20 Year Old Student, who watches too many movies, plays too many games, and listens to mostly rock ...
20 Year Old Student, who watches too many movies, plays too many games, and listens to mostly rock music.
Apart from that I’m a top reviewer with 600 reviews on Epinions (same alias) will be transferring my reviews across bit by bit
Member since:16.11.2005
Reviews:49
Members who trust:10
For years, I've pondered exactly what it is that would drive somebody to call themselves a 'Tekken Fan'. Namco's most prolific series of fighting games has so far seen 6 Fighting games accross Sony's Playstation and PS2 consoles, one Game Boy Advance reproduction and a spin-off for the PS2 featuring the character Nina Williams. The character of Yoshimitsu also made an appearance in the company's other major fighting franchise, Soul Calibur. Pretty impressive record huh? well, fact is, none of them are great, and only 2 of them are really any good. Tekken fans hated Tekken 4, but the simple fact is, can you really rely on someone who places so much of their love in a series that is too moronic for Virtua Fighter players, yet lacks any of the charm or fun of the Dead or Alive series?
As with the previous entries into the series, Tekken 4 is a 3D, One-on-One fighting game, where the goal is to beat up your opponent in a best of three rounds contest. Not quite as rooted in reality as Sega's VF games, and not quite as ridiculous enough as Capcom's Streetfighter, Tekken always sort of occupied a middle of the road and lacklustre area of the fighting game map. People played the first three games basically because they were almost always pack-ins with the original PlayStation. For the launch of the PS2, Namco clearly didn't want to lose any ground on their rival(Read: better) fighting games, so a hurried and rather sloppy update of the third game was released. Tekken 4 was the first game in the series proper to see release on the PS2.
This game is set a good few years after the end of the third game, and Heihachi
Mishima is still in charge of the Mishima Zaibatsu, and still trying to get to the bottom of that pesky Devil gene that his son and grandson, Kazuya and Jin, have got within them. He learns that Kazuya, believed dead since the second game, is still alive, and in an attempt to bring him and Jin out of hiding, he posts the flyers out for the King of Iron Fist tournament 4.
The plot, while in it's basic form like this, is pretty standard and decent, Kazuya, Jin and Heihachi all show signs of age, but Namco seemed to forget to apply this to all of their characters, for example Ling Xiaoyu is still in high school. They went to the effort of explaining how Nina was still looking good(she was frozen), but this lack of consistancy did hurt the game's plot a lot. Funny thing is, if you just ignore the number of years and replace it with '2' or something, the game's plot actually works not bad, because showing age on the hyper-blocky old PSX models was impossible anyway, so therefore they could have been any age in the third game.
The plot is 'developed' in Story mode, which basically consists of an opening piece showing various drawn stills with a narrator telling you why the fighter of your choice entered the tournament, and a similar ending piece, only in the cool FMV format Tekken games have always used. When playing with a character close to the core of the plot(eg:Kazuya), you wil encounter a few extra cut-scenes as well. While this may not beef the story up to movie like levels, and seems a bit similar to a trick Tecmo pulled, it's a nice addition to plot-based fighters, and endings and videos give the game for single player value.
So what of the engine itself? well, it's basically the same Tekken game engine that has been cutting around since the second, and best, series entry, only it's been toyed around with and improved a bit since then, but basically it works the same. 4 Attack(one assigned to each face button) buttons, two punches and two kicks, throws performed by pressing punch+kick, special moves via D-pad directional taps...it's the standard Tekken formula, but smoother than before. It still lends itself far too easily to button mashing, but it also gives it a post-pub friendliness that Virtua Fighter 4 lacks, although the fact that Dead or Alive 3 on the XBox does this better doesn't do it any favours, but on the PS2, this is a good attempt at that type of game. It's easily playable. The only real addition this entry adds is walls and items of scenery that fighters can be trapped and comboed up against, such as pillars and walls. Once again not exactly original, but it's well implemented, and adds to the fun quite a bit.
And that's why I feel this is the strongest series entry since the second. It's fun, something neither the third game nor the soul-less Tekken Tag Tournament had in any abundance. I can slot in Tekken 4 and have some fun wasting time, I can get a decent multiplayer scrap with my friends on it. It doesn't have that generic feel that the last two games did. Possibly because all other fighting games were no trying to imitate either VF or DOA, leaving this feeling a little more fresh, I dunno, but this was just more fun for me.
One thing the game recieved a lot of gip for was the roster. The game only sports 19 fighters, which is a decrease from Tekken 3, but given that the series best character, Kazuya returned, along with all of the players that actually mattered, I really don't see it as much of a problem. I do wish they would do away with Kuma, who was fairly amusing for all of 10 minutes in the mid-90s, but now is a complete waste of time, and Combot, a slightly less lame Mokujin, but on the whole I feel the roster was pretty decent, and the new characters pretty cool. Speaking of the new ones, we have fighting games first Ultimate Fighter in the form of Craig Marduk, Eddy Gordo in the body of Beyonce Knowles in Christie Monteiro and a real stereotype buster in the form of skinny, white English boxer Steve Fox. Christie aside, they are all unique from the rest of the cast, which also sees a really cool Yoshimitsu redesign, so I dunno what all the complaints are.
