Tekken 7 wishlist (featuring tales of the old games!)

Tales of Tekkens past

Tekken 1, 2, 3 and Tag were awesome!

Tekken 4... not so much

But then Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection Online on the PS3 brought me back!

Tekken 6... not so much

And then Tekken Tag 2 came out, nostalgic feelings of the first Tag abound! But it was, for me, the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of accessibility vs. complexity. Whereas in previous Tekken games I felt more than capable of playing at a competitive level (online or against friends at least), even with 4 and 6, games I didn't like, I now felt it had gone a step beyond me.

And the story, which was once a fresh set of characters in the once revolutionary 3D fighting game genre in a badass martial arts tournament, started to drift off, making the Mishimas side-characters next to Lars and Alisa in a world crisis story. Most disappointing was the change to Jin Kazama.

Back in Tekken 2 you had Kazuya and his struggles with getting his revenge over Heihachi, resisting the Devil inside him that saved his life in exchange for his soul and dealing with his new found feelings for Jun Kazama, plus his rivalry with Paul Phoenix. And everyone else just entered to be the best and to win Tekken! Sure they all had some issues of some kind, King (the original one) and his orphanage, Law and his dojo, Yoshimitsu being the modern day Robin Hood etc. But it never took centre stage once the tournament began and it certainly never took a turn for the cartoony. They left all their personal baggage at the door, it was time for Tekken and that always took priority. It was a collective roster of badass.

Then Tekken 3 had the brave decision, certainly not done by either SF or MK at the time, to jump its story forward 17 years. Older characters, some replaced altogether, but the basic idea was still there. Jin Kazama with his flame pants and revenge story against Ogre complete with a rivalry with Hwoarang because they beat the shit out of each other in a street fight, the first fight either of them had not outright won.

And now look at Tekken 6, Kazuya broods away in his G-Corporation office, Jin broods away in his Tekken Zaibatsu office (complete with full generic bad guy black leather clothes), the whole world is apparently in danger from the giant demonic turkey Azazel and Paul wants to fight aliens from outer space. The story mode has Lars Alexandersson, recently afflicted with amnesia and accompanied by his cyborg companion Alisa Bosconovitch take centre stage in a pseudo-anime storyline where they go on a journey, learn lessons, overcome obstacles and obvious swerves. No thanks.

Tekken 7 Wishlist

So, here's my wishlist for Tekken 7, the first Tekken to grace the PlayStation 4 and XBox One.

Toning down the gameplay

• Remove the bound system - Since the bound system came into place it's felt more and more like getting hit once means that you might as well sit back and watch your opponent do an almost Marvel vs. Capcom length combo, except you don't have 2 other characters waiting in the wings. This is even more prominent in closed, walled stages which have apparently become more popular.
• More infinite stages - I'm not entirely against closed walled stages, like a MMA ring or something like that because it would also be contextually relevant, but I want the classic Tekken feel back where knocking an opponent full screen means you can forward forward forward into the running animation that would end with unblockable shoulder charge.
• Make the more of each characters moves relevant - or shorten the huge movelists, because recently the moves that have special properties like bound (see above) become the only ones worth learning. If I'm playing as Kazuya, I want to get some use out of the classic 1, 1, 2 and 1, 2, 2 punch combos instead of fishing for a successful EWGF (Electric Wind God Fist - a powerful, fast hitting, standing uppercut that is the catalyst for previously mentioned really long combos).
• A Super Meter - Super Street Fighter II Turbo style, Tekken already has suitable super combos in the form of unblockable attacks (Kazuya's Lightning Screw Uppercut or Devil Beam, Paul's Burning Fist etc.) and the 10-string combos and the multi-chain throws. Just a singular bar, no 4 or 3 bar spilt for EX moves or combo breakers, just 1 bar, 1 super combo. Maybe this is someone better suited to Tekken X Street Fighter (which Katsuhiro Harada says they're still working on as of last weekand I predict will be fully unveiled at Harada's San Diego Comic-con fighting game panel next week!) but it might be something worth considering.

