Tekken 7 is considered the final fighting game installation of the Tekken franchise. The most loved game of fans never disappoints with its stunning, rich graphics, unique fighting characters, and its well driven storyline. The sequel of the game picks up where it left off from it’s 6th Tekken series (the King of Iron Fist Tournament 6) where Jin had turned rogue and started a global war leaving the world in its devastating wake. The game has the Mishima Story mode where you play certain characters in that special story mode. Kazuya Mishima runs G Corporation, while his father Heihachi Mishima runs the Mishima Zaibatsu. Both corporations are at war with each other. While Heihachi’s wife, Kazumi Hajicho seeks to kill both father and son, so she sends her loyal ally Akuma (from the Street Fighter series) out to confront Heihachi and Kazuya. Meanwhile Lars, Lee Chaolan and Alissa set out to find Jin Kazama and bring him to their side to take out both G Corporation and the Mishima Zaibatsu.
A story-based fighting game is great, but I didn’t agree with the changed content. The individual character stories didn’t feature all the characters in that mode, and the thing is that when you select a character, you get to play against only one character, instead of the old fashioned way of playing several opponents until you fight and defeat the antagonist (character boss) and unlock the character ending. There is Practice mode where you play a fighter to fight against another fighter and throw free shots on the most hated character (lol) pulling off effective combos. This mode helps the player gets familiar with playing their favourite character. Arcade mode in the game feels short like there are less stages, and the load times moments before the fight starts takes a little longer. The sub-boss character you face is Heihachi Mishima and after defeating him, you face either Kazumi or Akuma depending on what character you play. You can play Arcade mode to earn fight money and upgrade your rank. You can play Treasure mode where play single player against fighters randomly, featuring special matches with either, Kazumi, Heihachi, Devil Kazuya, Akuma or Jin. You can win more fight money, extra character costumes, and so forth along with increasing your rank. There is character Customization mode, where you can spend your fight money to customize your favourite characters in fancy, cool outfits, and goofy, strange looking outfits if you wanted to. There is an online mode to challenge other gamers around the world. If you are not into online gameplay like I am you can play vs. mode, the old fashion way and play against a friend. Some game modes are missing in the game which I felt should be included such as team battle mode where you can select up to 8 players the maximum against another team almost like WWE’s annual pay-tv event Survivor Series. Time attack mode should’ve been included in the game, although I’m not a big fan of that mode. My big disappointment is that Survival mode is not included in the game, quite frankly it was my personal favourite mode where I get to play a favourite character and rack up as many wins as I can. The gameplay has a new feature, called rage. You can pull off a rage combo when your energy is nearly depleted to the point where you are going to be K.O.’d; all it takes is to press R1 on the controller when you fighting character is glowing red and they can a devastating finishing rallying comeback combo. Also, fighters can perform a rage art where they can pull off devastating combos on their opponents.
There are some cross-over characters in the game, which sounds very cool. As mentioned before, the game features Akuma as a playable character, he’s from Capcom’s Street Fighter series, he’s also featured in the Mishima Story game arch. The game has Noctus Lucius Calleum from Final Fantasy XV, Geese Howard from SNK’s Fatal Fury and King Fighters series, and recently added to the Season 2 pass is Negan from the Walking Dead TV series (which I felt in my opinion is too violent for this rated T game and should’ve added in Lara Croft instead). The character roster is quite huge with new characters such as Josie Rizal, Katarina Alves, and Master Raven.
Tekken 7 is a great fighting game to play, despite missing some core favourite game modes, although Tekken fans are no doubt hoping that these modes I was mentioning before would crop up in the Season 3 DLC pack. With the exciting gameplay of Tekken 7 no one will get tired of playing this game. So, I find this game a must buy.