Tekken 3D: Prime Edition (3DS) Review
The DS was originally a console with little to no fighting games. Within the six years that we’ve had the Nintendo DS, we’ve only got about five or so games that are worth mentioning in the genre. Now, with the 3DS, in little over a year, we’ve got at least two sizeable instalments from many famous franchises and to top that off, we now have a third. Tekken 3D: Prime Edition is the latest game to be released in the Tekken franchise, and while it manages to translate a lot of the key features from the game it’s based on, something just doesn’t feel right about the game. I can’t exactly put my finger on it, but while the team have done a good job at condensing a full-fledged fighting game onto the 3DS, something feels a little bit too condensed.
For the unaware, Tekken 3D: Prime Edition is essentially a port of the latest game in the series, Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion. Everything you would expect to find is here—all the stages and characters from the original game have been translated across into 3D. This makes the game quite possibly one of the beefiest on the 3DS, with a final roster of approximately 41 characters. In addition to the game itself, Prime Edition also features a remastered version of Tekken: Blood Vengeance, a spin-off film that takes place between this game and the one before it, Tekken 5. Of course, Blood Vengeance has been re-issued in full 3D, and at 92 minutes, it’s a rather generous and lengthy offering.
Tekken 3D: Prime Edition is a great looking game; the character models themselves look just as good as they appear on the PS2 (and even some of the early PS3 titles) and the animations are incredibly fluid. Every character in this game has a unique style of fighting, and each of their styles are amazingly animated and give a great sense of personality to each of the fighters. The environments themselves look amazing too—many have a lot going on in the background though there is one little gripe I have that I’ll talk about later. Finally, Tekken 3D: Prime Edition has the rather esteemed ability to run at a consistent and fluid 60 FPS even while the 3D is turned all the way up, and this is quite the accomplishment.
As you would expect, Tekken 3D: Prime Edition does do a good job at utilising the 3D capabilities of the 3DS to give the playing field some depth. Menus in particular really stick out and use the functionality quite well, but there are some moments where the 3D simply wouldn’t be as pronounced during matches, somewhat shattering the illusion of the 3D arena the game tries to keep up. The fighters themselves, however, really pop out against the environment to help bring the action to life and it’s a nice touch. Blood Vengeance, the film included with the game, looks great too, though admittedly the novelty of that will wear off after your first watch.
Tekken 3D: Prime Edition plays like any Tekken fan would want—it still plays like classic Tekken though there is something else added, particularly for newcomers, to aid them in approaching the game. Buttons on the touch screen can be used to assign moves to act as shortcuts for basic combos and moves with the more complicated inputs. This is a welcomed feature, namely because the 3DS’s face buttons really don’t “gel” well with the Tekken style of play, which is the first major problem I came across. But, at the same time, PS2 versions of Tekken forced me to hold the controller in a rather strange way, and I can imagine many players who would do the same thing with their 3DS.
The biggest issue with Tekken 3D: Prime Edition is the lack of replay value or modes from the main game being brought over to Prime Edition. There’s no story mode, nor is there a “Tekken Force” mode for players to plough through. All you’ve got here that’s worth mentioning is a “Quick Battle” mode that pairs you up against a randomly chosen character, and a Survival Mode that allows players to play against a certain amount of AI-controlled fighters with one bar of health. Arcade Mode is also provided, but like the arcades, this experience isn’t deep and once you’ve played it once, you have no reason to really play it again. It’s just so confusing as to why there is so much functionality missing from Tekken 3D: Prime Edition. It almost feels incomplete.
To round out the rather disappointing offering of modes, online functionality is also included however it’s incredibly barebones in its offerings. Sure, you get the options to filter your matches by locale as well as their whether or not they use the simplified controls, but besides this there’s really not much else here besides just matching yourself up with someone else. What’s even more disappointing is that in the fifteen or so matches we had both nationally and internationally, there was notable latency that really hampered the experience. With no patch coming in the foreseeable future, it looks like Prime Edition’s online functionality is dead on arrival, which is incredibly disappointing.
With hardly any unlockables, it’s hard to find any reason to play the game more than a few hours, especially since online is so botched. Prime Edition also introduces “Tekken Cards”, which are designed to properly take advantage of Play Coins and StreetPass. With over 300 to collect, each of them are just static screenshots from almost every game from the series. Of course, for no reason whatsoever, you can trade them with other players through StreetPass or use your accumulated Play Coins to buy more. Though, to be honest, I would rather spend my play coins elsewhere. Tekken Cards are literally just implemented for the sake of collecting them and hold no proper merit. There are just so many more things that the team could’ve done with this, including Ghost Data, statistics or even just transmission of your own customised character to someone else’s 3DS—not that you could, since Prime Edition also has removed all the customisation options from Tekken 6 in favour of just providing two costumes per character, the reason for which is just baffling to me.
One good thing about Tekken 3D: Prime Edition is the game’s sound design and direction. Dialogue is voiced multilingually, so characters speak the language appropriate to their characters. Thankfully most of this dialogue is well voiced, not that you’ll be hearing it, since voice work is really only heard when entering and leaving a fight. The music is your typical Tekken fare—fast paced metal and electronic mash-ups that add to the adrenaline of the fights themselves.
Tekken 3D: Prime Edition is a prime (pardon the pun) example of what a developer probably shouldn’t do when bringing their franchises to the Nintendo 3DS. Sure, it’s got all the characters from the latest Tekken game, but it doesn’t do anything extraordinary to differentiate itself from other fighters on the market or even its better-looking high definition cousin. Some more substantial content, including a robust story mode, would’ve made this one go a long way. In its current state though, it’s hard to recommend to anyone but the most hardcore of Tekken fans. There are simply better value-for-money packages out there, including the launch title, Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition.
