Tekken 4

Tekken 4
Give in the anger ! Hate me ! Curse me !-Kazuya Mishima
Protagonist(s): Jin Kazama Genre(s): Fighting Platform(s): Arcade PlayStation 2 Release Date: Arcade August 2001 PlayStation 2 JP: March 28, 2002 EU: September 13, 2002 NA: September 23, 2002 Developer(s): Namco Publisher(s): JP: Namco NA: Namco Hometek EU: SCE Country: Japan Series: Tekken Predecessor: Tekken 3 (Chronologically) Tekken Tag Tournament (Release Date) Successor: Tekken 5

Tekken 4 (鉄拳4) is a fighting game developed and published by Namco as the fourth main and fifth installment in the Tekken series, following the release of the non-canon title Tekken Tag Tournament in 1999. It was released on arcades in 2001, and on the PlayStation 2 in 2002.

Plot

Two years after the King of Iron Fist Tournament 3, Heihachi Mishima and his scientists have captured samples of Ogre's blood and tissue to splice with Heihachi's genome, in order to make him immortal. The experiment fails since Heihachi lacks the Devil gene. His grandson, Jin Kazama, possesses the Devil gene but has been missing since the previous tournament. Meanwhile, Heihachi learns that the body of his son, Kazuya Mishima, who also had the Devil gene and whom Heihachi killed by throwing into a volcano twenty-one years ago, is stored in the labs of the G Corporation, a cutting edge biotech firm making revolutionary advances in the field of biogenetics research. Heihachi sends his Tekken Forces to raid G Corporation facility in order to retrieve Kazuya's remains. However, the mission fails when the Tekken Force is wiped out by none other than Kazuya himself, who turns out to be alive all those 20 years ago, as he has been revived by G Corporation a few days after his apparent death.

Knowing that Kazuya wants revenge and Heihatchi needs him for his devil gene, he announces the 4th King of Iron FIst Tournament.

Good Qualities

1. Unlike previous games, the game transitioned from 2.5D to 3D which makes gameplay combos bigger and makes the fighting fun to watch.
2. Stages are creative and now are interactable, with things such as walls and other obstacles can be broken to add extra damage
3. Introduces Story Mode, which is the same as Arcade mode but now with cutscenes and stories for every character, both at the beginning and at the end and sometimes during the stages themselves.
4. Adding to the game realism, the stage was also set on believeable, realistic location. instead of fantasy theme stages like the other games in series.
5. Characters such as Kazuya Mishima and Lee Chaolan (who in this game goes by the name Violet) are returned after being absent on the previous main game.
6. Several new gameplay mechanic were introduce, such as pushing opponent onto the wall or other objects for extra damage and sidewalk.
7. The game's setting has a darker tone in comparison to any other Tekken game, not even Tekken 7 has it
8. 23 characters, consisting of 17 returning and 6 new ones. The returning characters include a couple ones who did not make the cut in the 19-year time skip between Tekken 2 and Tekken 3
   • Kazuya Mishima returns and he's as badass as ever.
   • Steve Fox: A British Boxer who is really good at punching and although he can't kick, he can dodge well
   • Craig Marduck: A Wrestler who got great moves and would expand the storyline of King
   • Violet: Lee Chaolan's alter Ego
   • Christie Montero: A Capoeira student in search for her friend and teacher, Eddy Gordo, she would be a fan favorite in the series
9. The game is the most realistic Tekken game in the series, as the combos are unique and with the exception of Kuma, Panda and Combot (the latter can still be considered real by many) all of the characters are humans.
10. Tekken Force mode returns but now the camera is an over-the-shoulder perspective and has much better controls.
11. Very creative soundtrack that fits with the tone of the game
12. Amazing graphics that's a massive improvement from Tekken Tag Tournament, with the stages and many characters look good for its time and some characters like Kazuya having a better animation.
13. Introducing some new characters such as Christie Monteiro (who is palette swap of Eddy), Craig Marduk, Steve Fox and a hidden character.
14. The character endings are also affected by the tone changes.
    • The Mishimas endings had some cool moments like Jin's nightmare sequence, Kazuya's evil laugh, Heihachi's last laugh, and Jin's Ending which lead up to the Tekken 5 opening.
    • King's ending, which leading him to the hospital after defeating Marduk. With the intention to avenge his master after Marduk killed him in between of Tekken 3 and Tekken 4, but suddenly decides to spare him after King saw the picture of Marduk and his grand parents.
    • Paul story overall is pretty dark from start to finish which starts with him become arrogant after beating Ogre on the previous tournament, but no one taking that seriously because he didn't won the previous tournament. (Well technically he defeat Ogre but not True Ogre) And got his dojo bankrupt due to lack of students. and even after he won the tournament, he was busy fullfiling his hedonistic lifestyle, and let Dr. Abel take his job. Eventually he grew tired of that, and after he saw his picture on Marshall dojo's he decide to dropped his position as the Chairman of the Mishima Zaibatsu in favour to become the Strongest in the Universe, and on the last few second of the ending, Paul remove his sunglasses and says "Ain't my style" before riding onto the light.
      • Funnily enough, alot of Tekken fan theorized this as "The Death of the Real Paul" saying that he's riding into the afterlife, and the Paul we got from Tekken 5-onwards (who's now has been reduced into a comic relief) was on purgatory.

