Namco is just getting lazy now. With such competition as Virtua Fighter and Dead or Alive, you’d think that they’d be on top of their game. You’d be wrong. After the huge leaps of quality from Tekken 2 to 3, much was expected from part four in this long running pugilistic endeavour. What gamers ended up with was a solid, but ultimately disappointing chapter of the Tekken series.
While Tekken Tag featured over 30 characters and multiple game modes, Tekken 4 stripped it’s roster of characters to a paltry 20 and featured four “new” characters. I put the “new” in parenthesis because two of the characters were mere palette swaps of previous characters, leaving a grand total of two unique characters to the game. As Dead or Alive has shown, only a couple new characters added to a game can appease fans, but taking them away is sacrilege. Personally I don’t mind new rosters of characters, and in fact I believe it is needed across the board in every fighting game; a house-cleaning if you will.
However, fighting game fans are some of the most hardcore, and therefore some of the most frightening. Tekken 5, while not taking away any characters, features just a couple of new ones to keep fans happy. To appease these fans, favourites from the past games are reported to make an appearance in this game. Official word is not out on a final roster, so anything is possible at this point. You can bet some version of Paul, Hwroang, King, Law, and all the others from Tekken 4 will be in this sequel as well. Online play has not been officially announced or denied at this point.
The basic story, as if it really mattered, revolves around the death of long time bad-guy Heihachi Misima. In the wake of his death (probably caused by getting stabbed in the Soul Caliber tournament) a new Iron Fist tournament is announced, but by whom remains a mystery.
Raven – Another assassin reaches the Iron Fist tournament, and this time he’s a ninja. If nothing else Raven gets his hair cut at the same place as Dennis Rodman and Zack (from DOA).
Feng Wei - Hmm. Don’t we already have a Chinese martial artist? Oh well. This one is TOTALLY different than Fei Wu Long. This one doesn’t wear a shirt, for instance.
Asuka Kazama - Another member to the family tree. Why don’t they just scrap the superfluous characters and throw in Granny Kazama, then they could call this Tekken 5: Extreme Family Feud!
As much as I love this series it is in need of a complete overhaul, and not the minor tweaking that this one is getting. The more introspective combat system from the fourth game is being scrapped in favour of the button mashing system of Tekken Tag. The closed arenas are gone as well, proving once again, that the series is just going backwards.
One new thing that has given me respite from sending another hate letter is the addition of a quest mode, similar to VF4. Implemented in the upcoming arcade cabinets, players will be able to purchase cards that allow storage of one character that they can then take around to other arcades. More wins will open up customisable outfits and various swag in which to pimp out your chosen fighter. I’m hoping this mode is expanded greatly in the console version, coming later this year for the PS2, but with Namco’s habit of only making minute changes to their sequels, I won’t hold my breath.
Shawn Darnell
