Tekken

Platforms	Arcade, Playstation, Playstation 2 (as part of Tekken 5's Arcade History mode)
Release Date	Arcade December 9, 1994 Playstation JPN March 1995 NA November 1995 EUR November 1995 Playstation Network EUR May 2011
Arcade System	Namco System 11
Genre	Fighting
Game modes	Up to two players
Predecessor	—
Followed By	Tekken 2
Official site	Visit website

This article is about the first game in the Tekken series.

• For the series, see Tekken (series).
• For the film released in 2010, see Tekken (2010 Film).

Also see the Tekken 1 Category

Development & Release

Tekken is the first game in the Tekken series. It was released in arcades on December 9, 1994 and on the PlayStation in March, 1995 in Japan, November, 1995 in North America, and November, 1995 in Europe. Tekken was met with many positive reviews. Critics claimed that it was a good start to the series. Tekken was, however, criticized for making Heihachi Mishima, the boss character, extremely powerful because of his unstoppable air juggle combos. This was fixed in later versions of the series, however.

Upgrades & Ports

A port of the arcade version of the game was included in the 2005 release of Tekken 5 on the playstation 2 along with Tekken 2 and Tekken 3 as part of the games "arcade history" mode and to commemorate the games tenth anniversary.

Reception

Tekken was met with many positive reviews, with critics claiming it was a good start to the series. Its success and popularity has spawned six sequels. The Tekken games have been highly popular with the martial arts community due to moves of the fighters being close to the actual style of fighting.

Tekken was the first PlayStation game to sell over a million units.

Guinness World Records awarded Tekken with multiple records in the Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008. These include, "First PlayStation Game to Sell Over One Million Units", "First Fighting Game To Feature Simulated 3D", as well as a record for the entire series as "The Best Selling Fighting Series for PlayStation Consoles."

Story

A worldwide martial arts tournament is nearing its final, with a large purse of prize money to the fighter who can defeat Heihachi Mishima in the final round of competition. The contest is sponsored by the giant financial group, the Mishima Zaibatsu.

There are eight fighters that remain after winning death matches all over the world. The winner of the tournament will receive The King of the Iron Fists title. Who will be the one to defeat Heihachi Mishima and take home the prize money and fame?

Gameplay

Tekken differs from other hand-to-hand fighting games in some ways. Traditional fighting games are usually played with buttons which correspond to the strength of the attack, such as strong punch or weak kick. Tekken, however, dedicates a button to each limb of the fighter, making learning special attacks more of an intuitive process. The player could watch the animation on screen and figure out the appropriate command (if the character kicks low with their right leg, the move is likely to be executed by pressing down and right kick, or a similar variation).

By default, there will be two rounds of combat. However, the players have a choice from one to five rounds, as well as options for the time limit of each round. If the winning character retains all of his or her health without the time having run out, the announcer will say, "Perfect!" If the winning character is near knock out, the announcer will call, "Great!" Occasionally, both characters will be knocked out simultaneously, and the announcer will call "Double K.O." If the time limit for the round expires, the character with more health will be declared the winner. If one does not exist, the round will be a draw. In most cases, the announcer will call "K.O." when one character is victorious.

Boss characters are only selectable on the PlayStation version. On this version, the boss characters have received updated moves to differentiate from the eight default characters (excluding Paul, every character had a clone character on the arcade; the boss characters only had very few unique moves which were borrowed from other fighters, e.g. Wang's Heavy Power Punch), a move derived from Paul's Phoenix Smasher.

Modes

Arcade: Fight your way through 8 stages of heated One on One battles. Face your rival and defeat Heihachi to become The King of Iron Fist Tournament.

Versus: Take on your friends in One on One battles.

