As someone that plays mostly Tekken, it's nice to finally get an in depth perspective on the game from a 2D player that's actually put in the time to learn. I feel like outside of dedicated Tekken channels, the game doesn't get as much love as it deserves from fighting game players outside of the Tekken bubble. So I say all that to say, thanks for giving our game a chance!
I came from Street Fighter, MVC, and KoF. I only started really playing Tekken a year and a half ago, and I can definitively say that it's my favorite fighter. It just makes sense and is remarkably satisfying to play.
Exactly! As someone who has played Tekken growing up alongside SF & MK, I never see any love for it outside of dedicated Tekken channels, like you said! So it was nice to finally see this!
From the prospective of someone who only ever played 3d fighter looking at 2 D game, those games like insanely hard to learn. Motion imputs or each combo, super meter, insanely fast moves compared to tekken, fireballs, teleports, airdashing, the entire air game, it feels like a lot to grasp after so much tekken. It cool to get the reverse prospective. Been meaning to grab a 2d game to just to begin learning them.
as with any system they're things you get used to. Experience commits motion inputs to muscle memory. Keeping meter and airdashing in mind becomes a subconscious check. It's complex but it's a complex system of simple mechanics. I wouldn't say they're so hard to get into, and new series are trying to keep things simple all the time! Play strive if you're new though, it's a great way to get into 2D games.
@@Krando_ geese closer to 3D than 2D char. He is not too different from a Claudio with his starburst mechanic. It's a good start to learn meter management and specials moves. Akuma tho, really offers a 2D oriented gameplay with his jumps and demon flips that dodge mids (and highs depending the move and timing)
It's very nice and refreshing seeing someone giving praise to Tekken (mostly 7) after seeing way too much negativity surrounding it lately. I don't usually watch videos where the creator asks me to play a game I already do but it was very nice.
Tbh im mainly a 2d player and i struggle heavily with tekken tbh, and its so frustrating when you play online and cant even get a hit in, like seriously why cant i win any matches at all. Its why i usually go back to mortal kombat x and sfv because i find that you can get the basics and afew ideas and get somewherre but it seems with tekken unless you master them then theirs no way to win online. I keep trying as heihachi but its just not baring anything. Iv played tekken tag and 5 for years in the offline modes and iv liked them but i feel the people online are like several leagues above me and tbh i dont think i will ever crack that and this is just for my own enjoyment and not for anything else. So i try but i hate that tekken demands you know without any real rewards
Tekken has always reminded me of golf. A sport in which there are endless variables, no one can ever be perfect, and the winner is almost always the player who made the least number of mistakes.
The editing on this video was bananas! My favorite bit was when there was the cabinet with kazuya and someone else, and in the blurred background it was the same match from a different angle. Really great transitions and kinetic typography in some places. Amazing.
This honestly goes for every mechanically deep game (competitive or single player), but you should NEVER expect to learn everything at once or be up-to-date just in a few days. These games have more to offer than a single bloated one-time experience which many modern single player games unfortunately tend to. There is no rush. You don't need to be competitively competent tommorrow. See it as spending time with a game you love, which gives you more in return the more you learn it. Approach games like that and i can guarantee you, you will have more fun than going through 7 mediocre ones with no incentive of replayability whatsoever. Games where you never stop to learn out are a godsent.
This is one of the reasons why I love Guilty Gear and Blazblue. They're both amazing series and incredibly deep... BB specifically has encouraged me to take FGs way more seriously than before, and I'm quite happy for that.
As a 20 year Tekken veteran, I'll say that Leroy and Fauk are by far the strongest characters in Tekken history. This was the best description of Tekken that I ever seen. Well done and keep playing
Plus, I appreciate that even though it’s intimidating and theres a shit ton to learn, it still feels like the game genuinely respects new players and it seems to be fun at all levels of play
Its intimidating at first but the less you approach the game at an attempt to master it (because there are so many concepts that you can explore in different ways) and rather, to just play your opponent as is then it feels more fun and interactive. There are very few FGs that give you 3 rounds per game set (even some 'fast' 2D games like Strive opt to give 2 rounds and players go for volume with more sets as cumbersome as it may be) so you can use those as periods of time to get to know your opponent more.
That player expression is 100% why I love Tekken. Watching eyemusician fight *anyone* is always a joy. He's just ridiculously fun and extremely unique in his Yoshimitsu playstyle.
I remember playing as Heihachi against Kazuya who always broke my throws but I noticed that after 2+4 throw break Kazuya landed with his back to me so pressing 2+4 again locks him in the back throw dealing even more damage. The moment I pulled that off was GREAT.
“i’ll leave the complaining about tekken to the tekken players, they’ve earned it.” love that. people that complain when they have no idea what they’re talking about is a huge issue nowadays
Tekken 7 is amazingly fun; however, I'd like to take the time to appreciate the production level on your video. You're great, TheoryFighter! Keep it up and thanks for your hard work!
Video edition here is OUTSTANDING. Love Tekken, and loved this video. I totally agree, I hope the Tekken community grows a lot more with this kind of material! I missed 5 and 6 because of the "fear" of playing online and see how bad I was. But the important aspect of the game, is as you said: to try. Winning can be a consecuence, but trying new things and learning from the mistakes, makes this game special. I know there are plenty of games with this kind of "philosophy", but these are those games that are based on controlling frustration, getting out of the confort zone and accepting our faults after a match that wasn't as we expected. Thanks for this video, great job!
14:35 I remember after he won TWT rangchu said that he felt like he was much worse at using sidestep than other top players so part of the reason he picked panda was because they had a weak sidestep so he wouldn't have to use it much
"Are you picking up a guitar and immediatley banging out some Bolt Thrower?" Damn man, your taste in music is impeccable and identifying with it (logo, background music, quotes like these) really makes you stand out from other fighting game channels!
Tekken is like real martial arts You get out what you put in and it's learning timing and execution that gets you to master a move and fighter. Nice video pal
I think that Tekken does prove that you shouldn't have revolutionary differences in the same series. I dropped off of guilty gear strive because it just didn't have the same feel as Xrd or XX for me. I think that experimental stuff should be made into a new IP or spinoff, so the community doesn't get fractured over several games. BlazBlue did this well, with having the most radically different game not being a mainline game.
First lesson I got out of this video. I have moods where I want to play different things, but when it comes to fighting games, I wanted to take my Soul Calibur 2 knowledge and run wild with it. And it turns out I simply can't do that, because Siegfried and Nightmare will NEVER play the way Nightmare did in SC2. I'm going to remember this if I ever decide to build a fighting game for myself. Even if that turns out to be a sports fighting game centered around boxing.
While I understand where you're coming from, I have to disagree. I feel like it's a huge waste of time to just release the same game over and over again with small graphical upgrades as the specs of the hardware improve. I understand this is *entirely* reductive, the individual characters have absolutely evolved as the franchise has progressed, but... the old games still exist. If I wanted to play Super Turbo or Third Strike or Xrd or Melee, I could find people to play with *right now*, it's not hard. Could you imagine Capcom trying to juggle 8 different fighting game franchises and trying to keep them all relevant? They wouldn't. The truth of the matter is that the first wave of players in a new edition of a fighting game are fueled entirely by brand recognition. We've got a massive graveyard of capcom fighting franchises to prove it: Darkstalkers, Red Earth, Power Stone, Jojo's, Rival Schools... I could go on but I'd just be reading off of a wiki at this point. Do you think we'd have gotten the fighting game resurgence that came with Street Fighter 4 if it was just Super Turbo with 3d graphics and more characters? Thing is, I'm happy we can have it both ways. If I don't like the newest street fighter, I can go play a different modern fighting game I like better. If that game happens to be a thousand year old unchanging monolith of a franchise like tekken, it doesn't matter to me. I'm still having fun.
@@kevingriffith6011 Guilty gear double X and XRD are not the same or a reskin, XRD actually introduced a lot of mechanics and new characters while keeping a lot of things that made guilty gear felt guilty gear. Strive barely feels like a guilty gear game, slow dashing, slow airdashing, no gatlings, teching, watered down characters, instant faultless defense, dumbing down systems that were already dumbed downed in XRD, ect...
