Tekken 4

Tekken 4 (鉄拳4) is a fighting game developed and published by Namco as the fourth main and fifth installment in the Tekken series, following the release of the non-canon title Tekken Tag Tournament in 1999. It was released on arcades in 2001, and on the PlayStation 2 in 2002.

Placing distinction on the plot in the console version, the tone of Tekken 4 was noticeably darker than other installments in the series. The game also harbored many gameplay revisions, such as the series-unique ability for the player to move about before the round begins and the introduction of walled stages. There are up to twenty-three characters to choose from, including six newcomers. The game's story reveals that Kazuya has been revived following his death 20 years prior and enters the King of Iron Fist Tournament 4 to take back the Mishima Zaibatsu. Tekken 4 received generally favorable reviews. The gaming community reception or reception of established veteran players was initially mixed, with competitive players pointing out its juggling and traditional gameplay replaced by realism such as uneven floors and walls and more aggression and poking, akin to fencing. However in recent years, Tekken 4 has recovered to the point of being widely praised, and this is largely for its innovation in gameplay, atmosphere, and attention to detail. The story was especially praised. Some gamers and reviewers have called it the pound-for-pound best game in the series. Its sequel, Tekken 5, was released in 2004 building on the ideas of its predecessor.

Gameplay
Tekken 4 introduced significant new gameplay changes from the previous games in the series, finally going for more realism. It added significantly more gameplay features and modes than its predecessor Tekken Tag Tournament. For the first time, it allowed players to maneuver around an arena interacting with walls and other obstacles for extra damage. These "environmental hazards" in turn allowed players to juggle opponents for consecutive combos and allowed the designers to implement a "switch maneuver", which let players escape from cornering and turn the tide in their favor. The game engine had been tweaked to be more focused on the environment, causing the characters to move more slowly and fluidly than in Tekken Tag Tournament. The balance was also better in Tekken 4 than in Tekken Tag Tournament. Finally, the game introduced a brand new graphics system, that featured increased lighting, dynamic physics, and smoother surfaces.

The console version of Tekken 4 includes a beat 'em up minigame available from the outset, called Tekken Force. Similar to the previous minigame found in Tekken 3, it presents the player with an over-the-shoulder perspective as they fight wave upon wave of Heihachi's Tekken Force through four stages, facing Combot, then Kuma, then Kazuya, and eventually facing Heihachi himself, with his clothing changing if Heihachi is selected to fight himself. The player can pick up health and power-ups while fighting waves of enemies. In the minigame it is discovered that the Tekken Force possesses different ranks in the organization, evident in different amounts of stamina, strength, and skill. A new Story mode in the home version unlocks cutscenes when played, in contrast to previous installments in which such cutscenes were unlocked from playing the Arcade mode. The modern practice mode also developed in Tekken 4, with life bars as well as the near full move list now available in practice. There were also new modes such as pure defensive training to diversify the practice mode and make it more accessible to newcomers. The game also features the usual combos and hack tips to unlock certain win pose animations, which were completely different and have not been changed since the first game.

Characters
The arcade version features a total of 23 characters, consisting of 17 returning and 6 new ones including the Irish-English boxer Steve Fox, who was revealed to be the son of Nina Williams. The returning characters include a couple ones who did not make the cut in the 19-year time skip between Tekken 2 and Tekken 3. The console version adds two characters, both palette swaps of existing ones. 10 characters are available by default, with the rest being unlocked by clearing Story Mode multiple times.

New characters

 * Christie Monteiro: A Capoeira student in search for her friend and teacher, Eddy Gordo.
 * Combot : A general purpose robot created by the Violet Systems who is able to mimic other characters' fighting styles.
 * Craig Marduk: An undefeated Vale Tudo fighter who had killed Armor King and is joining the tournament under the lure of Armor King's student King II
 * Miharu Hirano  : The best friend of Ling Xiaoyu.
 * Steve Fox: A young boxing champion who seeks to find out about his past.
 * Violet  : The alter-ego of Lee Chaolan.

