#i wrote the original draft on feb 8th lmao

[quaddmgd]

Did I ever talk about my love for Tekken? There was this post about games you played for more than 300 hours, and after GTA VC and LCS... it would definitely be Tekken 5 and 6 for me.

Anyway, my Tekken brainrot laid dormant deep inside of me for most of my teenage years and early adulthood. To be honest I entirely skipped Tekken 7 due to its performance on my PC at the time and its reliance on DLCs. I did manage to beat Tekken 4 in 2023 (the only one I've been missing until 7, but I quickly went back to not thinking about the franchise at all. That was the case until Tekken 8 demo dropped.

I downloaded it and played for a bit, not understanding what's going on story-wise at all, but instantly falling in love with its fluid 4k60 gameplay and new Nina design (she was always my main after all). It made me hungry for more Tekken and when I was talking about it with my s/o, I just had to check whether Tekken 7 finally received a 60fps patch on Xbox Series X. It didn't, but I ended up buying it anyway to satisfy my hunger for the franchise.

Played it a bit, finished the story and overall I had fun with it. I wasn't really satisfied with the story mode, but the gameplay was pleasant enough. I liked some of the new characters and overall it felt like a fulfilling return to the brainrot. That's what I thought before finding out that Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is backwards compatible on Series X.

I ordered a physical copy and instantly got hyped. I wanted to play it since its release but it costed so much at the time... and after some time I forgot about it, probably due to GTA V coming out. Flash forward a few days, I received my copy and ran back to my house to play as much as I can before my night shift starts.

You gotta understand - it was and still is the ultimate Tekken game for me, mostly due to how many characters it has. I played every mainline Tekken game (and Tag Tournament) before playing TTT2 and to play as Jun, Michelle, Violet, Ogre and Kunimitsu in one game meant a lot to me - I really appreciate OG Tekken characters, even though Tekken 3 and 5 are my favorite entries. If I was to talk here about how much grind in Tekken 5/6 I endured to make certain characters look like the OGs, this post would end up being insufferably long.

Many story-based games take up all my time and attention but I'm still playing it and I'm really close to getting all the endings. I set most levels to have my favorite tracks form older Tekken games and I'm especially enjoying my time with Jun, Kunimitsu and Michelle.

Now that fighting games are one of the most anti-consumer genres in modern gaming, a few years will pass before I'll get Tekken 8. I'd have to spend $100+ on ultimate edition, only to wait years for all of its content to arrive anyway. And since a month after its release they started introducing shops and battle passes, my enthusiasm got tempered even more.

But I'm so happy to be back and Tekken 7 and Tag Tournament 2 (and the older ones) will do it for now! Especially TTT2, it's really a blast!