Improving the Story

• Finish the Mishima Storyline - World-ending threats are of no interest to me compared to the Kazuya, Heihachi and Jin conflict. And if the Tekken 7 unveiling trailer is anything to go by, it looks like they're going to do just that. Even I got a shock to see Kazumi Mishima, the almost mythical figure in Heihachi and Kazuya's backstory. I hope they do this decades-old plot point justice before embarking on a new story for future Tekken releases. Don't let it drag on any longer.
• Have a Tekken tournament, focus on the Tekken tournament and have the characters focused on it - I don't want any of these silly shenanigans during the tournament. Have an intro that shows what each character is up to prior to the tournament and then make winning the tournament their priority.
• Make an attempt to emulate Mortal Kombat (2011) - NetherRealm Studios games are the gold standard of fighting game story mode right now, we all know this to be true. If Tekken 7 has an intricate story mode or at least an attempt at it we're moving in the right direction.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading, comment below and such! Follow me on the Twitter

As someone who likes Tekken, how large do you think the roster should be? I felt like TTT2 was too much.

Ha ha ha no. As I argued in another thread, NetherRealm is not the gold standard. What they brought to the table was not truly innovating, nor arguably the best implementation of a story mode in a fighting game.

Better be some Tekken Ball/Bowling going on.

I agree with many of your points. First, a story.

Tekken is a very important series to me. Me and my buddy played the hell out of the Tekken 2 demo on an old Playstation demo disc. We accidentally learned how to do throws and it blew us away ("Lei just broke her neck!!") I played Tekken 2 proper and loved the music and beat the crap out of the devil. I played Tekken 3 and was amazed by how fast it was. Met one of my oldest friends after he challenged anyone to a fight for a Nerf gun (I won that Nerf gun!) And that Jin ending!!

A Tips & Tricks magazine showed up showing ALL the moves list. Man, we were hooked. I'd go into practice mode for hours in Heihachi's stage. Then I bought Tekken Tag before owning a PS2. We'd all have sleepovers where we'd play til sunrise, and I'd spend free time in Ogre's stage just mastering combos. Plus the bowling, man.

Tekken 4, all my friends fell off. Jin was different. Heihachi wore a diaper. Some kid kicked our asses in an arcade with Steve Fox. Times were dark.

Then Tekken 5 came out, and it was the pinnacle of the series. Fast, fluid, and just complex enough to have me leveling up multiple characters to Tekken Lord. Kazuya was super fun, Devil Jin was finally playable, and Heihachi felt like a powerhouse again. I can't tell you how many hours I spent in practice mode of Moonlit Wilderness having the Mishima bloodline duke it out. My friends didn't want to come back, despite my insistence that Tekken was fucking awesome again.

Part 6 came out and I played a whole lot. But something was missing... The music wasn't as good, the story got stupid, and the 360 controller was a bummer (til I got that Akuma gamepad).

Tekken Tag 2 was announced. I was super excited, joined the small Tekken clan on here, and had some fun. But holy crap, the endless combos online just burned me out. It became less a game about timing and counter attacking. People online had their go-to combos, and it became "don't fuck up and get juggled to half health" instead of a tactical dance of death.

Tekken 7 has potential for a clean slate. Tekken 3 was incredible, Tag was amazing, Tekken 5 is one of the best fighting games ever made. But it's time for a change. Street Fighter hit a complexity peak in 3, but was able to change things up and bring the casual crowd back while remaining a tournament-ready fighter. Mortal Kombat was able to reinvigorate itself after a down period, with X getting anticipation of the series back to what a new MK used to evoke. Tekken is a classic fighting series and can renew itself like SF and MK did. They just gotta challenge themselves to leave some of the history behind.

My wishlist for the game as a person who only played one or two matches of each game but got super into the PS2 version of 5 is to bring back all the best stages from all the previous games, remove the weapon system but keep the costume customization, and just have every character in it (except Alyssa).

If they want the story to actually matter they need to either have a really nice 30 minute movie to tell you everything or have some kind of playable recap because seriously the story is spread across 6 games (is there story in the tag games?) and now 4 console generations.

I just want... more volcanoes.

Oh and Marshall Law is definitely coming back... right?

Yeah, no sorry but can't agree with the bound thing. Its too important to the overall game.

Well, for my money it was and still is the most fun I've ever had with a story mode.

