Tekken is also positively weird in it's gameplay and game mechanics. It's unfair, inconsistent, untraditional, and bold in many ways, but in a fun and intelligent way. Tekken is a prime example why having a game director who actually invented and cares about the game is so important. He knows what's good.
harada repeatedly has stated that the kind of rollback netcode 2d fighting games have is impossible for 3d fighting games. meanwhile, u can play tekken online on fightcade. also harada is supposedly the reason why the women in tekken's playable cast all have a identical bodytype (compared to street fighter having characters like Marisa)
@@AuntBibby who cares about body type in a video game any way? especially in a video game where everyone is roided out of their mind in the first place.
@@FGCfoof really? maybe I haven't played enough to make the distinction but it doesn't seem to bother me at least for now, I'll definitely keep it in mind. And yea King especially this time around beefed even more so then others up lmao his physique is godly.
Pat's insight into any random thing is always what I want. It's not just that he's a nerd who can't shut up about punch and kick, he has a particularly stark talent for finding important perspectives to consider things through.
It's been years since I first watched Pat's "How to get started with fighting games and have a nice time". I'm now watching this video with countless hours in Street Fighter, Guilty Gear, and now over 100 in Tekken 8 since its release in January, and I can confidently say that I am having a Nice Time with fighting games. Thanks, Pat!
I kept wondering throughout the video "where is he going with this" but now I understand, Tekken is a beautiful game to watch in motion with all it's mixed fighting styles
As a fighting game non-fan, Tekken has consistently been the only fighting game that I love to watch. I'm not even interested in Street Fighter matches, pro or no. But I'll ravenously watch ANY video of people playing Tekken. It's the only one that looks like a fight, with all the chaos & weird hit box fuckery that makes two flailing bodies fun to watch.
Man, the first 30 seconds have me HOOKED, Pat. I'm still a sucker for style vs. style competitions even though it's kinda bogus. The thing that has always been neatest about MMA is when unique discernable styles clash and we get to see the fun interactions. The unique real fighters who remain like Kyoji Horiguchi are true treasures.
pat i started to play fighting games right when ur video on how to play them and have a nice time came out. I don't know if i would have stuck with them without ur video but now they are basically all i play thank u for that
This video put my thoughts into beautiful, beautiful words. Id like to add one thing, growing up, I saw traditional martial arts as a cultural icon that represented different regions. Every nation has a flag, some variation of a dumpling, and a martial art. Which made me all the more excited to see Azucena announced because id get to see Peru represented not only by name but through the Rumi Maki inspirations in her fighting.
Lovely video. I think SoulCalibur does a similar job at attending to our teenage fantasy scenarios: "Who would win, a Samurai or a Knight? Or a guy with a long stick?"
Tekken will always be the game where I feel like Jet Li in Kiss of the Dragon. Specifically the scene where he fights some twins and one of them is a really good kickboxer. Jet adjusts mid fight to make the kickboxer only box him. It’s a fun movie! Great job with this video!
Always love a Pat video, especially on fighting games. Tekken's not only incredible for its homages to real martial arts, but is equally fascinating with its game systems compared to other fighting games. The Rock-paper-scissors with side-stepping, ducking, backdashing, and using evasive manoeuvres in general is so different from the much cleaner and calculated precise spacing and frame data of Street Fighter, while at the same time offering some of the most difficult but incredibly satisfying execution out of any fighting game. I love street fighter for its simple to understand, extremely hard to master formulas, but it doesn't outshine Tekken when it comes to how expressive a player is able to be.
Polygon, this is an awesome breakdown of why Tekken reigns supreme!" The historical context you provided was truly insightful. And that "I am always sliding" quote from Segal? Pure gold! 😃
Pat never change, love we got people like you in these big companies. Your passion is inspiring and you’re an excellent representative for the FGC to casuals
Thank you pat for another great fighting game video! I actually just got back into trying out FG since playing Soul Caliber and Tekken on my PSP back in my high school days. I love to see breakdowns like this and this was a wonderful insight into the mechanics and history of sport and games.
