Tekken 5 Review
The Tekken series is certainly one that revolutionized the fighting games industry and there is no surprise in that. I can not remember one Tekken game that was not entertaining, especially in versus mode against friends. I used to play Tekken 3 for hours but this does not mean that I did not play Tekken 5 a lot when I laid my hands on it. The first Tekken game appeared in 1995 and it was an instant success. We are talking about a lot of people playing in arcades and at home, with the same intensity and there is a huge tradition to live up to, one that was maintained in Tekken 5, a game that does come with great visuals, a lot of 3D action and some modes that were not available in the original arcade platform.
The first good news that comes with Tekken 5 is that Tekken 4 is kind of put aside. That game put in some position changing moves that were not at all popular so the 5th version did put in a back to basics approach. This is why Tekken 5 has quite a great classic feel and we can compare it with Tekken 3 from that point of view. There are no more uneven floors although walls still exist in some arenas and this is good as tremendous combos can be created by using them. Tekken 5 is a game that is sure to be entertaining for both the beginner players and the expert ones. If you did not play a Tekken game so far you should put your hand on it, especially if you like 3D and 2D fighting games.
As you can imagine, we have a story mode, one that will take you through some fights and a simple storyline laid out. You will thus be competing in an arcade type fighting system that will make you meet some fighters that are linked to the story at hand. When all is over you will face your biggest enemy and a prerendered ending will appear, something that is a trademark of the entire Tekken series now. We are also dealing with character customization options that are very similar to Virtua Fighter 4 with the use of money you gain while playing. You can put different accessories on your fighters. The nice part is that each fighter will have unique customization options and they are even different for the two primary costumes of the character. You can even buy a third unique costume for some fighters. You will need to play the arcade mode in order to earn gold. We have five difficulty settings to choose from and you will notice that all gamer skill levels are very well tailored. The only real problem that can be noticed is the lack of Internet play, even if the strong AI will make it up to some extend.
What I really liked (and all older players of Tekken will surely appreciate) is the fact that we have a lot of fighters in the game, even some that I did not see in Tekken for some years. We thus have the favorites including Paul, Law, King, Nina and Kazuya. Combine them with some occasional characters like Bruce, Anna, Lee, Hworang and we can see that it tends to become interesting. We even have the new characters that were introduced in Tekken 4 (Marduk, Christie, Steve). Three new characters are present: Raven (who kind of looks like Wesley Snipes), Asuka (a schoolgirl - kinky ha?) and Kazama.
Now the Tekken series also comes with something special. In Tekken 5 we have an arcade game that is Devil Within, a story driven arcade game that will see you control Jin in a fight against the G Corporation and the Mishima Zaibatsu. I personally enjoyed it a lot but there is a strong chance that you will get bored of it after some time due to repetitive action. One extra feature that a lot might enjoy is that you can play the arcade versions of Tekken, Tekken 2 and Tekken 3 (once again, Tekken 4 is taken out of the mix).
The actual gameplay is similar to the classic games and the fighters will hit hard, making most fights shorter than in other games. The moves do look great and the characters move well, even if some moves were recycled from past games. The image quality is very good and the models are excellent. The soundtrack is also pretty good, with a lot of speech and many music styles that will work well with the characters. The sound effects sound great and on the whole everything is perfect in fighting.