A few days before Christmas of 2016, game developer Namco
announced that their free to play fighter, Tekken Revolution, would be shutting
down on March 20, 2017. I suppose that after a nearly four year run on now ailing last gen equipment, it only makes sense that they’d pull the plug.
I understand why this has to happen, but it doesn’t mean
I like it.
During the days leading up to Tekken Revolution’s surprise
release on June 11, 2013, I remember thinking that I was really hankering for a
new Tekken game. Tekken Tag Tournament 2 wasn’t even two years old at that
point and the time between Tekken games – at least in the post-PlayStation 1
era – can be measured in half decades. So you can imagine my utter glee when
Namco announced in June 2013 that they’d be releasing a new Tekken game, for
free, in just days.
Sure enough, Namco delivered a (nearly) full featured
Tekken, as promised. Basically, the PlayStation 3 exclusive game was a stripped
down Tekken Tag 2, ripping most assets directly from the older game but adding
new, dubsteppy tunes.
Players were rewarded with experience points after each
battle, and upon leveling up, they could upgrade their fighter’s power, endurance,
and vigor. This was the most controversial aspect of the game, allowing some
players to win simply because they were able to purchase more coins and thus,
gain more experience points.
Though a lot of hardcore Tekken players bashed Revolution
for its simplified gameplay and emphasis on attracting new and inexperienced
players, it felt fresh to me. It distilled the Tekken formula to its core, forcing people out of their arcade mode comfort zone and into player vs. player
via the unique token system.
Each player started with two arcade tokens and five PvP
tokens, and as they burned though them, the tokens would slowly regenerate. If you
ran out, no problem: just watch other people fight it out for a while until you
regenerate some tokens, or spend a few bucks to get some premium coins. Reportedly,
this mechanic was supposed to emulate an arcade-style, “I got next!” atmosphere.
I’m not sure how well it succeeded in that, but it sure was fun. I know I ponied
up at least $20 over the years, hungry for “just one more match.”
Tekken Revolution came at a time when I sorely needed it.
In early 2013, I had left home for the first time since college, trading my
parent’s rent free house for a single room in a shady neighborhood,
the other bedroom occupied by my cousin-turned-roommate and his wife-to-be. The
first week I lived there, the cops towed my car because, they claimed, the
snowplow couldn’t get past it, despite there being no snow the night before. My
ex-fiancé had left only a few months ago, and my new girlfriend lived three or
four hours away by train. And by day, I suffered through a new job that kept me
hours late most days, doing the work of two people with the patience of three.
Despite unopened copies of great retail games sitting on
my shelf, I’d come home after work lock myself in my room with Tekken
Revolution and a half pint of vodka. When the tokens ran out, I’d watch other
people fight in battle/chat rooms I created with titles like “Sell You Children”
and “Baby Stabbin’ Dudes.” And when the liquor ran out, sometimes I’d stumble
down the street to the local saloon for a nightcap or three. One time on the
way to the bar, I watched a kid, maybe 16 years old, get wailed on by at least
four other teenagers. He wasn’t hurt too bad, but he seriously had no idea why
they were hitting him. I went inside the adjacent convenience store (we called
it “Skeevymart”) and bought him a cold ice tea to hold on his injuries, but
when I came back out, he and his assailants had disappeared into the night.
Now it’s four years later, and the crumby apartment in
the shady town is lightyears in the past. I married that girlfriend of mine,
and now instead of spending my weekends going back and forth on the Long Island
Rail Road, I spend them on the couch watching my ten month old son. And when I
do get a chance to play video games, it’s not vodka I’m swigging, but diet
cola. In a companywide reorganization about two years ago, my director title
was lost in the shuffle. But my paygrade is the same and my responsibilities
are much more reasonable.
And yet, hearing that Tekken Revolution theme song
thrusts me into that small, poorly ventilated bedroom, and jumping online with
my powered up Kazuya brings back the little bit of happiness I felt during a
difficult time. I remember the sights and smells of that low rent neighborhood,
and the summer sun setting to the sounds of victory and defeat on the small
screen. I remember that kid who kept asking why he was being beaten, and the
voice of a girl behind me yelling, “You KNOW why!” I remember the guilt of
ignoring my roommates, the burn of the vodka in my throat, and the numb joy of
just me and the game.
I guess four years isn’t a lot of time in the scheme of
things, but I regret that I never got all the characters or had a chance to power
up most of the ones I did. I regret that I never unlocked Eliza the narcoleptic
vampire, earning about a quarter of the 20,000 “blood seals” required to get
her. And I regret that after this weekend, I’ll never irk out another tough
victory in a tense Revolution match, the way I did so many nights back in the
day, before passing out with the television on and the controller haphazardly
tossed next to me on the bed.
Like Namco’s other free to play fighting game, Soulcalibur:
Lost Swords, Tekken Revolution is another causality in the ageing world of the
PlayStation 3. Last year I bought copies of Resistance 1 and 2 because they
were only a buck each at GameStop, and found them to be fun. But out of the
box, the online components to both games (and Resistance 3 as well) had already
been shut down. That’s dozens of trophy opportunities, game modes, and hours of
playtime gone forever.
I guess it’s just in my nature to morn lost games like Tekken
Revolution, the ones most people moved on from years ago, the ones I can’t just
pluck off my shelf when I’m feeling nostalgic. Reader(s) of this blog might remember
my multipart series on the curiosity that was PlayStation Home. And like
PlayStation Home, I hope to be there when Tekken Revolution breathes its last.
I owe that much to my old friend.
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