice, but they don't stay throughout the fights and when huge chunks of stone go flying up and then disappear, it almost makes one wonder why they were included at all.
It was fun, though and the start of an addiction it would take three more games to finally rid me of, not because the games got any worse, it was just that they didn't get any better. As fighting games have introduced multi-tiered backgrounds and destructible environments, Tekken has rested on minor tweaks to mix up the balance of characters, lopping off moves that are too powerful and compensating for overzealous limitations to others. After 10 years and five games, it's time for something more, and Tekken 5 isn't it.
It is, of course, arguably as good as the series has ever been, and certainly stands as one of the most impressive games on the PS2, if not the most impressive visual example of what can still be done by a gifted art and design team, but it's nothing you haven't seen in a Tekken before, and that's probably what's going to cause fans of the series to blindly pick up the game (hey, I did), and the haters to go right on hating, while perhaps pausing to raise an eyebrow at how amazingly freakin' good the game looks.
For those keeping tabs on the series' adorably convoluted storyline, an absolutely gorgeous pre-rendered intro shows Jin and ol' pappa Heihachi battling a seemingly never-ending army of JACK robots ejected en masse from helicopters hovering over their building. After some tasty demonstrations of exactly how powerful both fighters are and even a little tag team action, Jin grabs Heihachi's head, uses it to throw him under a dogpile of JACKs and then dives out a hole in the wall seconds before a JACK's head pops open and four second countdown ticks away, resulting in a massive explosion that apparently kills Heihachi.
And thus starts the introduction of a trio of new characters (also done through damned impressive CG work); Raven is a dead ringer for Wesley Snipes in Blade garb (and even busts out some Blade-like ninja moves, though I don't recall Blade being able to teleport), Feng is a grimacing Kenpo fighter with the usual bad guy intentions (read: stealing stuff from the Mishimas), and Asuka is a cutesy schoolgirl who's well equipped to wield the Kazama style, making her a nice replacement for Jun (but, y'know, less of a MILF vibe and more of a general schoolgirl hotness).
I suppose it's not really fair to over generalize the changes that Namco has made to the Tekken forumula. In nearly every aspect, Tekken 5 feels like a successor to Tekken 3 or Tekken Tag Tournament rather than a continuation of the crap that was introduced in Tekken 4 like uneven floors and the overly-tweaked character balancing, yet it still preserves some of the best parts of the last game, namely the enclosed arenas and destructible bits of sideline scenery.
In fact, it's probably safe to say that this is the combination of the best parts of the older games with the miniscule advancements the gameplay made in the last one, all sped up significantly and delivered with hands-down the best graphics the PS2 has ever seen. It really is that impressive, and most of the time, it just doesn't seem like the PS2 should be able to render the amount of detail, lighting and articulation in the characters and environments without the system just spontaneously combusting.
Make no mistake, though, the gripes that I had with the last game pale in comparison to how I feel about the series' staunch denial of acceptance of new things to push the genre forward. Enclosed arenas and stuff that can crumble when you slam fighters into it is nice, but half the levels in the game are begging to be DOA-style multi-tiered arenas. Little touches like the ground or glass cracking underfoot when fighters go down hard are nice, but they don't stay throughout the fights and when huge chunks of stone go flying up and then disappear, it almost makes one wonder why they were included at all.