@@edlerkrieger8045 Like I said, the "it's the same game" statement is absolutely reductive. My point, though, is that Xrd still exists. You can still play it *right now*. I'm sorry that you feel betrayed by Arcsys, but that doesn't make Strive a bad game, it's just different, and in my mind different is exciting. At the end of the day, though, I understand that there is no objectively correct outlook on this. I do wish that Theoryfighter didn't imply that experimentation is somehow disrespectful, or that wanting to see how established characters evolve in a changing landscape is bad, but that's just their opinion.
Ironically I bought 7 on sale 2 days ago As a lab monster who picks up games just for the lab, this busted open my imagination more than any other game It's immediately satisfying and only gets better I felt like I have mastered my arcade stick and in my time against cpu, in a panic to remember my prep, I came up with combos I thought felt right and was regarded for it In comparison, when I returned to street fighter for the update, I picked up a relatively simple character and felt I mastered them in an hour Highly recommend
Amazing vid tbh, great to see Tekken getting some love outside of the dedicated Tekken channels. Especially nowadays where a lot of us are feeling burnt out on T7 and want something new, or we're missing the older games. Tekken's depth is what makes it such a joy to play, because there's near infinite possibilities. It can be scary, but its fun because of it. It can be scary and daunting, but if you can get over that hurdle you get one of the most fun fighting games ever with just how much control and freedom you're offered. The way you put it at the end was perfect, enjoy the journey, and don't focus on the destination.
Wow, this was just brilliantly made; from the humble beginning explaining your personal opinion, to really getting into the nit and grit of it without the video being crazy long. Very well done!
As someone who started to *_actually learn_* fighting games with T7 and fell in love with its depth, I'm ecstatic you're enjoying it. My only real gripe with the game (outside DLC characters having much stronger mix-up/strings than the starting roster): lacking a built in way to view hitboxes in training mode. Sure, it increases the amount of time you have to spend labbing to reach a degree of competency in matchups, but why deliberately keep players from more learning new things and implementing them in their game? tl;dr Tekken doesn't benefit from deliberately hiding information from players, but to the frustration of mid level players it does anyway
It's really a shame with Tekken 7 how so many aspects of its gameplay are so incredibly satisfying and addictive but the game is somewhat dragged down by relatively simple technical blunders. If they could improve the netcode, add hitboxes to practice mode, tone down a few of the strongest characters and optimize the loading times between matches I would have very few things left to complain about personally. It is so painfully close to being almost the perfect game for me. Really crossing my fingers that the next game manages to polish the edges around Tekken 7 because I'll be damned if the franchise doesn't deserve it.
@@HeirofDacia I watched thatblastedsalami's video on them, but wasn't aware there was a specific term (although it does make sense given that they're moving hitboxes in a three dimensional space). I appreciate the correction.
Yeah, hitboxes are line segments and hurtboxes are comprised of a bunch of cylinders. Just a mild semantics correction, the reason I say line segment is that they have the property of a starting and end point, something a vector lacks (vectors only have magnitude and direction). The reason they don't simply check if the cylinders intersect is because it's much more efficient to do an intersection test for line segments and axis-aligned cylinders.
One thing that needs to be talked about at some point is the aesthetics of the game. Graphically the character animations of this game are just off the charts. Music. Stages. Character designs. Just beautiful.
Tekken is a game that'll give you back exactly how much you wanna put into it. Like I play pretty casually for a while and just slowly try to learn concepts through playing. It's fun, and i don't feel the same pressures to optimize I do in some other games because the move lists are huge, and the buttons flow together so well you can just have fun. I wouldn't say Alpha 2 or Guilty Gear XXAC+R got really fun for me until I got a level of competence mechanically and fundamentally to get the meat of their gameplay. I love them, but it did take persistence to get to there. Tekken doesn't in the same way, I can sit down and have fun and not feel like the true game hasn't opened up yet.
Excellent video. I personally came from 2d fighters primarily and now consider Tekken 7 to be my main game. Thanks for making such a nicely thought out and edited video
I love how every character in Tekken has at least 80 moves and you don't need to use all of them, you only need to use a few you're good at and like the most. This is the best fighting game series there is for player expression
If there's someone here looking to get into Tekken please ffs pick a top tier find and friends to play with. Preferably offline. The learning will come naturally. Online Tekken is one of the most soul killing experiences I have had with a video game in my entire life. If you feel like your honeymoon fun is over take a break and come back to it later if you wish.
One of the things I love about tekken is the characters feel much more real. You actually FEEL like you are doing a low kick, or a huge uppercut, or some crazy throw-your-whole-body-at-someone move. My favorite character (king) feels like a real wrestler. You aren’t just doing a mixup between grab or hit on oki, you are doing crazy pro wrestler moves. TOMBSTONE PILEDRIVER! THE PEOPLES ELBOW! ROLLING DEATH CRADLE!!!!
1 word defines Tekken more for me than any other word. Organic. As a Yoshimitsu and Lei main I never feel restricted in my options to express myself and do literally anything I can think of in the fight. Once you find characters that feel correct for you they become like a second skin. Every move and option feels natural, the way the ground and wall game works feels natural, things just flow into each other constantly. Every character has layers of nuance that interacts with every other characters nuance in a rich gradient. I love 2D fighters from ST to MvC to everything inbetween but few fighters feel as expressive as Tekken can get.
The comparison to traditional hobbies at the end is one I make to the whole genre when I talk about it with my non-fighting game friends. Getting to find my "voice" in a given fighting game is such a blast even if I'm still not great at them as a whole.
I've wanted to express how awesome Tekken was to someone that's new, or never heard of Tekken before, but never really knew how to articulate it in a way that's digestible. This is an amazing analysis or explanation, in regards to how great a game Tekken can be
Player identity is the most interesting part of fighting games to me and I don’t think I appreciated how Tekken’s density helps that. Love the editing on this one too. Good stuff
Thanks for helping me express why I love this franchise so much :) I remeber playing it as a kid when my mom got me a cheap copy of 4, and I was hooked ever since. I feel like I still learn something new from this game, even though I've played it for years, and the combo system is something my brain has an easier time grasping. I also appreciate the 3d aspect of it in general. Makes fundamentals more interesting. Anyways, great video my guy!
Firstly, I want to personally thank you for making this video @TheoryFighter, from the heart with sincerity. It' truly feels like this video was made for me, and has opened my eyes to the value of what was right in my face, this whole time. I have been in the FGC for decades, but began playing the very first Street Fighter in the 80's, then World Warriors onwards ever since. As such, I have developed a great aptitude to pick up other fighters easier, however Tekken always got past me with it's deep move list and conditions. Today I admit, I fall directly into the group you spoke of, who spends Fighting time in GG Strive, DBFZ out of protest of what heppened to SFV, and have a special place in my heart for SFIII Third Strike. Thing is, I grew up in the Arcade era, so I've more then PLAYED Tekken, starting from Tekken 2 onwards I dabbled, but didnt get truly invested until Tekken Tag 2 was released. I say all this to say, I have owned Tekken 7 since shortly after it's release, and have played it maybe 5-6 times collectively at home. I've played it more out socially at arcades and tourneys then anything, the people who play Tekken definitely seem the most consistantly "Normal" and diverse people in the FGC, and as such I had NO IDEA how far on the outs us traditional 2D FGC really are, and how pivital and important this game has been to consitency, and knowledge sharing in the FGC. I feel like i've been missing out on a big chunk of misplaced lab time. Don't be like me, lol. As I get older, any game thet respects my time, gets my time investment back. As you read this, I have now re-installed Tekken 7 on my PS4 Pro, and will pick back up where I left off. Total 180 change the way I look at Namco Bandai now, and this franchise. I do enjoy it's quirky inside jokes and style of humor. #Chicken I want to challenge any of us who are only playing 3D fighters now because of the new KOF... to watch this video and tell me this doesn't adjust your whole approach. It now makes sense to me on how to enjoy this franchise and it's intentions, instead of tryna be frame perfect S+ Tier at everything like our 2D fighters tend to promote. Thank you so very much!
