Retrospective: Tekken still packs a punch

When I think back to the hours I spent as a young lad beating up old men, scantily clad women, tiny dinosaurs, and boxing kangaroos, a nostalgic grin spreads wide across my face. Before you wonder why the powers that be have allowed a violent sociopath to write an article about video games, I am talking of course, about the legendary fighting series that is _Tekken._
Originally starting out as an arcade game in 1994, _Tekken_ amassed a cult following after its move onto PlayStation, spawning a vast quantity of sequels and spin offs, arguably peaking in 1998 with _Tekken 3_, widely regarded as the best fighting game ever, and one of the greatest games ever made.

The story was, and always has been, horrendously confusing. It brings together random groups of mostly unconnected people, animals, and robots to fight each other for some deep rooted and conceited reasons mostly relating to childhood trauma, unsuccessful scientific experiments and supernatural monsters. But do we care? Not even a little bit. The beauty of _Tekken_ was in its ability to blend simple, intuitive gameplay with a surprisingly deep and complex path towards mastering the game.

Visually striking for its day, painfully addictive, eminently rewarding, with hidden goodies aplenty and more than anything, something different from the canon of contemporary fighting games, _Tekken_ easily established itself as the frontrunner of fighting games in the 90s and early 00s. Soul Calibur, Virtua Fighter, and Mortal Kombat all had their unique charms, but in terms of an all round entertainment package, nothing comes close to matching the unbridled brilliance that was _Tekken_. It has set the benchmark of what every fighting game should aspire to be.

_Tekken_ emerged amidst, in my humble opinion, the greatest era video games has ever seen. Metal Gear Solid and the Final Fantasy games brought levels of narrative depth rarely before seen, but amongst such seminal works, _Tekken_ provided some light relief, mindless maybe, but fun.
And at the end of the day there’s no price you can put on fun. If I think back to my gaming education, I can acknowledge the quality of certain games, but for standout memories, the memories that can make you smile more than a decade on, _Tekken_ is the runaway winner.
It has been suggested that games like _Tekken_ have had their day and can’t really convert onto the modern day gaming scene. While this may have some validity, why not celebrate _Tekken_ for what it was? It was a game of its time, but more importantly, for me at least, it was the game of its time.

With a dearth of standout fighting games on the current generation consoles, the genre is crying out for people to go up into the attic, dust off the PlayStation, stick _Tekken_ in and reacquaint themselves with one of the most memorable and thoroughly entertaining video games franchises of all time. After all, who can honestly resist a genetically engineered kangaroo fighting against a seven-foot cyborg? Absolute bliss.