As much as I appreciate having the answer to anything available all the time, I do sometimes miss that golden age of schoolyard ignorance. That's where myths gestate, the maybe-space between a hard fact someone heard somewhere and the sixth or seventh retelling. And when those myths prove true - when you *do* meet Missingno and wind up with infinite rare candies, when that guy *did* shoot his father in the head with a crossbow at the public library - that just lends credence to the entire dreamy affair, bedazzling that infinite uncertainty with sparks of possibility; making imagination, if but for a second, touchable, actual.
I think this is partially why Tekken has such a wide casual appeal. The sandbox-y nature and the what-if fights make it fun for everyone. Like playing a Dragonball game to settle your debate about which character is stronger when we were kids
MMA has its specific context and circumstances which, in a competitive environment, impose selection pressures upon the participants that inevitably result in fair bit of convergent evolution. Back when people trained and fought to kill or die, though, you actually had a remarkable degree of variety within the practical boundaries imposed by human biomechanics and the available tools of offence and defence. ("Breaking fists on helmets is dumb" for ex.) People had some pretty pressing reasons to try and find ways to go about things better than the other guy, after all, and there were generally many ways to go about skinning any particular tactical cat when the only rule that actually applied was "do unto others before they do unto you".
I was disappointed that Pat didn't show Bryan or Devil Jin's soccer kicks in the segment where he talks about getting folks off the ground. That shit is brutal hahaha.
Thank You for voicing out one of the reasons I like Tekken! Laying on the ground for as long as you want! Never in my wildest thoughts I thought that some other soul loves this about Tekken let alone a content creator. Apart from the martial arts aspect, I've loved the input scheme of Tekken, the default of which is the most intuitive of all fighting games in my opinion. 2D fighters have fighters switch limbs when they change sides, & Virtua Fighter has open & closed stances which changes limbs. But Tekken? No matter which side of the screen a character is, the move comes out with the same limb & the attacks are readable in both cases. The default input scheme of Tekken makes it intuitive to figure out a substantial number of moves. For instance if a character has a string of down 1,2; most probably that character will bend down & then hit his left & right punches respectively. For me, Tekken is the ultimate martial arts fantasy !!!
I always find myself in that thumbnail situation when playing vs King as Steve lol. Takes me a while till I remember I can just stomp him or knuckle plow
Everything you commended Tekken for, can also be found in the unsung fighter, Dead Or Alive :) Additionally, I find its strikes-throws-holds system rewards adaptation and improvisation nicely, as opposed to memorizing and executing long combos which I just don't find that interesting.
my brother in christ, you and i are the only people on this planet who still remember that dead or alive is a fighting game franchise. even koei tecmo forgot. team ninja never knew to begin with
dead or alive was a really fun game, i was always a tekken player but dead or alive did takke hours of my life back in the ps2. all 3d fighting games ended up disappearing tho, soul calibur, dead or alive, that one weird mortal kombat in 3d ... only tekken remains.
Yeah, came to the comments to see this. I love Tekken but most of this stuff is true of any 3D fighting game. Like Virtua Fighter is the epitome of martial arts clashing
This was really interesting, thanks Pat. I've always considered the more martial arts-y fighting games to be a bit uninteresting compared to the character variety in Soul Calibur & Smash Bros, but this really opened my eyes to what makes them special.
I've tried so many fighting games and always have been bugged by the inability to choose how, or if, I want my character to stand up. It feels like such a simple thing coming from Tekken as my main game, but I use it in such ways that I can't train myself not to. Street Fighter and I think Mortal Kombat allow you to delay wake ups, but you can't just lay there. Tekken 8 has changed the system a bit to encourage player to get to back to neutral, but I'm still able to shut down my opponents offense with a toe kick, or even just laying there. It's always great to see someone whiffing moves cause they don't know their characters ground hitting attacks.
It's a good narrative but, aren't you going to mention virtua Fighter the more grounded Martial arts sim that tekken was made to directly compete with?
and as good as it is, it's really lacking on presentation. it's like kof, even if it has more technical depth than street fighter, it just lacks on character design and art direction. most people do not want to play the 'uglier' game.
12:06 - tell about Smash Bros what you want: it IS the best fighting game out there and it HAS the best hitboxes, even if they feel weird sometimes... They're WAY more accurate than what's shown here...
