« Final Showdown: Tekken 7 is a Tekken Game (& It's Not a Bad Thing) »

Before the early location test, you probably encountered the conversation of "What can Namco do to make Tekken 7 appealing to the overall fighting game community?" This also surfaced on The Fray where Mike Ross was debating with both Aris and Bronson Tran about what Tekken can do to get more players to compete as well as make it viewer friendly.

Now with the test over, it's easy to say on the surface that Tekken 7 looks and plays like a Tekken game. It has new mechanics, a smaller character list and other things that seem to help newer players while maintaining the heart of the series. Yet even with these special aspects, it's still a Tekken game. It might dishearten some but let's break down the traits in the test as well as suggest what can be done to help those who want to finally play Tekken.

While the location test includes a handful of characters, including new additions Claudio and Katarina, the final release does not yet have a set number of combatants. It is, however, expected to be a reduction from the 41 roster count in Tekken 6 and the staggering 59 characters in Tekken Tag Tournament 2. Despite the chance your favorite character might go missing in Tekken 7, Namco understood that too many characters can be overload for even the experienced player. Even if it's not on the level of Tekken 4's minimization, Namco looks like it's breaking down the cast to the necessary archetypes.

From footage, some playable characters have gained moves from other series characters. In some ways, it reinforces the idea of a smaller cast. But like past Tekken games, there will be an expansion and we will see more characters, new and/or old. Don't expect an abundant amount though.

The Tekken series is known to add on gameplay mechanics over the existing formula in every game. Tekken 7 so far seems to fit most of the quota. Rage Arts are one of the most notable additions. Players are given the ability to pull of these cinematic, high-damaging special moves when their rage mode is triggered. While folks have come to immediately assume its similarity to Ulta Combos in SFIV, it's good that Namco is trying something different from the series. Once players get acclimated, you will unlikely see them perform random Rage Arts but rather do it to end their combo or as block/whiff punishes. For the spectator, they will like the visual flair of these Rage Arts, even if some look very similar to the Super Arts in Street Fighter X Tekken.

Also in rage, it seems that characters get a special option. Kazuya for example can transform into Devil and has different benefits and disadvantages. While the other character benefits are still to be determined, it's good that Namco offers different ways to defeat your opponent when in this state. Since a damage boost is removed, players can either go for broke with a Rage Art or take a different road with modified moves.

Online play between arcades isn't new but still great to see. Unfortunately it becomes irrelevant outside Asia.The free-to-play Tekken game, Tekken Revolution, introduced the Special Art moves that gives invincibility from any incoming attack. The given properties and the abuse of these specials were received negatively as it catered too heavily to the beginner player. As a response, Namco introduced Power Crush moves. They act similar to TR's specials but absorbs any incoming attack and loses to lows. Namco wants players to integrate PCs as part of their overall game instead of depending on them all the time.

While the bound moves in Tekken 6 and Tekken Tag Tournament 2 are more or less gone, they have been replaced with another combo extender. This mechanic acts similar to bound but seems to work at its fullest when not at a wall. Maybe it serves as a way to balance combos on the wall, as damage was tremendous if you were able to carry an opponent to the wall before a bound in T6 and TTT2. For newer players, it's seems that doing combos will be easier and more rewarding thanks to the changes and visually stunning hit effects.

Similar to TR, moves that had a bound property still trigger the bound if used to start off a combo, and can also break floors. These changes provide a good amount of benefits and disadvantages as well as making the flow of the match always fast and interesting. Combined with the high damage output in combos, watching matches is going to be more exciting.

Thanks to a lot of these new mechanics combined with the benefits of Unreal Engine 4, it's shaping up to be a visually fresh game at least from the spectator perspective. After watching many games from the test, the core Tekken gameplay still remains in Tekken 7. Characters play very similarly to past Tekken games, combos still maintain the juggle aspect, block and whiff punishes act similarly, etc. If you have played any past Tekken games seriously, you will probably won't notice anything different in T7's general feel. For me I am liking what I see so far, but there is an audience who might be disappointed.

Players who were unable to play Tekken might find this discouraging because it's more or less the same. Sure we have our Mike Rosses of the world that want to approach it but can't. For fighting games, you want to have the product accessible for the sake of competition.

Don't expect Tekken Revolution's Eliza to come to Tekken 7 anytime soon.Dumbing down the gameplay is one way. They could have just kept the Special Arts from TR, for example, but look at what happened with that game. Namco could have tried the Tekken 4 route where movement and attacking is easier but that would act too regressive. If they try to casualize it for the 2-D fighter or general gaming audience, it might erode the foundation. Maybe the ideas of a large move list, the 3-D movement or even the experienced competition overwhelms them.

Namco isn't ignorant of this audience, though, as evident with the newer mechanics and smaller cast. The company should also take advantage of helping new players as much as possible. Since people are always hype and wanting to play a game when immediately available, Namco needs to find a way to keep a lot of people interested months and years after. For example, while TTT2 featured an interesting take on a tutorial, players still needed to use resources like fan guides and YouTube videos to learn. For the console version of T7, Namco should integrate a lot of the higher-level techniques into the single player end of the game for the player to easily digest, or at least have a fully fleshed-out tutorial. If Namco can't redesign Tekken, at the least they should give the player as much transparency in learning the game as possible.

With no release date and location test footage showing incomplete assets, there is still a lot of time for Namco to develop Tekken 7. The Tekken team can refine a lot of the existing mechanics or even add new ones to help the newer player get up to speed while not betraying the core playerbase. For now, it's important for players to speak up to Namco to help make Tekken 7 as accessible yet challenging as possible. If they announce any location tests in the future, go participate.

Final Showdown is an editorial feature series by The Phantomnaut. Views of The Phantomnaut do not represent IPLAYWINNER as a whole.