Great video. I got back into the fighting genre with SF4 but didn't bother picking up SFV with its abysmal launch. Made the transition across to Tekken 7 when it showed up on Steam & it's been a grueling but rewarding & fun learning curve. The comparison with learning a musical instrument is right on point as well. While accessibility has been a hot topic lately & there is a case to be made in a lot of games, there's definitely room for games that require time to get better and that offer a greater reward than the more common instant gratification we see in most games.
I live in Japan, and back when T6 and TTT2 were out, losing was the greatest teacher. I think I lost 80% of my matches, but when I came back to the states to play my friends, I absolutely dominated them. If you temper your ego and try to improve a little bit each match, you'll improve. I guess that's the same as most things in life. (note: I still get bodied in Japan. These players are wild)
As someone who grew up in the Arcades playing Street Fighter, Marvel vs Capcom, and Tekken. I always adored Tekken the most! You really brought up a great point about Street fighter. The game changes drastically between iterations, 3 to 4 was such a drastic change I dropped Street Fighter completely. And I honestly don't regret it, I gave Street fighter as much chance as I gave Tekken if not way more chances. And Tekken still won my heart. I do like shredding Guile and Ken's themes songs on my electric guitar tho.
Great video, I'll say this though since I've been playing Tekken almost every day for 2,5 years: There are aspects of the game you can improve on like execution, setups etc but the sheer mileage you get from knowledge is GIGANTIC compared to everything else. You can get the execution, the neutral, the situational awareness down in 1-2 years but the knowledge and punishment pit is bottomless
I wish Tekken had some better balancing though. The complaint about DLC characters feeling blatantly stronger than the original cast is most definitely true. However, some people have accused them of just trying to sell stuff or making them OP because they are greedy. I actually think the problem is more that for many of the DLC characters they just went crazy and wanted to come up with really awesome things (and they did!) but they ended up being too strong. That is not a permanent problem though, as this is a modern fighting game that can receive updates and patches!
Regarding execution: the easiest execution barrier in tekken is combos. Anyone can do it, unless it's a mishima optimal combo, and even if you can do a mishima optimal combo, that alone is no where near enough to slingshot you to top ranks or high levels of play. The difficulty in execution in Tekken is to have the mental cool to choose the correct/optimal defensive option and timing. To sidestep, to block a low, to low parry, to backdash. And add to that to whiff punish, upon successful attempts of these defensive options. To be able to create punishment opportunities where possible is the core execution of Tekken, and as the levels of play get higher, the harder that becomes, and it slowly turns to a Spacing game first to optimize the positioning in the arena and pressuring with forward dashes without pressing a button to get a better position in the stage. It's a deep mix of strategy and execution. The plan in your head is worth nothing if you can execute it.
5:00 I was a huge Tekken 3 player (also played 1 and 2 quite a bit) both on arcade and PS1. Then I stopped playing console videogames for a decade. Then I got Tekken 6 just before Tekken 7 and was released, and I got Tekken 7. I almost made the jump from 3 to 7. Things have changed. I prefer the static and rigid gameplay of Tekken 3 : slower, way more hit/block/throw jan ken based than T7, less endless juggle combos, no "super"... On one side I didn't have to relearn everything since most of my T3 muscle memory game plan still works, on the other side the series added so much stuff that my old tricks are actually crappy now, but I still can't get rid of my old reflexes that worked in T3, because they are still valid in the game. I prefer the "tabula rasa" policy of Capcom between SF episodes : I also played SF0-3 quite a lot back then and re-learning a totally different advanced gameplay from scratch when I got SF5 was actually freshening. Can't wait for SF6 and its new gameplay.
Tekken was what made me play fighting games in the first place, it's the first fighting game I've seen and just looking at the select screen alone in arcades made me fall in love with the genre.
Complexity is an illusion in this game. You only need a small subset of the movelist to compete and have fun, and you can add to your knowledge as you go. And once you learn the fundamentals, you can apply them universally, which lessens the task of having to learn the nuances of every matchup. The most important thing though, is that learning and growing is consistently fun and rewarding. This video should be compulsory viewing for anyone wanting to pick up this game.
As someone who got into Tekken later on I love it! The implementation of 2D characters in Tekken was an awesome way to introduce those players to Tekken. I also main Akuma in literally everything so I can only wish for him to come back, but even if he doesn't I am now a Tekken fan!
Tekken has the most player expression in FGC. You can have mirror matches and easily notice the difference in playstyle example: Yuyu who plays defensive Xiaoyu and Tanuka who prefers high risk high reward playstyle. And still there are other Xiaoyu's like P.Ling who is more of an all-rounder.
What an awesome video. Thanks for going the direction of understanding people's comfort zones and addressing Tekken in that way. I'll open the game and just experience it for you, Mr. Fighter.
I was in the same boat as you, didn’t really care to play tekken all through my fighting game journey. I picked it up because they added Noctis and the journey to just learning a full move list was fun because applying the knowledge you gain feels well earned.
As someone who's bounced off Tekken 7 a few times now this video makes me want to sit down and really give it a proper go again. I love footsies in fighting games so I just need to find the characters that really appeal to my prefered style
I love tekken because it's the entire package, I usually say Tekken is to Street Fighter what Dota is to League or what Path of Exile is to Diablo. The depth of all the firstmentioned games in the comparison all reward you for learning, maybe that way of learning is watching hundreds of hours of youtube videos, maybe it's playing 1000s and 1000s of matches, but whatever way you choose you will never ever see the end of the road, the learning path is the endgame, you're always learning and the game is evolving in it's own right. It's beautiful
Bought Tekken recently at a discount on Steam. The infinite number of moves definitely scared me at first, but it has been thoroughly enjoyable learning how to play. Currently attempting to learn Claudio!
I'd say there aren't tournament combos. When you combo you may want: - To maximize damage - To maximize distance to get to the wall. (either because you will get better damage at the wall or you want your oponent to be under wall.) - To end combo in such a way that it leaves oponent in a mixup, a setup. - To confuse the oponent, because he will be used to you normal combos and won't know what to do. Not every character has difficult combos, and difficult combos are really often not worth the effort.
i remember when i first tried Tekken Tag 1 on ps2 and just going through all of Jin's move list and it hooked me right away, seeing all the different things you could do even in that game that's fairly old now felt really good too me and made me want to go try and learn all the different moves in the game and beat the arcade ladder with everybody. the were so many cool varied characters in it and i remember when i first tried mokujin and unknown and then just being random select as an actual character to play as was really cool
for me, the most important part is not viewing it as a 'platform to stomp people' even though I was willing to learn I felt bad for losing, and for winning against people who failed the knowledge check. I had solved one side of the frustration but not the other. only on my 4th rewatch of this did I catch on to this and maybe now I'll be conscious enough to break past my plateau
The only Tekken game I ever really played was Tag 2 after being invited to try it by one of the people playing it and getting help learning the game from him while trying it out, and it was an interesting learning experience, especially since I don't play grapplers normally. I only really managed to learn a few things in the few months or so I got to play it after buying it for myself, but it was definitely an enjoyable game I'd play again if it were to come onto PC. A few years later and the one time I ever played Tekken 7, I actually managed to hold my own thanks to what King experience I had back in Tag 2 carrying over. Though to be honest, I'd be lying if I said one of the major reasons I even put that effort into learning the game wasn't because of King's.... ahem, "game assets", particularly in his Jaguar and Fundoshi outfits (the latter of which got nerfed in 7, RIP).
What is up with girls and king it's kind of funny to me l had some girls in my house one time and the only character that they found handsome was king l wa like "wtf really" its very interasting😝
@@anata.one.1967 hah nice l think thats why this game is so popular you can just mash and cool shit just happens thats how l got into tekken wen l was a kid l remember learning very slowly l would go to the comand list and find a cool move and just do it a lot in a match unblockables, 10 hit strings, the endings and characters are also why l got hooked in tekken😊
Found this in my search to Learn about Tekken 8 actually. Ive enjoyed the demo enough to know that i want to finally give this game a real try. After watching this video though, now i'm looking forward to the journey of learning and it doesn't sound quite as daunting as it did before.
