Tekken 7

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

- Erik Paolo Escueta

For

Philippine Tekken fans, the home release of Tekken 7 has been a painful wait as local arcades never upgraded to the latest expansion, Fated Retribution.

The wait is definitely worth it. These home editions sport more characters, a dedicated story mode, and competitive online matchmaking in addition to the refined and improved combat found in Tekken 7 itself. But for all its positives, Tekken 7 also makes some significant missteps that make it feel a bit lacking compared with previous generations’ offerings.

Practice makes perfect

Let’s get this out of the way first: the fighting mechanics in Tekken 7 have never been better. The effects of the bounds system introduced and reworked in recent iterations have been significantly rebalanced, resulting in less impervious and endlessly repetitive combo strings and greater tactical emphasis during battles.

Consequently, players will see greater rewards the better they play, so professional button mashers will want to actually put in the practice. And there’s no reason not to give it a try. The forgiving difficulty curve and intuitive controls make Tekken 7 one of the easiest in the series to pick up and learn, even by novices.

Victims of natural selection

Tekken 7 also takes some rather large strides—and arguably a gamble—with its character roster. The home release of Tekken 7 features more characters than its arcade counterpart, which pretty much makes them the definitive editions to own.

However, it’s worth noting that the roster count is still less compared to recent