Recent reviews by Perpetual Yeti

Devil Jin WS2 my beloved.

“Fighting games are hype!”. This is a sentiment that a lot of video game players can agree on. Fighting games can contain a lot of depth and complexity, and they can be very interesting to watch at a competitive level. Tekken 7 is no different. This fighting game is the 7th main entry in the Tekken series and was originally released in Japanese arcades in 2015. It later saw an expansion in Tekken 7: Fated Retribution, which was released in arcades the following year. Fated Retribution introduced Akuma as a guest character, one of the prominent villains from the Street Fighter series. In addition to the character’s introduction into the Tekken story, he had his Street Fighter mechanics interwoven with those of Tekken. In June of 2017, Tekken 7 was finally introduced to home consoles, and for the first time in the series history, it was released on PC. Since then, Tekken 7 has received numerous updates, introducing new gameplay elements and balance changes. Additionally, it added 12 characters, both old and new, in the form of paid DLC, as well as 7 new stages. Since its console and PC release, Tekken 7 has become one of the most popular fighting games, for both competitive and casual players. For those interested in purchasing the game today, it’s base price on digital storefronts is $39.99, however when on sale, it can be as low as $11.99. DLC can be purchased individually or as part of the game’s three season passes and can be found on sale as well.

Gameplay:
Since it’s a traditional fighter, the main objective in Tekken is to kill your opponent before they can kill you, or at least make sure they have less health when the timer runs out. Every character in Tekken 7 has the same amount of health, 170 HP, and each match is timed at 60 seconds. Tekken is a 4-button game, but many players make use of macros, which simulate specific simultaneous button presses. As with other fighters, there’s a variety of controllers one can use to play the game, the most common being gamepad and arcade stick.
Just like previous entries in the series, Tekken 7 is a 3D fighting game. Most popular fighters, such as Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and Super Smash Bros take place in 2D space and rely on verticality. Tekken removes this emphasis on vertical movement in place of lateral movement. Characters in Tekken can walk and dash forward and back, sidestep left and right but can’t jump nearly as high as say Chun Li from Street Fighter or Johnny Cage from Mortal Kombat. This is one of the main differences between 2D and 3D fighters, and it can be seen in other 3D fighters such as Soul Calibur or Virtua Fighter. It’s important to note for those fighting game players moving from 2D fighters. However, many fighting game mechanics transfer over from 2D to 3D, including frame data, counter hits, block punishment and to some extent, anti-airs. If you’re not familiar with 3D fighters or fighting games in general, expect to spend some time learning the mechanics of the game.
You’ll often have to make use of external sources to learn how the game works, since Tekken 7 lacks an in-game tutorial. For players new to fighting games, however, I think the best option is to start by playing the main story mode, “The Mishima Sage”. The story is over the top, and you don’t have to know what happened in previous games. While the story mode doesn’t tell you explicitly how the game works, it will give an idea of what to do. The story mode includes an assist button, which modifies your main attacks into ones that are more powerful and harder to execute. If you’re a beginner, make sure to play on an easier difficulty; some of the story battles are made intentionally unfair on harder difficulties. After playing the story, it’s time to use external sources to learn the game, whether it be YouTube videos or written guides. This knowledge will give you a competitive advantage over your opponents, once you start to play against real opponents that is. This is where I think Tekken 7 becomes most enjoyable for players; playing against human opponents and learning the fundamentals.
The fundamental mechanics of Tekken 7 are easy to understand but hard to practice and even harder to master. Playing Tekken well depends on how well you understand your own character as well as your opponents. You need to know what your opponent can do and how to punish or counter it. You also need to know how to make use of the movement system, which is more complicated than it looks to beginners.
Unique to Tekken is a movement cancelling system, which requires you to cancel certain movements in order to repeat them more quickly. Back-dash cancelling has many forms in Tekken, the most difficult but effective of which is Korean Back-dashing (KBD). Back-dash cancelling consists of performing a movement other than a back-dash during the back-dash movement in order to cancel it and perform an additional one more quickly. Practicing back-dash cancel and sidestep cancel techniques is one of the most important set of fundamental skills you’ll need to play Tekken effectively. This is because Tekken heavily relies on dodging your opponent’s attacks and punishing them with one of your own and being able to move your character effectively lets you do that. This concept is known as whiff punishing, and while it does exist in other fighting games, it’s especially prominent in Tekken. This dynamic movement and retaliation are what makes Tekken interesting to learn.

Changes Since Launch:
Tekken 7 has changed quite a bit since it’s original release. By looking up videos of the older arcade version of the game, you can see that characters used to do far more damage, and had many moves that, by today’s standards, are far too overpowered. The guest character Akuma is one example of a character that could just completely switch things in his favor. In the original version of the 2016 expansion Fated Retribution, he was able to perform combos that would take 70% or more of his opponent’s life bar. Despite retaining his relatively high potential combo damage in today’s version of the game, he has been nerfed several times, and performing these combos now requires much more skill.
Tekken 7 has also seen several changes since the 2017 PC and console release. During the first season of the game (August 2017 – August 2018), the game saw the release of two more guest characters. The first, Geese Howard from the Fatal Fury fighting game series was introduced to Tekken, and just like Akuma, he brought with him certain moves and mechanics from the Fatal Fury series. The second, was Noctis Lucis Caelum from Final Fantasy 15 was an interesting addition, since he was a sword fighter and most fans saw him as a better fit for the then new Soul Calibur 6 game, which is weapon based.

During the game’s second season (September 2018 – August 2019), Tekken 7 had several characters from older Tekken games reintroduced back into the series. This included Lei Wulong, Anna Williams, Craig Marduk, Armor King and Julia Chang. This season saw the addition of the wall bounce mechanic, which allowed players to perform new combos when their opponents back was towards the wall. Additionally, the developers, Bandai Namco, partnered with the production company AMC to introduce Negan from The Walking Dead into Tekken 7. As with Noctis, he was somewhat of a controversial addition to the game; some fans felt as though he didn’t fit into Tekken thematically.
Tekken 7’s current and third season (September 2019 onward) reintroduced some more classic Tekken characters, namely Zafina and Ganryu. It also made several changes to the existing characters by rebalancing some moves and adding new ones for every character. Many players, both professional and casual, saw these changes as making the game faster and more dynamic. Certain moves would no longer knockdown, but rather gave some frame advantage, moving the shift away from okizeme (pressuring knocked down opponent) a

The only "math game" I can say is actually fun.

This is my favorite game. It's basically my ex-wife that I remarried and fell in love with again.

This is actually a really good puzzler. Casual but challenging.

Beatable. Just Don't Give Up.

nice