Tekken

Tekken is a fighting game and is the first of the series of the same name. It was released at arcades in 1994 and on the PlayStation in 1995 and was later released again in Tekken 5's arcade history mode. It was developed and published by Namco.

Gameplay[]

Tekken is one of the earliest 3D fighting game franchises, with the first game applying many of the concepts found in Virtua Fighter by Sega.

As with many fighting games, players choose a character from a lineup, and engage in hand-to-hand combat with an opponent.

Tekken differs from other hand-to-hand fighting games in some ways. Traditional fighting games are usually played with buttons which correspond to the strength of the attack, such as strong punch or weak kick. Tekken, however, dedicates a button to each limb of the fighter, making learning special attacks more of an intuitive process. The player could watch the animation on screen and figure out the appropriate command (if the character kicks low with their right leg, the move is likely to be executed by pressing down and right kick, or a similar variation). Traditional fighting games, such as Street Fighter, involve inputting commands as rapidly and accurately as possible, whereas Tekken slows the action down, emphasizing rhythm, strategy, and deception over speed.

Story[]

A worldwide martial arts tournament is nearing its final, with a large purse of prize money to the fighter who can defeat Heihachi Mishima in the final round of competition. The contest is sponsored by the giant financial group, the Mishima Zaibatsu. There are eight fighters that remain after winning death matches all over the world. The winner of the tournament will receive The King of the Iron Fist title. Only one will have a chance at defeating Heihachi and taking home the prize money and fame. The player is initially able to select one of those eight fighters at the start of the game, each one having their own personal reasons for entering the tournament aside from the prize money.

Kazuya Mishima is the main character. Heihachi's biological son, he was thrown into a ravine by his tyrannical father when he was five years old. Heihachi, believing his son was too weak to ever inherit his conglomerate, decided that if he were truly strong enough, he would be able to survive the fall and climb back up. Kazuya barely survived a fall that left him with the scar prominently visible on his chest. Fueled by hatred for his father, he enters the tournament to exact his revenge.

Although all playable characters in Tekken have their own ending upon completion of their particular scenario, depicting events following the tournament as if they were the one victorious, it became a staple in later Tekken games of having only one character's ending as the true canonical one, and the following sequel's storyline is based on what happened after that particular ending.

Characters[]

Starting characters

Kazuya Mishima

King
Nina Williams
Paul Phoenix
Michelle Chang
Marshall Law
Yoshimitsu
Jack

Unlockable Characters[]

Lee Chaolan
Armor King
Anna Williams
Kuma
Kunimitsu
Wang Jinrei
Prototype Jack
Ganryu
Heihachi Mishima

Devil Kazuya

Wild Card(arcade version only)(unlocked via cheat)

Stages[]

Acropolis
Ankor Wat
Chicago
Fiji
King George Island
Kyoto
Marine Stadium
Monument Valley
Szechwan
Venezia
Windermere

Trivia[]

This is the only Tekken game where the sub-bosses and the final boss do not have endings.
This is the only Tekken game where Nina Williams fights barefoot.
In the arcade version, after selecting a fighter their facial expressions would change, similar to Virtua Fighter. The character's name is also announced upon character selection.
Devil Kazuya is unlockable by beating the Galaga mini game that is playable before the actual game loads up.

This is the only game in the series that has identical music for every character's aside from Tekken Tag Tournament.

Mrs. Law can be seen in Yoshimitsu's ending.

This is the first time Forrest Law appeared, as a toddler in Yoshimitsu's ending.

King's ending uses real digitized children, a technique which would later be used again in his Tekken 2 ending.

On the PlayStaion version, the Stadium stage has a big screen in the background reflecting the fight.

With the exception of Wang, the boss characters' voices are identical to other characters.

The only boss characters to have their names announced are: Wang, Lee, and Heihachi. Armor King, P.Jack, and Devil Kazuya use the the same samples as their default characters, King, Jack, and Kazuya Mishima respectively. With other characters, the announcer simply says You Win.

This game has 17 characters not counting Devil Kazuya.

Each stage's background music with the exception of the Venezia stage, would later be recycled in Tekken 2. Some tracks also made a comeback in Tekken 4 including the Venezia music.

The intro featuring Kazuya has remixed music on the PlayStaion version, but cannot be changed to the original arcade music like the Heihachi intro in Tekken 2.

Tekken is the only game in the series where Arcade mode is actually faithful to the original arcade game, allowing a player to complete a time record without being stuck with default game settings. The player can even pause the game, play versus matches and change characters upon losing, however selecting the latter will void any time records.

If Heihachi is selected, he must face all of the boss characters, then face Devil Kazuya at the end. The characters are in a fixed order: Kunimitsu, Kuma, Wang, Ganryu, Lee, P.Jack, Armor King, Anna, and then Devil Kazuya.

You can listen to all the game music with a CD player.

The cover has a blue figure in addition to the eight default playable characters. Based on certain artwork showing more of the cover, it would appear to be a version of P.Jack.
The ages in Tekken are still the same in the Tekken 2 booklet.