I’ve finally got the Platinum trophy in Tekken 8! It was quite the long journey so it feels good to have made it all the way. Those online trophies in particular can be really rough since you have to rely on factors other than yourself. Still, it all worked out in the end so that’s the important part. Will see which Platinum makes it next!
Stats time!
PS5 Trophies 16/47
This is it, it’s time for the final entry in the Tekken saga! Of course the series will keep going at some point but this finally got us to the end of the saga that’s been building up since the beginning. It’s an absolute masterpiece and I highly recommend it. It’s not simply a fighting game, it’s a full on adventure with a great plot and lots of fun characters. Every part of this game was polished to perfection and you get a real rush while playing through it. It’s the kind of game that you just can’t put down!
The game starts off with Kazuya and Jin fighting in the city. Jin is wrecked as per usual and seems to have lost most of his abilities. He will need to regain them quickly because Kazuya has begun his plan to end the world. There will even be one last tournament. The fate of the world rests on Jin’s shoulders and he will have to really contend with his inner darkness in order to measure up to this. Fortunately he is ready, this is what he was born to do. He will be the ones to end the curse once and for all.
If you didn’t play the older games for any reason, there is a whole mode for movies and summaries to recap them all. It even goes far enough to clear up the more ambiguous moments of the first 3 games where everyone had their own arcade mode. So you learn what the true events were. There are also some prequel movies and the first DLC season of stories comes in for free. That’s a ton of story content for a fighting game right? It’s because Tekken’s story is really good so it’s not playing second fiddle to the gameplay. It’s right in the middle of things the whole time.
Throw in the lyrical songs and this is really a cinematic experience. I had to pump the volume up a bit for some of the cutscenes and man do the sound effects go hard. The game also cleverly mixed in a lot of cinematics with the gameplay to show you the character’s thoughts during a fight. It’s all way ahead of its time and I had no complaints here. The story s excellent and the setup for a 9th main installment is handled really well. I’m already hyped for two of the main villains who seem to be getting a big role coming up.
Meanwhile the graphics are naturally top tier here. The energy effects for each of the attacks are great and the characters have never looked more lifelike. It’s not super realistic in the kind of way where it won’t age well later on though. We still have all of the fantastical elements here as well. You never forget that this is a supernatural world and the character outfits are all very dynamic. As another attention to detail, during one of the final fights, the two characters keep changing across the games. The battle lasts for around 5-7 rounds and your moveset will suddenly change from Tekken 8 to Tekken 5, etc. There’s even a quick blink and you’ll miss it easter egg where one character changes his hairstyle to the old look.
I wouldn’t have caught that myself but ages ago when the game came out I remember people raving about it. The game is really an ultimate homage to how far the whole adventure has gone. Everything about the game is actively celebrated here and it’s really nice to see that. That’s never a guarantee after all and it can be difficult to put in easter eggs without them being forced. Well, I can say that this game didn’t have any problem in that department.
Then of course the soundtrack is absolutely top tier. The main theme of the game is excellent but so are all of the stage themes. It’s one of the most complete fighting game tracks that you are likely to see. Then there is really unlimited replay value here. Aside from the story which is already a reasonable length, you can do everyone’s arcade modes and the story dlc. Then you have normal battling, online matchups, etc. You should be here a very long while if you really enjoy the Tekken gameplay and won’t have to stop anytime soon. It is the best game in the franchise and that is always an honor since it can be difficult to keep on climbing to new heights after a while.
Honestly the bar is so high that I don’t expect Tekken 9 to beat this one. Even just because story wise it’ll be hard to surpass this climax. That said, I do expect it to still be elite which is the main thing. A lot of the pressure will be on Reina and how well she can take the helms of the story along with the villain at the end of the DLC who is sure to be a big player. There are a ton of characters and plots to explore so the series can go in a lot of directions from here.
I didn’t really talk much about the gameplay but naturally that is elite too. It’s a 2D brawler and each hit does a whole lot of damage. Generally win or lose, the match is over really quickly. Once one of you starts landing combo hits, it’s curtains. You can play using dynamic controls or a simpler style as well. Each has their pros and cons in the end. It always feels very satisfying when you land a copy but you can also see how this game would be ultra difficult at a high level. There are so many different ways to move and attack that trying to dodge will come down to a lot of reaction times and then just plain ole experience.
Overall, Tekken 8 is a game that you should buy immediately. You don’t even need any prior experience to enjoy this one, just watch all the recaps after you buy this game. It’s the kind of title that you really should not leave to the sidelines. You have to be there and really experience it because it’s rare to see a game at this elite level. Whenever Tekken 9 comes out, I can definitely tell you that I will be getting it day 1. The series absolutely deserves that treatment at this point. It’s just too good to hold off on.
Overall 9/10
It almost feels a bit strange to be playing Tekken when it looks so retro like this. I’m used to the big and bold plots and all of the electronic music hype. This one still does sound really great to be sure but it is rather basic. You’ll be playing arcade mode and that’s about it. I suppose you can’t ask for much more out of the PS1 era though. That’s just how things were back then. The game’s difficulty is impressively high as well.
