Tekken 7

Developer: Bandai Namco Studios
Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment
Genre: Fighting
Players: 1-2
Platforms: PC, Playstation 4, & Xbox One
Release Date: 2nd June 2017
Microtransactions: Yes

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I have been a fan of the series since its console birth back in the PS1 days and although my attention waned in the last few iterations, Tekken 7 piqued my interest.

She’s Purty!

The one thing I can say that few will argue with is that the Tekken series has improved aesthetically fairly well with every game in the series and this one is no different, it looks absolutely stunning from the character modelling, to the gorgeous backgrounds, and some really fun destruction that isn’t new by any stretch but a welcome addition nonetheless.

Choices, Choices

After the backlash of Street Fighter V having no arcade mode, Tekken has made sure that it has come out of the starting blocks with plenty of content. There is now an almost Mortal Kombat-esque story mode, which is bloody difficult in places and is good to keep you busy for a few hours and tells an interesting side of the Mishima story which I thoroughly enjoyed. There is a standard arcade mode that isn’t massively long but it lets you get a feel for some of the 30+ characters that you may not be familiar with. Then of course there’s the online mode, I found this to work pretty well not having to wait long for a match. There is an endless “Treasure Battle” mode which has you fighting over and over again earning you fight money and unlocking various character customisation items which I will talk about more later, this actually made me play this mode far longer than I expected to. Last of all there are character stories for each character which give a little backstory for each character although these are frightfully short and a little disappointing.

Fight the World

The online battles are where the experience can vary wildly. I am a fairly competent, albeit fairly basic, Tekken player as I peaked in the days of Tekken 3. Online I would either do quite well or, more often than not, get my ass handed to me by people who know the long combos that juggle you to death. You can either play single matches or enter tournaments for fight money prizes.

Normally getting beaten repeatedly would leave me pretty frustrated but fighting games have evolved a lot over the years and I simply have not go the time to keep up and if I devoted enough time into truly learning some of the combo’s and the all important reversals, I could end up as a reasonably competitive player but alas time is a precious resource these days.

Sadly Pointless

I got quite excited when I picked up the game and saw the “Playstation VR Compatible” banner across the top. I really shouldn’t have bothered. There are 2 uses. First one is an endless battle where you simply fight in a vast open space with no health bars just more of a practice arena. The second is to view the character models. Both of these are pretty pointless and were a completely needless addition.

Bling!

The last thing I want to mention is the character customisation. There is quite simply the highest amount of character customisation that I have ever seen in a fighting game, all purchased with in-game currency or unlocked with the treasure battle mode. You can completely change the look of any of the characters, some pretty drastically which I quite enjoyed. I ended up with a leather-clad Paul Phoenix wearing chaps and a knights helmet looking like some sort of fetish gimp. I chuckled to myself with it anyway!

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