Such a good video! Although Virtua Fighter can't be said to out-think other games when it lacks the spacing mind games of other titles because of how it makes attack ranges work. With less to think about it's truly a game of hard reads, hard gambles, and precise defensive tech.
inoki wasn't allowed to wrestle ali he wasn't allowed to kick ali while standing up either so the only thing he could do was kick ali while laying down on the ground the rules were not in favour of inoki
Tekken has some of flat out best character design I’ve ever seen tho, and I’m a Street Fighter fan. I actually really don’t like the cartoony/realistic style SF6 went for, it’s got a lot of uncanny/corny elements about it.
UFC was the last company to get in on MMA Pride FC & Pancrase was where UFC ended up getting a lot of their fighters. People like Ken Shamrock, Royce Gracie, Alstair Overeem, Mirko Crocop, & Everyone's Favorite MMA Commenter (if you don't live in the US) Bas Rutten!!!!
everything you say in your intro is a strength for tekken imo. Guiltygear is too fast (everything is unreactable pretty much). mortal kombat is all about blood no substance. Virtual fighter.. idk sh*t about that game haha and well ok, streetfighter does have nice designs, but it feels clunky to play.
I've always said that treating "MMA Fighter" like a "style" in fiction is like calling "Health Inspector" a type of restaurant. The whole point is to test the quality of the thing it's involved with.
@@RDR911 Most of her shorts are indeed pretty meh and Pat definitely shines the brightest but I do think both Clayton and Simone put out inspired, interesting stuff.
Tekken is the reason I now believe I can take on a bear with my triangle hands.
Isn't this a bot that copied another comment?
"Joined 20 Feb 2024", 20 random subscribers without videos, 'Videos' linked to another website in the about...
Yeah, idk, must be real human
Polygon is crazy for liking a butt bot comment.
@@niklasw.1297 Hey, a robot fighting a bear is very Tekken
This is basically exactly what I want from a fighting game video
Hey I know you
omg king
Do a video on why tekken slaps hard right in the dick and balls area.
*Video-Essay master has entered the chat* @JacobGeller
*Nodding* Pat Gill.😊
Tekken is also positively weird in it's gameplay and game mechanics. It's unfair, inconsistent, untraditional, and bold in many ways, but in a fun and intelligent way.
Tekken is a prime example why having a game director who actually invented and cares about the game is so important. He knows what's good.
harada repeatedly has stated that the kind of rollback netcode 2d fighting games have is impossible for 3d fighting games. meanwhile, u can play tekken online on fightcade.
also harada is supposedly the reason why the women in tekken's playable cast all have a identical bodytype (compared to street fighter having characters like Marisa)
@@AuntBibby who cares about body type in a video game any way? especially in a video game where everyone is roided out of their mind in the first place.
@@FGCfoof really? maybe I haven't played enough to make the distinction but it doesn't seem to bother me at least for now, I'll definitely keep it in mind. And yea King especially this time around beefed even more so then others up lmao his physique is godly.
Struggling imagine a male character besides, like, jack with a unique body type, either
@@AuntBibby Doesn't fightcade use save states which Tekken 8 doesn't have the luxury of using?
Pat's insight into any random thing is always what I want. It's not just that he's a nerd who can't shut up about punch and kick, he has a particularly stark talent for finding important perspectives to consider things through.
It's been years since I first watched Pat's "How to get started with fighting games and have a nice time". I'm now watching this video with countless hours in Street Fighter, Guilty Gear, and now over 100 in Tekken 8 since its release in January, and I can confidently say that I am having a Nice Time with fighting games. Thanks, Pat!
You did this Pat, you opened the door to this fulfilling art form for so many new people looking this. You should be proud
it's already been years*?! how time flies
didn't the video come out like last year?
I kept wondering throughout the video "where is he going with this" but now I understand, Tekken is a beautiful game to watch in motion with all it's mixed fighting styles
Video about fighting games that mostly talks about the history of martial arts in the 90's? Now THIS is what a real video should be
As a fighting game non-fan, Tekken has consistently been the only fighting game that I love to watch.
I'm not even interested in Street Fighter matches, pro or no. But I'll ravenously watch ANY video of people playing Tekken. It's the only one that looks like a fight, with all the chaos & weird hit box fuckery that makes two flailing bodies fun to watch.