I discovered Tekken 5 coming the street fighter back in 2006 when i first went to uni, and this video sums up everything like how the transition felt. Glad to see someone had a similar experience. Now what was even more exhilarating for me was the move to Melee in 2016, it was like the Tekken feeling x10. Hope you give it a go some day!
I play primarily FighterZ, with some history of dabbling in USFIV, GG +r, Marvel 3, and some JJBAHFTF and CVS2 on fightcade. My first experiences with Tekken were with T3 when I was a kid, and Tekken Revolution and Tekken 6 back in the PS3 days, and I tried T7 for the first time early this year, and man, I had never noticed how deep and complex these games are. Tekken is a game that really needs one to get well and truly involved in order to get good.
people look at the character and move screen like you have to be an expert in all characters and know all the moves. instead of seeing it for what it is, choice. you pick one or two characters. go through the move list pick 10-15 of the moves out of close to 50 most characters have to learn. a launcher, a few different mix up's, maybe some safer less damaging strings to open. all of these have multiple choices with almost every character. you practice them a little bit and bam, you can start online. thing's like movement, spacing and defense can't really be learnt outside of online. so you will suck to begin with, but learn fairly fast if you stick with it. just having those few moves down pat will give you the options you need offensively before you focus on improving in other aspects. instead of every person who play's a character using the same moves you can be far more creative with it. games like sf have very short move lists which has it's benefits, but it also limits choice and creates a scenario were everyone is doing the same thing. with tekken you have freedom to express yourself. of coarse some moves are better then others. and you'll learn which moves out of the 10-15 you learnt at the start needs to be changed out for the more effective ones as you play. but you still have a massive selection to choose from outside the expected combo's. don't see it as a mountain you have to climb, but a choice of multiple different paths you can take.
Your segment on "Difficulty is Relative" is exactly spot on. People think you need fight better players to improve. Actually no, you need to keep fighting people at your level and slowly parse out the strategies and attacks that lower rank people use. You do that enough, you'll eventually end up as good as the pros using only attacks and strategies proven to work. If you were to try to simply "fight good people" or emulate what they do, you will be missing that crucial experience of how to combat "lower rank strats". There is no getting around this "trial by fire" exercise because you can't learn it any other way. Your segment on "Knowledge checks" did bring up an awesome point about the mental stack and how it can make "bad moves" work, even on good opponents. The other point I want to bring about knowledge checks is that it's also completely useless without experience. Knowledge =/= experience, and just because you know something is punishable, does not equate to you being able to have the correct answer available in a moment without thinking. You can't ride a bike simply by reading a book about bike balancing. You'll need to get scraped up a bit first. Experience begets knowledge, not the other way around. Again, further reason why "Trial by fire" is the only way to improve. And I think that is the biggest detractor to people getting into this game. It's a hard pill to swallow to tell someone the only way to get good at this game is to consistently get rekt. There truly is no way to avoid getting destroyed by this launching string you've never seen before let alone all the setups for it. Multiply that by the dozens of characters this game has, and it's easy to see why they'd prefer the more simplistic nature of 2D fighters. There aren't nearly as many options, and the concepts are far simpler to understand. In a 2D game, it's not hard to imagine yourself learning all the characters and their strategies and "mastering" the game's knowledge checks, so you can actually practice the other skills of fighting games instead. Tekken doesn't ever let you do this. They dump so much knowledge on you that it's impossible to keep track of it all. This is natural for a human, and it's intentional by design. They want you to constantly improve in all aspects of the game, knowledge included. That's the real appeal of the game, this constant sense of progression. Another way of saying this is: being a Tekken Fan has to come with some level of boredom with how 2D fighters operate. You have to crave more depth, options and progression to begin to appreciate it. Which is why I believe Tekken is the fighting game you graduate into. When you get bored of the same game with a different shade of paint, you'll want to commit to something truly deep, and Tekken is exactly that.
@clxxd999 Aegisrick not wrong, as a massive gap in skill makes the fights too one sided to allow you gather much data from the experience when you are first learning a new game. If you keep losing in less than 20 seconds over and over you won't learn much about a game. It's hardly educational to you as a player, and more inferating than helpful. Obviously if you keep fighting the same person over and over regardless how godly they are at a game, you will learn their tactics and how to counter that particular person, but that doesn't put you on their level, you just learned defeat that opponent on top it's a steep learning curve. Tekken in particular is a terrible game to take this path toward getting good since there's so many layers to it. You will gain far more experience fighting someone slightly above you in skill because you will have a actual match vs them instead of being rapidly overwhelmed till you finally have that ah ha moment and overcome them. You likely would miss out on alot of fundamentals that would help you in many matches. You learn what works and what does for you, as you become your own kind of fighter rather than just a copy cat of the metagame. I think it's good periodically fight big dogs to give yourself a reality check where you're at, but I think it's far more productive to fight people hovering just above or below you for a more rounded and far less frustrating learning experience. It's a steady process.
I literally experienced this last year as a predominantly street fighter mvc player who refused to give tekken or arc sys games a try. I gave Strive a try and enjoyed the hell out of it and then when I got bored of it I finally, after many years gave tekken am honest to God try. I personally found so much of it foreign and was skeptical of it ever clicking, especially kid. However it did. I've since taken a break from it and went back to sfv but I am super excited to actually go into the next tekken with at least somewhat of a foundation
Tekken means so much to me because it was the first “legacy” game I actually sat down, played, and saw a lot of success in ranked with and applying what I learned in Tekken to other games like Street Fighter and even Guilty Gear boosted my execution and knowledge in those games tenfold. Also because it was the first time I was called a slur by a salty individual online which is also a bonus lol
You absolutely nailed it mate. Incredible stuff.
Hey love your vids
@@lucianocruz3383 Hey, thanks!
U should do more videos on Tekken
@@unknown-td6kk Got some in the oven.
It’s great to get the perspective of someone who is new to the game and can articulate one of the many attractions of this wonderful game.
You should play tekken NOW! *thunder noises*
Use to be a street fighter main at IV. But after tekken 7, been stuck there
I literally read this comment during thunder but I love tekken ❤️
Low Tier God, the ultimate anti-therapist and fighting game rager.
But my computer would liquefy if i even thought about installing Tekken 7
I mean that with 100% with %1000
As someone that plays mostly Tekken, it's nice to finally get an in depth perspective on the game from a 2D player that's actually put in the time to learn. I feel like outside of dedicated Tekken channels, the game doesn't get as much love as it deserves from fighting game players outside of the Tekken bubble. So I say all that to say, thanks for giving our game a chance!
I came from Street Fighter, MVC, and KoF. I only started really playing Tekken a year and a half ago, and I can definitively say that it's my favorite fighter. It just makes sense and is remarkably satisfying to play.
Exactly! As someone who has played Tekken growing up alongside SF & MK, I never see any love for it outside of dedicated Tekken channels, like you said! So it was nice to finally see this!
Facts
@rhythmlp
@@alexnostalgix
From the prospective of someone who only ever played 3d fighter looking at 2 D game, those games like insanely hard to learn. Motion imputs or each combo, super meter, insanely fast moves compared to tekken, fireballs, teleports, airdashing, the entire air game, it feels like a lot to grasp after so much tekken. It cool to get the reverse prospective. Been meaning to grab a 2d game to just to begin learning them.
as with any system they're things you get used to. Experience commits motion inputs to muscle memory. Keeping meter and airdashing in mind becomes a subconscious check. It's complex but it's a complex system of simple mechanics. I wouldn't say they're so hard to get into, and new series are trying to keep things simple all the time! Play strive if you're new though, it's a great way to get into 2D games.
You should play goose in tekken, he (obviously) plays exactly like a 2D imo
@@Krando_ geese closer to 3D than 2D char. He is not too different from a Claudio with his starburst mechanic. It's a good start to learn meter management and specials moves. Akuma tho, really offers a 2D oriented gameplay with his jumps and demon flips that dodge mids (and highs depending the move and timing)
try eliza, she's a good middle ground
thats why we have Eliza
It's very nice and refreshing seeing someone giving praise to Tekken (mostly 7) after seeing way too much negativity surrounding it lately. I don't usually watch videos where the creator asks me to play a game I already do but it was very nice.