When you boot up the game you are given the options to go with arcade mode or multiplayer mode. There might be a practice mode as well but I’m not sure if I saw that there. Either way your main time will be spent across these two modes. The Arcade mode is a classic of course. You go through 10 levels as you beat up on a bunch of opponents and get to see a little ending. It’s good fun but like I wrote earlier the difficulty level is really unforgiving. A few hits are enough to take you down for the count.
The opponent is also really good at creating distance. While I was fighting him, the a.i. would always maintain a perfect distance to dodge my attacks while immediately countering. It was definitely not something to be underestimated. So I actually went ahead and tried on easy mode as well and let me tell you that this was no picnic. The computer was still extremely difficult to defeat and had a lot of tricks up their sleeve. I was definitely taken off guard there. So it’s fair to say that the newer Tekken games are absolutely easier. They have not retained the incredible difficulty jump.
I played through Tekken 7 recently after all and it was nowhere near this tricky. The final boss was super tough, that part is true but it wasn’t the whole game the way that Tekken 2 is. That’s a whole other monster right there. The graphics are also good. Again they are dated, but in a fun way. The blocky style is fun and the game still went out of its way to have a full opening and everything. There are a lot of good attack animations all the way through. Then you have the soundtrack which is really good. It nails the electronic feel that the newer games have and that was probably a very rare thing for back in the day.
The replay value is really as long as you have someone to play with. This isn’t the kind of game that you stick around to just play single player for very long. I suppose you could do arcade mode with every character but there aren’t a ton of them so that won’t take you very long either. You’re here for the combat and the gameplay is on point as always so there is no problem there. You have your various moves plus the throw. What has always separated Tekken from the other fighting game titles is how much damage you deal. You can completely eliminate someone in just a few moves which is always insanely impressive. Just memorize a combo for any of the characters and you will be leaving your opponents dazed.
A big part of the combat is really about memorizing each character’s options. That is how you can dodge in time while landing counter blows of your own. Otherwise you will really just be guessing a lot. Reaction times are also very important to be sure because someone could just button mash and still do well if you aren’t able to react to their random moves. Tekken is definitely a game that really tests your skills and I wouldn’t have it any other way. There aren’t really any gimmicks here, it just comes down to you and your opponent’s skills. Do you have what it takes to bring them down?
Overall, Tekken 2 is a pretty good fighting game. It may be more on the basic side but back in the day that would be the case for all of these titles. It’s definitely a fun blast to the past to see all of the characters back in their earlier days so that’s enough of a reason to pop this one back in and play a few rounds. I don’t see you sticking with it for very long like one of the newer ones but it does age well as a novelty title. If you are able to get your hands on this one for free or for a good price then it’s worth the playthrough.
Overall 7/10
When Netflix first came out with the teaser for Tekken I was pretty stoked. From all of the fighting game series Tekken tends to have the best storylines. I may be more of a Street Fighter fan with the gameplay but the stories had less of a strong continuity than Tekken. Tekken was always going to give you a very solid cinematic experience and that translates well into a game. This one may be ultra short at only 6 episodes long but in a way you can just treat it as a 2-2.5 hour movie. It’s really quite elite and succeeds at everything it tries to do.
The show starts off by introducing us to Jin and his mother Jun. She is training him how to fight but only in self defense as might doesn’t make right. Jin tries his best to keep to these teachings but its tough with so many bullies around. Well, one day a mysterious being known as Ogre appears and murders Jin’s mother. He swears to avenge her and goes to meet his grandfather Heihachi to achieve the strength he will need. Jun had said to seek this man out and while Heihachi makes it clear that he doesn’t care about Jin, he agrees to teach him. Jin will have to enter the next King of Iron Fist Tournament and win. The more he wins, the more Ogre should be tempted to come out as he has been destroying powerful fighters across the world. What better bait than a fighting tournament right? Does Jin really have what it takes to beat all of these guys?
I mostly grew up with Tekken 4-6 so I don’t know too much about the earlier games outside of the bullet points. So it was nice to have more of an adaption for Tekken 3. This always felt like the beginning to me so I wonder what the first two games’ story was. Or maybe they were old enough so they didn’t really have enough of one to fill a whole show. Regardless, the decision was a good one because the story here is most excellent. Right off the bat you have a big villain and a tragic hero death. The main character losing a parent to a powerful foe may be something that happens a lot but when executed well it still hits you emotionally.
The show is in CGI but fortunately it keeps the cool visual effects that the games had when someone is hit. You really feel the power behind every blow and I would say the graphics work here. The show looks a whole lot like a video game throughout its run. The fight choreography was on point as well so I was not surprised when I saw Rooster Teeth in the credits. This is some of the better CGI on the market. Would hand drawn have been better? Yes, but they definitely did all that they could with the CG and it didn’t hamper the story. You’re still going to be having a blast with all of the fights. You may wonder how Jin can keep on fighting at times, particularly near the end when it feels like he fights in numerous battles with no break, but I guess we can chalk that up to the “Devil Gene”.
