Tekken 4: Most broken fighter ever?

[flux=rad]

Originally posted by rezo

the pace of the game seemed to be based on landing one hit, and attaching the rest of the combination for 30-40% damage. regularly.
Breaking combos came off an unintuitive, but this is just me not liking arbitrary buttons to hit to cancel a combo. It doesn't make much sense in respect to gameplay, and with a game that is dependent on comboing(as far as I can tell) there should have been a better way to handle it. There was also the nature of the moves in my combos,many of which I couldn't seem to pull off independently, and maybe this is a mistake on my part, but that came off as "inputted battle commands", as opposed to combining moves.

I'm kind of confused as to what you're calling a combo here. In tekken there are very few actual ground combos, by this I mean a series of moves, not in a juggle, that are guaranteed once the first hits. Hwoarang's 3,4, and 5 hit kick strings (he has a bunch) aren't actually combos, none of them will all connect if the first hit connects. I have a feeling that you're considering strings like that combos, which is probably the wrong word for it. I can understand frustration with some of the strings in the game. Some of these strings are very effective at low levels of play. This includes Hwoarang's kick strings, some of Law's strings, and in general all 10-strings. There are a few strings that are actual combos, but these are all low damage combos. 10-strings are actually very, very weak. It doesn't take much practice at all to learn how to block them. You just have to pay attention to what your opponent doing. Every single 10-string in the game has multiple spots where the person doing them is very vulnerable to attack. But you are definitely right about them being good at low level play. I find the 10-strings really stupid too. Just random series of button pressing with no real skill involved. Reminds me of the combo system in Mortal Kombat 3, just memorizing the sequence of button presses. The difference here is that these aren't actual combos, if the first hit connects the rest will not. In higher-level play, 10-strings are never used, and it really only takes seeing a 10-string a couple times before you know how to defend and punish it.

The majority of the real combos in the game are juggles. Some characters can do a lot of damage in juggles, as you can see from the combo video in the original post, Lee is definitely one of those characters. In Tekken 4, juggles have actually taken a big back seat. The juggle launchers have almost universally been weakened and the actual damage of the juggles has been very toned down. Small pokes are much more powerful now, as opposed to in Tekken Tag where the focus was definitely more on juggles. I don't mind the juggles so much. They actually take practice to learn, some of the most damaging ones are pretty difficult to get the timing down. Also since the juggle starters are weaker, it's not really easy to get a juggle going.

I understand your frustration with the game. The strings are kind of stupid and take a while to get used to. This game is in no way simply blocking a long string and then sticking out your own. If you wanted to give the game some time, though, I think you'd see that strings like that have very little impact on the game. I can think of no string that is over 3 hits that is used at high-level play. Since these long strings are so predictable and they aren't actual combos, it is very easy to punish them.

[rezo]

short explanation. I call any "string" of attacks a combo. They should be there with the idea of the repeated varying attacks pressuring your opponents defense causes hits to be more likely, and not definite. I forget this isn't how the fighting game crowd thinks of them.

I think the move I was referring to was a juggle. Because the enemy is knocked into the air with the first hit. Nor do I recall anyone I know using the 10-strings either, though I wouldn't doubt use of inferior strings.

[Mzo]

Well, thanks for trying. Alls I have to do is go to an arcade and start getting whomped on regularly until I pick up on the game. That's how I learned SF back in the day, but the difference is that I had (and still have) an urge to play that game, while Tekken (and most other 3D fighters) are just "bleh".

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.

There's a thing to be said for simplicity and grace... fighting games should not be needlessly complicated, just skill-based. Look at the parry system in SF3, for example. Or the one in Soul Calibur (a game which does suffer from the ungodly # of moves thing, and the useless jump thing. It can't be perfect, it IS 3D, after all ).

Also, as a last note, any fighting game that my inept gamer friend can pick up and beat in UNDER 5 MINUTES on the regular difficulty (Soul Calibur, I'm looking in your direction) has something wrong with it, IMO. Let's see him try that on Alpha 3!

Sakura 316 once said... My name is from Capcom

As well as from Stone Cold Steve Austin, no doubt. I suspected, but didn't assume, seeing as how Capcom hardly coined the name "Sakura", which pops up regularly in video games and animé.

God, I still wish people played Alpha 3 and SF3 in the arcade. Those were the days... which were still not as good as the days when people played SF2Turbo. Oh well.

[Sakura 316]

My favorite arcade era was when the later SF II games and MK II were big. It's just not the same anymore. The only fighting games the arcade gets are by Namco and only T4 is played seriously. I play SF Alpha 3 for the arcade because I own a cabinet and CPS-2 board but I have NEVER seen a SF III 3S machine. Only played it on DC.

[Mzo]

THAT is a tragedy... I used to have a great arcade, 10 minutes from where I live. Small, smoky place where people gathered to play SF. No lousy kids running around breaking stuff

I'm guessing it went out of business while I was away. I went to GT in Atlanta for a year or so, and came back to find it missing. I blame myself.

There IS another place that has SF3:3S, but it's more of a franchise where "cool" people hang out, being scrubs and breaking machines. Sucks.

[StriderKyo]

Originally posted by rezo
As you say, good tekken is supposed to be about poking,

Yep. The game boils down to quick, rhythmic anticipatory button tapping. Sakura, even if that combo takes the timing you say it does (how did you come up with that frame number, by the way?), that makes it about as hard as the Akira Lance from VF, which is a regular string that's not impossible to pull off reliably by any means.

And whoever said this combo would be impossible to pull off - did you actually watch the video? He just backs the guy into the corner at the beginning of the round and starts floating him - what's difficult about that?

Look, I'm glad some of you guys get enjoyment from Tekken, but if you're this hardcore about it, why not put that effort into VF? Its feel is alot more flexible, there's more to the fighting engine, and alot more reward for the effort. I've played plenty of Tekken, (I know the Yoshi combo Mech's talking about, and it's not that difficult to pull off, although it never seems to do as much damage in game as it does in the practice mode) but spending all that time on the game after a while feels like being the world's greatest Go Fish player. It may provide some fun for a while, but there's more interesting games out there.

[Sakura 316]

What is Akira Lance? The one that starts with d/f+G+K?


Because he knew the exact spot that the jabs would end in time to do f+3+4 and then have him hit the wall in just the right spot so that he'd bounce off and then go into a side wall impact so that he could continue. It wouldn't work with just any old wall hit, this has already been brought up.


I don't put in as much effort with VF because I think Tekken is more fun, interesting and rewarding.

[xS]

does tekken 4 have Gon and that doctor guy?

[Sakura 316]

No. T4 has...

Kazuya Mishima
Paul Phoenix
Hwoarang
Yoshimitsu
Ling Xiaoyu & Miharu
Craig Marduk
Steve Fox
Christie Monteiro & Eddy Gordo
King
Marshall Law
Jin Kazama
Lee Chaolan & Violet
Nina Williams
Lei Wulong
Bryan Fury
Julia Chang
Kuma & Panda
Heihachi Mishima
Combot

[xS]

What about the modes of play? does it still have the tekken ball and beat em up mode?