Tekken 4: Most broken fighter ever?

It's got the standard Tekken modes. Arcade, Survival, Team Battle, Practice...

Tekken Ball and Tekken Bowl are not in it, at least not in the Japanese version.

Tekken Force(the beat em' up) is in and is now in full 3D.

Training mode tests how fast you can do special moves.

Story Battle is where the endings are. When you first pick your character you get an introduction with some art and text expaining their story. After the final stage you get an epiloge with some art and text and then a CG ending.

Heh, I knew that'd happen if I left it alone for a while. Those who know Tekken better then I to point the problems that I never bothered remembering (Tekken tends to drop out of my mind if it's not right in front of me, it isn't too memorable).

As for throws, they've chosen to counteract the way they work by instead incresaing the ability to reverse them. Stupid. That's like altering the physics of just the ringside instead of tuning the way the moves work (SC, anyone?), so that a single area of the stage has different physics then the entire center. They need to work on how their throws actually work and get pulled off in the first place. One of the many things I loved about SFIII was how they changed the way throws worked. I never liked forward+P, as it seemed to only work for me about 50% of the time, and reversing was more random then planned. With the pressing of two attack buttons for it, pulling off throws and reversing them becomes much more deliberate and integrated in the flow of things, it's not going to just happen by accident. Tekken needs a massive overhaul in many areas of the game.

As for why King is not a power character based on that is due to fighter mentality. When facing an obvious grappler, you're going to be more apt to keep your hands ready for throw reversals then you are when facing a poker character. It's easier because you know it's coming.

As for those who say that one should just enjoy it and not worry about its technicalites, it's the technicalities that bother me. I never feel like I'm in control of my character, like I'm always dragging behind or the game is running off a 300 ping. It has literally hurt my hands before just form trying to move my character, and my fighting game instincts think that either I'm slow or the controls are stuck, and try to work harder to make things respond. Frankly, I hate that, and cannot enjoy the game on any level aside from "it has pretty graphics". That and the music are the sole redeeming factors, and the only remotely good thing Tekken does.

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I'd rather the difficulty in a fighting game be in the proper execution of moves and the timing. I'd rather a fighting game have a smaller number of overall "moves" (and 4 different ways to punch straight do not a move make) which are actually useful and effective than an ungodly huge move-list from which about four will be plucked out and used ad-infinitum.

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One of the things I love about 2D fighters. By and large, if they want to create a move, they have to draw out every frame individually by hand, and so a greater emphasis is placed on what specific moves a character should have, because it takes more time to make them. With 3D fighters, you implement animation cycles, which are easier and quicker to make (depending on the method you choose), and so more "worthless" moves tend to end up in them just because they can be done more easily (King's multi-throw combo in T3, for a good example).

Funny thing happened a few days ago. I was over at a friends house, and they decided to play some SC, and I joined in. However, I kept trying to do the quick-sidestep from VF4 (and always being disappointed when my character barely moved) and kept tapping the L Trigger to try and do a quick getup every time I was knocked to the ground! It was pretty funny, and one of other friends who also hadn't played the game in months was doing the same thing. :) Soul Calibur really felt dated after playing so much VF4, the controls felt too limited.

You know, I've never actually had someone pull off a ten-string on me, now that I think about it (and I never bothered learning any). Maybe once I go back and try to perfect being a scrub in Tekken (I really don't see the attraction of trying to learn that game in any other way), I'll bother with those. Until then, 3S for me.

*Emits yawn until mouth is the size of the Grand canyon*

I've been playing fighting games for who knows how long and Tekken ranks on the bottom of the totem pole in my book. No skill required ought to be posted somewhere on every cabinet.

When I can just step up to a cabinet and deliberately start mashing buttons and win four times in a row, I'm done. Sure some of the flashier combos require expert timing and SOME modocum of skill, but unless you are playing against a total Tekken newb that doesn't know how to change the flow of a fight you won't be using them in a real fight.

And you definitely won't be seeing any drawn out combos in tournaments unless the perpatrator is TRYING to get his ass handed to him.

*CHICKEN*

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Originally posted by MechDeus

As for throws, they've chosen to counteract the way they work by instead incresaing the ability to reverse them. Stupid. That's like altering the physics of just the ringside instead of tuning the way the moves work (SC, anyone?), so that a single area of the stage has different physics then the entire center. They need to work on how their throws actually work and get pulled off in the first place. One of the many things I loved about SFIII was how they changed the way throws worked.

As for why King is not a power character based on that is due to fighter mentality. When facing an obvious grappler, you're going to be more apt to keep your hands ready for throw reversals then you are when facing a poker character. It's easier because you know it's coming.