The Devil Gene is a big point of emphasis in the show because it ties into the Ogre mystery and why he attacked in the first place. Any Tekken fan will definitely recognize this as something that will be important in the future as well. It plays a part here and is referenced a lot but I would say it’s more of a preview of things to come. I certainly hope we get a season 2 or some kind of continuation. Keep this going because Tekken has a ton of potential!
I also liked the soundtrack but I think the opening is a huge missed opportunity. There is virtually no animation in the opening at all and the song is really dead. It doesn’t help get you pumped for the episode or anything. It just feels like a bit of a waste and is the only weak element of the show. Not a big deal since it’s just an opening but still, you’d expect better than that.
One of the main reasons why the show is so amazing is because Jin is a great main character. That is always the starting point when you want to make a show successful after all. He is motivated by revenge but hasn’t lost himself in it yet. He sill wants to be a great fighter and he’s made some friends along the way. The show doesn’t have time to dwell on this much but you can see that he does have a fairly stable life built around him. He always goes about things the right way and even by the end Jin still feels like a hero. Perhaps he is someone that the others will have to be careful around but I’d trust Jin at this point in time.
I also liked his fighting style a lot. It’s certainly more basic than most of the other characters but it shows how he relies on fundamentals. If the show was longer I would have liked to have seen more detail into the Kazama fighting style so we could really compare it to Mishima. That’s a big subject in the show as Heihachi wants Jin to learn his Mishima style over Jin’s mother’s style but we technically don’t see too much difference between them. Jin does get one KO move from his mother which was nice to see though.
Then Heihachi works really well as the main villain. He may be the CEO at the top of his company, but by no means has he gotten lazy in the slightest. His fighting abilities are just as deadly as they ever were and he gets to show them off at different points here. There is also a shocking moment involving a gun that was incredible. Heihachi really gets a lot of respect here and earns it not only as a fighter but as a strategist as well. His fans should definitely be very pleased with how he looks.
Jin’s friend Xiaoyu also looks really good. She is determined to be a fighter in the tournament and is tired of people treating her like a kid or thinking that she’s too weak for being a girl. Well, Xiaoyu does prove herself here and does better in the tournament than I was expecting. She’s just a fun character and brings a little light hearted cheer to the tournament as everyone else is fairly serious.
This hype does come at the expense of Nina to an extent though. It’s incredibly hard to believe that Nina would lose to Xiaoyu. I thought they were going to pull a twist where Nina lost on purpose to do some sleuthing in the background or something but instead she actually lost. Well, it’s an effective twist in that I wasn’t expecting it, but I’m still a little skeptical. Nina is fun in her brief appearance though and I expect we’ll see a lot more of her in future installments.
Next up is Paul who is a likable guy. He gets to talk tough and goes far in the tournament. It also feels like his fighting style is rather ordinary like Jin but it takes him far. He doesn’t get a whole lot to do here but I’d say the role was good enough. There is only so much time for each character after all and you get the feeling that Paul’s a good guy. He’s experienced and has been around the block a few times so he can give Jin some advice as well.
Leroy is more of an annoying character. He’s one of those guys who has a big grudge with Heihachi and wants revenge. Fair enough, but once you start taking that out on other people then it becomes a bit of a problem. He just wants to start trouble whenever he is around and that’s not a good idea without a good reason. Just taking out your revenge on someone else doesn’t cut it and so I found him to be one of the weaker characters here.
King was a solid fighter here. Now, there’s one moment where he defeats someone rather brutally so everybody gets upset, but I technically didn’t think he was crossing the line or anything. It’s not a Neji vs Hinata situation or something where it looks like the fight’s about to go beyond the match. King II just flat out won with his techniques and stopped once the opponent was down. We also find out why he is fighting later on and it tracks with him not being a bad person.
So I thought he was good, but the show tries to throw in a little mystery that deflates before it starts. So during the tournament the characters suddenly realize that this isn’t actually the original King. That’s cool and all but in the first or second episode they had already mentioned that Ogre destroyed King or at least that King vanished after the fight. So from the jump we knew that this wasn’t the same King even though it’s treated as a twist of sorts. I thought that was a bit odd.
Usually I’d be talking about Kazuya more by now but he really ends up missing out in this show. He’s still missing after the fight with Heihachi but unfortunately we didn’t see the scene of Heihachi throwing him off the mountain. We did get the reverse though. Those two always have an incredible rivalry so I’m ready to see him in the sequel. He also becomes more of a true rival to Jin. Right now Hwoarang has to fit that bill and it’s harder to take him seriously.
Hwoarang is a good character and I do like him but the victor is never in doubt when he goes up against Jin. It feels like those two are just in different leagues at this point. The fight appears closer than it really was. It’ll be nice to see him stick around but I feel like he probably won’t get many more big fights like the one in this season. As we wrap up the characters, we have to talk about Jun. She’s a lot of fun even if her screen time is quite brief. She helped train Jin the right away. While she does tell him to only fight in self defense, it’s to a reasonable angle at least.
My only issue with self defense is when characters take it to the extreme like letting people throw drinks on them or even land a hit. As long as you can fight back when you’re attacked then it’s all good. She reminds me a lot of the mentor character in Shenmue. Jun is really at the top of her game here and you can see why she is known as such a powerful fighter that even Heihachi gives respect to. She did well in the fight against Ogre too. I thought it was a good showing of how skill can let you keep up with a more powerful fighter for a while even if it won’t ultimately change the outcome.
