Tekken 7: Review

“Is this truly the last King of the Iron Fist Tournament?”

With one of the most storied histories in gaming, starting from the meager beginnings of the arcades, to your home consoles Tekken has always grabbed gamer’s attentions with its bombastic characters and realistic fighting style. But the question is… does Tekken 7 bring the story to a climatic end or does it leave some disappointments.

Story

Tekken 7 takes place just after the events of the previous with Jin missing, Kazuya running the show at Mishima Zaibatsu and Heihatchi is presumed dead. Also, the war between G-Corp and Mishima Zaibatsu is still raging on and the only person that can put an end to it is missing. Tekken 7 does its history proud with lavish cutscenes and dialogue that dive deeper into the rift between Heihatchi and Kazuya and bringing the war that was started by Jin to its climatic end. The only issue that is present in this story is the introduction of Street Fighter’s Akuma, in the fact that during the first few chapters they introduced the character is that you need to wait all the way till the final chapters to understand why he is there…

… but once you discover his purpose, you will understand why. When it comes to the story, Tekken 7 does an amazing job at weaving a tale through the eyes of a reporter, who is looking to discover the truth of Mishima Zaibatsu and Heihatchi.

I give the story a 9 out of 10. A few parts could have been spruced up but it was an enjoyable ride into a climatic end.

Gameplay

The Tekken franchise has always dealt with more of a “on the ground” based system that instead of going with lavish moves that you would see in Mortal Kombat or Guilty Gear, Tekken uses a more streamlined combo system that weighs the power of stringing together basic attacks. Unfortunately, the one thing that I’ve noticed is that characters that use the power of stringing endless basic attack combos have been severely limited, two such characters that i have tried was Steve Fox and Eddy Gordo. But, Tekken does a great job of keeping all the other characters in check.

I give the gameplay an 8.5 out of 10. Some mechanics have been changed for the worst but a still enjoyable experience.

Graphics

Stretching far into the early years of the 90’s arcades, Tekken has always tried to be at the forefront of what a fighting game should look like. Although most fighting games have gone back to its 2D (or 2.5D) roots for a better emphasis on graphics, Tekken has stayed true to its 3D style arenas and continued to make sure that gameplay was always better than graphics.

However, because of this, Tekken does sacrifice graphics for gameplay which gives it a slight disadvantage to others like Guilty Gear or Injustice 2, Tekken could do more to keep up, but overall a good visual experience.

I give the graphics a 7.5 out of 10. More could be done graphically to make this a contender as well as making the created fighters look better than the PS2 era Soul Caliber.

Overall, Tekken 7 is an enjoyable game but unless you are going to dedicate yourself to playing this online all the time, I would consider this game to be a rent first/only for the more casual fighters.

But I give Tekken 7 an 8.3 out of 10.