Tekken 4
July 31, 2001
Now, it looks as if everyone's hat is in the ring. First, Sega unveiled and tested Virtua Fighter 4; then, Team Ninja stole the spotlight by boosting the Xbox with Dead or Alive 3; last of all, but probably not least in the long run, Namco has unveiled Tekken 4 to the world. The battle between this generation of 3D fighters is now scattered incomplete across a few different theaters, the arcades and at least two different consoles, but it looks as if Tekken may be poised to gain the greatest success a second time running. Tekken 4 features the kind of graphical improvements you'd expect, but more important, there is a completely new stage system joining other additions to an already complex gameplay heritage. The fight of your life? Perhaps so...
Because There Has To Be One Of These
It's two years since the conclusion of the third King of Iron Fist tournament, won when Jin Kazama defeated True Ogre. Heihachi Mishima's plans were almost completely thwarted at the end of Tekken 3: he failed to kill or capture Jin, and the living Ogre slipped through his grasp. Even when he gathered Ogre's tissue samples, his genetic engineers found it impossible to realize his dream of splicing Ogre's DNA with his own. Apparently, to properly mix genes with Ogre, you have to have the Devil Gene, and Heihachi hasn't got it.
Jin and Kazuya do, however -- apparently that's what's making them turn into Devils all the time. Heihachi promptly commissioned a search for Jin, but all it turned up was a photograph, showing of all things the winged corpse of Devil Kazuya. So Heihachi shifted gears, assuming that the father's Devil Gene would be as useful as the son, provided you could find a tissue swatch to clone it up from. Somebody else beat him to it, though: the G Corporation (yeah, another one of those), a genetics firm with its own interest in Kazuya's DNA.
A raid by Heihachi's troops on a Corporation test lab met an unexpected obstacle. Kazuya was announced as a playable character, despite the fact that he purportedly died after the end of the second tournament, because G's engineers cloned him back up from his own corpse. Once revived, Kazuya went along with their plans in hopes of controlling his demonic side, whose power could give him the edge necessary to finally destroy Heihachi.
And Heihachi, in turn, happily offered him the opportunity. To lure Kazuya out, Heihachi announced the fourth King of Iron Fist Tournament, with the prize complete control of the entire Mishima Zaibatsu. Kazuya naturally entered, along with the rest of the usual suspects interested in the power and fortune available to the head of the world's largest corporation...
Now Entering The Ring...
There will undoubtedly be more than 10 characters included in the game (the header on the Tekken 4 website has room for at least 18), but the following are all that have been announced so far, including three brand-new designs.
 |
Paul Phoenix Because it wouldn't be Tekken without him. Paul was the sort of unofficial champion of the third tournament. He defeated Ogre...but he went home to celebrate before Ogre transformed into True Ogre. His constant protestations eventually alienated most of his friends and associates, and so it's a bitter Paul who enters the fourth tournament to prove, as always, that he's still the strongest. |
 |
Ling Xiaoyu Still living the dull life as a ward of the Mishima Zaibatsu, and still looking fiiiiine, thank you. Ling's high-school life was disrupted by the arrival of a warning, suggesting that evil lurks behind the Mishima facade -- she suspects it's the missing Jin trying to contact her. The tournament thus represents an opportunity to both uncover the secrets behind Mishima and perhaps find out what's happened to Jin. |
 |
Christie Monteiro She's here to carry on Eddy Gordo's brilliantly-animated capoeira stylings. Christie is the granddaughter of the master who taught Eddy while he was in prison -- after surviving the third tournament, Eddy fulfilled a promise to pass those skills on to her. After two years of training, though, he disappeared, saying "I must seek vengeance against the enemy responsible for the death of my father." She then follows him where he must have gone: the new tournament. |
 |
Craig Marduk "Marduk" was the chief god of ancient Babylon, but Craig represents the rough Brazilian fighting art of Vale Tudo. The sport doesn't bar many holds, hence the huge divot carved out of his left ear. Craig fell on hard times after being drummed out of official competition -- he killed a man in a bar brawl and landed in prison. In time for the new tournament, though, a mysterious benefactor bails him out... |
 |
King That mystery man appears to be King, the legendary masked pro-wrestler. The man Craig killed, as it turns out, was Armor King, and King sees the tournament as his best opportunity for a reckoning. Honest revenge, or a case of mistaken identity? The tournament will tell. |
 |
Yoshimitsu Yoshi's looking stranger and stranger as every new game goes by -- now he's sporting a death's-head mask and an oddly contrasting pair of butterfly wings. For all his grim appearance, though, his intentions are benign. He hopes to use a victory in the tournament to merge the Mishima Zaibatsu with his charitable organization, the Manji Party, which aids political refugees worldwide. That's awfully nice of him... |
 |
Steve Fox The fighter formerly known as Dean Earwicker hails from the British isles, where he emerged from a mysterious childhood to become a middleweight boxing champion. The mafia steered his career awry, though, putting a price on his head when he refused to take a dive. Tired of running, he enters the tournament to try and recover his reputation, as well as some of his missing past. |
 |
Hwoarang He's not interested in money, he's not interested in vengeance, he doesn't want to help anyone. Hwoarang's just bored. After the third tournament, he wound up drafted into the Korean army, and while special-ops missions provide a certain amount of distraction, it's nothing compared to his battle with Jin Kazama. When the fourth tournament is announced, he promptly goes AWOL, hoping to recapture that excitement again. |
 |
Marshall Law Yes, Marshall Law -- his son Forrest is nowhere to be seen. Marshall's getting on in years, and life is not treating him kindly. His dojo has collapsed, and rival franchises have shut down his once-lucrative Chinese restaurant empire. News of the tournament brings back memories of his youth, lifting him out of his funk and into an intense training regimen. He's pushing 40, but Paul's at least that old... |
 |
Kazuya Mishima And finally, the closest thing we may have to a protagonist here, although Kazuya never was much of a nice guy. Then again, it's only natural to want revenge against someone who threw you into a volcano. Kazuya has allowed himself to be cloned and experimented upon by the G Corporation, but even the possibility of controlling his evil side pales before the chance to enter the tournament and have the last word with Heihachi. |