Back in T3, damage was high, but characters derived their damage off of different things, which actually made matches interesting, it wasn’t a Juggle is the best way for you to deal damage mentality for every character. Only problem was, Ogre and Jin got seriously gay at high lvls of play, however Ogre was an Oki God, while Jin was obviously a juggling God, but characters like Yoshi, Lei and all, where still crazy ass hell to watch and see.
TTT had high damage, but two lifebars made losing 50-60% life like only a quarter, so the damage dealt wasn’t too bad at all. Not to mention it took 100x more balls to play then T5 or T6. When you saw people bdcing, Wding, D(E)wgf nearly 99% of the time…you know that boy was practicing alot. Get an average T5/6 player who plays a Mishima to try and do a (E)wgf in TTT at least 80% of the time…and I guarantee most likely they won’t even be able to do it at high of a rate.
T4 had one of the biggest lifebars in any Tekken game period, plus with the shortened juggles made dealing out huge heavy damage off of juggles less frequent unless your playing against Jin and getting hit by JFLS…I mean, I love Tekken4, but Jin’s JFLS, EWHF, 1,3~3, D+4 juggle dealing over 100% damage and is easy to do was super gay (however that wasn’t the game engines fault, but a character simply being too overpowered). Still my most favorite Tekken game of all time, only needed to remove some bs, upgrade the shitty characters, remove the uneven stages (although I liked it, but its better so less bitching) and it would have been the most solid Tekken game.
T5 series was stupid in that almost everyone could now start dealing 60% damage juggles, making you the player really having to rely and focus on this sort of play mentality. Like when I was at a few tournaments during T5’s time, and talking to some solid Tekken heads, people where telling me “You have to play with the mentality of positioning yourself to juggle and send your opponent to the wall.”
Launchers/Crushes/Hopkicks all together ='s a No No…as a quote that I once remembered about crushes in the T5 series “Does it make any sense that I should get crushed for throwing out a Jab in which I should have a +Frame advantage for?” T6 just prolonged juggles by adding bound, making wallsplats far more easily obtained, while just toning down the damage so that it does as much as DR. However, the part that everyone seemingly disregards is the fact that the best way to deal out damage in T6 is to utilize hopkicks/d/f+2’s/crushes/launchers/lows which lead to juggles and bound.
This is a clear indication that the universal options have become the more dominant aspect of the gameplay. Just look at characters who do great in Tekken 6…and these are the same characters who can utilize juggles and bound to their badass potential. Look at characters who can’t really capitalize on this, and see where they are ranked on the Tier Listing. I mean come on, it’s so blatant obvious here with the way T6 has gone. More Newbie Friendly, while dropping more of the gameplay mentality that was great in the older Tekken games.
Top Players will always be winning the majority of the tournaments, there is no question about it. However, it doesn’t always mean they think the game is “great”…look at how solid Arario has been during Tekken 5’s entire lifespan, and what does he think of the T5 series? —> :tdown:. I would put Jop in here too, but he quit during the T5 series as well, due to similar reasons, there’s alot of top players who played T5 and thought it was trash, but play it because it’s “free” money, and because it has competition. I mean, isn’t that how it is with certain fighting games we are playing now still.
I guarantee that when T6 debuts at Evo, guys like Arario will be in the top 8 again, along with others who don’t like T6, but will surely play it due to competition and winning money.
Popularity does not always = deep solid fighting game, sure Tekken 6 was fun for me, when I first did my juggle and bound combos, into wallsplat. However hours into it, then weeks, and when I found that all I’m doing and all my opponent is doing is trying to find ways that can utilize juggles and bound, it gets pretty silly.
I mean, it’s Tekken, so it can’t be that bad, however it’s frustrating when it gets to that kind of play mentality.
So to put in short…damage isn’t the real big problem with T6, it’s the more newbie gameplay, lowered character individuality, watered down gameplay, stupid bound, and stupid ass rage that annoys me more then anything else (If Rage actually worked more like Netsu from TTT, I wouldn’t mind it being in here).
However, I was told by someone at TZ that T6:BR most likely won’t be that big of a change from T6 anyhow from a game engine standpoint, so I will probably give it a try and see how it feels for a little bit, but nothing to serious if that’s the real case.
I will probably end up looking forward to Tekken 7, when Namco finally says to themselves Fuck all this Juggling/bound shit, and lets go back to character individuality. Let’s go back to making only a few select characters rely upon juggles as their prime form of damage, while making others dominate on oki’s as their gameplan, with others relying more heavily upon CH’s to deal out big damage etc, etc.
