Tekken 3

"Playstation is only good for RPGs? Yeah right........"

During the end of the previous millennium, fighting games were much popular than what they are today. If a system didn't have an awesome fighter, then it wasn't worth the money it cost. It all began with Street Fighter 2 which made every other arcade game collect dust in any arcadehall. When the Playstation and Saturn got released, 3D was the future, and such series as Battle Arena Toshinden, Virtua Fighter and Tekken started to become really popular. Tekken 2 was considered as the best fighting game when it got released and everyone who liked video games waited for the next sequel to get released.

What was really shocking for most of the fans and brave for Namco was that Tekken 3 takes place 19 years after Tekken 2, meaning that many of the old characters have either mysteriously disappeared, got killed or just retired from fighting. This did however also meant that many of the new characters are somehow related to one of the characters from Tekken 2.

Jun and Kazuya had a son named Jin, who is now 19 years old and is a great mix of Kazuya's and Jun's fighting style. It's unknown what happened to Kazuya but it's clear that Jun has been murdered by the hands of Orge, the host of "The King of Iron Fist Tournament 3". Jin enters the tournament to get his revenge.

Jin has also got a rival. His name is Hwoarang, a student of the taekwondo fighter Baek from Tekken 2. Hwoarang's kicks are some of the most deadliest legs in a fighting game, and he's a nice addition in the Tekken cast.

Another two new characters is the schoolgirl Xiaoyu and the capoeira master Eddy. Marshall Law from the first two Tekken games has now retired and instead there's his son Forrest Law to taken over the role as the Bruce Lee look alike. The story in this game tells us that it's also a new King in this game.

The Jackie Chang look alike Lei is still fighting against crime in this game, the only three characters from the first Tekken is Paul, Nina and our cyborg warrior Yoshimitsu. And finally, even if many thought that he would die because of old age, the old timer Heihachi is back try to conquer the world. Overall I like this cast much more than the casts in the previous Tekken games.

Just like in the previous Tekken games, you have use one button to punch with your left arm and one with your right arm, the same goes for kicks. It's now possible to do anymore combos than what was possible in the previous Tekken games. The way you throw your character hasn't changed one bit, which is good since it's makes it important to not let your opponent to get close enough so they can throw you.

If you thought that just fighting against one character is boring and that it was much better in the older days when you walked on a street and met many different enemies at the same time, then perhaps the Tekken Force mode is something for you even if you don't like 1 VS 1 battles. In this mode there are 4 different stages, where you have to walk trough with any character and beat up as many random enemies as possible. It's a bit hard to aim on the enemy you want to attack in this game, but otherwise it's a really fun extra feature.

But Tekken 3's two major improvements is that it's faster than the previous two Tekken games and that it's now possible to side step in a middle of a fight. In other words, it's much easier to move your character in Tekken 3, which makes it much more fun to play. Even the slower characters like King and Gun Jack feels much easier to control now that the game isn't as painfully slow, and this also means that you pay more attention to what kind of moves your opponent is doing if you want to block his attack.

I am huge fighting fan when it comes to video games and I personally consider the Tekken series to be really overrated. Every time I hear someone saying that Tekken is the best fighting series I think that he or she who says that is a rookie. But every time I play Tekken 3 just to make sure that the series is as horrible I want it to, I'm amazed how great this treasure is. It doesn't take much time to learn a few special moves and then you can spend many hours to just learn more and more and more. And unlike the two previous games in the series, I actually enjoy to play with all of the characters. Well done Namco!

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 04/16/07