Finally there is Ogre and I thought he was great too. He’s got a very Doomsday kind of vibe to him. He just shows up out of nowhere like a natural disaster and murders whoever is in front of him. As the show goes on we learn more about the logic of when and why he appears but either way you don’t want him to appear. Almost nobody can fight this guy 1 on 1 and hope to survive. The show even gets a little more out there than you’d expect with the final battle. Ogre does not hold back that’s for sure.
One thing the show could probably tone down for season 2 is the flashbacks though. This show is only 6 episodes long and yet there are a considerable amount of flashbacks. They seem to come in almost every episode over and over again. Some of the scenes we see multiple times and it’s not like the audience will have forgotten. Even ignoring the binging format, it’s only 6 episodes. You really don’t need flashbacks like that. If you want to use 1 or 2 to build up the emotional appeal then that’s fine but more than that is just excessive with no real benefit to doing so.
Meanwhile one unique thing the show did that I thought worked really well was having everyone talk very slowly. At first I thought it would just be something Heihachi did but it works for the entire cast. It’s like everyone is trying really hard to enunciate every syllable no matter how long it takes. I feel like this is either a tribute to the original game’s dubbing or that’s just the custom within the Tekken world. There’s no way it’s a coincidence and all of the VAs just talk like that. Whatever the reasoning behind it was, I thought it worked well. That slow way of talking wasn’t obnoxious like how it’s handled in other titles but just feels very regal here.
It also helps with the very cinematic style of each episode. Each episode feels like part of a grand movie. The characters are expressive, the backgrounds are memorable, and the music raises the tension. With the characters speaking slowly, you also feel like they could lunge at any moment so everyone has their guards up at all times. Some characters aren’t too smart and like to take their chances like the one guy who thought he could cheat Heihachi out of their deal, but for the most part everyone plans things out carefully. You have to in this kind of world or you’ll vanish pretty quickly.
Overall, Tekken is a superb show. At the end of the day it really did everything right. It would have its super hype moments and it would also get very emotional at times. Not making any big mistakes is enough to get you to a 7 but if you want to go beyond that then you have to also be strong in all areas. That’s what Tekken does here. The fight scenes are really excellent and the story is great. The character cast is very strong and this is really a superb adaption. Any Tekken fan should be proud of how it came out and even if you don’t know Tekken, you can easily enjoy this as a solid action show. The plot is fairly straight forward with the tournament and you can follow along from there. In a lot of ways it feels like the anime version of Mortal Kombat and that’s always high praise. Hopefully a sequel comes sooner than later.
Overall 9/10
Stats time!
Terry Level 13
Global Rank 396244
Characters 17/92
Story Stats
Act 1 72.3% Explored
Act 2 53.2% Explored
Act 3 48.9% Explored
Acts Cleared on Easy Mode 3/3
Acts Cleared on Normal Mode 0/3
Acts Cleared on Hard Mode 0/3
Fighter Levels
2 Star Rodeo Level 13
2 Star Feng Level 8
2 Star Marduk Level 7
2Star Kazuya Level 1
2 Star Steve Level 1
2 Star Dragunov Level 1
2 Star Nina Level 1
1 Star Nina Level 8
1 Star Kazuya Level 4
1 Star Shaheen Level 4
1 Star Feng Level 3
1 Star Asuka Level 1
1 Star Xiaoyu Level 1
1 Star Christie Level 1
1 Star Katrina Level 1
1 Star Marshall Lee Level 1
1 Star Dragunov Level 1
Tekken has always been a fun franchise. The gameplay is a lot more simplistic than Street Fighter at a glance and every blow you land is satisfying because of the loud sound as well as the splash of color. While I probably remember Tekken 5 the most and played it quite a big back in the day, the whole franchise is pretty hype. I knew that I had to dive into the mobile game once it came out.
Unlike most mobile games, Tekken has a real story mode with an actual ending as opposed to most mobile titles that keep on going forever. It was a nice change of pace and I think it’s a good thing that the game came out with the full story right from the start. Granted, I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if some kind of dlc expansion came up at some point. So the plot of the game is that a mysterious foe known as Remnant has surfaced. He has begun mind controlling some of our friends in his quest to possibly destroy the world. Kazuya decides to take this guy down but he realizes that just having himself and Nina likely would not be enough to do much of anything. As such he must start recruiting more fighters to his cause and along the way they will beat Remnant’s mind controlled lackeys to free them. It will be a tough fight, but Kazuya is always ready.
The story mode will take you a couple of days at most so it’s not very long. There are 3 main chapters and each one has 5 acts. Each act has around 5-12 fights in them and each fight can end in about a minute or so. The difficulty rises slightly as you go through but not by much since if you want a challenge you can just try fighting the story on a higher level. A couple of days is actually generous since this is about 2 hours, but you may not be playing the game that much at home when you have home console games to play instead.