I'm not arguing that it isn't entertaining, but I do feel that some give NetherRealm far too much credit when it comes to innovating on fighting game story modes. The structure used is a fairly basic concept and nothing I found revolutionary.

Well, what would you suggest then?

TTT2 was what made me realize how misguided my philosophy of "never subtraction, always addition" in fighting games was. I rented the game to check it out, saw the character select screen, and returned it. I don't have the time or energy to play a fighting game with that many characters. Tekken 7 needs a more focused and balanced cast first and foremost, so we can avoid the Bobbageddon that was EVO 2012(?).

The other thing that drove me away from TTT2 was seeing that everyone's movelist was the length of a small novel. Virtua Fighter manages to give each character a ton of tools and have a huge amount of depth to it's game without overloading the characters with an excessive amount of moves.

I guess what I want from Tekken 7, systems wise, is for it to show some restraint.

That the development team use whatever structure that they feel is best to tell the story the wish, whether that be linear and cinematic like Mortal Kombat (or Dead or Alive: Dimensions, since that technically came first), a crazy beat'em up like Tekken 6, a visual novel structure like the BlazBlue series, or something else. Whatever the sturucture used, it should be chosen to fit the style of narrative they wish to tell. Don't do it just to emulate some other game like FLStyle is suggesting here.

These are all great points.

I like the bound system. It gives the game far more variety when it comes to choosing combos for a given situation and it adds a layer of execution difficulty that I like. Super moves sound like a terrible idea to me. Unblockables and 10-hits are just gimmicks in Tekken as it is - neither are used in serious matches. Supers sort of worked in SC5, but that game has relatively short combos outside of Viola so they weren't overly egregious.

It is likely, going off what Harada has said so far, that Tekken 7 will be simplified considerably. That is, to say, the roster will be reduced down to somewhere in the high-30s and core mechanics like backdash-canceling will be made less execution heavy to appeal to new players.

Incidentally, knocking someone backwards full screen in Tekken is almost never a good idea. You lose all oki potential and shoulder charges can be side-stepped.

Tekken Tag has always been an All Stars of sorts of Tekken characters from just about every Tekken entry so its bound to have a lot of characters.

I don't know what it is with the number of characters being a barrier of entry but I do get that it can be overwhelming. I don't expect to that trend to change though but I'm sure its not gonna have all the characters that we're in TTT2 at the very least since most of those characters have not showed up in the series for some time or are already deceased in the canon (e.g. Jun).

@hailinel: I guess I should have phrased my response better but I mean what do you think is the best story mode in a fighter if not Mortal Kombat?

• I really think the bounds should remain in Tekken 7 but in a different fashion. Tekken Revolution introduced the idea of only having them work if the player can snag a counter hit with a bound-capable move. While Revolution emphasized more on immediate damage like past games, it seemed to undermine the purpose of bounds to the point of being more or less irrelevant. I think Namco needs to find a way to keep it from being too reliable while still act as a central mechanic. Maybe they can find trade offs between using a normal juggle combo and a bound combo. I am sure they might experiment with damage scaling, wall carrying, etc.
• Infinite stages are always welcoming. Tekken Tag 2 had a bit more than Tekken 6 fortunately but a good balance between both would help especially when players use random select in competition.
• A super meter is something interesting but I feel like doesn't seem necessary for Tekken's central design. Thinking about it more, counter hit combos already do a lot of damage already. Unblockables, if read correctly, can easily be punished before its impact frame. Maybe they can look at what Soulcalibur V did and try to modify it to a certain degree.
• I think what Tekken 7 needs to really improve on is movement. I bet that most players who are not deeply into Tekken don't know about wavedashing, backdash cancelling, sidestep cancelling, instant while standing moves, etc. Maybe Namco needs to streamline movement, while still maintaining the feel and pacing of previous games, or at least tell players about these advance mechanics.
• If they don't change the large movelists, Namco should at least show players the purpose of various properties found in these moves. I bet if I talk to a Tekken fan, in the sense they are not competitive, about homing moves, they will be stumped.

Maybe what Tekken really needs is just better explanation of its design and help get newer players to easily understand what does it take to play at a high level. Some can digest through conveyance but others might have to learn through more common means found in other video games.

