Tekken 3

Tekken the piss

I was a terrible boyfriend. I’d often just sit playing games while she tried to get me to talk about feelings, the latest metal bands, or how cool it was that her goth friend slept in a coffin. Thankfully for her, the games collection she’d amassed was a bit shit, meaning there were only a couple of platformers and a few demo discs for me to ignore her with. There was also only one controller, so we couldn’t play together, and I was too awed by the console to even consider taking turns.

When I was accepted into university, and despite my regular neglect of her, my girlfriend very kindly offered to let me take her PlayStation with me – she knew how much I adored it. Early into my uni life, a lad called Rich who was also on my course and lived in the room opposite me; had a PlayStation as well, and he let me borrow Tekken 3. This would take up all my free time for half a year.

Tekken 3 was far superior to any demo disc experience, or even the copy of Wipeout I’d bought, which never really grabbed my attention. I started off by playing Arcade Mode with every character available, unlocking more and more of the insane gallery of fighters to enjoy. This was regularly interrupted by my mates, who would see I was playing and would jump in, leading to loads of impromptu corridor championships on Versus Mode.

I was near unbeatable as Yoshimitsu – I’d actually bothered to learn his move set. There was one particular Yoshimitsu stance – Flea – which saw him jumping around on the hilt of his sword, which I got a lot of perfects with, all the while shouting “THE FLEA!” repeatedly at my fallen opponents.

It was the most annoying way possible to win, but when my friends got wise to it, I adapted – I’d switch to the Deathcopter and follow up with an Oni Kick. I could also get Yoshimitsu to regenerate health by having him sit cross-legged on the floor for Indian Stance Healing, moving his sword up and down to make him look like he was pleasuring himself. Yoshimitsu always sounded like he was doing that anyway, thanks to his truly bizarre soundboard, so this was a great taunt to whoever I’d just laid out with a power attack.

I also memorably scored a KO with Bryan Fury’s heavy-hitting Meteor Smash while wearing skin-tight snakeskin pants, naked from the waist up. You could see it being telegraphed from a mile off, but I still managed to land it on a lad called Paul, much to his chagrin.

I would’ve said I was the best player in my halls of residence, had it not for a lad from Bangkok called Boyd, who invited himself in and absolutely destroyed me. Not only that – he did it playing as Panda, Ling Xiaoyu’s bodyguard, and the alternate skin for Kuma. He really was on another level with that game; despite having very limited English, he managed to explain just how much time he’d spent playing Tekken 3 in just a couple of bouts.

The greatest thing about Tekken 3 was discovering Tekken Force Mode. Like Streets of Rage but with each character having their own, full beat ‘em up move set, Tekken Force saw you fight your way through the group of non-descript Foot Clan wannabes who had various levels of bird ranking assigned to them depending on how much health they were assigned (Crow, Falcon, Hawk, and Owl), before fighting various bosses.

The boss battles you fought depended on your chosen character, and led to an inevitable bout with Heihachi as the final, stage-four boss. I completed it with every single character on the roster, despite it taking hours for each run-through – it just never got boring. Being able to perform all the throws and specials, as well as the standard move sets, meant each character made Tekken Force feel like an entirely new game. The level design was simple, but it’s still the best side-scrolling fighter I’ve ever played.

Game over

During Christmas break during my first year, the inevitable happened: my girlfriend split up with me. She’d already started seeing someone else, and I had to give her the PlayStation back – something, by that point, I’d come to think of as my first proper console. To be honest, it was the only thing that upset me about our breakup; we hadn’t been getting on well at all. The console was the only reason I hadn’t ended it myself.

It was also the end of my relationship with Tekken 3, and the wider series. I’ve never properly played a game in the series since, despite owning PlayStations 3 through 5. However, I still love fighting games; my Namco focus shifted to Soulcaliburs 2 and onwards, while the Street Fighters and Virtua Fighters of this world still continue to bring me a lot of joy.

And yet, I’ll always fondly remember my first long-term relationship: one with a fighting game, as opposed to the girl who gave me the means to enjoy it.