The gameplay is a classic tap title like the various Marvel and DC fighting games. As far as I know it may be that all of the fighting games use this as the default control scheme. Perhaps it just makes the most sense when it comes to how the phone is set up. Regardless, tap to attack, hold your finger on your character to block, and tap on your cards for super attacks. You can string together combos with your cards and deal a whole lot of damage. You’ll have the gameplay basically mastered before very long.
Aside from the story there are quite a few other modes. This is one of those mobile games that does have a lot of post story content to keep you going at least. There are daily events which happen….every day and they give you a chance to get tokens and characters. The game has around 70 characters I believe although many of them are clones. There are also a bunch of made up characters, but that’s still preferable to clones I guess. Do we need 3-4 different Nina Williams? They all have the same attire and fighting skills, the only difference is their star rank. I believe I got around 12-15 of the characters which isn’t too shabby.
You can also fight other players of course. Not really in real time though, but you fight their Dojo and try to get points that way. The rewards seem pretty reasonable to be honest. Then there is the shop where you spend your coins and tokens. Bandai has a lot of experience with creating apps so it makes sense that they were able to set up so much for this game. In a world without Pokemon Go perhaps I would play this game more, but seeing as how it does exist I won’t really be playing this one now that the story is over. It’ll join the ranks of Sonic Forces, Fire Emblem Heroes, and Ingress as I just log in every day to get the daily bonus. If they add in a story update then I’ll check that out of course. I wouldn’t be surprised as the Marvel Contest of Champions game that I mentioned earlier is very similar, but it had hundreds of levels. That amount is pretty daunting to be honest and I didn’t bother even going through a quarter of it. It’s not like the plot ever seemed to move. That’s an issue here as well, but since the story is so short it’s okay that it only has a short cutscene at the beginning and ending.
As far as the graphics go, the game does a good job of looking like the mainstream titles. The character models are on point and the attack animations are good. I couldn’t really ask for much more than that and the simple fact that you could mistake this for a home console game shows how solid it is. The soundtrack is rather limited, but the tune has a lot of replay value. You won’t mind hearing it over and over again which is certainly a very good thing.
The only real negative to the game is that the servers are still wonky at the moment. Sometimes you’ll beat an opponent but then the game won’t count it and you have to keep beating them until it does. The best thing to do in this case is typically to log out and then go back in. The game does have an interesting health mechanic though as when your fighter loses you must heal them with an item. If you are out of items then you must use another one. I guess Pokemon Go has a feature like this, but getting health items here can be a little trickier. It’s a problem you may have down the road, but at the very least you’ll definitely have enough to get through the main campaign.
Overall, Tekken doesn’t do anything new in the mobile genre, but it still manages to be a solid game. Naturally if you’re a big Tekken fan then this game already has many reasons for you to play this. It will depend on how many fighting game apps of this type you’ve played before and if you want to go with this one or not. There are some server issues but as the game gets older and people leave that shouldn’t be much of a problem. I’d recommend the game, it’s a solid title that will have a continuous stream of content for at least a year and likely longer. Running out of things to do won’t be an issue.
Overall 7/10
Stats time!
Play Time 19h 29m
Money 32,465
Titles: 37.40% Complete
Offline Stats
Record 106-3
Current League: Chrome
Rank: 1
Clothes
Hats 23/352
Mustache 7/14
Glasses 14/132
Battle AR 12/12
Headphones 39/48
Battle Jacket 14/324
Effects 14/14
Outer Effects 6/6
Online Stats
Rank Battles Record: 84-26
Friendly Battles Record 63-20
Rank: C5
Overall Battle Record 253-49
19 Perfect KOS
100 Burst Attacks
45 Cool Wins
1 Time Up
Longest Ranked Win Streak: 16
5 Star Results: 33
Total Synergy Burst Count 338
Total Support Use 415
Total Earned Money 17,378,465
Pokemon Stats
Blaziken Level 100 247-43
Chandelure Level 4 3-1
Pikachu Level 1 0-1
Weavile Level 1 0-1
Suicune Level 1 0-1
Charizard Level 1 1-0
Pikachu Libre Level 2 1-0
Braixen Level 1 1-0
Mewtwo Level 1 0-1
Shadow Mewtwo Level 1 0-1
Lucario Level 1 –
Machamp Level 1 –
Gardevoir Level 1 –
Gengar Level 1 –
Sceptile Level 1 –
Garchomp Level 1 –
Nintendo has churned out another winner folks. The Wii U has gotten a lot of heat over the infamous Gamepad as well as the lack of third party games, but it’s always very easy to forgive these oversights when you look at the first party titles. Super Smash Bros for Wii U is the greatest game of all time and Mario Maker is an all star title as well. Pokken continues to set the bar very high and isn’t afraid of those other titles. In fact, I’d say that this game beats Mario Maker and it’s automatically my 2nd favorite Wii U game. It has a lot of replay value and I can definitely see myself playing it for a very long time. This one’s a keeper all right.
Pokken is a mix of 2D and 3D fighting. There are two phases which have different rules and strategies so the game is deeper than you would expect. In 3D mode, you want to either overwhelm your opponent with projectile spam or quickly hit them with a close attack. 2D mode plays more like Street Fighter and you have to really think about which move you are going to use or it’ll all be for naught. The game has a bit of a rock paper scissors mechanic so it’s all about out thinking your opponent.