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Originally posted by Master of 7s

When I can just step up to a cabinet and deliberately start mashing buttons and win four times in a row, I'm done. Sure some of the flashier combos require expert timing and SOME modocum of skill, but unless you are playing against a total Tekken newb that doesn't know how to change the flow of a fight you won't be using them in a real fight.

And you definitely won't be seeing any drawn out combos in tournaments unless the perpatrator is TRYING to get his ass handed to him.

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Please, I thought that I had already argued against your points, and I really do not like to see people with little to no experience playing Tekken reducing its gameplay to simple button mashing or throwing. First, throws are NOT overpowered in Tekken. When I say Tekken, I do not only mean Tekken 4, I mean Tekken 1 through 4. Throws are decent, but they are definitely less powerful than they are in Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo (the only Street Fighter I feel I have experience enough with to talk about). Throws are duckable, easily escapable (always have been, just a bit easier to do in Tekken 4), and throws come out slow (most throws come out about 12 frames after input, which is moderately slow, especially in a game like Tekken 4 where the focus is on fast jabs). King has actually been pretty good in most of the Tekken series, but he has never been good because of his throws. In Tekken 3, he was one of the best characters, but this was because of his good pokes, like d+1,n+2; df+1; d/f+3, d/f+4; etc. His throws have stayed around the same power range throughout the Tekken series, while he has overall changed radically through the series. In Tekken 4, he is not as good because his jabs are slower, his d+1,N+2 has ridiculously small reach, he just cannot keep up with the fast jabbers. His throws, though, are just as powerful as they were in Tekken 3, in many ways more powerful (f,qcf+1 is untechable and does full damage when hit against the wall, which happens a lot). Please, do not give us your thoughts on who is the best character in Tekken 4 with your limited knowledge of the game.

Master of 7s seems to be suggesting that the best way to play the game is random button mashing and claims that combos are rarely pulled off in actual matches. Well I would say at high levels of play, at least 1 juggle is pulled off per round. It's very rare to see a game without at least 1 juggle in it. Juggles are a large part of Tekken, always have and will continue to be so in the future. If you would like to see some high-level tournament matches which showcase some nice juggles, I can point you in the right direction. If you're talking about slamming out 10-strings, you're probably right, you never will see someone use those except against a total scrub. Your assertion that you can just beat anyone by mashing buttons is utterly ridiculous as well. I'm sure that you can get on an arcade machine and beat someone by mashing buttons, but these people are terrible players. It has been a long time since a button masher has been able to beat me, but I learned how to beat them not long after I stopped being a button masher myself. In certain games, button mashers are going to be more successful than in other games. I would think Soul Calibur would rank up there pretty high, button mashers seem to have the ability to occassionally clean the floor with people that understand the game at a much higher level. I'll admit that I've seen some button mashers beat people that understand the game much better, but I have never seen a button masher beat someone that I thought was even half-way decent at the game. If you think that Tekken is simply about who mashes buttons better, then I think you know absolutely nothing about the game.

Please do not in the future make broad generalizations about a game you know next to nothing about.

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Please do not in the future make broad generalizations about a game you know next to nothing about.

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the problem being, you are expecting people, with no interest in a game, to develop specific concise conclusions. If I buy an RPG, and find I do not like it, I'm not going to play through the entire game, consider the motivations of the characters, and all of the various things things that an interested party would. That may be possible, with fans of whichever series, having a discussion about the problems they have found in their experience, but not with someone who has formed a general distaste with it, and therefore never had the interest to gain the knowledge that interested people may have.
Unless they were experienced fans of the series, and had a "revelation" that they didn't like it. I'm just saying now, personal skill does not mean a game is good. Certainly the people who were never interested in a game will most likely not be capable of those that are, and I'd say that I wouldn't care for the opinion of someone who starts out mashing randomly, just for the sake of a quality player never attempting to fight in such a manner.If there is a problem with mashing in a game, it comes from excessive ticking. Or this is my experience. There may very well be skilled players at what are bad games.


Now, as far as I can understand it, people that become disinterested in Tekken early, as I did, base it on an assuming their is an unnecessary priority for combos and strings and an unintuitive implementation of them(this could very well just be me, and not "people")

Now, I am told that this is the play of the entry level Tekken participant. I am also told that the experienced level involves
a dependency on poking. Now, if we understand poking as a preventive anticipatory attack, does the assertion that there is a reliance or priority on combos given credence based on the fact that the skilled players are basing their fighting on restraining those as much as possible? In any case, there isn't a seperation between the two styles, and it is my guess that one was developed to be successful against the other more common form. Does it not speak against the quality of a game when what is necessary for success appears to be uniform? Well, that's a simplification.


