Tekken 3

Tekken 3
Arcade flyer
Developer(s)	Namco
Publisher(s)	Namco
Director(s)	Katsuhiro Harada (Voice actor)
Composer(s)	Nobuyoshi Sano (Arcade & PSX) Keiichi Okabe (Arcade & PSX) Hiroyuki Kawada (PSX) Minamo Takahashi (PSX) Yu Miyake (PSX)
Platform(s)	Arcade, PlayStation, PlayStation 2 (as part of Tekken 5's Arcade History mode)
Release date(s)	Arcade March 22, 1997 PlayStation JP March 26, 1998 NA May 1, 1998 EU September 12, 1998 PlayStation 2 (Tekken 5) JP March 31, 2005 NA February 24, 2005 PAL June 24, 2005
Genre(s)	Fighting
Mode(s)	Up to two players
Rating(s)	ESRB: T
Cabinet	Upright
Arcade system	Namco System 12

Tekken 3 is the third installment in the popular Tekken fighting game series. It was released for Arcades in March 1997, and for the PlayStation in mid-1998. The original Arcade version of the game was released in 2005 for the PlayStation 2 as part of Tekken 5's Arcade History mode. Tekken 3 is still widely considered one of the greatest games of its genre.

It was the first game released on Namco System 12 hardware (an improvement to the original two Tekken games, which used System 11). It was also the last installment of the series for the PlayStation.

Gameplay

Tekken 3 maintains the same core fighting system and concept as its predecessors, but brings many improvements, such as significantly more detailed graphics and animations, fifteen new characters added to the game's roster, more modern music and faster and more fluid gameplay.

Perhaps the most noticeable change from Tekken 2 fight system is movement reform - whereas the element of depth had been largely insignificant in previous Tekken games (aside from some characters having unique sidesteps and dodging maneuvers), Tekken 3 added emphasis on the third axis, allowing all characters to sidestep in or out of the background by lightly pressing the arcade stick (or tapping the controller button in the console version) towards the corresponding direction. Another big change in movement was that jumping was toned down, no longer allowing fighters to jump to extreme heights (as was present in previous games), but keeping leaps to reasonable, realistic heights. It made air combat more controllable, and put more use to sidestep dodges, as jumping no longer became a universal dodge move that was flying above all of the ground moves. Other than that, the improved engine allowed for quick recoveries from knock-downs, more escapes from tackles and stuns, better juggling (as many old moves had changed parameters, allowing them to connect in combo-situations, where they wouldn't connect in previous games) and extra newly-created combo throws.

Tekken 3 was the first Tekken to feature a beat 'em up Streets of Rage style minigame called Tekken Force, which pitted the player in various stages against enemies in a side-scrolling fashion. If the player succeeds in beating the minigame four times, Dr. Bosconovitch would be a playable character (granted that you defeat him first). This was continued in Tekken 4 and succeeded by the Devil Within minigame in Tekken 5 - but Boskonovitch was dropped as a playable character after Tekken 3. There is also a minigame called Tekken Ball, similar to beach volleyball, where one has to either "charge" a ball (hit the ball with a powerful attack) to hurt the opponent or try to hit the ball in such a way that it hits the ground in the opponent's area, thus causing damage.

Story

Fifteen years after the King of the Iron Fist Tournament 2, the story starts with Jun Kazama, who has been living a quiet life in Yakushima with her young son, Jin, who is the son of Kazuya Mishima. She takes care of him, trying to leave him out of the world of the Mishima Zaibatsu Corporation.

Heihachi Mishima, meanwhile, has established the Tekken Force, an organization dedicated to the protection of the Mishima Zaibatsu. Using the company's influence, Heihachi is responsible for many events that have ultimately led to world peace. However, while on an excavation in Mexico, a squadron of Heihachi's Tekken Force is attacked and vanquished by a mysterious being. The only surviving soldier manages to relay a brief message to Heihachi, describing the perpetrator as an "Ogre" or a "Fighting God". Heihachi and a team of soldiers investigate, with Heihachi managing to catch a glimpse of the culprit. After seeing the Ogre character, Heihachi's long dormant dream of world domination is reawakened. He seeks to capture Ogre to use him for this goal.