Tbh im mainly a 2d player and i struggle heavily with tekken tbh, and its so frustrating when you play online and cant even get a hit in, like seriously why cant i win any matches at all. Its why i usually go back to mortal kombat x and sfv because i find that you can get the basics and afew ideas and get somewherre but it seems with tekken unless you master them then theirs no way to win online. I keep trying as heihachi but its just not baring anything. Iv played tekken tag and 5 for years in the offline modes and iv liked them but i feel the people online are like several leagues above me and tbh i dont think i will ever crack that and this is just for my own enjoyment and not for anything else. So i try but i hate that tekken demands you know without any real rewards
Still to many useless moves
I've played almost every Tekken since the original came out but I hate 7, just can't find it fun. 6 is great and I still play it.
@@BlitzkriegBryce tekken 5 and tag is the ones i stick to mainly. They took out my main wang in tekken 7 so im not happy with that game tbh
Its funny that this is not a rant comment and then all of the repile are rant comment LMAO
Tekken has always reminded me of golf. A sport in which there are endless variables, no one can ever be perfect, and the winner is almost always the player who made the least number of mistakes.
The editing on this video was bananas! My favorite bit was when there was the cabinet with kazuya and someone else, and in the blurred background it was the same match from a different angle. Really great transitions and kinetic typography in some places. Amazing.
Thank you!
I've been scared of tekken for years, but now i want nothing more than to try it... Congrats!!
This honestly goes for every mechanically deep game (competitive or single player), but you should NEVER expect to learn everything at once or be up-to-date just in a few days. These games have more to offer than a single bloated one-time experience which many modern single player games unfortunately tend to. There is no rush. You don't need to be competitively competent tommorrow. See it as spending time with a game you love, which gives you more in return the more you learn it. Approach games like that and i can guarantee you, you will have more fun than going through 7 mediocre ones with no incentive of replayability whatsoever.
Games where you never stop to learn out are a godsent.
This is one of the reasons why I love Guilty Gear and Blazblue.
They're both amazing series and incredibly deep... BB specifically has encouraged me to take FGs way more seriously than before, and I'm quite happy for that.
As a 20 year Tekken veteran, I'll say that Leroy and Fauk are by far the strongest characters in Tekken history.
This was the best description of Tekken that I ever seen. Well done and keep playing
Also a veteran. I hate Fauk. His design looks like he comes from a different game world.
theyre Murray's way of showing diversity, cancerous diversity. 3 new chars from season 3+4, all broken and bland af
They’re both now nerfed to the ground.
@@Weeksmistro Thank lord umbasa
As someone who’s only gotten into tekken a few months ago, it’s intimidating but DAMN is the learning process fun
Plus, I appreciate that even though it’s intimidating and theres a shit ton to learn, it still feels like the game genuinely respects new players and it seems to be fun at all levels of play
@@lukadahusky4005 yeah the ranked system is actually pretty on point
Its intimidating at first but the less you approach the game at an attempt to master it (because there are so many concepts that you can explore in different ways) and rather, to just play your opponent as is then it feels more fun and interactive. There are very few FGs that give you 3 rounds per game set (even some 'fast' 2D games like Strive opt to give 2 rounds and players go for volume with more sets as cumbersome as it may be) so you can use those as periods of time to get to know your opponent more.
That player expression is 100% why I love Tekken. Watching eyemusician fight *anyone* is always a joy. He's just ridiculously fun and extremely unique in his Yoshimitsu playstyle.
It’s always nice hearing people still getting into the game long after it’s release and even as Tekken 8 is in a close future .
I remember playing as Heihachi against Kazuya who always broke my throws but I noticed that after 2+4 throw break Kazuya landed with his back to me so pressing 2+4 again locks him in the back throw dealing even more damage. The moment I pulled that off was GREAT.
“i’ll leave the complaining about tekken to the tekken players, they’ve earned it.”
love that. people that complain when they have no idea what they’re talking about is a huge issue nowadays
Tekken 7 is amazingly fun; however, I'd like to take the time to appreciate the production level on your video. You're great, TheoryFighter! Keep it up and thanks for your hard work!
as a tekken veteran i have to say
well done
"tekken values your time" i get what you mean but i cant help but think about how it makes you GET READY FOR THE NEXT BATTLE every single rematch lmao
Video edition here is OUTSTANDING. Love Tekken, and loved this video. I totally agree, I hope the Tekken community grows a lot more with this kind of material!
I missed 5 and 6 because of the "fear" of playing online and see how bad I was. But the important aspect of the game, is as you said: to try. Winning can be a consecuence, but trying new things and learning from the mistakes, makes this game special. I know there are plenty of games with this kind of "philosophy", but these are those games that are based on controlling frustration, getting out of the confort zone and accepting our faults after a match that wasn't as we expected.
Thanks for this video, great job!
14:35 I remember after he won TWT rangchu said that he felt like he was much worse at using sidestep than other top players so part of the reason he picked panda was because they had a weak sidestep so he wouldn't have to use it much
"Are you picking up a guitar and immediatley banging out some Bolt Thrower?" Damn man, your taste in music is impeccable and identifying with it (logo, background music, quotes like these) really makes you stand out from other fighting game channels!
Tekken is like real martial arts
You get out what you put in and it's learning timing and execution that gets you to master a move and fighter. Nice video pal
This video helped a lot. I stuck in training mode so many evenings and never felt knowlegable enough to go online.
The editing is on another level.
I think that Tekken does prove that you shouldn't have revolutionary differences in the same series. I dropped off of guilty gear strive because it just didn't have the same feel as Xrd or XX for me. I think that experimental stuff should be made into a new IP or spinoff, so the community doesn't get fractured over several games. BlazBlue did this well, with having the most radically different game not being a mainline game.
First lesson I got out of this video. I have moods where I want to play different things, but when it comes to fighting games, I wanted to take my Soul Calibur 2 knowledge and run wild with it. And it turns out I simply can't do that, because Siegfried and Nightmare will NEVER play the way Nightmare did in SC2. I'm going to remember this if I ever decide to build a fighting game for myself. Even if that turns out to be a sports fighting game centered around boxing.
While I understand where you're coming from, I have to disagree. I feel like it's a huge waste of time to just release the same game over and over again with small graphical upgrades as the specs of the hardware improve. I understand this is *entirely* reductive, the individual characters have absolutely evolved as the franchise has progressed, but... the old games still exist. If I wanted to play Super Turbo or Third Strike or Xrd or Melee, I could find people to play with *right now*, it's not hard. Could you imagine Capcom trying to juggle 8 different fighting game franchises and trying to keep them all relevant? They wouldn't. The truth of the matter is that the first wave of players in a new edition of a fighting game are fueled entirely by brand recognition. We've got a massive graveyard of capcom fighting franchises to prove it: Darkstalkers, Red Earth, Power Stone, Jojo's, Rival Schools... I could go on but I'd just be reading off of a wiki at this point. Do you think we'd have gotten the fighting game resurgence that came with Street Fighter 4 if it was just Super Turbo with 3d graphics and more characters?
Thing is, I'm happy we can have it both ways. If I don't like the newest street fighter, I can go play a different modern fighting game I like better. If that game happens to be a thousand year old unchanging monolith of a franchise like tekken, it doesn't matter to me. I'm still having fun.
@@kevingriffith6011
Guilty gear double X and XRD are not the same or a reskin, XRD actually introduced a lot of mechanics and new characters while keeping a lot of things that made guilty gear felt guilty gear.
Strive barely feels like a guilty gear game, slow dashing, slow airdashing, no gatlings, teching, watered down characters, instant faultless defense, dumbing down systems that were already dumbed downed in XRD, ect...
@Yuberz Totally agreed.
@@edlerkrieger8045 Like I said, the "it's the same game" statement is absolutely reductive. My point, though, is that Xrd still exists. You can still play it *right now*. I'm sorry that you feel betrayed by Arcsys, but that doesn't make Strive a bad game, it's just different, and in my mind different is exciting. At the end of the day, though, I understand that there is no objectively correct outlook on this. I do wish that Theoryfighter didn't imply that experimentation is somehow disrespectful, or that wanting to see how established characters evolve in a changing landscape is bad, but that's just their opinion.
