Bandai Namco’s Tekken has been the competitive and popular fighting game in its genre. With the likes of Street Fighter, King of Fighters, Rival Schools, and Bloody Roar, Tekken is still the next best choice next to Street Fighter. If you haven’t read our review of Tekken 7 yet, read it here.
Tekken 7 will be launching later (tomorrow for US), and it’s time for us to go back to its main predecessors and rank them from worst to best:
6. Tekken 4 (2002)
When 3D fighting games needed to have innovation, Tekken 4 also tried to be innovative at some point – but it didn’t go well. It introduced the full capability of 3D arenas, but it was a complete overhaul of how the series worked. This change was critical for the fans of the franchise. If we look back in the year when Tekken 4 launched, Bandai Namco tried to add new ideas in the game to make it standout, but in reality, this is widely considered to be as the worst Tekken mainline ever.
5. Tekken (1994)
Even if it was the main root and without the first Tekken, there wouldn’t be a Tekken 7. Why is it tagged as the second worst? In the present day, Tekken struggles to standout in most fighting games. We have Street Fighter V, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, and Injustice 2. You might think it’s an invalid argument, but there are still games that would still standout despite it being an old title. The lack of characters and limited content (Arcade and Versus mode) means that you’ll be playing the first Tekken for its nostalgia.
4. Tekken 6 (2008)
With the success of Tekken 5, many of the fans started to expect that the next mainline installment will be ground-breaking. However, it wasn’t the case. Tekken 6 wasn’t inventive, and it’s more what we say like “we’ve tried that before”. Although, Tekken 6 looks graphically great, it also has a lot of replayability.
3. Tekken 5 (2004)
The success of the PSP version has proven that Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection is one high-quality handheld fighting game. Even though it’s considered to be an “expansion” or an “upgrade” of the original Tekken 5 from the PS2, it had proven its worth to get a port on the PS3.
2. Tekken 2 (1994)
If I were to consider which Tekken would have been considered as the starting one? I’d choose Tekken 2 than the first one. Tekken 2 was the installment that showed the franchise’s potential. The roster is strengthened in a large gap as the series added additional modes, improved visuals and animation.
1. Tekken 3 (1998)
This is one undeniable the best Tekken title ever. In the year it was released, Tekken 3 was the best fighting game on the PS1. Every person I knew who owned the console also owned Tekken 3. It was highly competitive, the graphics were insane on the system, and it also plays well. Tekken 3 will always be the number 1 Tekken title for me.
