PLAY TEKKEN 3 SERIES

Juggling is still part of fighting games today, except now it is a valid, balanced mechanic, but Tekken 3 isn’t exactly modern. This technique, common to most games in the genre, allows pros to keep their opponent in the air, like a juggler with their clubs, with no chance of defending themselves.

In the heydays of Tekken 3, juggling was a serious issue in the competitive sphere of fighting games. In fact, the game might be better for novices now than it ever was before. Some of the characters have unexpected movesets you just have to know to avoid, but each of them is so memorable that it only takes falling for it twice to memorize each of them.

The moves can combo with interesting results, but they feel just as powerful and responsive when used one at a time.

While certainly a fast-moving game with a handful of complex characters, the core is always approachable for beginners.Īt all times, regardless of adversary or experience, the game feels utterly beatable. Except for a few exploitable bugs, Tekken 3 never becomes too much. Each fight has its own arc, but they all feed right into the next, lulling players into a trance that can last for hours.Įven with all this intoxicating speed, the fights themselves never become too chaotic: anyone, novices included, can read the game with relative ease. Every fight starts with a short introduction, then a drum-less version of the main beat, before going straight to the main loop. The breakbeat soundtrack only intensifies this effect: every track is just as fast as the last, and the instrumentation remains roughly the same. They stay on the same characters as selected before, so just mashing buttons ( any buttons) on the controller will start a rematch. Speed permeates every aspect of the design, from the barebones menus and quick intro animations to how you can skip everything but the fight itself, down to the narrator’s “Ready? Fight!”.īetween fights, the game goes back to the character selection screen, but the position of the cursors doesn’t reset. What makes this a special case is that the port sticks to this design choice to a tee.ĭevoid of its original intentions, the PS1 port of Tekken 3 seems to hit unmatched levels of unstopped fighting just for the sake of it. Owing to the series’ arcade roots, where a faster game means more plays per hour and more coins in the machine by the end of the day, Tekken 3 is literally built for speed. Compared to previous entries in the series, everything goes by much faster: the jumps don’t feel floaty, the combos are seamless, and running can close any distance instantly.Īnother area where speed has radically increased is in the loading times, though in reality, the entire design of Tekken 3 is dedicated to reducing the time between fights. What immediately jumps out about Tekken 3 is its speed. Even though this wasn’t the first 3D fighting game, nor was it the first in the series, it’s here that, for the first time, the 3 rd dimension felt like more than a gimmick. The sidestep mechanic makes characters rotate around the Z-axis for an impressive dodge and counterattack. The 3D is more than just a graphical flourish, adding an entirely new dimension of movement. It does so without sacrificing its style, too: the (for the time) incredible 3D graphics were a great selling point, intriguing without fail to gamers of the day. Technically, it’s one of the most impressive games on the PS1, with loading times shorter than anything else of that era. To this day, it stands as one of the highest-rated fighting games, especially compared to other games on the system. 25 years ago, it was the game that confirmed the PlayStation 1 as the machine for fighting games fans, with its exclusive port to Sony’s console.

PLAY TEKKEN 3 SERIES

It’s hard to underestimate the impact of Tekken 3 on the fighting game scene of 1997: this is the entry that put the series on the map, overselling its sequels for years to come.

Play tekken 3