My hands are a triangle and I'm always sliding into these comments
Man, the first 30 seconds have me HOOKED, Pat. I'm still a sucker for style vs. style competitions even though it's kinda bogus. The thing that has always been neatest about MMA is when unique discernable styles clash and we get to see the fun interactions. The unique real fighters who remain like Kyoji Horiguchi are true treasures.
I think it is exactly that confrontation between different styles that drew me to Tekken too, although of course there is a strong dose of habit
pat i started to play fighting games right when ur video on how to play them and have a nice time came out. I don't know if i would have stuck with them without ur video but now they are basically all i play thank u for that
This video put my thoughts into beautiful, beautiful words.
Id like to add one thing, growing up, I saw traditional martial arts as a cultural icon that represented different regions. Every nation has a flag, some variation of a dumpling, and a martial art. Which made me all the more excited to see Azucena announced because id get to see Peru represented not only by name but through the Rumi Maki inspirations in her fighting.
Lovely video. I think SoulCalibur does a similar job at attending to our teenage fantasy scenarios: "Who would win, a Samurai or a Knight? Or a guy with a long stick?"
Tekken will always be the game where I feel like Jet Li in Kiss of the Dragon. Specifically the scene where he fights some twins and one of them is a really good kickboxer. Jet adjusts mid fight to make the kickboxer only box him. It’s a fun movie! Great job with this video!
Always love a Pat video, especially on fighting games. Tekken's not only incredible for its homages to real martial arts, but is equally fascinating with its game systems compared to other fighting games. The Rock-paper-scissors with side-stepping, ducking, backdashing, and using evasive manoeuvres in general is so different from the much cleaner and calculated precise spacing and frame data of Street Fighter, while at the same time offering some of the most difficult but incredibly satisfying execution out of any fighting game. I love street fighter for its simple to understand, extremely hard to master formulas, but it doesn't outshine Tekken when it comes to how expressive a player is able to be.
Polygon, this is an awesome breakdown of why Tekken reigns supreme!"
The historical context you provided was truly insightful.
And that "I am always sliding" quote from Segal? Pure gold! 😃
All the Polygon essayists are fantastic, but there's something about Pat's delivery and topics that are just so whimsical
love how lost Ali looked fighting Inoki. cause yeah, he realized and exploited a major weakness in Ali's abilities
Pat never change, love we got people like you in these big companies. Your passion is inspiring and you’re an excellent representative for the FGC to casuals
Tekken allows us to finally settle the ancient schoolyard debate of who would win between a kung fu guy and a dinosaur with boxing gloves.
I mean, they invited the "You'd actually just die if you trained and fought like this" guy to the matchup too. Looking at you, Miguel!
Thank you pat for another great fighting game video! I actually just got back into trying out FG since playing Soul Caliber and Tekken on my PSP back in my high school days. I love to see breakdowns like this and this was a wonderful insight into the mechanics and history of sport and games.
Fun fact Ali almost lost his leg as a result of that fight.
Always a good day when we get more Pat talking about fighting games
As much as I appreciate having the answer to anything available all the time, I do sometimes miss that golden age of schoolyard ignorance. That's where myths gestate, the maybe-space between a hard fact someone heard somewhere and the sixth or seventh retelling. And when those myths prove true - when you *do* meet Missingno and wind up with infinite rare candies, when that guy *did* shoot his father in the head with a crossbow at the public library - that just lends credence to the entire dreamy affair, bedazzling that infinite uncertainty with sparks of possibility; making imagination, if but for a second, touchable, actual.
I can watch Pat talk fighting games whilst crying of pure joy and comfort forever. Bless you Pat ❤u are my fgc.
I think this is partially why Tekken has such a wide casual appeal. The sandbox-y nature and the what-if fights make it fun for everyone. Like playing a Dragonball game to settle your debate about which character is stronger when we were kids
This progression from distinctive styles to a less distinctive hybrid is seen also in Avatar the Last Airbender to Korra.
MMA has its specific context and circumstances which, in a competitive environment, impose selection pressures upon the participants that inevitably result in fair bit of convergent evolution.