But I'll repeat it, you shouldn't expect people who are disinterested in a game to have a large amount of knowledge of it. Not being interested is why they never gained the knowledge, and these people will largely represent those that don't like Tekken.

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Good Tekken is actually pretty fast with an emphasis on custom strings and setups, not the big chains you see newbies do.

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If "good" Tekken is about custom string and setups, and not chains(which , once again, when I said combos earlier, I meant strings). . . and is "All about poking", this sounds like its about the same as using a different set of scripted strings(presumably, you repeat your custom strings) and interrupting your oppenents. Now, this does not come off as much different than the "inferior" play style ,of string cycling(as I said, I don't recall any use of 10 hit chains, and am only aware of them from the hate and mocking I see on the internet), and better defense. In the very least, while it may be proof of your extra interest in the game, I don't understand how it shows any improved quality to any great extent, nor do I see it deviating greatly from the distaste presented on this board.

This is mostly based on what I've read in this topic + my own ignorant level of knowledge of Tekken, which should be expected of me, as I'm not a fan, nor am I some sort of gaming knowledge masochist.

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Originally posted by rezo


But I'll repeat it, you shouldn't expect people who are disinterested in a game to have a large amount of knowledge of it. Not being interested is why they never gained the knowledge, and these people will largely represent those that don't like Tekken.

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I'm not sure if this post was directed at me or not, but if it was I don't really understand why as the purpose of our posts was the same. you say "I shouldn't expect people who are disinterested in a game to have a large amount of knowledge of it." And this statement was the point of my post. The two people I quoted were making sweeping statements about all of Tekken with their very little knowledge of the game. Mech Dues seems to be saying that the game is all about throws which just proves his inexperience, why is he making such generalizations about a game he knows nothing about? I do not expect him to have a large amount of knowledge of the game, which is why I posted in the first place, he claims to have a lot of knowledge of a game which he has little experience with.

I'm not really going to touch on your points about gameplay, since as you've already stated you don't feel qualified to really talk about it.

I'm guessing you were aiming a lot of this at me, but if not, forgive me.

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Originally posted by flux=rad
Throws are decent, but they are definitely less powerful than they are in Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo (the only Street Fighter I feel I have experience enough with to talk about).

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Perhaps you didn't read what I typed, but I also stated that I didn't like how throws were done in earlier Capcom fighting games. Just because something sucks in one game, doesn't mean it doesn't suck in others, which is why I mainly talked about the two fighting games which have gotten more things right then any other: SFIII and VF4.

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Please, do not give us your thoughts on who is the best character in Tekken 4 with your limited knowledge of the game.

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Who are you talking to? I can't find any instance in this thread where anyone said anything about a great character in any of the Tekkens, aside from one comment about Jin being fairly powerful in T4. If you're refering to my comment on King, read it again (it's in reference to his throws, which someone asked me earlier about how if throws are so great, why isn't King such an incredible character).

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Mech Dues seems to be saying that the game is all about throws which just proves his inexperience, why is he making such generalizations about a game he knows nothing about?

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Once again not bothering to actually read what I stated. If you read the posts that went up earlier, the only thing I was actually questioned on was my comments on the throws, hence my explanation on that and not, say, hit detectoin. I do not believe the game is entirely about throwing, and I never said or indicated that. Please, read what I type, then comment.

I wonder if the irony of complaining about broad generalizations is lost on you.

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Originally posted by MechDeus

Perhaps you didn't read what I typed, but I also stated that I didn't like how throws were done in earlier Capcom fighting games. Just because something sucks in one game, doesn't mean it doesn't suck in others, which is why I mainly talked about the two fighting games which have gotten more things right then any other: SFIII and VF4.
Who are you talking to? I can't find any instance in this thread where anyone said anything about a great character in any of the Tekkens, aside from one comment about Jin being fairly powerful in T4. If you're refering to my comment on King, read it again (it's in reference to his throws, which someone asked me earlier about how if throws are so great, why isn't King such an incredible character).
Once again not bothering to actually read what I stated. If you read the posts that went up earlier, the only thing I was actually questioned on was my comments on the throws, hence my explanation on that and not, say, hit detectoin. I do not believe the game is entirely about throwing, and I never said or indicated that. Please, read what I type, then comment.

