Tekken 3 (1998)
Namco's 96-Metascore 3D Fighting Masterpiece Introducing Jin Kazama, Eddy Gordo, and Sidestepping
Tekken 3 is a 3D fighting game released by Namco on System 12 arcade hardware in 1997 and ported to Sony PlayStation on March 26, 1998. Directed by Masahiro Kimoto and Katsuhiro Harada, its 96/100-Metascore home conversion sold 8.3 million copies by pairing 60-fps four-limb martial arts and z-axis sidestepping with newcomers Jin Kazama and Eddy Gordo plus bonus modes Tekken Force and Tekken Ball.
True Z-Axis Sidestepping and a Bold Nineteen-Year Roster Leap
Where Tekken and Tekken 2 played largely on a two-dimensional plane with towering moon-jumps, directors Masahiro Kimoto and Katsuhiro Harada anchored Tekken 3 firmly in three-dimensional space by giving every fighter universal foreground-and-background sidesteps, quick ground rolls, and snappier juggles tied to Namco's intuitive left/right punch-and-kick four-button layout. Equally daring was a nineteen-year narrative time skip after the apparent loss of Jun Kazama to the Aztec god of fighting Ogre: aging Heihachi Mishima convened the third King of Iron Fist Tournament for an electrifying new generation led by Jin Kazama, capoeira sensation Eddy Gordo, Ling Xiaoyu, taekwondo rival Hwoarang, Bryan Fury, and guest manga dinosaur Gon.
Miraculous PlayStation Engineering, Big Beat Audio, and Home Modes
Converting System 12 arcade polygons down to the older 1994 PlayStation's two megabytes of main RAM without sacrificing sixty frames per second required Namco's programmers to rebuild character meshes and pioneer per-stage lighting tricks while composers Nobuyoshi Sano and Keiichi Okabe re-arranged the soundtrack into a propulsive big-beat electronic score. Rather than settling for a bare arcade translation, the PlayStation disc set a gold standard for console value: individual CGI endings for the entire cast, Theater playback, the side-scrolling beat-'em-up campaign Tekken Force (complete with health-restoring chicken pickups), and beach-volleyball duel mode Tekken Ball propelled sales to 8.3 million units worldwide.