Wednesday 21 August 2024

Tekken 4 "Review" and Tekken Force Mode Critique

Decided to play some more Tekken games and I always heard this one of the weaker entries in the series. With that said, I both enjoy while also dislike this game.

If I talk about the fighting game side of Tekken 4, the game is decent from a casual player's point of view. The only thing that really stands out the fighting stages having "walls". Admittedly this didn't bother me that much outside of getting some amusement of doing the sqaure and cross grab and pushing opponents into a wall and then chaining punches that would lead to wall bounces and getting free hits in all though this got harder to do furthur into the arcade story mode which I did for Kazuya and Jin since they are the only characters that really matter in the Tekken story, I would do Heihachi but that requires me to beat the game more and I don't have time or patience for that.

Other than than that, I looked up the movelist a few times and tried to understand the movelists for Jin and Kazuya more. The normal mode cpu difficulty is MUCH easier than Tekken 5's and it feels like something less experienced players like myself can handle.

I'm not a hardcore Tekken player but T4's fighting is "okay". Not as good as some of the later games like 5 and 8 due to the walls and some control changes but it's "fine". The music is also solid with authentic sky being one of the most memorable tracks in the series.

However what does really suck about the game is the Tekken Force mode, I always heard from some that this mode was "good" but honestly, from what I played of this and the version of it in T8, I never really got that sentiment.

Everything about this mode is pretty awful, it makes Devil Within from 5 look like masterpiece.

Some of the issues are the controls and camera, the best way of describing this mode is that Namco used the 3D movement in the one on one fighting and turned into a beat em up where you fight hordes of enemies. The problem is, the camera isn't that great, not really giving you a good view of the action and where the characters are supposed to be moving since it feels like a proto 3D over the shoulder camera but the D pad movement can often get in the way of you wanting to pick up healing and powerup items and trying to be precise on where to move.

It doesn't just end there either, enemies are damage sponges and block attacks way too much. I try to grab to break the blocks, a tactic you do in the one on one fights, but it would lead to enemies getting free hits in. That and it's basically just one on one fights with hordes of enemies, there isn't any crowd control attacks and many fights consist of you widdling down the health of one enemy and the worst parts are is that your health can be drained pretty quickly by one enemy alone and there are no checkpoints in the levels making this mode more of a mess. I wouldn't even mind the lack of checkpoints if the stages didn't drag on and on but they do, I'm done one really tough enemy wave and more enemies pop up.

There also isn't a dodge button either outside of using the 3D movement in one on one fights during horde battles.

I just gave up on the 3rd level and just let the game be with me beating Kazuya and Jin's arcade mode routes.

Overall, Tekken 4 is "okay" for the fighting side of it but the Tekken Force mode is just awful. I never thought I would think Devil Within from 5 would be better and somewhat retroactively appreciate it but I do.


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