After his involvement in the first Virtua Fighter as designer and coordinator, Seiichi Ishii went on to design and direct the original Tekken. Which became a competitor to the Virtua Fighter series and for the first game this is honestly fine. I definitely made sure to play on easy so I'm not stuck fighting the same opponents hours on end like I had to suffer through in my childhood, but it's surprisingly snappy and fun enough to play, even if it's not on the level of its sequels. Tekken has a more gritty tone here and the characters just have a bit more sauce compared to Virtua Fighter(I love its characters and the Sega charm personally) which gives it a broader appeal, though for the first game it also has a very strange, ominous vibe and it's clear that Namco was trying to capture something even if it's not fully fleshed out yet.

Reviewed on Aug 14, 2023


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