So I bought Tekken 3D: Prime Edition, and here’s my thoughts on it:
The Good:
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[]All characters from Tekken 6 are in this game with all their moves still attached. Cool!
[]60 Frames per Second even in 3D HOLY FUCK it’s so buttery smooth
[]3D effect is what you’d expect, adds depth to the stages
[]The touch-screen commands allow you to assign 4 buttons to various buttons, combinations of buttons, or most moves in your moves list (excluding most special occasions commands such as wall stuns as well as character’s “10 Hit Combos”) These touch screen commands do work in Online play.
[]Like 765 collectible 3D character cards that you can collect Via Street Pass and Offline Survival Mode. Woo-hoo!(???)
[]Sound’s aight, doesn’t suffer from “low-quality HLSS .wav files” syndrome like Resident Evil: Revelations does time-to-time
[]Comes with the full Tekken: Blood Vengeance movie and looks pretty good in 3D. I saw this the one night it was in Theaters and I enjoyed it, it’s well produced and is pretty much like an extended Tekken Opening CGI, HOWEVER if you’re buying this for just the movie alone, I’d just go out and buy Tekken Hybrid.
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The Bad:
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[]The 3DS’s nub/D-Pad doesn’t allow for perfect Tekken maneuvers, such as sidestepping diagonally can be a pain.
[]The character models aren’t quite as nice as Tekken 6, and possibly not as good as the PSP releases. Dead or Alive Dimensions’ models look a bit more “polished” and not as polygonish.
[]There is NO CHARACTER CUSTOMIZATION. This really ticks me off because previous Tekkens had brilliant customization for your Characters, and definitely extends the longetivity of the game.
[]The online play in this is atrocious at best. I’ve played nearly 20 matches online so far and I haven’t had a good match yet. All the online games run at either 1/3rd or 1/4th the speed it should be playing at, with button input delay and sloowwww character movement. And I don’t believe this is the 3DS’s fault at all, SSFIV3D and Dead or Alive Dimensions both had pretty impressive online with not a whole lot of lag whatsoever. Would not recommend for playing online, can’t comment on Local Play.
[]Not a lot of Single Player features, you get “Special Survival” which are timed “survive X amount of people with one life-bar” challenges, “Quick Battle” which is basically your average Arcade Mode, and Training Mode. That’s it.
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The Ugly:
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[]Stages are a mix or new and old (SHEEP FROM TEKKEN 6 RETURRRRRN) but they don’t look all that impressive personally, I think it’s just the lower res textures on the skies/stages themselves…
[]When playing online, you don’t go to the character select, you can only play as your “main” character that you select from the options. Still cannot comment on how this works in Local though.
[]No option to listen to BGM musics ;~;
[]No Downloadable Play option like there was in Super Street Fighter IV 3D, if you’re going to play with friends, you all need a copy of the game.
[]You can’t invite your 3DS Friends to your online lobbies, I have not had the chance to experiment with this however, but I do not see any options to invite friends.
[]I don’t like the Life Bars and timer. Nit-picking here.
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JUDGEMENT:
Buy it if you’re the most die-hard Tekken fan out there, or have a some friends that love playing Tekken together when you’re out and about. As a standalone game though (say you’re sitting at your computer desk like I am with a PS3 literally at my feet), you really don’t need to buy this, just go pick up Tekken 6 which is literally $15 right now and save yourself $25. Not to mention, this game was damn hard to find, I went to a K-Mart, a Best Buy, two GameStops, and FINALLY found it at a Target (which only had 2 copies). If you want it, don’t impulsively buy it because it’s a new Tekken game (my mistake), wait till it drops down in price to about $20 used if you’re interested. Recommended instead is the extremely fun Dead or Alive Dimensions (See Classic Game Room’s Review here of it) for your 3D fighting game fix.
TL;DR Version-
I would’ve recommended this game if there was ANY character customization that would give it any sort of replay value, or even a decent netcode that didn’t run at 33% speed. However, the game DOESN’T have either, so you’re stuck with a very bare bones port of Tekken 6. However the fact that it runs at 60 BEAUTIFUL frames per second all the time is a technical accomplishment that’s worth seeing, but just ask a GameStop employee to demo it for you. Wait till it’s cheap used before picking it up.
Have any of you guys bought it too? I’m not a gigantic Tekken player personally, so I’m curious about what some more experienced players think. :3
EDIT: Played about 10 matches online with a Lars player named Savino, the connection was great and the game played at mostly 95-100% speed compared to the ~33% when on a bad connection. When the connection’s good the game runs fine without too many problems whatsoever, so thought I might just throw that in ^^
