TEKKEN and how it lost its unique aesthetic

Comments · 592

• CR

  @Cr1ms0nRav3n · 5 months ago · pinned

  The vibes we saw in T4 didn’t begin with that game. The same vibes could be felt in T2,T3 and TTT1. Just watch all of those intros back to back, it’s the same atmospheric tone including the music and character designs. <br><br>You see buildings you see urban locations, the main characters look like everyday people. Yoshimtsu back then was just a mysterious Man, a Robin Hood figure/ninja in a mask with a bionic arm. Part of an ancient mystic clan. <br><br>It was only after Tekken began adopting more modern light hearted anime tropes that the stylish gritty atmosphere began to wain, and this also coincides with new character designs that began to stray from martial arts inspired fighting styles. <br><br>Tekken to me was always a hybrid or rather a healthy marriage between 90s dark fantasy and realistic designs. Even though most of the styles are based on real techniques the creators of Tekken for the most part wanted to make a hybrid of realistic fighting styles with a few creative liberties. <br><br>For example, Kazuya’s uf4,4,4,4 which I think are called his rising sun kicks were based on Street Fighter’s Tatsu kicks where the shoto characters like Ryu are hovering and spinning like a helicopter, but Tekken took that and applied a bit of realism and physics to it, Kazuya instead only leaps once with the first kick and then twirls downward with gravity and ends it with a standing roundhouse kick, &nbsp;he looks like a figure skater doing twirls. It looks realistic enough but still not possible in real life. <br><br>Hwourang’s hunting hawk is another example. Moves that find them selves somewhere in the middle between real and fantasy. That’s the design philosophy of Tekken. <br><br>That’s what I love so much about Tekken. It pushes the boundaries of &nbsp;real styles ever so lightly and when they go for fantasy they never stretch it too far. <br><br>They take &nbsp;real concepts or mythology like a fighting kangaroo or a circus bear &nbsp;and put them in a fighting tournament. The whole laser thing with the devil form were always gimmicks and it was always meant to represent a psychic beam from the third eye. <br><br>Later installments turned it into like a kamehaha wave that can destroy buildings. It was supposed to be part of the whole demonic evil eye mythos not this destructive laser. <br><br>Teleportations like what Yoshimtsu did &nbsp;weren’t egregious, it was just part of the characters design and mysticism. The point is, the hand to hand combat always came &nbsp;first and any special powers were superficial and &nbsp;only relegated to one or two unique outliers in the roster. <br><br> The whole premise was a hand to hand global fighting tournament, and the designers didn’t want to take too much away from that. This is where modern Tekken fails. <br><br>The mysticism like devil powers or Mystic ancient ninja clans, cyborgs, ancient aliens like Ogre, &nbsp;these things were sprinkled in ever so lightly and added tastefully, but didnt over step their boundaries when it came to the martial arts angle. <br><br>It’s when we take these things and put them in the driver seat and dial &nbsp;them up to 11 and they start to take priority that’s where the disconnect happens.<br><br> Its why so many began &nbsp;calling Tekken “too anime now”. It wasn’t easy to articulate, but everyone saw and felt it. It was another way of saying Tekken is straying too far from its realistic aspects and favoring the fantasy elements too much. Ruining &nbsp;the healthy marriage it had and equilibrium. <br><br> It’s why today everyone scoffs at the idea Tekken is supposed to be a martial arts tournament. They’ve been &nbsp;conditioned with too much Alisa, or Zafina/Azazel or Mairy Zo and ridiculous rage art animation shenanigans, that anything less is considered a failing concept. <br><br>When in fact it’s the martial arts motif that gave us the best character designs, the best stages, New York, a church, a wrestling ring high up in the mountains, an airport, a mall, the Grand Canyon, or a simple alley way with a subway passing by overhead. It’s what gave us the great music too.<br><br> It’s also that martial arts motif that allows for the &nbsp;realism aspect to Tekken that gave us that atmospheric serious tone. It’s why people look back to the older titles and miss that art style so much.<br><br> It peaked with T4 but because the gameplay was broken and strayed from traditional Tekken, suddenly they decided to throw the baby out with the bath water for some reason. T5 wasn’t too egregious but we began seeing the seeds of what we would later come to witness with T6 and it’s weird new character designs and later T7 taking it even more over the top. The slippery slope. <br><br>I mean, &nbsp;What’s stopping them from making another Tekken 4? Why do we correlate it’s style and atmosphere with failure when it was the unbalanced gameplay that turned a lot of people off, atleast competively, the casuals loved it. And many long for that atmosphere again. <br><br> Why does Tekken need to get wackier and wackier with each new title with even more abnormal Tekken character designs? Who decided this was the only way forward? <br><br>It was always weird to me how they just abandoned the dark fantasy/ realistic tone of Tekken. I mean just go and watch the T3 intro or TTT1 arcade intro, no I mean it, go watch it, it’s like a different universe &nbsp;all together compared to now, &nbsp;no wackyness. Tekken took itself seriously back then even with the cool fantasy elements &nbsp;sprinkled in. <br><br> Paul walking down a busy street, Lei being a cop, Lee driving a sports car. Etc. Less is more. We must go back to move foward. <br><br>T8 is the culmination of that slippery slope, favoring more heavy handed anime designs, &nbsp;it’s art style is over &nbsp;the top with too much magic powers and guns, and crazy DBZ style rage art cinematics AND it’s gameplay mechanics has become absurd as well. Both feed into each other imo. <br><br>If we want the vibes of T4 to come back then the whole ecosystem needs to change back too, cuz the only reason why T4 and it’s predecessors had that awesome vibe was because of it’s focus on martial arts and more down to earth designs which gave it its serious tone and atmosphere.

  292

• NV

  @NVME33 · 5 months ago

  T4 vibes are unmatched, the stages especially really stand out

  457

• TE

  @Tekken-Mikazuchi · 5 months ago

  Tekken 2 has some of the best aesthetics of the classic Tekken’s. The character select theme alone is so PEAK 😩

  161

• AB

  @AbdulrahmanA-s1g · 5 months ago

  Tekken 2, 3, 4 and Tag 1 for me

  95

• HI

  @himzi1 · 5 months ago

  Tekken is such a weird and beautiful franchise but fumbles simple bags

  286

• LI

  @Liovile · 5 months ago

  Id actually leaned with War criminal Jin more If they comitted to the bit instead of trying to curveball it

  161

• RE

  @redcoffeemug7537 · 5 months ago

  Think whatever aesthetic Tekken had from Tekken 3 to Tekken Tag &amp; Tekken 4 is my favorite.

  71

• KN

  @KnottsBear-yTalesPreserved · 5 months ago

  T4 to me felt like a True Evolution with its graphics and style.

  90

• IN

  @internethistorytrash7464 · 5 months ago

  I played Tekken 4 in 2025, the vibes and OST are legendary I feel I was transported to another world, cannot say the same for Tekken 7 even though it was my first Tekken and the PRO scene was the best.

  107

• TO

  @Tohfool · 5 months ago

  I&apos;m happy to see Tekken 4 is getting the respect it deserves

  14

• PI

  @PirataMundoTV · 5 months ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwwB2DHPRc0&amp;t=350">5:50</a> If you look closer those are actually adults 😂 But in King&apos;s Tekken 2 ending, they used children that time

  42

• WE

  @webbiefade14 · 4 months ago

  One thing i dislike about the direction Tekken took is how characters either stopped looking like their ethnicity or stopped having unique, prominent faces and started having generic faces. As someone else pointed out they looked like everyday ppl. Now Jin and Kazuya don&apos;t even look japanese anymore. Their faces look too anime

  4