I really don't care enough about the story at this point. As long as I can do stuff like Heihachi's OTGF or Paul's d+4, 2, 1+2 just frame, I am all good. OSU!

This is probably the best thing they are aiming for. Hopefully they don't sacrifice the overall feel maintained from T5-Tag 2 or at least become a Tekken 4 where it seemed unoptimized.

Structurally, I find BlazBlue's the most interesting with the way it uses the visual novel approach to create branching paths and weave its story together. But I also like the visual novel approach that Persona 4 Arena took; very little real branching outside of the three characters' joke endings, but it cumulatively tells a good story, and Labrys's story is the best part of it despite only having one fight at the very end. As for the straight-forward, cinematic narrative approach (i.e.: Mortal Kombat), I actually prefer the DOA games. Narratively, they're goofy and fun, but even Dimensions had the chapter select that Mortal Kombat lacked, and I find the narrative aspects of both far more creative than Injustice's crazy-evil alternate universe Superman. Also, in terms of gameplay, not even the final Alpha-152 battle is as bullshit as Shao Kahn the frustration machine. And as flawed as it is, I'd say I even prefer the fairly simple approach that Soul Calibur V took, if only because there are some plot points and story hooks that resonated with me.

So I guess the short version is that there are a lot of fighting games that I feel have superior story modes to what Mortal Kombat offers for a variety of reasons, whether they be in terms of mechanics or the actual narrative itself. There's no way for me to really judge the best story mode based on that range of criteria because different games excel in different ways.

Obviously the cast is going to be much smaller than Tag 2, because that just throws canon out the window to include almost everybody, so I wouldn't be too worried about that. I can understand the idea of slimming down the cast and the movelists from the point of having to learn more matchups and more moves, ie what has to be blocked how, what's punishable with what etc and there is some unnecessary fluff (10 strings, why are you still a thing?), but at the same time, I actually really like having a bajillion moves. I have fun trying to find different applications for certain moves, I think I enjoy the sense of discovery there. I like the aspect of moves that may not have immediately apparent uses etc. A string that might not really be for damage, but more just pestering to try and bait your opponent in to crouching so you can launch and all that good stuff. That being said, it does put up a huge wall to work your way through if you want to take the game seriously.

I don't know, I feel conflicted. I recognise how absurd it is, but I kind of really love it at the same time. I love that tag 2 has the massive movelist and the additional moves from custom items, but then it also has all these unique tag throws between certain characters and then it has secret unlisted moves, some being applications of known moves from different situations like JayCee being able to Tiger Swat from Wind Roll or Bridge from f3, but then some being super specific and kind of nuts, like JayCee only having her swift step when paired with a partner that uses Kung Fu or her having a unique (and awesome) throw only available when using her second default costume. Again, there's a sense of discovery and I think also just an appreciation of how much work has gone in to all that dumb stuff. I may have applauded the first time I got a KO with the d/f 1+3 (I think?) grab with the championship belt equipped and JayCee held the suplex-into-pin and Kunimitsu slid in and did a three-count.

I actually like bounds, I like that they give you more options and I think they also just look cool. Bounds and wallsplats are like ground and wall bounces in other games, they make the combo look more interesting and brutal. I think pure juggle combos tend to look dumber, just casually floating an opponent on jabs or whatever :P If I was going to remove a system, I was going to say take out Rage. I dislike the way it's just kind of a free comeback mechanic in Tekken 6. But I think it was handled more intelligently in TTT2. It still had that convoluted (but also kind of neat?) netsu system, but it also had the system where tag assaults would enrage the opponent and kill your red health. So maybe they could do a similar thing in T7 with bounds, to create a risk/reward. Do you go for the longer combo that will power up your opponent for a bit or not? I liked TTT2 having additions like that that gave the game an aspect somewhat akin to meter management without having to introduce meter to the game.

Speaking of, I've heard a few people throw around the idea of adding supers to the game. I don't really see what it would add to the game personally. Can't say I'm at all a fan of the idea.

Whatever they do, I hope they don't lose the essence or feel of the game while trying to make it more accessible. For as often as we hear people say that they really tried to get into a fighting game and just couldn't, I have to wonder how much effort they really made. I'd hate to see the game changed for the worse to facilitate people who don't end up caring about it.

Oh, one last thing!

