Killer Feature
66 / wfmag.ccTekkenIt never gets old, being told you’re great
rom day one, Tekken has tried to make sure you
feel good about winning. Not just battering your
opponent into unconsciousness – wow, games
really do desensitise you – but by acknowledging
out loud when you only just win a fight. I’m not
claiming Namco’s classic series is the only one to have done it- I’ve fond memories of Street Fighter acknowledging a cheesy
victory with a hunk of fromage – but Tekken has a special place
in my heart because of one word: great.
You’re there, one-on-one with your
opponent, thwacking each other in the face
for the chance to reign victorious in the Iron
Fist Tournament. It’s not going so well, with
said opponent doing more thwacking than
you. You’re on the cusp of losing, one more superpowered
kick to the chin and you’re out forever – you have to fight
back. Block, reverse, throw, dodge, jab-jab-jab – slowly you
turn it around before hitting King’s massively overpowered
(in the early games) Frankensteiner for the victory. And there
it is, the announcer barking for all gathered to hear: “Great.”
It’s not triumphant, it’s not bathed with exclamatory passion
or squawked like a YouTuber saying hello. It’s just stated.
A fact to be observed, entered for the records. What you just
did then was great. You nearly lost, but you didn’t, and that is
great. You performed great, and the faceless voice just can’t
keep himself confined to calling round numbers and when
someone has been knocked out – what you did was so good
he had to tell you about it. Great.
In the world of fighting games – and I profess to be no
expert here – there’s a focus on the tightness of competition.
Close bouts, epic comebacks, unexpected victories –
they all weave a tapestry and tell a story in microcosm.
Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat – and vice versa – is
a celebrated outcome, one that highlights an individual’s
skill just as much as it shows the shortcomings of a felled
opponent. I doubt that much thought went into Tekken’s
design, beyond a thought process of ‘we
should add something in to acknowledge
close-fought bouts’, but it still applies. It’s not
just the announcer saying it – we’re all
thinking it: when a victory comes with just
a sliver of health remaining, when all hope
seems lost, it really is great.
For some, the announcer’s finest moment in any Tekken
game was his similarly-intoned call of ‘Chicken’ when picking
up a roasted carcass to supplement your health in the third
game’s Tekken Force Mode. These people wouldn’t be wrong
per se, but the call of the clucker for me will never carry
the weight – the importance – of the round-ending, battle-
winning great.
In victory, it’s a small boost to your self-esteem; your
efforts recognised, as well as an audio highlight of the fact
that you had so little health left. In defeat, it’s a slap in the
face, as though our announcer is stating the fact of what you
resolutely are not. Great. What a word. What a call. What a
way to end a round.F
“What you did was so
good he had to tell you
about it. Great”NAMCO / 1994-ON / ARCADE, PLAYSTATION, MULTITekken