One aspect in which this game improves greatly over the previous entry is the Tekken Force mode. In the third game, Tekken Force was an innovative idea, dreadfully pulled off. It's a bonus mode of play, and in the last game, it attempted to play like a 2D Beat 'em Up in 3D, and ended up making Fighting Force look like Double Dragon 2. Thankfully the game has recieved an overhall for Tekken 4, and now plays more like a 3D Beat 'em Up, and you now have some form of control over your player. While this mode is still far from perfect, the camera can be a real pain, it is at least playable, and enjoyable, this time around, and to think of it as a bonus feature in a game is pretty remarkable.
Graphically speaking, Tekken 4 is impressive. The character models look good, animate smoothly, and are a lot more detailed than even those in the other PS2 game. Stages are fairly high in terms of detail, and some of the audience can even be smacked into the air in some cases. Fighters certainly look a lot more human in this game, with the PS2 managing to avoid the 'block party' effect of the original PSX.
The sound in Tekken 4 is ok, nothing special. The music is better than it's predecessor, but that wouldn't take much, and I still found myself hitting mute on the TV in favour of the vaguely techno sounding tracks the game emits as a soundtrack. Thankfuly the Chicken voice clip is still there in Tekken Force mode.
In general, I really don't see why so many people hate Tekken 4. The third game was not the revolution it's often made out to be, and was, in fact, quite generic. While this may not add oddles of things to the series, what it does do is actually take what it has and craft it into a fun game, something that neither Tekken 3 nor Tekken Tag Tournament managed to do very well.
I would recommend this to all 'Tekken Fans', if you, of course, are willing to go into it with an open mind. It's a really fun game, and one can only speculate that the hate it generated was maybe something to do with the fact the PS2 wasn't living up to it's hype, it's Tekken wasn't the leagues of improvement fans had been hoping for and they got their knickers in a twist. Only explanation I can think of. I would place this as my second favourite entry into the series(not that it takes much work), and feel that anyone looking for a simple fighter to play for a laugh, and lacking in an XBox, the means required for Dead or Alive 3, could do a whole lot worse than pick up Tekken 4.
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great review, although i have never quite seen the point of reproducing the same game 5 times although i am a fan of tekken tag which i have just purchased for my ps2, well done, well written
SarkeBeeley 27.11.2005 22:21
Great review. Have to say I'm a bit of a fan of playing Tekken when I'm in an arcade and I have to say I prefer it to Street Fighter even though I wouldnt dare say that in front of some of my male friends who would probably give me grief for the rest of my life!!
When the original PlayStation first came out,Tekkenwas one of the crown jewels in its ... more
launch lineup; it was unsurprising therefore that the PS2 brought with it a sequel,Tekken Tag Tournament. Unfortunately, it wasn't very good, or at least not as good ...
Postage & Packaging: free Super Saver Delivery Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
When the original PlayStation first came out,Tekkenwas one of the crown jewels in its ... more
launch lineup; it was unsurprising therefore that the PS2 brought with it a sequel,Tekken Tag Tournament. Unfortunately, it wasn't very good, or at least not as good ...
Postage & Packaging: £1.95 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
When the original PlayStation first came out,Tekkenwas one of the crown jewels in its ... more
launch lineup; it was unsurprising therefore that the PS2 brought with it a sequel,Tekken Tag Tournament. Unfortunately, it wasn't very good, or at least not as good ...
Postage & Packaging: £1.94 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
When the original PlayStation first came out,Tekkenwas one of the crown jewels in its ... more
launch lineup; it was unsurprising therefore that the PS2 brought with it a sequel,Tekken Tag Tournament. Unfortunately, it wasn't very good, or at least not as good ...
Postage & Packaging: free Super Saver Delivery Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Advantages: GREAT TWO PLAYERS, WELL-CUSTOMISED CHARACTERS AND GOOD SIDE STEP MOVE Disadvantages: NOT LIKE THE PRVIOUS TEKKENS, LIMITED FIGHTERS NOT THAT GOOD GRAPHICS.
apatra 08.06.2007 (08.06.2007)
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Review of Tekken 4 (PS2)
Advantages: Tekken Force, story mode Disadvantages: Most characters magically missing, controls very different to Tekken Tag, boss level now just Heihachi!
Batch 12.08.2004 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of Tekken 4 (PS2)
Advantages: PS2 = Great selection of games XBox = great power Disadvantages: PS2 = easily breakable XBox = no FFX not as good selection of games as PS2
Organics 06.01.2004 (08.01.2004)
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Review of Microsoft Xbox
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