Your standard attacks beat out grabs. Grabs beat out Focus Attacks. Focus Attacks beat out Power Modes. Power Moves usually beat out strong moves and strong moves are basically pointless, but I’m guessing that they beat out standard ones. String them together for combos and then you also have the Burst Mode at your disposal once you have enough meter. That mode essentially gives you super armor on just about all of your attacks as well as a great final smash which can eat through just about every single attack. I highly recommend using it after performing an unsafe combo, the opponent will try to punish you and that’s when the final smash really comes through.
I’m not usually a fan of the classic Rock Paper Scissors for fighting games, but it’s implemented well here. It doesn’t feel like luck and it’s really more tactical than anything else. Conditioning an opponent feels more important here than in Super Smash as you want to lead an opponent to your destination. (For example, spending the first 2 rounds of a set always going for a Focus Attack when getting up to set up the grab for the third round where you’ll go for a strong combo instead.)
An interesting choice that the game made was to include a level up system. I suppose that this is a feature that has always been in the Pokemon games so getting rid of it may not have gone over well with the older fans, but it does give you a bit of an advantage online. It actually applies to your online “For Glory” mode and that means that the person with the higher leveled fighter has the edge. The level caps at 100 and you should have that after 2-3 days, but until then you better watch out. You can choose to use your level up points on Attack, Defense, Synergy, or Support I believe. I put everything into attack so my Final Smash is truly awesome now!
The bulk of your playtime will likely go towards the local multiplayer mode or online to fight with friends and rivals as you rise through the ranks. I really like how the leaderboard rankings are set up because it’s less discouraging than some other games. For example, a loss won’t get rid of any of your points until you make it to C rank. That’s when the true struggle will begin. This differs from a game like Street Fighter where you’ll lose points each time you lose and one loss can force you to have to make up a lot of ground and you can even lose your rank. That can happen here, but it’s a little safer and going on a losing streak is just as tricky as going on a win streak due to the solid matchmaking algorithms in place.
Right now my For Glory Win% is around 80% and I’ve made it to E1. I expect to be in the D ranks by tomorrow and my progress will likely start to slow around that point as the opponents will get a lot tougher. The rounds are short and fun so it’s easy to play this game for hours and hours. It’s easy to see how streamers can keep on playing in front of their audience for so long. It’s the kind of game that has unlimited replay value.
The offline modes are not quite as brilliant. There’s a nice tutorial/practice mode, but you may not want to spend much..or any time there. I recommend at least giving it a quick stop, but you should use Story Mode to practice your moves since it’s so long and the opponents in the first league won’t really fight back anyway. The plot of the story is that a mysterious Shadow Mewtwo has been challenging players and defeating them all. He continues to get stronger, which is a problem since it’s draining synergy, the life force of the planet. If he’s not stopped then the planet will blow up so the main character has to get strong enough to end this.
The plot shows up at the end of each tournament before finally coming into play after the third one. The plot is actually pretty enjoyable. The exposition was a little unnaturally long, but for the most part the characters were interesting and the universe was nicely developed. Shadow Mewtwo’s boss themes were also incredible and I’ll never forget the very first time that he showed up. It was such an epic moment and easily the best part of the whole story experience. Unfortunately, the gameplay of the story is what I’m not crazy about like with DBZ’s Budokai 2.
There are 4 (Possibly 5 from what I’ve heard) tournaments. Each tournament has you start by moving up the ranks as you face 5 opponents. You must then fight them again and again to move past that part and enter the 8 man tournament. After you win that, then you fight the Promotion Battle and then you rinse and repeat after a quick cinematic fight. It gets longer and longer and according to Reddit/Gamefaqs calculations, the story is around 110-120 fights long and that number will vary if you happen to lose during the run. I completed the first 3 tournaments so far and I’ll admit that I’m not too crazy about the prospect of going for the next 2. I will do them, even if only to get Mewtwo and the final support Pokemon, but the story didn’t have to be artificially extended quite so far. There was just no reason for it.
The short part that is actually the story is quite interesting though and I really would have liked the whole story mode to be about that. Maybe next time I guess. The voice acting has been chuckled at a lot online and I can see why. As one guy said for the first big promotion battle master, he sounded like he was eating while talking. The voice was very muffled. Still, it’s pretty funny and I’d say that the voice acting is pretty well done depending on how intentional it all is. I actually like Nia as she constantly rubs the losses in your face and takes credit for your wins. “You’re like a Magikarp out of water” “They made you their punching bag that time!” Those are epic quotes that may seem mean spirited, but that’s just who Nia is. It’s not personal, even when she gives you advice like “Keep your guard up” right before the opponent grabs you. You have the option to turn her off, but I can’t bring myself to do that. The constant dialogue is hype and she’s much better at her role than Navi. Mewtwo’s owner is also a pretty cool character. She’s a mysterious figure and even her ending is rather sudden so I guess that’ll leave some room for the sequel. Hopefully the main character gets to talk if there is a Pokken 2.