Soon after, various martial arts masters begin disappearing from all over the world, and Heihachi is convinced that this is Ogre's doing. In Yakushima, Jun starts to feel the presence of Ogre approaching her and Jin. Knowing that she has become a target, Jun tells Jin about Ogre, and instructs him to go straight to Heihachi should anything happen. Sometime after Jin's fifteenth birthday, Ogre does indeed attack. Against Jun's wishes, Jin valiantly tries to fight Ogre off, but Ogre brushes him aside and knocks him unconscious. When Jin reawakens, he finds that the house has been burned to the ground, and that his mother is missing and most likely dead.

Driven by revenge, Jin goes to Heihachi and tells him everything. Jin begs Heihachi to train him to become strong enough to face Ogre again. Heihachi accepts and takes Jin in as well as going to Mishima High School where he befriends Ling Xiaoyu and her pet panda and bodyguard (aptly named "Panda"). They become good friends.

Four years later, Jin grows into an impressive fighter and master of Mishima Style Karate. On Jin's nineteenth birthday, the King of the Iron Fist Tournament 3 is announced, and Jin prepares for his upcoming battle against Ogre. He is unaware, however, that Heihachi is merely using him and the rest of the competitors as bait to lure Ogre out in order to capture him. Meanwhile Ogre captures assassin Nina Williams (who was recently taken out of her "cold sleep"), puts her under his spell,and sends her to enter the tournament and kill Jin. Jin manages to free Nina from Ogre's spell before continuing on the semi-finals.

Eventually, the tournament leads to the final confrontation between Jin and the God of Fighting. Ogre is able to transform into a much more powerful "true" form, known to the players as "True Ogre". Jin emerges the victor and Ogre completely dissolves. Moments later, Jin is gunned down by a squadron of Tekken Forces led by Heihachi, who, no longer needing Jin, finishes the job personally by firing a final shot into his grandson's head.

However, Jin, revived by the Devil Gene within him (because after Jin's mother had gone missing following an attack from Ogre, Devil returned, branded Jin's left arm with a mark, possessing him), reawakens and makes quick work of the soldiers, turning his attention to Heihachi and literally smashing him through the wall of the temple. Heihachi survives the long fall, but Jin, in mid-air, sprouts black, feathery wings and strikes Heihachi one last time. He then flies off into the night, leaving his bewildered grandfather staring after him.

Soundtracks

The soundtrack of Tekken 3 is mostly composed of Big Beat music, with the songs composed by Nobuyoshi Sano, Keiichi Okabe, Hiroyuki Kawada, Minamo Takahashi and Yu Miyake; the composers were inspired by artists like The Prodigy, Chemical Brothers, Lunatic Calm, The Crystal Method, Underworld and Coldcut.

The game soundtrack were released in two versions as presented as a option in the game for BGM select, Arrange i.e. PlayStation Version and Arcade version.

TEKKEN 3 Arcade Soundtrack 001 EX

TEKKEN 3 Arcade Soundtrack 001 EX
Soundtrack album by Various Artists
Released	July 18, 1997
Genre	Soundtrack album
Length	50:40
Label	Wonder Spirits

Track List:

No.	Title	Length
01	Attract Movie	0:23
02	Attract "EMBU"	1:02
03	Character Select	0:48
04	Paul Phoenix	3:46
05	Forest Law	3:49
06	Lei Wulong	3:46
07	King	2:44
08	Yoshimitsu	4:04
09	Nina Williams	3:34
10	Hwoarang	3:10
11	Ling Xiaoyu	3:42
12	Eddy Gordo	3:28
13	Jin Kazama	4:02
14	for Hidden Characters	3:19
15	Heihachi Mishima	3:39
16	Ogre	3:23
17	Continue?	0:37
18	Game Over	0:07
19	Staff Roll	1:17

TEKKEN 3 PlayStation Soundtrack 002

TEKKEN 3 PlayStation Soundtrack 002
Soundtrack album by Various Artists
Released	May 20, 1998
Genre	Soundtrack album
Length	76:06
Label	Wonder Spirits

Track List:

