A little news about Akira Kid

I don't feel like explaining who Akira Kid is so those who know read. . .

Nothing much, just ran into bits of news. Apparently after VF3 competition died, he moved on to Tekken and played Hwoarang. Just like he did for VF2 and VF3, he pioneered and refined the movement system and developed techniques using Hwoarang's unque movement options. Although he dropped off the list of active Tekken experts after a while, Hwoarang steps he made was shown to the world by the Korean participant in the official Namco tourney. (The Korean player, who uses variety of characters, proceeded to win the tourney, and his Hwoarang step movies are around the Tekken sites.)

And as of now someone reported that he was sighted in a VF4 test location in Seoul, using Lei Fei to build 14 win streak. (The winning streak was reportedly broken by his own brother.) The VF4 test machines are now withdrawn from Korea, waiting for Version B apparently.

 

Very interesting. Thanks for the info! I had wondered if he had played Tekken and what he would be capable of within that game given his incredible dexterity. Any clue as to why he lost interest in Tekken? BTW, which Tekken are you referring to... T3 or TTT or both? Thanks again.

 

Wow..interesting..if you can find some links to vids of kid akira playing howrang..that would be great! Where did ya hear this Hyun?

"Victory can be anticipated, but not assured" Sun-Tzu

 

Well, with Tekken 4 making an appearance at Crabtree (in Raleigh, about 40 minutes drive from Duke) I've been thinking a lot about Tekken lately. That, coupled with my discovery that there is actually a group of Dukies here who play TTT (quite well too, although in a semi-scrubby fashion) has resulted in my playing Tekken a LOT in the last week.

Since this thread is sort of about VF players playing Tekken I thought I'd just segue my two cents here, give a perspective that VF- or Tekken-exclusive players may not have on TTT itself compared to TB.

Some thoughts...


Re: Movement

One of the biggest ironies is that VF players tend to think Tekken as sluggish, and Tekken players of VF as slow and stiff. Neither allegation is true at advanced levels, but in Tekken, it's mainly because attacks dictate your character movement. In that sense, there isn't as much movement required as you would get in high level VF per se since it is the attack that will carry your movement. Think an elbow-palming Lau. The biggest exception are the characters who can crouch dash (i.e. the main reason why I play the characters I play). Wavedashing is basically CDs cancelled into each other with some mix of fuzzy guard and dodging. When you get the "feel" for this movement down, Tekken actually feels a lot more like VF.

Re: Feel

Despite that, there is definitely a difference in feel between TTT and TB. Tekken has and always will be a game about poking, "custom" strings (that's Tekken-language for everyday VF flowchart play), and most important of all, setting up the situation. That's a big, big part of Tekken's game, and especially more so with TTT. And the okizeme game in Tekken is of course ridiculously over-powered...you can win entire matches with just a ground game alone. It's not like VF, where at least a basic 50/50 game is forced. In Tekken, if you have very good reflexes you can keep an opponent down indefinitely. See the guy twitch, d 1 with Paul or d/f 4,4 with Jin. More on this later.

Re: "Newbie friendly"

Heh, the one point of comparison that both sides gets messed up almost every time. Yes, the button masher will do better in Tekken. But I still maintain, and the last week of play reinforced this, that at the intermediate to advanced levels the player with the more experience is rewarded in Tekken, whereas in VF it's the player with the better brain. Why? Simply because in Tekken the gameplay is so situational. You just have to know what to do in each and every situation. Tekken players talk about how basic and beginner-like 10-hit strings are...but they forget that unless you actually know how to stop the 10-hit string, it can be pretty damaging. 10-hit strings are just an example, but much of everything else also pertains. For example, being knocked down is situational. You have to know what priority attacks the person standing above you has, how they work, and the options open to you to get up safely. In TB, on the other hand, the rules are much simpler. When the offender is within range, low rise or high rise. These two basic options are all a defender needs to know to get up safely (of course there are other options), as opposed to the myriad of different things in Tekken that you just have to know beforehand to even have a chance at getting up safely.

Re: Depth and Design

The big kicker. Tekken players will swear to you that TTT is the deepest game EVER. And you know what? They may be right. If you define "depth" as simply "what's there," Tekken probably has more. They have more characters and there is wider gameplay diversity. But does more depth make Tekken a better game? That is certainly debatable.

I think I've posted this before, but I've always seen the big four 3D fighting games in the following spectrum in terms of design: Tekken on one end, DOA on the other end, and SC and VF in the middle (with SC closer to Tekken and VF closer to DOA). Tekken feels disparate...it does not have a cohesive game engine or a very structured design. It's feels like a game where there are several teams working exclusively on specific characters and barely communicating with one another and the final product being all those characters thrown together into one game (and uniform stages). This is why the gameplay is so "situational" in Tekken and why there are so many gameplay mechanisms (chicken, 10-hit string, inconsistent SS system, fucked up axis/tracking, etc. etc.) that simply don't make sense. This is also why there are so many unbalanced character matchups; some characters are just too strong/weak against certain others.