Ironically I bought 7 on sale 2 days ago
As a lab monster who picks up games just for the lab, this busted open my imagination more than any other game
It's immediately satisfying and only gets better
I felt like I have mastered my arcade stick and in my time against cpu, in a panic to remember my prep, I came up with combos I thought felt right and was regarded for it
In comparison, when I returned to street fighter for the update, I picked up a relatively simple character and felt I mastered them in an hour
Highly recommend
Amazing vid tbh, great to see Tekken getting some love outside of the dedicated Tekken channels. Especially nowadays where a lot of us are feeling burnt out on T7 and want something new, or we're missing the older games. Tekken's depth is what makes it such a joy to play, because there's near infinite possibilities. It can be scary, but its fun because of it. It can be scary and daunting, but if you can get over that hurdle you get one of the most fun fighting games ever with just how much control and freedom you're offered. The way you put it at the end was perfect, enjoy the journey, and don't focus on the destination.
Check out tekken 8😊😊
Wow, this was just brilliantly made; from the humble beginning explaining your personal opinion, to really getting into the nit and grit of it without the video being crazy long. Very well done!
Love the vid! Hope to see people branch out to the other 3D fighters as well if new ones come.
It’s a magical sub-genre
Mm
As someone who started to *_actually learn_* fighting games with T7 and fell in love with its depth, I'm ecstatic you're enjoying it.
My only real gripe with the game (outside DLC characters having much stronger mix-up/strings than the starting roster): lacking a built in way to view hitboxes in training mode. Sure, it increases the amount of time you have to spend labbing to reach a degree of competency in matchups, but why deliberately keep players from more learning new things and implementing them in their game?
tl;dr Tekken doesn't benefit from deliberately hiding information from players, but to the frustration of mid level players it does anyway
It's really a shame with Tekken 7 how so many aspects of its gameplay are so incredibly satisfying and addictive but the game is somewhat dragged down by relatively simple technical blunders. If they could improve the netcode, add hitboxes to practice mode, tone down a few of the strongest characters and optimize the loading times between matches I would have very few things left to complain about personally. It is so painfully close to being almost the perfect game for me. Really crossing my fingers that the next game manages to polish the edges around Tekken 7 because I'll be damned if the franchise doesn't deserve it.
The hitboxes in tekken aren't really hitboxes, they're vectors.
Well most of the DLCs have been in the past Tekkens lol.
@@HeirofDacia I watched thatblastedsalami's video on them, but wasn't aware there was a specific term (although it does make sense given that they're moving hitboxes in a three dimensional space). I appreciate the correction.
Yeah, hitboxes are line segments and hurtboxes are comprised of a bunch of cylinders. Just a mild semantics correction, the reason I say line segment is that they have the property of a starting and end point, something a vector lacks (vectors only have magnitude and direction). The reason they don't simply check if the cylinders intersect is because it's much more efficient to do an intersection test for line segments and axis-aligned cylinders.
One thing that needs to be talked about at some point is the aesthetics of the game. Graphically the character animations of this game are just off the charts. Music. Stages. Character designs. Just beautiful.
shout out for mentioning bolt thrower they're a killer band
Tekken is a game that'll give you back exactly how much you wanna put into it. Like I play pretty casually for a while and just slowly try to learn concepts through playing. It's fun, and i don't feel the same pressures to optimize I do in some other games because the move lists are huge, and the buttons flow together so well you can just have fun.
I wouldn't say Alpha 2 or Guilty Gear XXAC+R got really fun for me until I got a level of competence mechanically and fundamentally to get the meat of their gameplay. I love them, but it did take persistence to get to there.
Tekken doesn't in the same way, I can sit down and have fun and not feel like the true game hasn't opened up yet.
Excellent video. I personally came from 2d fighters primarily and now consider Tekken 7 to be my main game.
Thanks for making such a nicely thought out and edited video
Thanks for giving Tekken an honest try.
We hope to still see you around when 8 will (eventually) be announced!
I love how every character in Tekken has at least 80 moves and you don't need to use all of them, you only need to use a few you're good at and like the most. This is the best fighting game series there is for player expression
If there's someone here looking to get into Tekken please ffs pick a top tier find and friends to play with. Preferably offline. The learning will come naturally. Online Tekken is one of the most soul killing experiences I have had with a video game in my entire life. If you feel like your honeymoon fun is over take a break and come back to it later if you wish.
One of the things I love about tekken is the characters feel much more real. You actually FEEL like you are doing a low kick, or a huge uppercut, or some crazy throw-your-whole-body-at-someone move. My favorite character (king) feels like a real wrestler. You aren’t just doing a mixup between grab or hit on oki, you are doing crazy pro wrestler moves. TOMBSTONE PILEDRIVER! THE PEOPLES ELBOW! ROLLING DEATH CRADLE!!!!
I got tekken 4 for my birthday when I was young and fell in love with the 3d style ever since
1 word defines Tekken more for me than any other word.
Organic.
As a Yoshimitsu and Lei main I never feel restricted in my options to express myself and do literally anything I can think of in the fight.
Once you find characters that feel correct for you they become like a second skin. Every move and option feels natural, the way the ground and wall game works feels natural, things just flow into each other constantly.
Every character has layers of nuance that interacts with every other characters nuance in a rich gradient.
I love 2D fighters from ST to MvC to everything inbetween but few fighters feel as expressive as Tekken can get.
Subscribed when you mentioned bolt thrower. Cool video, stoked for more tekken content in the future!
The comparison to traditional hobbies at the end is one I make to the whole genre when I talk about it with my non-fighting game friends. Getting to find my "voice" in a given fighting game is such a blast even if I'm still not great at them as a whole.
I've wanted to express how awesome Tekken was to someone that's new, or never heard of Tekken before, but never really knew how to articulate it in a way that's digestible. This is an amazing analysis or explanation, in regards to how great a game Tekken can be
Player identity is the most interesting part of fighting games to me and I don’t think I appreciated how Tekken’s density helps that. Love the editing on this one too. Good stuff
Thanks for helping me express why I love this franchise so much :)
I remeber playing it as a kid when my mom got me a cheap copy of 4, and I was hooked ever since.
I feel like I still learn something new from this game, even though I've played it for years, and the combo system is something my brain has an easier time grasping. I also appreciate the 3d aspect of it in general. Makes fundamentals more interesting.
Anyways, great video my guy!
This feels less like someone discovering Tekken and more like someone rediscovering fighting games
Firstly, I want to personally thank you for making this video @TheoryFighter, from the heart with sincerity. It' truly feels like this video was made for me, and has opened my eyes to the value of what was right in my face, this whole time.
I have been in the FGC for decades, but began playing the very first Street Fighter in the 80's, then World Warriors onwards ever since. As such, I have developed a great aptitude to pick up other fighters easier, however Tekken always got past me with it's deep move list and conditions. Today I admit, I fall directly into the group you spoke of, who spends Fighting time in GG Strive, DBFZ out of protest of what heppened to SFV, and have a special place in my heart for SFIII Third Strike. Thing is, I grew up in the Arcade era, so I've more then PLAYED Tekken, starting from Tekken 2 onwards I dabbled, but didnt get truly invested until Tekken Tag 2 was released.
I say all this to say, I have owned Tekken 7 since shortly after it's release, and have played it maybe 5-6 times collectively at home. I've played it more out socially at arcades and tourneys then anything, the people who play Tekken definitely seem the most consistantly "Normal" and diverse people in the FGC, and as such I had NO IDEA how far on the outs us traditional 2D FGC really are, and how pivital and important this game has been to consitency, and knowledge sharing in the FGC. I feel like i've been missing out on a big chunk of misplaced lab time. Don't be like me, lol.
As I get older, any game thet respects my time, gets my time investment back. As you read this, I have now re-installed Tekken 7 on my PS4 Pro, and will pick back up where I left off. Total 180 change the way I look at Namco Bandai now, and this franchise. I do enjoy it's quirky inside jokes and style of humor. #Chicken
I want to challenge any of us who are only playing 3D fighters now because of the new KOF... to watch this video and tell me this doesn't adjust your whole approach. It now makes sense to me on how to enjoy this franchise and it's intentions, instead of tryna be frame perfect S+ Tier at everything like our 2D fighters tend to promote. Thank you so very much!