The gameplay is great, which is lucky for me because it makes this a lot more bearable than it would have been otherwise, but it’s still really long. My recommendation is, don’t lose when you’re in the main tournament phase. Trust me, it’ll make the whole cycle even tougher. You can cheese most of the opponents though, but make sure that you are truly good by the time the last tournaments roll around because the cheese tactics won’t be nearly as effective.
Each round earns you up to 20K and winning tournaments gives you significantly higher amounts. I’ve earned almost 10 million already, but the money goes very quickly. I don’t even know how many accessories and clothes you can buy, but it’s a lot and I’m nowhere near rich enough to purchase them all. That’ll come with time since the game is quite generous with the money. Local battles and friendly matches still give you the 20K so just play a lot and eventually you’ll have all the money that you could ever want. I can’t say that most of the clothes are anything that I would want to use for my avatar, but to be honest I haven’t looked through most of the choices yet.
The graphics for Pokken are very well done. It has the semi realistic look of Tekken while still being very bright and fancy. As you may know from the Brawl days, I’m not a super big fan of darker, more live action esque designs, but these stay colorful enough that they still feel like Pokemon and it does leave a trail of epicness for the fights to escalate to even greater heights. It’s part of why I like maining Blaziken so much, his fiery attacks look so great when you’re in the middle of a good ole fashioned fist fight. Blaziken was the very first Pokemon that I ever got in Pokemon Ruby, my first Pokemon game so he has a lot of sentimental value for me. He may be a low tier fighter next to most of the others in Pokken, but he’s currently my main and he’s taken me pretty far.
The soundtrack’s decent for the most part. I’ll admit that most of the stages are fairly unmemorable when it comes to the music and I tried to listen to a few of them on Youtube, but some of them just aren’t that good. Luckily, Shadow Mewtwo makes up for that with his incredible themes. I could listen to those for hours and the tunes are great enough to raise the whole soundtrack for me. Still, that’s reason enough for me to just call the soundtrack decent, it doesn’t really live up to my expectations of how good it would sound. Most of the handheld games have a better overall soundtrack.
As possibly mentioned earlier, there are 16 fighters. This is a really low amount and I’ll admit that a few of the choices were pretty underwhelming. Chandelure and that Fire Fox? Really? I don’t think they’ve earned a spot on the roster to be honest although I support Shadow Mewtwo and Pikachu Libre so..my opinion is a little unique. Unlike Super Smash where you’ll have memorized all of the attacks for all 50+ characters right away, it’s tricky to do that in this game since there are 4 different attack types for each character and then you have to double that for 3D mode + 2D mode while also accounting for their attacks in both modes while in Burst Mode. Simply put, it’ll take a while unless you make this game your top priority.
I’m going to be spending a lot of time with this game, but it’ll never be my top priority the way that Smash Bros is. I’ve put in well over 100 hours on that game just watching gameplay footage from the top players around the world. I’ve maybe put in 2 hours for that with Pokken, but I’ll really just spend my time playing it as opposed to watching. I am entering the Pokken event at Apex 2016, but I’ll see how far I can go as I am. Back to the main point, the 16 characters limit doesn’t feel as bad as it could. As it is, it’s very hard to pull out another fighter once you’ve chosen a main and do well enough to win the fight. I have pulled it off with my classic pockets, Pikachu Libre and Chandelure, but it’s tricky since I’m relying on pure fundamentals and button mashing.
Blaziken’s definitely my guy right now. He unfortunately has a very tough time against projectiles though. If I see any strong Gengars or Chandelure players, I can probably count the match as a loss although I’ll try to keep it real. I like Pikachu since he really has a lot of good projectiles and Libre’s command grabs make him a real threat. Each of the characters have their strengths with the only one that just feels weak is Charizard. He’s just soooo slow, although I pulled off a nice win with him online, I doubt I will play him again for a while. I still haven’t even tried out around 5-6 of the characters so I have to get around to that. This is the kind of game where you don’t spend much time choosing different characters since there’s not much merit to it. Just pick 2 characters to cover your matchups and you’re set.
By the way, you’ll want to stay active online or your ranking will plummet. You won’t lose points, but people will just leapfrog you. I made it into the 8000s on my first day, but then I took a break from online for a day to focus on the story. When I got back I was in the 14000s. I’ve since made it back to the 10000s, but it just goes to show how many people are playing it right now. I kind of want to make the top 1000, but that’s unlikely unless I really play it a bunch. I’ll probably look at the overall sales figures and then I’ll try to stay in the top 10% or 5% by the end. That’s a reasonable goal I’d say.
Overall, Pokken is a fighting game that you’ve got to get right away. The gameplay mechanics can be a little complex and overwhelming at first, but put in an hour or two of just fighting normally in Story Mode and you’ll start to pick up all of the little rules. It’s not a game like Virtua Fighter where you can play for days and still not pick up most of the terms. Once you’re in, you’ll see how much fun the game is. There may only be 16 fighters, but you’ll still have a tough time learning all of their attacks and now you can really prove your stuff with your main. The replay value is endless and you also unlock a lot of titles from time to time, which are fun to use online. There are so many choices that it’s tough to decide on one. Aim to become the world champ with your character and I’ll see you at the top!