On the other end is DOA, where the gameplay is so structured even if you find "quirks" in the gameplay or control (i.e. quirks like VF's guard cancel throw escape, Tekken's wavedashing, etc.) it probably wouldn't be significant. In DOA, there is little incentive to go outside the way the game is meant to be played because the player isn't rewarded for it.

So what you get is a game that makes so much sense in DOA that things get boring quick and a game that is so unfocused it frustrates the hell out of you in Tekken, unless you've reached a level as a Tekken player where you've seen it all and yomi is the main thing separating you and the guy playing next to you. No wonder Itagaki thinks Tekken is a piece of crap; Tekken is the yin to DOA's yang.

Personally, I think VF has the best mix of design focus among the four, but that's probably because I'm a little biased. To me, there's no question that at high level play, TB is just so much of a better game to play than TTT. It really feels a lot more natural. I think it needs to be stressed at how AM2 consciously chose NOT to occupy the place in the spectrum that Tekken currently has. Suzuki specifically mentioned too much character diversity as something undesirable (find me a Tekken player who loves to play against a good Lei). To some degree, I'm guessing this is a reason why Taka is not going to be in 4. In TB, Taka is not so different to play with, but he's still very different to play against. Again, AM2's design intentions are made clear in how Taka was changed from OB to TB; Taka was made more similar to everyone else.

Re: T4 vs VF4

Ironically, from what I've been able to tell from my limited playing experience, Tekken and VF seem to be moving closer in terms of game design. T4 has a little more focused feel to it, and it has to, now that it has more things that are universal from a gameplay system perspective. VF4 is placing less emphasis on forced guessing-game situations and giving more emphasis to the player that can instead force the game onto the other player. This is moving away from DOA2, which is practically a forced guessing-game situation at almost every juncture. Basically, the "stronger" VF4 player is the player that can both dictate the flow of the game (the strong Tekken player) and that is superior in guessing games (the strong DOA player).

Aight, I think I wrote way too much. Anyway, this is a rare moment for me. It's difficult for me to get "into" a new fighting game nowadays. The last time it happened was last summer with DOA2. Maybe it'll happen again with T4, but we'll see. Certainly, a 40 minute drive to play Tekken is something I'm not sure I'm willing to endure frequently.

 

Nice post, and I like the way you sort of pried this post into this forum. Just kidding...

I've been playing a lot of TTT lately, mainly because of the lack of competition around here. Curiousity is a big reason too.

One of the biggest ironies is that VF players tend to think Tekken as sluggish, and Tekken players of VF as slow and stiff.

I was one of those people who thought that Tekken was sluggish. But recently I've seen a couple of clips featuring high level Tekken players in action. I had never seen that kind of movement in Tekken (until that point, I thought the only movement in Tekken involved side stepping). Lots of wavedashing with Kazuya and Jin. I can't say for sure that Tekken feels like VF at the level I am now. IMO, I think there's a big difference.


And the okizeme game in Tekken is of course ridiculously over-powered...you can win entire matches with just a ground game alone.

This is what I hate about Tekken! Needless to say, I've been on the recieving end of this beating a lot.

Wow, Chanc...er, Jeff. Tekkenzaibatsu.com could use a post like this every now and then. It's weird that I have to go to VFDC to get some good reasoning abt what makes Tekken tick.


-<font color=white>Ghost</font color=white><font color=red>DOG</font color=red>

 

worst post I read on Tekkenzaibatsu goes something along the line of this :

" Tekken is the professional of 3d fighting game...how dare Itakagi call it a piece of shit etc etc DOA3 is nothing but tits etc etc etc...n VF4...why does he give so much respect to VF shit , VF is only abt memorizing moves n using them at the right moment".

Strange to say...but I am sure memorizing moves n using them at the right moment is IN EVERY DAMN GAME~!

<font color=red>~~~ 'Flock off feather brain, or u can stick around and find out the hard way!/versus/images/icons/mad.gif~~~'

 

That's just the tip of the iceberg, SummErs. It gets much worse.


-<font color=white>Ghost</font color=white><font color=red>DOG</font color=red>

 

Nice post, and I like the way you sort of pried this post into this forum. Just kidding...

Heh heh, I was debating about putting it in the General forum at first, but then I really wanted readers here to see it. There's too much ignorance going on when people compare games, and I thought I'd throw in my two cents on the subject. Plus, it is a direct comparison of Tekken to VF so I thought I could sneak it in. =)

Seriously though, here's an example of the difference between Tekken and VF, and why VF "feels more natural":

After a crouch dash in Tekken, you're basically left with the CD-specific or WS moves your character has. Yes, some of 'em can cancel the CD with b or b/d (very useful for Kaz and Jin, all I can say is TP baby) but the point is that a "quirk" in control is necessary for this to work. This extra mechanism is what people generally see as "depth," but is that depth really necessary? Or is "depth" just a natural consequence to the haphazard way the Tekken system was designed?

Now take VF, where you can do anything you want after a CD. Yes, some will require cancelling (i.e. getting Lion's elbow versus his D,f P), but overall control of the character is squarely in your hands. The game's system was specifically built to allow this degree of freedom, thanks to the G button.

