If you’ve ever wanted to fight a panda bear, an animated log, an alien samurai, or a wrestler in a jaguar mask, boy, do I have the game for you!
The very first thing that jumps out at you when you encounter Tekken 3 for the first time is its completely wackadoodle roster of bizarre characters, some of the tamest of which are Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee knockoffs, who both happen to be completely over-the-top caricatures of their real-life selves (and are positively bad-ass). But yeah, those are the tame ones. More typical are the likes of an ogre demon, or an infirm senior citizen scientist, or a cartoon dinosaur.
Color, in this case, is not a problem.
In fact, it’s partly the point.
But let’s be clear about this: it’s not the ENTIRE point.
If it were, the Tekken series would have long since run out of steam.
Instead, the franchise has gotten better and better, to the point where it has become one of the premiere fighting series on the planet.
So, let’s get into a little of the how and why that happened while we dive into what is largely considered the most impactful entry in the series.
Tekken 3 at a glance:
Genre: Fighting game
Released: 1998
Platform: PlayStation
Complex’s Fourth Best Fighting Game of All Time
Tekken was originally conceived as an alternative to Sega’s Virtua Fighter brand, an early 3D fighter which differed from traditional 2D fighters by featuring 3D modeling and animations.
As Virtua Fighter took up home residence on Sega’s own systems (primarily the Saturn, Genesis and 32X early on), and since Tekken’s arcade boards were based on PlayStation hardware, Tekken would end up landing on PlayStation consoles (again, at least early on).
The first Tekken, hitting arcades and the PlayStation 1, gave the decided impression of being a knock-off of Virtua Fighter with goofier characters.
Despite this being the case, it sold really, really well. The developer, Namco, therefore had the opportunity to make sequels and make the game better.
Tekken 2 upped the ante with even more ridiculous characters and plotting, but it also introduced elements like sidesteps, which would allow you to avoid hits and initiate attacks of your own by moving along a different axis than the typical front to back axis you were limited to in most fighting games. You could now move side to side. This truly made the game feel more like a 3D affair, as the backgrounds and perspective would rotate around with you as you sidestepped, and it opened up the combat significantly.
In Tekken 2, this sidestepping feature was limited to one character. By the time of Tekken 3, it had been incorporated for everyone.
The analogy that comes to mind for me is of a stand-up comedian. In Tekken 1 & 2, they were trying out their material in smaller clubs, seeing what would land and what wouldn’t. Tekken 3 was their comedy special on Netflix, centered around their bits that they knew really worked well.
You can see this throughout the game.
Two games worth of refinement had allowed the developer to expand upon Tekken’s combat system, which had already differed from a lot of competitors by mapping buttons to left and right punch and left and right kick, rather than the more common “weak, medium, strong” kick and punch attacks you’d see elsewhere.
The short of this is I personally had to relearn how to hold a controller to play Tekken 3 when I first encountered it, discovering very quickly that I would get trounced utilizing the standard “hover your right thumb over all the buttons” method I had been using for basically every other console video game ever.
Instead, the preferable method was to hover your first two fingers over the four face buttons instead, as though you were prepared to type, giving you the ability to hit the buttons more quickly.
This was critical, because what Tekken 3 did differently than even previous entries in its own series was establish a clear reliance on combos to prevail in most matches. Every character had a series of chained animations that could inflict massive damage on one’s opponent, and since openings for attacks were relatively small, it behooved a person to lean into creating as much damage as possible when those openings came along (if you didn’t, your opponent would).
This — exploit openings — is a basic tenet of fighting games.
In Tekken 3, the way to inflict maximum damage in said openings was combos.*
* This wasn’t innovative exactly, as Street Fighter II had incorporated them by accident and then purposefully some years before Tekken 3 had even come into conception. Killer Instinct also beat Tekken 3 to the punch (pun intended) with combos being critical to a winning experience there. But the reliance on them here broke with previous precedent within the series (previous combos were much tamer and much tougher to connect with) AND it was executed really, stinking well, so the combinations are worth talking about as a point in this game’s favor. This game is a REALLY good example of a fighter that is reliant on combos.
Combos, by their nature, required the player to hit buttons smoothly and quickly (and at times rhythmically), which was different from the “special” attacks you’d see in other games that required obnoxiously precise joystick movements made in conjunction with specific button presses.
Here instead, it’s more like “hit left punch three times, hit right punch three times, hit left kick once, hit right kick once,” etc. like you’re entering the Konami code or something.
Worth noting in this is that the window to execute said button presses, once the chain has been initiated, is relatively wide, meaning one could chain a relatively long sequence of attacks without having to press the buttons stupidly fast or anything. Indeed, a big part of success consisted of “air juggling” one’s opponents, wherein they would be launched slightly into the air by a successful blow, then subsequent blows would need to be timed correctly to keep the juggle (and successful attacks) going.
On top of this, different stances could be triggered by tapping the direction pad/joystick in one of the four directions (this is also how one could sidestep), and these different stances would create different attack/combo opportunities, meaning you could potentially sidestep your opponent’s attack, set up in a new stance, and immediately launch a devastating counterattack … but only if your timing was basically perfect. (If not, you’d get wrecked.)