No.	Title	Length
01	Opening Movie	1:38
02	Character Select	1:02
03	Jin Kazama	3:31
04	Lei Wulong	3:37
05	King	3:33
06	Paul Phoenix	3:39
07	Eddy Gordo	3:01
08	Hwoarang	2:57
09	Forest Law	3:44
10	Nina Williams	3:22
11	Yoshimitsu	3:36
12	Ling Xiaoyu	3:40
13	Heihachi Mishima	3:25
14	Julia Chang	3:33
15	Kuma/Panda	3:00
16	Gun Jack	2:55
17	Bryan Fury	2:40
18	Mokujin	3:03
19	Dr.Bosconovitch	3:00
20	Anna Williams	3:06
21	Tiger Jackson	3:01
22	Gon	2:48
23	Ogre	4:23
24	Result	1:10
25	Game Over	0:06
26	Staff Roll	2:36

Character Roster

Returning Characters

• Anna Williams (unlockable, acts as a costume change for Nina in arcade version)
• Heihachi Mishima (unlockable, sub-boss)
• Lei Wulong
• Nina Williams
• Paul Phoenix
• Yoshimitsu

New Characters

• Bryan Fury (unlockable)
• Eddy Gordo
• Forrest Law
• Gun Jack (unlockable)
• Hwoarang
• Jin Kazama
• Julia Chang (unlockable)
• King II
• Kuma II (unlockable)
• Ling Xiaoyu
• Mokujin (unlockable)
• Ogre (unlockable, final boss)
• Panda (unlockable, acts as a costume change for Kuma)
• Tiger Jackson (acts as a costume change for Eddy Gordo)
• True Ogre (unlockable, final boss (after defeating Ogre))

Bonus Characters (PlayStation version)

• Dr. Boskonovitch (unlockable)
• Gon (unlockable)

PlayStation

Tekken 3 was originally ported to the PlayStation with two new characters - Gon and Dr. Boskonovich. Anna was also updated and given her own character select spot complete with a unique portrait, voice, stance, a few of her own unique moves (as well as her moves from the first two games, some of which were given to Ogre) and her own ending, as opposed to in previous installments, where she was basically a model-swap of Nina. Still, she reused a lot of Nina's strikes and throws. She was made even more unique in Tekken 5.

The PlayStation version features new Tekken Force and Tekken Ball modes, as well as all modes present in Tekken 2. Due to PSX hardware limitations (less video RAM and lower clock speed) the visual quality was reduced. The backgrounds were re-made into 2D panoramic images, the character poly-count was reduced, and the game ran at lower overall resolution.

The PlayStation 2 release of Tekken 5 features the Arcade version of Tekken 3.

Bleemcast

While Namco never officially ported Tekken to Dreamcast, an independent company designed bleem!, a special boot disk for Dreamcast, that enabled the Dreamcast to boot the PlayStation version of the game.

The port enhanced the resolution thus making the game look sharper. A noticeable difference between the background images and the stage can be seen, which was because Namco used panoramic images on the background that could not be enhanced. Also some character models after being enhanced have a more blocky appearance because the character model display is much sharper.

Reception

Reception
Aggregate scores
Aggregator	Score
GameRankings	96.3%
Metacritic	96
Review scores
Publication	Score
GamePro	5 out of 5
GameSpot	9.9 out of 10
IGN	9.3 out of 10

According to Metacritic, Tekken 3 has a score of 96 out of 100, indicating universal acclaim and is ranked number 2 on their list of greatest PlayStation games. Tekken 3 became the first game in three years to receive a 10 from a reviewer from Electronic Gaming Monthly, with three of the four reviewers giving it the highest possible score (Tekken 3 was the first game to score a 10 under EGM's revised review scale in that a game no longer needed to be "perfect" to receive a 10; the last game to receive a 10 from the magazine was Sonic & Knuckles). The only holdout was the magazine's enigmatic fighting-game review guru, Sushi-X, who said that "no game that rewards newbies for button-mashing will ever be tops in my book", giving the game 9 out of 10. In December 2006 it was ranked tenth on GameSpot's top ten list. In September 2004 it ranked #10 on PSM's "Final PlayStation Top 10" and #177 on Game Informer's Top 200 games of all time. As of April 2011, the game is listed as the eighth-highest-rated game of all time on the review compiling site GameRankings with an average ratio of 96.3%.

External links

• Tekken 3 Official Website
• Tekken 3 for PlayStation at GameSpot.com
• Tekken 3 for Arcade Games at GameSpot.com
• Tekken 3 at The Killer List of Videogames
• Tekken 3 at MobyGames

Preceded by Tekken 2

Tekken Series 1997-1999

Succeeded by Tekken Tag Tournament