I'm just going to write out a bunch of thoughts about this game without caring if it reads as coherent; much like this game itself. It's a game with atmosphere that lifts you out of your body and asks you why you dared to keep going in a strange, alien cyber world that you're only a small part of. End of an era for 00's Y2K. Technology was new. The PS2 was new. Fully realized humans were forming on our magic tv boxes and the computer felt like something Other than human. The lighting of this game does wonders for making the game feel nostalgic for reality versus the harsh bleakness of the CGs and UI. The music always subverts my expectations and feels fully other-worldly. The vignettes are instantly iconic and I wish more was done with them into fully fleshed out stories. Jin Kazama is a very iconic character and the drastic turn they take to make him immediately distinct from his past and his trauma is extremely engaging from both a narrative perspective and a gameplay perspective. In a game, no, a series about familial hatred and betrayal, having a character torture themselves for twenty years and fully unlearn his grandfather's teachings and hate everything in his core down to his blood and him seeking to change every single aspect of himself outside of his own revenge is powerfully personal. Damn dude.... I'm always ecstatic playing games from this era. It always feels like games like this dig at my core. And it's a good ass game through and through (It's not).

A game so good that it's regarded as a complete critical and commercial failure. A game so good with it's slower pace to combat and broader focus on natural environments that people largely ignored it and bought the game before it tenfold. A game so good that at most, people remember it giving them nightmares as a kid and is remembered as "that one weird fighting game" and nothing else. A game so good the director was forced to kill the creative vision for the series narratively moving forward and conform to purely what "normal" fans wanted. A game so good it nearly bankrupted the company.

They will never make something like this again, fuck dude.
Damn dude.

Fuck Bandai. Fuck Harada. Fuck Tekken 5 onwards. Fuck Tekken fans in general tbh. smh smh. I don't care if I sound like a stubborn asshole. Sometimes it feels good to be one. And at least my love for this game exceeds the hate I have for the rest of this franchise.

One of those games that was made with pure soul. I'm gonna go listen to Fetus again and zone out or something.

Reviewed on Apr 10, 2024


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