Sorry but i hate this game, Tekken is probably the worst series of fighting games ever made, and 5 fails to redeem.
The reason i believe this is such a bad game is simply because of the speed of the fights, or should i say, lack of. As a result the fights move in no way smoothly and feel completely unrealistic in the way in which the characters seem to have their feet trapped in drying cement. There is also almost no way of fitting in a sideways dogde into a realistically paced fight (as i try to make them so) as there is a button combination for this. In order to do so the player would have to spend many long, lonely girlfriend/boyfriendless nights being pummelled consistently until they want to throw the controller at the screen spending so much time on the game. At this point the 'game' becomes more work than fun and starts destroying the players life in tandem with their masterbation hand from so many reclusive nights masterbating whilst crying in between levels of the game.
Rant aside, while it is logical that practice makes perfect, it is overtaking evil to meet Hitler on the finish line to create a game where the only way to become good at it is for the player to sacrifice all else in his/her life.
Concerning one of my points above, about the fights being unrealistically slow and nowhere near as smooth as a real fight should be. (Take the godlike soul calibur series as an example.) It seems that an impressionist representation of fighting is a recurring theme in all tekken games, which leaves me wondering why they didn't simply stop at 1.
Moreso, this addition being Tekken 5 does absolutely nothing for the game other than add 2 or 3 characters whilst keeping the exact same gameplay and game modes. And if the player is lucky, after completing 99.9% of the game and finishing all moronic challenges like finishing the game without touching the controller the player may get to see interviews with the arrogant overpaid and talentless voice actors of said new characters.
To add insult to injury, the new additions fail to fill the void in the game which is a character with depth; as in Tekken it seems that all the
characters are split into 4 main stereotypes;
1-The sweet and innocent female character (WHY always FEMALE?) who hates fighting but in this process of conscientous objection somehow managed to become a blackbelt in 4 different martial arts.
2-The 'hero,' caked with muscles, poor one-liners and monosyllabic expressions of arrogance which make me want to crawl into the screen with a crowbar, possibly gouging out their heads to prove that the crowbar is more intelligent.
3-The headstrong female character who had most likely developed her fighting style in a stripclub, and has more animation on her breasts jiggling and bouncing than the game has flaws. This is possibly a way in which the game can deliver a full package, as boys obsessed with the game are constantly reminded of what a woman looks like through further impressionist representation (such as a naivety in believing that all women have dress size 4 ((0 in America)) while also posessing a bra size larger than the San Miguel Hills.)
4-The immediately identifiable, immediately detestable villain, who has a tendency to transform into a shapeless mass game creators perceive as evil, and seem to only ever communicate with grunting or shouting one word loudly and repeatedly.
My final point is the button configurations for all of the moves. It seems that those ever predictable soulless voids of characters like to follow the same button conifuration styles. It seems that each character does more or less the same technique for the same combination of mashing and buttons but in a different style. While the hero will do the most average and unremarkable punch, the innocent girl would look away and poke them in the eye, the evil character would start the punch and finish it in around a week's time, and the headstrong female character will smother them in her breasts. However, there are ways to bypass hopeless button mashing, and this highlights one of the points in made earlier, and that is to just give up; -Be it on the game, and possibly after doing so the player can acknowledge that they have a family and friends. -Or give up on life. Just play the game non-stop on practice mode opening up the commend window few seconds to try and remember a 50 button combination sequence in hopes that deploying this hopelessly impractical attack on an enemy who isn't fighting back will help you do so in the final boss battle (the feeling of doing so brings more satisfaction upon hitting than completing the game.) Another usage of which is for the player to perfect their soon to be ex friends as after doing do they rub it in their faces about how much better they are at pressing buttons in a sequence.
This review has been a collaberative collection of my views on Tekken stored for many years, and now it's finally typed down on a website, yay.
I understand that myself stating Soul Calibur's godlike prowess may be perceived to display a hypocritical attitude to this very review as Soul Calibur is a similar fighting game. Well it's not, the characters ACTUALLY SHOW DEVELOPMENT AFTER 3 GAMES, and the fighting is as smooth as the sidestep dodge simply entailing the right analog stick. I have nothing against these types of fighting games, i just find Tekken an incompetent replica in which there is no attempt to try anything different as the creators hide in their safe little holes of mass-produced pre-approved formulae to make this utterly bland, unrealistic game.