Back when people trained and fought to kill or die, though, you actually had a remarkable degree of variety within the practical boundaries imposed by human biomechanics and the available tools of offence and defence. ("Breaking fists on helmets is dumb" for ex.) People had some pretty pressing reasons to try and find ways to go about things better than the other guy, after all, and there were generally many ways to go about skinning any particular tactical cat when the only rule that actually applied was "do unto others before they do unto you".
Pat, I appreciate your videos on fighting/martial arts/wrestling so much. Thank you for making them.
the realest thing in this video is the tekken display with both steam and in game fps counter
I was disappointed that Pat didn't show Bryan or Devil Jin's soccer kicks in the segment where he talks about getting folks off the ground. That shit is brutal hahaha.
Or Julia’s ff3. When I hit the 5th one in a row I start to feel bad
-Pat
What a great vid. I never thought about fighting games this way! I only played MK but will play Tekken now.
as a lei main, this entire thing just made me miss my boy 😭
The guy who created Baki is the father of the girl who created Beastars.
Pat you better do more fighting game content or else I’ll be sad
Thank You for voicing out one of the reasons I like Tekken! Laying on the ground for as long as you want! Never in my wildest thoughts I thought that some other soul loves this about Tekken let alone a content creator. Apart from the martial arts aspect, I've loved the input scheme of Tekken, the default of which is the most intuitive of all fighting games in my opinion. 2D fighters have fighters switch limbs when they change sides, & Virtua Fighter has open & closed stances which changes limbs. But Tekken? No matter which side of the screen a character is, the move comes out with the same limb & the attacks are readable in both cases. The default input scheme of Tekken makes it intuitive to figure out a substantial number of moves. For instance if a character has a string of down 1,2; most probably that character will bend down & then hit his left & right punches respectively. For me, Tekken is the ultimate martial arts fantasy !!!
Pat's FGC videos fill the Core-A-Gaming hole in my heart
To quote Mike Tyson, "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth
For me 2d fighters just can't cut it in terms if being able to freely move and control a character.
Pat's got a real way with words when it comes to why digital kick-punching is so great.
Lei Wulong is my main since T2. The greatest fighting character created imo.
I always find myself in that thumbnail situation when playing vs King as Steve lol. Takes me a while till I remember I can just stomp him or knuckle plow
Everything you commended Tekken for, can also be found in the unsung fighter, Dead Or Alive :) Additionally, I find its strikes-throws-holds system rewards adaptation and improvisation nicely, as opposed to memorizing and executing long combos which I just don't find that interesting.
my brother in christ, you and i are the only people on this planet who still remember that dead or alive is a fighting game franchise. even koei tecmo forgot. team ninja never knew to begin with
I came here to mention it, the whole section on fighting from the ground especially is basically half of brad wong’s moveset
dead or alive was a really fun game, i was always a tekken player but dead or alive did takke hours of my life back in the ps2. all 3d fighting games ended up disappearing tho, soul calibur, dead or alive, that one weird mortal kombat in 3d ... only tekken remains.
Yeah, came to the comments to see this. I love Tekken but most of this stuff is true of any 3D fighting game. Like Virtua Fighter is the epitome of martial arts clashing
This was really interesting, thanks Pat. I've always considered the more martial arts-y fighting games to be a bit uninteresting compared to the character variety in Soul Calibur & Smash Bros, but this really opened my eyes to what makes them special.
Tekken has just the best feeling moves and grounded movement
Atleast Enoki’s hurtbox is the same as his character model. Not some janky big one.
comment for the machine
i love the machine
I've tried so many fighting games and always have been bugged by the inability to choose how, or if, I want my character to stand up. It feels like such a simple thing coming from Tekken as my main game, but I use it in such ways that I can't train myself not to. Street Fighter and I think Mortal Kombat allow you to delay wake ups, but you can't just lay there. Tekken 8 has changed the system a bit to encourage player to get to back to neutral, but I'm still able to shut down my opponents offense with a toe kick, or even just laying there. It's always great to see someone whiffing moves cause they don't know their characters ground hitting attacks.
THAT'S WHY THEY CALL IT THE ALI KICK?
Can't believe my TIL of the decade would come from this video.
It's a good narrative but, aren't you going to mention virtua Fighter the more grounded Martial arts sim that tekken was made to directly compete with?