Hell yeah... C H I C K E N!!!!
12:55 I LIVE by this statement 👌
Best in-game editing and transitions I've seen in a Tekken Perspective vid, insane amount of work in this chief
sounds similar to how a lot of melee players feel about melee
Great video. I got back into the fighting genre with SF4 but didn't bother picking up SFV with its abysmal launch. Made the transition across to Tekken 7 when it showed up on Steam & it's been a grueling but rewarding & fun learning curve.
The comparison with learning a musical instrument is right on point as well. While accessibility has been a hot topic lately & there is a case to be made in a lot of games, there's definitely room for games that require time to get better and that offer a greater reward than the more common instant gratification we see in most games.
The work put in to this vid is amazing, thanks for sharing this !
Dude your artistry in editing and didactic discussion here is awesome. Thank you
I live in Japan, and back when T6 and TTT2 were out, losing was the greatest teacher. I think I lost 80% of my matches, but when I came back to the states to play my friends, I absolutely dominated them. If you temper your ego and try to improve a little bit each match, you'll improve. I guess that's the same as most things in life. (note: I still get bodied in Japan. These players are wild)
As someone who grew up in the Arcades playing Street Fighter, Marvel vs Capcom, and Tekken.
I always adored Tekken the most!
You really brought up a great point about Street fighter. The game changes drastically between iterations, 3 to 4 was such a drastic change I dropped Street Fighter completely.
And I honestly don't regret it, I gave Street fighter as much chance as I gave Tekken if not way more chances. And Tekken still won my heart.
I do like shredding Guile and Ken's themes songs on my electric guitar tho.
Great video, I'll say this though since I've been playing Tekken almost every day for 2,5 years: There are aspects of the game you can improve on like execution, setups etc but the sheer mileage you get from knowledge is GIGANTIC compared to everything else. You can get the execution, the neutral, the situational awareness down in 1-2 years but the knowledge and punishment pit is bottomless
I wish Tekken had some better balancing though. The complaint about DLC characters feeling blatantly stronger than the original cast is most definitely true. However, some people have accused them of just trying to sell stuff or making them OP because they are greedy. I actually think the problem is more that for many of the DLC characters they just went crazy and wanted to come up with really awesome things (and they did!) but they ended up being too strong. That is not a permanent problem though, as this is a modern fighting game that can receive updates and patches!
Amazing animated scenes and elements. LOVE IT !!!
Regarding execution: the easiest execution barrier in tekken is combos. Anyone can do it, unless it's a mishima optimal combo, and even if you can do a mishima optimal combo, that alone is no where near enough to slingshot you to top ranks or high levels of play.
The difficulty in execution in Tekken is to have the mental cool to choose the correct/optimal defensive option and timing. To sidestep, to block a low, to low parry, to backdash. And add to that to whiff punish, upon successful attempts of these defensive options. To be able to create punishment opportunities where possible is the core execution of Tekken, and as the levels of play get higher, the harder that becomes, and it slowly turns to a Spacing game first to optimize the positioning in the arena and pressuring with forward dashes without pressing a button to get a better position in the stage. It's a deep mix of strategy and execution. The plan in your head is worth nothing if you can execute it.
5:00 I was a huge Tekken 3 player (also played 1 and 2 quite a bit) both on arcade and PS1. Then I stopped playing console videogames for a decade. Then I got Tekken 6 just before Tekken 7 and was released, and I got Tekken 7. I almost made the jump from 3 to 7.
Things have changed. I prefer the static and rigid gameplay of Tekken 3 : slower, way more hit/block/throw jan ken based than T7, less endless juggle combos, no "super"...
On one side I didn't have to relearn everything since most of my T3 muscle memory game plan still works, on the other side the series added so much stuff that my old tricks are actually crappy now, but I still can't get rid of my old reflexes that worked in T3, because they are still valid in the game.
I prefer the "tabula rasa" policy of Capcom between SF episodes : I also played SF0-3 quite a lot back then and re-learning a totally different advanced gameplay from scratch when I got SF5 was actually freshening. Can't wait for SF6 and its new gameplay.
The drums are so loud in the background, it felt like a leaky faucet repeatedly hitting my head.
Tekken veteran here; great video.
Not really on topic, but great background music and I totally heard that Bolt Thrower reference.
Tekken was what made me play fighting games in the first place, it's the first fighting game I've seen and just looking at the select screen alone in arcades made me fall in love with the genre.
I am a tekken fan for decades, and this is one of the best video about Tekken I've ever watched
Complexity is an illusion in this game. You only need a small subset of the movelist to compete and have fun, and you can add to your knowledge as you go. And once you learn the fundamentals, you can apply them universally, which lessens the task of having to learn the nuances of every matchup. The most important thing though, is that learning and growing is consistently fun and rewarding. This video should be compulsory viewing for anyone wanting to pick up this game.
As someone who got into Tekken later on I love it! The implementation of 2D characters in Tekken was an awesome way to introduce those players to Tekken. I also main Akuma in literally everything so I can only wish for him to come back, but even if he doesn't I am now a Tekken fan!
Tekken has the most player expression in FGC. You can have mirror matches and easily notice the difference in playstyle example: Yuyu who plays defensive Xiaoyu and Tanuka who prefers high risk high reward playstyle. And still there are other Xiaoyu's like P.Ling who is more of an all-rounder.
What an awesome video. Thanks for going the direction of understanding people's comfort zones and addressing Tekken in that way. I'll open the game and just experience it for you, Mr. Fighter.
adding Ryan Harts pewgf clip was the cherry on top of an already amazing video.
I was in the same boat as you, didn’t really care to play tekken all through my fighting game journey. I picked it up because they added Noctis and the journey to just learning a full move list was fun because applying the knowledge you gain feels well earned.
As someone who's bounced off Tekken 7 a few times now this video makes me want to sit down and really give it a proper go again. I love footsies in fighting games so I just need to find the characters that really appeal to my prefered style
@King of The Zinger a lot of KoF games have sidestep-like mechanics and spot dodges, along with massive move lists. try those out.
Getting perfect is impossible
Knee: hold my noodles🍜
I love tekken because it's the entire package, I usually say Tekken is to Street Fighter what Dota is to League or what Path of Exile is to Diablo.
The depth of all the firstmentioned games in the comparison all reward you for learning, maybe that way of learning is watching hundreds of hours of youtube videos, maybe it's playing 1000s and 1000s of matches, but whatever way you choose you will never ever see the end of the road, the learning path is the endgame, you're always learning and the game is evolving in it's own right. It's beautiful
Excellent video. Big ups for the editing and excellent sludge metal
Round of applause for the beauty that is this man's editing.
And suddenly I wanna try tekken
The editing here is fantastic!
Bought Tekken recently at a discount on Steam. The infinite number of moves definitely scared me at first, but it has been thoroughly enjoyable learning how to play. Currently attempting to learn Claudio!
People are you are the ones we need making videos like this the most. Tekken Oldheads can only preach to the converted
I'd say there aren't tournament combos.
When you combo you may want:
- To maximize damage
- To maximize distance to get to the wall. (either because you will get better damage at the wall or you want your oponent to be under wall.)
- To end combo in such a way that it leaves oponent in a mixup, a setup.
- To confuse the oponent, because he will be used to you normal combos and won't know what to do.
Not every character has difficult combos, and difficult combos are really often not worth the effort.
i remember when i first tried Tekken Tag 1 on ps2 and just going through all of Jin's move list and it hooked me right away, seeing all the different things you could do even in that game that's fairly old now felt really good too me and made me want to go try and learn all the different moves in the game and beat the arcade ladder with everybody. the were so many cool varied characters in it and i remember when i first tried mokujin and unknown and then just being random select as an actual character to play as was really cool
Excellent video. In the future when someone asks me 'why tekken? ' I will link them this video
for me, the most important part is not viewing it as a 'platform to stomp people' even though I was willing to learn I felt bad for losing, and for winning against people who failed the knowledge check. I had solved one side of the frustration but not the other. only on my 4th rewatch of this did I catch on to this and maybe now I'll be conscious enough to break past my plateau
Right as I want to learn it, you upload this. Absolutely perfect.