Returning characters

 * Bryan Fury
 * Eddy Gordo
 * Heihachi Mishima
 * Hwoarang
 * Jin Kazama
 * Julia Chang


 * Kazuya Mishima
 * King II
 * Kuma II
 * Lee Chaolan
 * Lei Wulong
 * Ling Xiaoyu


 * Marshall Law
 * Nina Williams
 * Panda
 * Paul Phoenix
 * Yoshimitsu

Unlockable character

Only playable in console version (make a cameo appearances in arcade version)

Skin/palette swap

Skin/palette swap when Lee Chaolan unlocked

Plot
2 years after the King of Iron Fist Tournament 3, Heihachi Mishima and his scientists have captured samples of Ogre's blood and tissue to splice with Heihachi's genome, to make him immortal. The experiment fails since Heihachi lacks the Devil gene. His grandson, Jin Kazama, possesses the Devil gene but has been missing since the previous tournament. Meanwhile, Heihachi learns that the body of his son, Kazuya Mishima, who also had the Devil gene and whom Heihachi killed by throwing into a volcano twenty-one years ago, is stored in the labs of the G Corporation, a cutting edge biotech firm making revolutionary advances in the field of biogenetics research. On Friday, December 25 or Christmas Day, (the timeline is different from actual Roman calendar years in Tekken) Heihachi sends his Tekken Forces to raid the G Corporation facility to retrieve Kazuya's remains. However, the mission fails when the Tekken Force is wiped out by none other than Kazuya himself, who has been revived by G Corporation a few days after his apparent death. Unknown to Heihachi, Jin has been in a self-imposed training exile in Brisbane, to unlearn the Mishima karate style and master traditional karate, loathing anything to do with his bloodline since Heihachi's betrayal.

In an attempt to lure Kazuya and Jin out, Heihachi announces the King of Iron Fist Tournament 4, with the ownership of the Mishima Zaibatsu being the top prize. Ling Xiaoyu remains a ward of the Mishima Zaibatsu during this time. One day, an anonymous e-mail warned her that her so-called protector, Heihachi, was actually planning to have her assassinated and advised her to run away as soon as possible. Xiaoyu replied to the e-mail but did not receive any further messages from the anonymous individual. Guessing the message could be from Jin, she took it to heart. Xiaoyu willingly complied with Heihachi's suggestion that she should sign up as a contestant, hoping to be reunited with Jin and unravel the sinister secrets of the Mishima Financial Empire. Xiaoyu is saved from Heihachi's evil plans by Yoshimitsu, who informs her of the Mishima family's tragic history. Xiaoyu dropped out of the tournament and began to believe that the root of all misfortune surrounding the Mishimas started with Heihachi's cruel upbringing of Kazuya.

After Jin won his match against Hwoarang by default when the South Korean Army took him into custody, and Kazuya defeated Violet, Jin and Kazuya were scheduled to fight at Stage 7. Jin is ambushed and captured by the Tekken Force and taken to Hon-Maru, a Mishima Dojo in the woods. After Kazuya is declared the winner of Stage 7 by default, he meets Heihachi at the final stage and questions him about Jin's disappearance. They clash, and Heihachi emerges victorious.

After the fight, instead of killing Kazuya outright, Heihachi leads him to Hon-Maru, where an unconscious Jin has been chained, planning to enchain Kazuya to take their devil powers for himself. Devil, however, unexpectedly takes over Kazuya's body and reveals to Heihachi that, 21 years ago, after Kazuya was thrown into a volcano, half of its entity split from it and possessed Jin, to which it plans on retrieving it from him and recover its full power. With Jin within its grasp, Devil knocks Heihachi out with telekinesis and then subconsciously taunts and torments Jin via images of Kazuya. Kazuya, having figured out how to assimilate his own entity with Devil's, takes control of his body, resulting in him and the Devil becoming a unified entity. Kazuya then calls Jin, which causes his son to wake up with his Devil powers activated. Breaking the chains, an enraged Jin fights his father, Kazuya, and defeats him. Heihachi regains consciousness and fights against an exhausted Jin, but is also defeated. As Jin is about to land the killing blow on Heihachi, a vision of his mother, Jun Kazama, causes him to spare his grandfather in her honor. Stretching his Devil wings, Jin takes flight, leaving the unconscious Kazuya and Heihachi in Hon-Maru.

