Tekken History: Tekken

Tekken History: Tekken

Robert Knuckles

“The beginning of something special”

With Tekken 7 already out I thought it would be a great idea to talk about each Tekken game and we’ll start off with the first Tekken game.

Tekken is a 3D fighting game that was released in arcades in 1994 then released on the Playstation platforms. People will say that Tekken was competing against Sega’s 3D fighter Virtua Fighter. The difference between the games is in Tekken it’s a four button layout. Each button controls the fighter's body part. Players fight against their opponent in the best of three rounds.

Tekken featured eight starting characters and 10 secret characters but they were only available on the console version.

There is a story but most people really wouldn’t notice unless you read the instruction booklet during the 90’s.

Heihachi Mishima (the game’s boss) is head of the Mishima Zaibatsu. Heihachi announces the King of Iron Fist tournament and gives $1 billion to the winner. One of the fighters that entered the tournament is Kazuya the game’s main character and Heihachi's son. Kazuya entered the tournament because when he was five years old Heihachi threw him off a cliff to see if Kazuya can inherit the Mishima name. Kazuya grew a hatred for his father while climbing up and got a huge scar on his chest that activated the devil gene within.

The console version of the game featured endings for the eight characters. Kazuya’s ending had him throw his father off the same cliff he was thrown off.

There were a couple of cool characters such as Marshal Law the Bruce Lee clone, assassin Nina Williams, robot samurai Yoshimitsu, robot Jack, jaguar masked wrestler King, American biker Paul and free spirited Michelle. Every character has a different rival they face and can unlock them when they beat the game.

Now I didn’t play much of the first Tekken mainly due to the fact that I didn’t have a Playstation but it was still a lot of fun to play. It was the start of something special of becoming the best 3D fighting game series.