Bad Qualities

2. The English Voice Acting is terrible, mainly the one for Jin Kazama and Hwoarang.
3. Although the gameplay is very fluid, it's slow compared to Tekken Tag Tournament.
5. Although the game has lots of returning characters, some fan favorites didn't come such as Anna and Jack, it also has very low amount of characters compared to Tekken Tag Tournament
6. The costumes in the game are very awful and ugly, most notably Heihatchi Mishima, who fight the player wearing diapers.
7. The game is heavily unbalanced, most notably Jin Kazama, his attacks are incredibly broken and can be undefeatable in the wrong hands.
8. Except several endings mentioned on GQ #14, every other endings were pretty much forgettable, at least when compared to previous games like Tekken 3.
   • Despite this, Hwoarang's ending is rather interesting in which both him and Jin speak English (which was the one and only time they did)
9. Less characters when compared to Tekken Tag Tournament, as this game only has 21 playable characters.
10. The combo in this game was completely dumbed down making the game having the weakest combo system of the entire series.
11. The movement was changed, where instead of play on a 2.5D plane like in the previous game, this game have full 3D movement (Something akin to Virtua Fighter and Soul Calibur) while sounds like a good idea on paper, it fails the in the execution due to following reasons:
    • Sidestep was nerfed in favor of sidewalk and that's very weird considering that you don't sidewalk that much in a Tekken game.
    • The controls were also weird because you're no longer be able to jump and crouch on neutral or retreat while crouching, this is due to neutral u/d now serves as the sidestep/sidewalk button, db and ub does side backstep. And you have to press uf and df to jump and crouch respectively.
12. The game also introduce some poorly executed mechanics, such as wall tech, pillars, and uneven ground.
13. The game has been criticized due to the game focuses strictly on poking. Due to this, juggle damage was nerfed.
    • This resulting the characthers who have good juggle (Violet and Jin) to have an unfair advantage against other characters.
    • Steve was also broken, due to him having the fastest jab of the entire roster.
14. Combine all problems above with the broken stage design and you got this.
15. Kazuya's EWGF now only launch on counter hit. Making it harder to launch opponent, and combine that with the nerf juggle damage, making it almost completely useless.
    • Though it's been balanced by the unique "Stun Link" property on his "Demon God Fist". (ws2)

Reception

The game received positive reviews, although nowhere near as good as Tekken 3 nor Tekken Tag Tournament.

Praise for the gameplay, stages, story and graphics but criticized the Ai and content compared to Tekken Tag Tournament and even Tekken 3

Community reception was generally negative, with competitive players pointing out its balancing and gameplay issues, even today it's considered the black sheep of the series. However in recent years, Tekken 4 has been widely praised for its innovation, atmosphere and attention to detail.

Trivia

1. The game has a mixed reception among the fanbase, with many considering it underrated while others considering it the worst installment in the series.
2. This is the first game in the series to have voice acting for all characters.
3. There was an unreleased mode called Boost Mode that acted as a turbo mode of sorts. It increased the movement speed of characters and also decreased the recovery time of attacks. It is unknown why this mode was removed. Boost Mode's code is still present within the game and can be accessed through hacking.
4. This is the only game where Jack Robots don't appear as a playable character (Though Jack 4 appears outside of the game's story), it's also the only game to not have Anna Williams as well.
5. In Hwoarang's ending, both him and Jin speak English, the first and only time they do so.
6. This is the first time that Eddy Gordo, Lei Wulong, Nina Williams and Jin Kazama are unlockable characters in the series.
7. Unlike other Brazilian characters, Christie Montero's costumes aren't pure Green.

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