Features

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Roster

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  Anna

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  Armor King

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  Devil

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  Ganryu

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  Heihachi

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  Jack

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  Kazuya

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  King

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  Kuma

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  Kunimitsu

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  Law

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  Lee

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  Michelle

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  Nina

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  Paul

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  P.Jack

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  Wang

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  Yoshimitsu

Stages

Acropolis Angkor Wat Chicago Fiji

King George Island Kyoto Marine Stadium Monument Valley

Szechwan Venezia Windermere

Media

Video Gallery

Arcade Opening

Console Opening

Image Gallery

• Screenshots
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  Main Menu

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  Character Select Screen

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  Yoshimitsu VS Yoshimitsu

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  Nina VS Nina

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  Law VS Law

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  Kazuya VS Kazuya

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  Paul VS Paul

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  Jack VS Jack

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  King VS King

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  Michelle VS Michelle

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  Ganryu VS Ganryu

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  Anna VS Anna

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  Wang VS Wang

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  Lee VS Lee

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  Kuma VS Kuma

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  P.Jack VS P.Jack

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  Armor King VS Armor King

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  Kunimistu VS Kunimitsu

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  Heihachi VS Heihachi

• Stages
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  Acropolis

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  Angkor Wat

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  Chicago

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  Fiji

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  King George Island

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  Kyoto

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  Marine Stadium

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  Monument Valley

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  Szechwan

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  Venezia

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  Windermere

• Artwork
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  The original 8 fighters.

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  All of the bosses.

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  Early Tekken images.

• Promotional
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  Tekken game cover.

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  A game poster, featuring Paul.

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  Artwork for Tekken 1.

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  The starting eight characters.

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  Promotional artwork of the game's boss, Heihachi Mishima.

Trivia

• This is the only Tekken game where the sub bosses and final boss do not have an ending.
• This is the only game in the series where Nina Williams fights barefoot.
• On the arcade version, after selecting a fighter their facial expressions would change, similar to Virtua Fighter. The character's name is also announced upon character selection.
• Devil Kazuya is unlockable by beating the Galaga mini game that is playable before the actual game loads up.
• This is the only game in the series that has identical music for every character's ending aside from Tekken Tag Tournament.
• Mrs. Law can be seen in Yoshimitsu's ending.
• This is the first time Forest Law appeared, as a toddler in Yoshimitsu's ending.
• King's ending uses real digitized children, a technique which would later be used again in his Tekken 2 ending.
• On the PlayStation version, the Stadium stage has a big screen in the background reflecting the fight.
• If a memory card with completed Tekken data inserted and the Tekken 3 disc inserted (with theatre mode unlocked) you can view the ending animations for Tekken. This also works for Tekken 2.
• On Jack's ending video, the machine connecting to Jack is named System 11, which is the name of the arcade hardware used by Tekken and Tekken 2.
• With the exception of Wang, the boss characters' voices are identical to other characters.
• The only boss characters to have their names announced are: Wang, Lee and Heihachi. Armor King, P.Jack and Devil Kazuya use the same samples as their default characters, King, Jack and Kazuya Mishima respectively. With other characters, the announcer simply says You Win.
• This game has 17 characters not counting Devil Kazuya
• Each stage's background music, with the exception of the Venezia stage, would later be recycled in Tekken 2. Some tracks also made a comeback in Tekken 4, including Venezia.
• The intro featuring Kazuya has remixed music on the PlayStation version, but cannot be changed to the original arcade music like the Heihachi intro in Tekken 2.
• Tekken is the only game in the series where Arcade Mode is actually faithful to the original arcade game, allowing the player to complete a time record without being stuck with default game settings. The player can even pause the game, play vs. matches and change characters upon losing, however selecting the latter will void any time records.
• If Heihachi is selected, he must face all of the boss characters, then face Devil Kazuya at the end. The characters are in a fixed order: Kunimitsu, Kuma, Wang, Ganryu, Lee, P.Jack, Armor King, Anna then Devil Kazuya.
• You can listen to all the game music with a CD Player.
• The cover has a blue figure in addition to the 8 default playable characters. Based on certain artwork showing more of the cover, it would appear to be a version of P.Jack.
• This is the only Tekken to have all fighting locations to be outside.