Overall 9/10
Nothing gets you hyped quite like a new Pac Man game right? That’s what I thought when I first bought this game, but after playing it once, I put it in the backlog with a lot of other games and I figured that I probably wouldn’t see it again for a very long time. Years later, I ended up taking it out once more to play it with my brother and my cousin as a party game always has the potential to be a blast. It’s much better with multiple people, I can tell you that for sure. That being said, this is still a game that needs a lot of work and should have been much better, but terrible decisions on the developer’s part limited the title.
There’s no actual story mode, but that’s all right. I wasn’t expecting one. You can go into the main Party Mode or have fun in Minigame Mode. That’s the only thing to do here so the game is going for quality over quantity. Party Mode has 4 worlds I believe and each world has its own set of minigames inside of it. The actual stage has long loading times though and each turn takes forever. This is one of my big complaints and it’s a little sudden, but let’s dive into this issue right now.
The main drawback that keeps this game from being very good is the fact that playing a single board will take a very long time. After each turn, each character will do a little dance, strike a pose, and then slowly walk up to the final area of where to go. Rinse and Repeat for all 4 characters, play the minigame at the end of the level…and then do it all over again. This is why I was bored out of my mind when I played the game on my own the first time. If you aren’t playing with anyone else, it’s a very boring experience.
I’m not saying that the actual minigames are bad though. I actually enjoyed them and the ideas were quite good. There were kart minigames and even some classic “Press A as fast as you can” ones in there. Minigames about timing and memorization…just a lot of options. There are a very good amount of minigames in the title even if you will inevitably playing them more than once. It’s why I don’t think it was a good idea to limit the minigames to each world. Combining them all into one world would give you more variety. Still, I did enjoy them and the minigames help save this game from being downright bad.
It does bring up another issue though, which is that the minigames aren’t available for free roam mode. In Mario Party, once you play the minigame once, you unlock it. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works in this one. You have to use lottery points that you earn during the stage and that will typically come at the expense of actually winning the level, which is always disappointing. As a result, you’ll have enough coupons to maybe…maybe buy one minigame at the end of the level. So, you need to spend about an hour or 2 per minigame and there are quite a lot to unlock. It’s just not an efficient system and it takes forever to make any actual progress in the game. That’s not even counting the fact that each player’s coupon section is separate instead of merging the coupons from all players. It’s just terrible honestly and as a result, you’ll never want to play Minigame Mode since there are no good minigames to play. Better stick to Party Mode then.
The actual Party Mode is very much like Candyland or Trouble. You move along the course and the goal is to get to the end. You play a minigame and your rank in that battle determines how far you move. 5, 3, 2, or 1 step forward. Once you are near the end, you will need to come in 3rd, 2nd, and then 1st to finally win, which is actually a very good mechanic to even things up. This prevents a player from simply walking up to the goal line thanks to a few lucky rolls of the dice. It is sad to win a bunch of minigames only to find out that it still isn’t enough because you’re landing on bad spaces. It’s just not right!! I highly recommend playing the short version of each board to give yourself a nice estimate of how long the full version would take. Trust me, it does take a considerable amount of time so keep that in perspective.
I like the graphics to an extent, but I have to admit that they seem to be a little bad on a technical level. Everyone is very small, compact, and practically chibi. It’s very intriguing to see and it can be amusing, but the Gamecube can do better. The graphics are very dark and don’t seem to be very inspired. It’s possible that my Gamecube’s lighting is just starting to fade, but games like Sonic Adventure 2 Battle and Mario Sunshine still look great so it may have to do more with the fact that nobody can stop Nintendo’s powerful graphics. These were good times!
As for the soundtrack, that part of the game was pretty decent. There’s a nice Pac Man remix and a few other tunes scattered throughout the game. Unfortunately, the main theme that plays during your walk through the board is very boring and doesn’t make you excited for the games. It’s essentially just elevator music and I expect more from my Namco games. It had such possibilities, but couldn’t live up to the potential.
Unfortunately, there just isn’t a lot of replay value here. The actual games take way too long and you can’t even have fun just playing the minigames on your own because they are just too expensive. Buying them is simply not worth putting the time into the games so the only form of replay value here is to grab a few buddies and have a quick game. As a group, it’s decently fun and that’s the only reason that it barely manages to pass a 5, but if you’re on your own, the game turns into a 4. It’s a shame that the game missed these opportunities since there’s no reason it should have even gotten under a 7. This was no cash in party game in terms of how the minigames went on. They all had heart and it felt like the developers put some effort into them. This was just nullified by the bad system of unlocking minigames.
Overall, Pac Man Fever is no Pac Man. I gained some respect for the game after playing it as a group, but that’s still not a good sign for any video game. You can buy it for a terrific price so that at least helps you to get your money’s worth, but there are better party games to get. Buy one of the older Mario Party titles and experience a true party game. Mario Party was and likely will always be the greatest party game on the block. (Smash Bros doesn’t count!) Everything that Pac Man Fever can do, Mario Party can do better. So despite the positive score, I don’t recommend picking up Pac Man Fever as long as better options exist on the market.
Overall 6/10
DReager1.com 