Yeah but that game has been irrelevant for 15 years
and as good as it is, it's really lacking on presentation. it's like kof, even if it has more technical depth than street fighter, it just lacks on character design and art direction. most people do not want to play the 'uglier' game.
This video would make Core-A Gaming proud! Very well done
2:50 This is beautiful, what movie is this?
12:06 - tell about Smash Bros what you want: it IS the best fighting game out there and it HAS the best hitboxes, even if they feel weird sometimes... They're WAY more accurate than what's shown here...
Yes, give us the MMA history breakdown, Pat, you saucy minx
this video reminds me of the character dr. B from tekken 3.
or even gon that also abused hitboxes
@@devforfun5618or that Gon had two freakin fire breath long range attacks
@@devforfun5618 The farting little devil
In Sweden there is a style developed from some TKD vs Kung fu beef. They call it Allstyle.
fun fact:
i have played tekken 3 in my childhood
as i see, tekken has not changed XD
This is an excellent video - very well put together and a compelling discussion!
a title like this can only ever be a pat gill video
Another great video from Pat
Such a good video! Although Virtua Fighter can't be said to out-think other games when it lacks the spacing mind games of other titles because of how it makes attack ranges work. With less to think about it's truly a game of hard reads, hard gambles, and precise defensive tech.
really interesting stuff I had never heard, thanks for the vid
ayyyyy samurai cop clip nice touch
tbh the only reason im subscribed to Polygon is for the tekken content
What tekken does the best is movement and whiff punishments
inoki wasn't allowed to wrestle ali
he wasn't allowed to kick ali while standing up either
so the only thing he could do was kick ali while laying down on the ground
the rules were not in favour of inoki
Tekken has some of flat out best character design I’ve ever seen tho, and I’m a Street Fighter fan. I actually really don’t like the cartoony/realistic style SF6 went for, it’s got a lot of uncanny/corny elements about it.
More Pat
Thanks, great vid! I wanna play Tekken now
UFC was the last company to get in on MMA
Pride FC & Pancrase was where UFC ended up getting a lot of their fighters. People like Ken Shamrock, Royce Gracie, Alstair Overeem, Mirko Crocop, & Everyone's Favorite MMA Commenter (if you don't live in the US) Bas Rutten!!!!
Another banger, Pat.
0:09 Compelte disagree about SF character design
Awesome video! Thank you.
If you take out the "weirdest and most exciting" comment at the end, every pro here applies to Virtua Fighter as well
This video is fucking great
really good video !!
Excellent video
this is a great analysis
you should have your own channel on yt
i love tekkeennnnnn
great video!
And I'm always sliding
Talked about tekken for like 2 min in the whole video
thank you pat gill you are the only person I trust
I am so seen, I feel naked 😳
I don't know about you, but I'm always sliding.
Tekken 8 is amazing
on true!!
So is this the next channel that will be merked? Is Comcast less evil than WB?
This was great
everything you say in your intro is a strength for tekken imo.
Guiltygear is too fast (everything is unreactable pretty much). mortal kombat is all about blood no substance.
Virtual fighter.. idk sh*t about that game haha and well ok, streetfighter does have nice designs, but it feels clunky to play.
Not pats only friend at recess being a knock off wilson
🤝🤝🤝 more polygon fighting game videos 🤝🤝🤝
Virtua Fighter had better animations, better pacing and better "realism"... but Tekken DID have a bear... ok I see your point
'Better pacing' lol
Antonio Inoki, what a stinker.
I feel we could have cool irl fights if they just made laying on the ground an immediate DQ
can pat make a bad video? I'll let you know when i see it.
I've always said that treating "MMA Fighter" like a "style" in fiction is like calling "Health Inspector" a type of restaurant.
The whole point is to test the quality of the thing it's involved with.
Seeing the title: oh yeah, that's a Pat video for sure.
Only videos worth watching on the channel anymore. They’re trying too hard to make that tiktok TH-cam shorts chick BDG again.
so glad this is a universal experience
@@RDR911 Most of her shorts are indeed pretty meh and Pat definitely shines the brightest but I do think both Clayton and Simone put out inspired, interesting stuff.
@@Goatmaster-ek8rq I too have a fondness for britalist architecture so I always enjoy a Simone video