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Well, I assumed that you were saying that throws were too powerful in the Tekken series because of what you said in a previous post:

"Throw priority in Tekken (and is pretty heavy in SC as well, though the whole weapons aspect allows for more distance which helps downplay it a bit, and Guard Impact, though I think it shouldn't affect throws in the first place) is insane compared to just about every other decent fighting game. Yes, throws can be broken, as they can in all games, but that also means it can played very much the same as rock-paper-scissors. Whereas in, say, VF4, throws can only be done at specific times when people are standing certain ways, and people can't be thrown out of certain stances (Lei-Fei is a big show-off for that), or in 3S where throws must be point-blank range, and range at all will result in a whiff. Tekken has large range (like Hwang in SC) and speed which allow for more abuse of throws then should be. Normal throws are counters for turtlers and for mixing up attacks, but in Namco fighting games games they end up taking on a whole seperate life of their own that shouldn't be."

I view your logic as this...1) Throw priority in the Tekken series is very high 2) throws can be broken, but there are mixups, which makes it difficult 3) throws have a long range 4) you think that in Tekken 4, Namco tried to remedy the over-powered throws by lowering the number of breaks (you say this in a later post: "As for throws, they've chosen to counteract the way they work by instead incresaing the ability to reverse them. Stupid. That's like altering the physics of just the ringside instead of tuning the way the moves work (SC, anyone?), so that a single area of the stage has different physics then the entire center")

As for your thoughts on King, I was simply referring to the fact that you seem to be saying that you are capable of judging whether King is an "incredible character" or not. You may not have said that he was the best character or anything like that, but you seem to be saying that you have the experience with the game enough to know whether or not a character is good, while I do not believe you have this experience.

I'm still having trouble understanding your thoughts on Tekken's throws. They have high priority and are sometimes difficult to break is what I hear you say, neither of these are true. As for the range issue, just as in Soul Calibur, the different characters have different throw ranges. Also, different throws have different throw ranges. Some throws have a pretty decent range, while others have a very small range, and I do believe that certain characters have throws that have too long of a range. I take your argument to mean that you think throws are very powerful in the Tekken series, perhaps I am misreading you though. Although the quotes I cited here seem to imply that is what you are saying.

I do think throws are too powerful, but not insanely over-riding, as I might have accidently led you to believe I think. It's just one of the few areas that anyone bothered contesting me on. I did wrongly choose the words high priority for throws, that wasn't what I meant (but what I ended up typing), I meant more that they're just "too good" in-game, and need to be toned down in terms of range and damage. As for what I meant by mixups, that was refering to normal variances in attack styles in-game, so as to show I wasn't saying "Remove them completely." And maybe it's just who've I played against in the games, but I think they're a pure annoyance as is and need to be redone.

As for the experience to know the characters, I did for T3, though have not played enough of T4 to really know it well (and have no actual desire to, it doesn't improve enough on T3 to make it worth playing, which also wasn't really worth playing, but I knew people who played it so I did for the hell of it). Whether you believe me or not is your choice, makes no difference to me.

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I'm not sure if this post was directed at me or not, but if it was I don't really understand why as the purpose of our posts was the same.

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partly, mostly in response to:

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People admit they don't play the game but are somehow qualified to determine what gameplay elements are "broken". That makes no sense!

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). Please, do not give us your thoughts on who is the best character in Tekken 4 with your limited knowledge of the game.

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Please do not in the future make broad generalizations about a game you know next to nothing about.

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note: what you said to Master of 7's, I didn't find a problem with, but its all part of the accumulation towards my previous response.

The point is, and I don't recall anyone pointing out a best character o_O, every one has the right to criticize a game, in any respect, based on their knowledge of it. If we're saying that people with comparatively limited knowledge shouldn't post opinions, then no one should, because its comparative, and a perfect standard can never be equaled in comparison. So you would have to not post your opinion on Tekken, and instead defer to someone with more knowledge. And thats a bit absurd, is it not?


anyways, my previous post was basically a reaction to this topic and many others like it(such as Mode7 saying people who didn't like Giga Wing 2 said so because they died often, or something to that effect).
Namely, having more experience in a game, or knowledge thereof, does not make a game arbitrarily good somehow. But these topics always(almost) come off as a "I know more than you, so don't bother disagreeing with my judgement" And this can be seen directly in posts defending Tekken. Hell, there are Mortal Kombat masters out there. At least this topic hasn't fallen into the "I LIKE the game, you don't like it, YOU don't play it." talk-ending-nonsense that hits these things and people are pursuing a discussion of sorts.


And Mechdeus was right about the irony of broad generalizations:

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and I really do not like to see people with little to no experience playing Tekken reducing its gameplay to simple button mashing or throwing.

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someone expressing a problem with the way throws are handled doesn't "reduce" Tekken to such. Watch yourself, along with others, and all that.