Tekken Revolution Review

Tekken Revolution? More like Tekkenville.

Tekken is a fighting game franchise created and developed by Namco (now Namco Bandai Games). It was one of the first 3D fighting games to compete with the Street Fighter series, Mortal Kombat, Art of Fighting and other 2D fighting game counterparts. Other 3D fighting games first on the scene were Virtual Fighter and Battle Arena Toshinden. The Tekken franchise has seen more success and continues to wow their fans with this new installment.

Namco Bandai Games released Tekken Revolution for PS3 and Xbox 360 earlier this June. It's a free version of a watered-down Tekken Tag Tournament 2 that allows you to play arcade mode or other players online and level up the available characters. So far there are six hidden players which you can unlock with the amount of gift points you have accumulated while playing. Two more characters will be unlocked at a later update.

Like most Facebook games, there's a counter that increments how many times you can play each mode in the game. For Tekken Revolution, One arcade coin is added after an hour with a maximum of two coins. One premium coin is added every thirty minutes with a maximum of five coins. If you don't want to wait for the counter, you can buy premium tickets and use them to play arcade mode or online mode (ranked and player matches).

For the first time in the series, there is a stat-upgrade feature. Every time you play the various modes, you receive fight money, gift points and experience points. Experience points allows you to level up (now up to level 60). Each level gives you 4 stat points, which you can distribute through Power, Endurance, and Vigor. Power is for your attack strength. Endurance is for your health meter. Vigor is the chance for getting a critical hit or entering into Rage mode, determined by the difference between you and your opponent's Vigor. Each time you use a stat point, you also spend fight money. The more points you add to an attribute, the larger the sum of the fight money you have to spend.

Paul's Power Punch. Now with more flair and flash.

Naturally, the only way to accumulate these stats is to keep playing and leveling your character. Certain milestones such as leveling up, reaching a certain amount in fight money, points, number of times playing certain modes and wins in online mode give you bonus fight money or gift points.  Just by logging in, the game gives you different bonuses. Sometimes there is a weekend promo where they add multipliers for the points and fight money you get each fighting round.

This gives premium ticket buyers an unfair advantage. You can have up to 999 premium tickets and play all the various modes in the game, bypassing the counter to accumulate arcade or premium coins. In online mode, winning a round allows you to keep the ticket. You lose the ticket for losing a round, but you gain more fight money and experience/gift points. The game is free to play, but you pay to win.

Overall, Tekken Revolution is a solid game. It's Namco's way of bringing the arcade experience of yesteryears into our homes. That includes trash-talkers. The good thing is you can power block them online.

I'm done.