Reception
In Japan, Game Machine listed Tekken 4 on their September 1, 2001 issue as being the most-successful arcade game of the month and was the top selling fighting game that year. It also received positive reviews overall and attracted the game to many newcomers, but only received mixed feedback from veteran players in the international gaming community at the time of its initial release. This is despite the fact that the game was still successful at the known Evolution Championships 2004 and at the Arcadia Tournament, which was the top fighting game tournament in Japan in the 2000s. The game sold even more in Japan than its successor and Tekken 6, though much less copies worldwide. However, the lower sales had less to do with the game and its serious tone, but actually in retrospective reviews had more to do with the decline in fighting game popularity in general, which coincided with the decline in arcade popularity in the early to mid 2000s when it developed into a niche market outside Japan, where it remains very mainstream to this day. The game sold over two million copies at the standard PS2 price a year later. As of 2024 upon the release of Tekken 8, it has gone on to sell over 3.44 million copies worldwide, mostly on the PS2 which was its only console, together with its top sales in the arcades.

Tekken 4 has received an averaged score of 81.35% at GameRankings with almost 60 reviews and 79/100 at Metacritic. Edge gave it a mediocre review, highlighting the game's experimental and pretty nature, and that overall it is a more solid and thoughtful proposition than its predecessor, but concluded that the game feels "over-familiar and curiously uninspired." On the other hand, GameSpot's Greg Kasavin referred to it as "one of the better fighting games in years" and "an extremely solid, long-lasting, accessible, and fun-to-play fighting game that comes from one of the world's best developers of the genre"." GameSpot named Tekken 4 the best PlayStation 2 game of September 2002, and nominated it for the publication's "Best Fighting Game of 2002" award. IGN's Jeremy Dunham noted the walls and confined spaces as "probably Namco's wisest decision," and called the game "a solid fighter in every sense of the word." A lot of these features and interactive environments remained and have influenced future fighting games, especially in Tekken 8.  It was the first Tekken game to win the prestigious D.I.C.E. Award for Fighting Game of the Year. Pursuant to its known critical acclaim, it was even nominated for a BAFTA award.

The story of Tekken 4 was also heavily praised. The game itself hired new voice actors in order to portray actual cutscenes rather than a silent style of storytelling as in previous games. It was considered the most serious and one of the darkest tales in the Mishima Saga, without completely abandoning some comical relief characters such as Kuma and Marshall Law. Together with this was the tone and atmosphere, which features known classic songs such as "Bit Crusher" at the actual Shinjuku crossing stage, Touch and Go" at the Philadelphia airport stage, and "Authentic Sky" at the Tokyo building rooftop among others that added a strong atmospheric feel to the game that has never been explored in an artistic manner before. Director Katsuhiro Harada aimed for such feel for the game to increase its modernity in line with the new 21st century. The game also built on the popularity of its predecessor by exploring the story of its protagonist Kazuya Mishima and his recent activity during the time skip in the story. His appearance was also changed, but did not reflect his age as he stayed young and only made him more heavily scarred and accentuated his hairline and his red iris to emphasize the character's development toward choosing evil and embracing revenge against Heihachi.   The artwork and the grunge feel mixed with electronic-jazz music and gritty themes helped improve the visual aspect of the game design as well.

Legacy
Many critics have noted the innovations introduced by Tekken 4, such as interactive environments in stages and the first full-use of voice acting and win pose animations in fighting games. These environments, where columns are broken and the crowds play a part, have been brought back in Tekken 8. Other gamers have commented Tekken 4 was so far ahead, as the last leap Tekken has made in new ideas, to the point of calling it the best in the series. The praise for the story, music, atmosphere, and character development, as well as having the rawest and most serious tone in the series, has gone on to grow significantly in acclaim over the ensuing decades. The game also was the first exploration into an aggressive gameplay where backdashing or the habit of running backward was minimized for aggressive poking, such aggressiveness which was not explored again until Tekken 8. The game itself also lessened the number of fantasy characters to opt for a more humanist stance to the story. The game still maintained some of the ludicrous elements and humor that connected with past audiences, as well as a bit of the older Electronic Dance Music, but not to the extent of later games. The development of the characters and the struggle between the devil gene or good and evil was also explored fully for the first time in the game. Tekken 4 also beyond its realism and immersive experience worked to eliminate juggling, and considerably lengthened the cutscenes than in previous games, which were around ten seconds long prior to Tekken 4.