@flstyle: "Then Tekken 3 had the brave decision, certainly not done by either SF or MK at the time, to jump its story forward 17 years."

While it didn't jump ahead anywhere near as far chronologically, I believe SF3 actually came out in arcades a month before Tekken 3 and that was pretty damn ballsy in regards to how drastically everything changed, how few characters returned etc. Nitpicky, but whatever!

@damodar: No, no, it's a valid point, SF3's change in terms of characters if not story, was more drastic than Tekken 3's timeskip.

@thephantomnaut: You make many good points sir!

I don't know what to think about a new Tekken. I really hope they are not afraid to try completely new ideas. It is my personal (crazy man's) opinion that Tekken Tag 2 is one of the greatest fighting games ever made. I hope they try something different with Tekken 7, because I feel like the systems laid out in 4, 5, and 6 have been brought to their ultimate form through Tag 2, and trying another game like those is foolish because you'll never make one better than Tag 2.

I only really care about Namco touching a few things that could change Tekken. One of these things is the "safe" backwards movement tekken allows- I know that Namco won't touch this as it's essentially what makes Tekken, Tekken, as far as strategy goes.

I specifically don't want to see supers. almost every single fighting game has them. Does every game need to have them? Are there more ways to express 1v1 strategy between fighters other than "gain meter, do super"? It's a very played-out, boring aspect of fighting games in my opinion, and shows that the genre is really dependent on ideas one guy had 20 years ago.

If they cut down on some of the move lists, fine, but I hope they don't go too wild. Many players (including many of the best players) already play the game by compartmentalizing and boiling a character down to their essentials. I think this is a smart way to play. Push players in this direction if you want to, encourage them to find the core moves of a character and use them with no fluff, but I feel as though you're really destroying something beautiful about the game if you don't allow people to find creative uses for the many moves in the game, should they want to. This adds so much flavor to the way different people use the same character, I will be very sad if that aspect is downplayed.

Don't care about the story though, so they could basically do whatever they want with that aspect and I probably wouldn't even notice!

This time, every character is a bear. Except Heihachi.

So what's up with the "every odd-numbered Tekken game is good" theory? that true at all?

@perfidioussinn said:

Tekken 2 is rad.

Also aside from surface level crap (and Street Fighter IV released around that time), Tekken 6 is good, gameplay wise.

Also, Tekken 1 is rough.

I think you're wrong. Tekken 6 had Alisa. fucking Alisa is the best character in the game. ALISA FOR PRESIDENT.

Tag Tournament 2 split alt costumes into different characters so I'm not to worried about roster size in 7. Also I hate playing on infinite stages, taking out walls and ledges and removing bounding just sounds like a really boring game to me. Also I don't really understand why you would want the simplification of infinite stages or the removal of bounding but still want more meter management.

So basically what you're saying is...

• Tag option. (no more separate tag game)
• Remote cooperative play.
• An online rematch button.
• Toned down bouncing.
• Both players can look at commands list, at the same time, when waiting for online match to start.
• Fatalities

Tekken 5 Dark Resurrection feels like the peak.

Looks cool.

I want some serious overhaul of the game. I had fun with the previous games but, at this point, I am finding it increasingly hard to notice changes in the games by watching videos alone.

For example, the trailer of Tekken 7 that blu3v3nom07 included looks incredibly similar to TTT2, which in turn, looked quite similar to T6 and T5.

I know a not-Tekken Tekken is the last thing many hardcore fans want, but I really think they should review some elements like unbreakable juggle combos. For all the heat Street Fighter gets for the over-sequelization of 2, we can all agree that all numbered Street Fighter titles look and feel pretty different from one another.

I also think they should take some cues from MK 9 story. Not necessarily the delivery, but a unified story mode, where we learn some of the characters motivations, and are forced to fight certain characters under certain conditions. At this point, NetherRealm did up the stakes in terms of story mode in fighting games, to the point a small text prelude, followed by random fights against random characters in random locations, closing with a couple big fights against the same designated final boss and a video; the same structure for every single character where any of them could be considered cannon and no one is the wiser for fighting a small dinosaur with gloves, or having a tropical dressed Brazilian in the North Pole, or encountering the final boss during the random matches, is a display of laziness from the developers.