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Remember what it was like when the Playstation first came out? It was a mystery, and yet it was wonderful and captivating at the same time. Many of us who focussed our attention to console-based gaming instead of PC games weren't used to the idea of CD quality sound and fully virtual polygonal environments or characters. In that sense, FMV, load times, and hours upon hours of depth and gameplay were virgin territory. There is no denying that the excitement over the dawn of the 32-bit era of gaming was electric. Well, try to remember how you felt when you were going through this, because Tekken 3 is exactly that: a whole new experience. This game does things that nobody thought the Playstation could do. Basically, we are being introduced to a whole new side of the Playstation that we've never seen. And by God it's beautiful.
Honestly, if you don't know what Tekken is then you must have spent the last four years hiding in a dark room with pink padded walls. Tekken 3 is the second sequel to Namco's original Tekken, which firmly established itself as a big name in the fighting genre along-side Street Fighter, King of Fighters; and placed itself in direct competition with the other big 3D fighter, Sega's Virtua Fighter. As history unravelled itself before us, Saturn owners became loyal supporters of the Virtua Fighter franchise, and Playstation owners became the advocates of the Tekken name. And there were legions of them on both sides.
Tekken is a fighting game with its own unique control interface. You have four buttons, each controlling your left and right arms and legs. Pressing certain combinations of these buttons will result in a combo, some numbering over 10 hits, and are often impressive through their absolutely punishing appearance and sound effects. This is further augmented by the ability to juggle your opponents in the air to produce even longer chains of combos. Tekken 3 continues the tradition of punishing combos, except Namco have wisely taken the liberty of adding the element of side-stepping, as well as a host of new moves, counters, and special throws to exploit the side-stepping feature.
Tekken 3 marks the third of the Iron Fist Tournaments, where the power-monger Heihachi is searching for a divine "Toshin" (fighting God) power under the auspices of his corporate identity. This plot runs in conjunction with several others, the central one being a quest for revenge by a young warrior named Jin Kazama, son to the now deceased Jun Kazama, and grandson to Heihachi himself. For you, the gamer, all you need worry about is fighting your way through every single entrant in the tournament until you win. The contestants you fight through are a collection of some of the old characters like Paul "King of Cheap" Phoenix and Nina Williams, along with a set of new characters like Xiao Yu and Hwoarang, the Prince of Cheap. The majority of them are just a rehash of the old characters, which doesn't say anything good about the originality of this game.
Graphically, Tekken 3 is amazing in terms of how well it has reproduced the arcade visuals. Every character is adorned with highly detailed textures, and appear to be of a much higher quality than Tekken 2 or Soul Edge. The polygon count is only slightly lower than the arcade and the characters can look a little blocky at times (Jin's collar bone is a big worry); but for the most part, the characters look almost flawless with their smooth, fast, and detailed motion-captured movement. Compared to Tekken 2? Well, there is no comparison. Tekken 2 looks like a chunky mess.
Much has actually been said about the background graphics being in 2D. Most of it has actually been quite critical. Briefly, the backgrounds are lush pre-rendered 2D images placed on top of a set of polygons that wrap around the arena in which you fight. Many critics will fault this in some way or another, but the final question should really be whether or not it does the job. The answer to that is a resounding and unequivocal yes. They are bright, detailed, resemble the arcade backgrounds as well as a 2D image can, and do very well in generating and maintaining the overall atmosphere. Whether by 2D or 3D, if you wanted anything more than that, then you're just paying too much attention to the backgrounds and not enough to the actual in-game action.
The sounds are also quite awesome, especially the music. The options allow you to switch between the Arcade music and a new Arrange selection which rocks very, very hard, especially with the base pumped up. Sound effects are all pretty much the standard Tekken fare, with battle cries, explosions, impacts, and those weird echoes that everyone's voice seems to have. It's not so much a concern when it's drowned out by the music, though.
Control is rock solid. In fact, it's a little bit tighter, hence demanding, than Tekken 2; and in light of the fact that the game is actually faster than it's predecessors, some people might take a while to get used to it. This isn't much of a concern if you've been jamming away at in the arcades, of course. There is also the issue of what controllers you can use. As has been highly publicised, Tekken 3 is compatible with Sony's new Dual Shock analogue controller. The analogue knobs aren't actually used at all in the game. The only Dual Shock function that is present, much like Dead or Alive, is the vibration feedback that occurs to varying degrees with certain hits, impacts, and so on. However, given the fact that most people will have their right hand on top of the controller so that they can properly push the right combination of buttons at the right speed, the rumbling effect is largely a wasted feature. It certainly adds a deeper interactive element to the game, but everyone knows that the only way to play any Tekken game on the Playstation is with the Namco Arcade Stick, bar none.
Like its predecessors, Tekken 3 offers a variety of alternative games. These include the now stock standard Time Attack Mode, Survival Mode, and Practice Mode. There is, however, a brand new mode called "Tekken Force Mode", which puts you into a side-scrolling beat-em up much to the flavor of games like Final Fight and Streets of Rage. The Force Mode is actually littered with faults. The controls remain in the same 2D interface with the side-stepping function, but remains this way when you are travelling in a diagonal direction. This could lead to a little disorientation. Your character also automatically turns around to face its opponents, and it's generally difficult to defend against anything, particularly when you're always moving forward and the only way to block is to push back. There are also some scrolling problems in that you can run faster than the screen (but not off it) and get hit by someone that you can't even see. Despite those odd but relatively minor control flaws, it's a fairly enjoyable 4 level feature. And let's think of things another way: anything is better than Fighting Force. It's too bad that the Force Mode does not accommodate two players.
Any serious faults with Tekken 3 would be purely ideological. For instance, in light of games with more intelligent interfaces and gameplay like Tobal 2 and Bushido Blade, it's amazing that games like Tekken 3 can still surface. Magic button combinations, infinite juggles, and some really dodgy physics (some of those air moves are plain crazy) are a questionable legacy of the first generation 3D fighting games that has inspired some even more ridiculous material in Killer Instinct and the like. That aside, Tekken 3 looks, sounds, and plays brilliantly. The magic button combinations and infinite juggles might be silly, but they are sure fun to play with, and completely satisfying when you pull them off. To its credit, the inclusion of the side-step and more counter moves are a very welcome twist to the gameplay, which provides intelligent gamers with endless laughs when pitted against a mindless button masher. The look on the face of a person who has been side-stepped for the first time and then rightly hammered into the dirt is priceless.
Finally, there is all the lovely FMV to consider. As many might be able to guess from the music, Namco have actually the style of the Tekken series a great deal. Tekken 3 more decadent and raw than its predecessors. The opening FMV is not your conventional Hollywood-directed sequence anymore. Now, it's more of an MTV-ish clip that is extremely reminiscent of the film Seven. It's very stylish, at times humorous, and a welcome change from the serious goodie-two-shoes format of Soul Edge and Tekken 2. There are, of course, another three opening sequences, in addition to all the ending sequences for all the main characters and secret characters.
Muscle, power, punishment, and absolutely no add-ons. Tekken 3 is here. This game does for the Playstation what Burning Rangers, Virtua Fighter 2, and Dead or Alive did for the Saturn. Nobody thought it could be done. They were all dead wrong. Let all doubts and speculation end now: this is the best fighter the Playstation has ever seen. Forget whatever you were thinking of buying and blow yourself away with Tekken 3.