 

Hey Ice did you know you can KS in T4

you can SS into a fireball motion which gives you the KS, you can cancel the CD into another sidestep.

You know how fustrating this is without the E button? The E button just makes so much more sense to me.

D, neutral, fireball, d+p stuff like that is so hard to do

yet ECD, d+p makes sense to me. You can also do pp, cd+p then throw. Seems to work well. Paul is playing very similar to an Akira/Jacky combination, though good players seem to be able to block everything.

CrewNYC

 

You know, I tried playing Paul P, CDP, d/f+1 style, but at least against the folks I'm playing it's not nearly as effective as in VF3. A big part of it I'm sure is because CDP can be blocked high, but it's also that in Tekken the push from a block stun is much further than in VF.

I'm sure as hell going to miss the E button for VF4...whether or not the decision to go back to 3 buttons was from a design perspective or a catering to the masses I'll probably never know.

However, I can understand why they made the dodge a half step in VF4 when not actually dodging an attack. KSing in VF3 is in reality more often than not a random factor, and folks randomly throwing out Es in hope of escaping something get too much credit. Hence the change in 4.

 

I think that the "feel" you describe pretaining to Tekken is mostly due to it's over exagerated animation which is a staple if the series. as for the VF series(the later games in particular), it's "feel" to most tekken players is that of an snappy, heavy physical sort of feeling(which i love) which for the most part is a complete 180 degree turn from TTT and T4 therefore leaving a strange and somewhat unsatisfied feeling, meaning no instant gradification(death fists that send you rolling back 50 feet and launchers and floaters that send you skyward), cause this stuff pretty damn cool upon first sight.

I'am a lover not a fighter

 

What im really going to miss is f+e and b+e functioning as ff and bb. in tekken when there is some distance between the chracters sometimes I move bery sluggishly cause I htink I input ff but I dont want to run at the opponent but the forward dash doesnt come out. Also any stun attack into throw is much harder without the ability to input f+e, ff doesnt seem to come out as fast. I tried playing 3tb on the DC without the E button for forward and backdashing, its very strange....

CrewNYC

 

best thing i like abt this post is its objectivity. great work on putting that perspective on these games. i've been in a discussion with a guy who really does believe TTT is a better game and had a hell of time talking cos my english isn't really good (either that or its my argumentative skills). =)

~ Bomb Has Been Defused ~

 

Also any stun attack into throw is much harder without the ability to input f+e, ff doesnt seem to come out as fast.

Actually, some stun attacks make throws really easy, and no forward dash is needed:

Paul Phoenix: qcf+1(left punch) ->df+1+2 (counter hit needed)
Heihachi Mishima: f, f+3 (left kick) ->1+3 (counter hit needed)

There are a few others, but I can't remember any right now. You may be able to get in a throw after Kazuya's ws2 punch or Nina's Bad habit kick (f, f+3), both on counter hits.


-<font color=white>Ghost</font color=white><font color=red>DOG</font color=red>

 

You can tag out of a stun though,

 

My mistake, I was thinking Tekken 3./versus/images/icons/blush.gif

See what you started, Jeff?!!/versus/images/icons/smile.gif


-<font color=white>Ghost</font color=white><font color=red>DOG</font color=red>

 

i played tekken4 today, it is a real improvement over part3
(apart from Heihachi's underware problem), did anyone read what the head of DOA said about the game, that was really harsh!!

he even said some things about VF4 (ign.com in the Xbox section)

 

There's a thread about it in the general forum.

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://virtuafighter.com/cgi-bin/versus/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=tecmo&Number=12239&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&part=>http://virtuafighter.com/cgi-bin/versus/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=tecmo&Number=12239&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&part=</A>

And a lot more about it over on tekkenzaibatsu.com. Thumb thru the threads (it's probably on the 5th page by now).


-<font color=white>Ghost</font color=white><font color=red>DOG</font color=red>

 

how can that guy dog the legendary "TEKKEN" over his sccumy "VF WANNABE", true as a game, tekken was never the best at graphics or technical inharnsment over squals, but for what you can get out of the game, tekken serves to be WAY more technical than a button-bashing begginers game!!

the way i see it is that if tekken4 is no less that tekken3, how can it be crap?!... i think that namco know how to make a sequal with out over-doing it and that is what developers should learn from!!

tekken should only be what tekken is... if arrogant people like him dont see that, than he's the one who needs advice
(then again, his game is the one who needs a complete make-over) namco serve to be abit more professional in what they do me thinks....

 

Ok, I am not signed up at this forum, I can count the number of VF games I have played on one hand, so I am not making any judgements.

I just would like to say to Ice 9, that his post has to be the most educated, well researched, respectful comparison between Games that I have ever read. I wish more people who have your insight.

Secondly, Yes, TZ has gone to hell. It is filled with newbies and spammers, but occasionaly, a good thread will slip in. But the truth is, hardly any of the really respectable Tekken players post there much. They read the topics, but there is nothing to respond to. I will always love TZ, but not the people there.

Tocool