I was there when Tekken 7 had 1k avg daily players (2018). this game rewards ur commitment both in game and community wise
That part about it being super difficult to the point where perfect execution isn't possible reminded me a lot of maylay
was looking forward to this video. good stuff as always
The only Tekken game I ever really played was Tag 2 after being invited to try it by one of the people playing it and getting help learning the game from him while trying it out, and it was an interesting learning experience, especially since I don't play grapplers normally. I only really managed to learn a few things in the few months or so I got to play it after buying it for myself, but it was definitely an enjoyable game I'd play again if it were to come onto PC. A few years later and the one time I ever played Tekken 7, I actually managed to hold my own thanks to what King experience I had back in Tag 2 carrying over.
Though to be honest, I'd be lying if I said one of the major reasons I even put that effort into learning the game wasn't because of King's.... ahem, "game assets", particularly in his Jaguar and Fundoshi outfits (the latter of which got nerfed in 7, RIP).
What is up with girls and king it's kind of funny to me l had some girls in my house one time and the only character that they found handsome was king l wa like "wtf really" its very interasting😝
@@lucianocruz3383
Interesting, considering girls normally go for pretty boy types like Lars or Hwoarang, not bara types like King or Marduk.
@@wakkaseta8351 yeah.
"The execution is as difficult as you make it" Finally! someone who understands.
Also, thank you for articulating why I can call playing Tekken a hobby.
@@anata.one.1967 hah nice l think thats why this game is so popular you can just mash and cool shit just happens thats how l got into tekken wen l was a kid l remember learning very slowly l would go to the comand list and find a cool move and just do it a lot in a match unblockables, 10 hit strings, the endings and characters are also why l got hooked in tekken😊
Found this in my search to Learn about Tekken 8 actually. Ive enjoyed the demo enough to know that i want to finally give this game a real try. After watching this video though, now i'm looking forward to the journey of learning and it doesn't sound quite as daunting as it did before.
I discovered Tekken 5 coming the street fighter back in 2006 when i first went to uni, and this video sums up everything like how the transition felt. Glad to see someone had a similar experience. Now what was even more exhilarating for me was the move to Melee in 2016, it was like the Tekken feeling x10. Hope you give it a go some day!
I play primarily FighterZ, with some history of dabbling in USFIV, GG +r, Marvel 3, and some JJBAHFTF and CVS2 on fightcade.
My first experiences with Tekken were with T3 when I was a kid, and Tekken Revolution and Tekken 6 back in the PS3 days, and I tried T7 for the first time early this year, and man, I had never noticed how deep and complex these games are.
Tekken is a game that really needs one to get well and truly involved in order to get good.
8:51 There are people that like knowledge checks? Wouldn't have thought so
people look at the character and move screen like you have to be an expert in all characters and know all the moves. instead of seeing it for what it is, choice. you pick one or two characters. go through the move list pick 10-15 of the moves out of close to 50 most characters have to learn. a launcher, a few different mix up's, maybe some safer less damaging strings to open. all of these have multiple choices with almost every character. you practice them a little bit and bam, you can start online. thing's like movement, spacing and defense can't really be learnt outside of online. so you will suck to begin with, but learn fairly fast if you stick with it. just having those few moves down pat will give you the options you need offensively before you focus on improving in other aspects.
instead of every person who play's a character using the same moves you can be far more creative with it. games like sf have very short move lists which has it's benefits, but it also limits choice and creates a scenario were everyone is doing the same thing.
with tekken you have freedom to express yourself. of coarse some moves are better then others. and you'll learn which moves out of the 10-15 you learnt at the start needs to be changed out for the more effective ones as you play. but you still have a massive selection to choose from outside the expected combo's.
don't see it as a mountain you have to climb, but a choice of multiple different paths you can take.
Your segment on "Difficulty is Relative" is exactly spot on. People think you need fight better players to improve. Actually no, you need to keep fighting people at your level and slowly parse out the strategies and attacks that lower rank people use. You do that enough, you'll eventually end up as good as the pros using only attacks and strategies proven to work. If you were to try to simply "fight good people" or emulate what they do, you will be missing that crucial experience of how to combat "lower rank strats". There is no getting around this "trial by fire" exercise because you can't learn it any other way.
Your segment on "Knowledge checks" did bring up an awesome point about the mental stack and how it can make "bad moves" work, even on good opponents. The other point I want to bring about knowledge checks is that it's also completely useless without experience. Knowledge =/= experience, and just because you know something is punishable, does not equate to you being able to have the correct answer available in a moment without thinking. You can't ride a bike simply by reading a book about bike balancing. You'll need to get scraped up a bit first. Experience begets knowledge, not the other way around. Again, further reason why "Trial by fire" is the only way to improve.
And I think that is the biggest detractor to people getting into this game. It's a hard pill to swallow to tell someone the only way to get good at this game is to consistently get rekt. There truly is no way to avoid getting destroyed by this launching string you've never seen before let alone all the setups for it. Multiply that by the dozens of characters this game has, and it's easy to see why they'd prefer the more simplistic nature of 2D fighters. There aren't nearly as many options, and the concepts are far simpler to understand. In a 2D game, it's not hard to imagine yourself learning all the characters and their strategies and "mastering" the game's knowledge checks, so you can actually practice the other skills of fighting games instead.
Tekken doesn't ever let you do this. They dump so much knowledge on you that it's impossible to keep track of it all. This is natural for a human, and it's intentional by design. They want you to constantly improve in all aspects of the game, knowledge included. That's the real appeal of the game, this constant sense of progression. Another way of saying this is: being a Tekken Fan has to come with some level of boredom with how 2D fighters operate. You have to crave more depth, options and progression to begin to appreciate it. Which is why I believe Tekken is the fighting game you graduate into. When you get bored of the same game with a different shade of paint, you'll want to commit to something truly deep, and Tekken is exactly that.
@clxxd999 Aegisrick not wrong, as a massive gap in skill makes the fights too one sided to allow you gather much data from the experience when you are first learning a new game. If you keep losing in less than 20 seconds over and over you won't learn much about a game. It's hardly educational to you as a player, and more inferating than helpful. Obviously if you keep fighting the same person over and over regardless how godly they are at a game, you will learn their tactics and how to counter that particular person, but that doesn't put you on their level, you just learned defeat that opponent on top it's a steep learning curve. Tekken in particular is a terrible game to take this path toward getting good since there's so many layers to it.
You will gain far more experience fighting someone slightly above you in skill because you will have a actual match vs them instead of being rapidly overwhelmed till you finally have that ah ha moment and overcome them. You likely would miss out on alot of fundamentals that would help you in many matches. You learn what works and what does for you, as you become your own kind of fighter rather than just a copy cat of the metagame. I think it's good periodically fight big dogs to give yourself a reality check where you're at, but I think it's far more productive to fight people hovering just above or below you for a more rounded and far less frustrating learning experience. It's a steady process.
I literally experienced this last year as a predominantly street fighter mvc player who refused to give tekken or arc sys games a try. I gave Strive a try and enjoyed the hell out of it and then when I got bored of it I finally, after many years gave tekken am honest to God try. I personally found so much of it foreign and was skeptical of it ever clicking, especially kid. However it did. I've since taken a break from it and went back to sfv but I am super excited to actually go into the next tekken with at least somewhat of a foundation
Because of this video, I remembered why we play fighting games again.
"If you're not playing Tekken, what are you doin'!?"
Tekken means so much to me because it was the first “legacy” game I actually sat down, played, and saw a lot of success in ranked with and applying what I learned in Tekken to other games like Street Fighter and even Guilty Gear boosted my execution and knowledge in those games tenfold.
Also because it was the first time I was called a slur by a salty individual online which is also a bonus lol
Damn good shit with the editing on this one. Video looks real nice
This is quality video about Tekken and backround music is amazing! 👍