Still, these different stances could be so much fun regardless of their attack viability, especially with the aforementioned Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan clones, who would do things like hop around like Bruce beckoning people to attack or stagger around like the Drunken Master.
If all of this sounds a little complex, it is, at least so far as one’s wealth of options are concerned. But the true beauty of Tekken is that one could find one or two combos and spam those for the majority of one’s attacks, while also dipping one’s toes in with new sidesteps, stances, and juggles that you weren’t as familiar with gradually.
Why do this? Well, it was fun to do, and it staved off boredom.
In short, the system encouraged you to learn new attacks and get better gradually, while still giving you a fighting chance not to get creamed over and over by more experienced players. And yes, the “cool” factor of finding new ways to wreck your opponent was truly what kept you playing in this manner, probing for new attacks, and even better, utilizing them to win a match.
Thanks to Tekken 3, this reliance on elaborate combos, juggles, and stances has by now become as synonymous with the experience of playing Tekken as the 3D elements and even the silliness itself.
Ah yes, about the silliness.
It’s so much fun.
It well and truly is.
Again, thinking back to my first experiences with this game in college, walking into a room where two buddies were playing the thing and fighting as a little girl in a school girl outfit, a Jackie Chan clone, a space ninja weirdo with a laser sword, and eventually, a friggin’ bear, I became instantly smitten. The variety in character options wasn’t something I had seen before. It was the candy that got me in the front door.
But gosh, the lore that unfolds here is a lot of fun too. Batshit story elements involving aliens, gods, demons, cyborgs, world domination, and revenge plots are all here, and they unfold as you play through a successful tournament run with each character. It’s entertaining enough to inspire you to want to try to get good enough with each character so that you can see where their individual story goes.
In grand fighting game tradition, doing this – playing through a run with a particular character – unlocks still more characters, all of whom you’d like to learn their stories as well, so Tekken 3 is deceptively deep in that way.
It keeps you playing.
A successful tourney run may take you less than an hour to complete, so the game is great for short plays. But that aforementioned depth will keep you going (or keep you coming back), and it’s a really delightful mix.
Not every game breaks out in digestible chunks in this way, and not every game is quite so addictive in terms of unlockables, so this is noteworthy and a good reason for a person to want to engage with this game.
You can play for a short period or a longer period and have a good time either way.
Tekken 3 does just about everything well.
So what makes it worth playing today?
I recently did a quick play-through of the arcade version* of this game, just to see how well it holds up.
* The first three arcade games in the series are all available to play on the PlayStation 2 disc of Tekken 5, giving you four of the first five games in the numbered series all in one place. That makes Tekken 5, already one of the better games in the entire Tekken catalogue, an insanely good value, even at the original price point of $50ish bucks. (I’ve seen it listed for much cheaper than that second-hand.) It probably won’t make this countdown itself, but it’s really, really friggin’ good (some people would argue it’s better than 3), and if you want to get a two-fer and play both 3 & 5, this is a good way to do it.
Spoiler alert: Tekken 3 holds up extremely well. I do think if a person is trying to weigh between playing the arcade version and the PlayStation version, I’d default to the PlayStation version for a few reasons (even after just making a pitch for Tekken 5 … sorry!).
Yes, you’re sacrificing graphical fidelity, but in return you’re gaining the ability to save your unlockables easier (a very important thing in regards to unlocking characters to play as), and the game includes two extra characters as well as several other modes to engage with – a beat ‘em-up minigame called “Tekken Force” as well as a beach volleyball minigame called “Tekken Ball.”
I might also argue that the PS1 version of the game is the one most people remember … it’s the one that made a larger cultural impact.
Either way, the game holds up today because of its diversity in characters, its controls, and its unwavering commitment to wackiness. It elevated Tekken from being a somewhat shoddy rip-off of Virtua Fighter into a series that truly surpassed it, giving it the unofficial title of king of the 3D fighters (at least for me).
Has Tekken ever been better than this? It’s arguable, and the fact that it’s debatable speaks well to a game that’s by now over 25 years old.
Tekken 3 was a mind-blowing step forward from previous games in the series, and it was a big seller as a result, pushing over eight million units on the PlayStation in addition to being a smash at the arcades.
In my humble opinion, Street Fighter II is alone at the top of the fighter heap in terms of cultural impact and importance to the industry, so that’s your starting point if you want to revisit some older fighters to get a sense of the fighting game landscape and its history.
But in trying to determine what other fighting games to play in addition to that automatic inclusion, I think there are a few important considerations to take into account.
- Is the series at large important to the industry?
- Is this particular entry important to its own series?
- Are the characters well designed? Do they have interesting play mechanics, story, and look?
- Is the game fun?
Tekken 3 checks all the boxes, and it does so with flying colors.
It’s my second favorite fighter ever, and it’s got a great case for that status among any other “best of” list as well.
It might be bizarre, weird, or even silly, but “silly” can still be deep, satisfying, and fun.
Get silly, people. Get silly with Tekken 3.
Dave’s Score: 9/10
Check out the whole Retro Gaming Essentials list here!
How to play
- Original hardware (PlayStation)
- Tekken 5 on PlayStation 2 (arcade version)
- PlayStation Classic