Here's where you can contribute your thoughts and opinions for the Tekken series for potential inclusion in the forthcoming podcast.

A friendly reminder that where the feedback for the podcast is concerned, we love it - but keeping it brief is appreciated. We do want to include a breadth of opinions where appropriate, but no-one wants a discussion podcast that’s mostly reading out essays. Better to save yourself time and cut to the chase if you can.

I don't have a great deal to say about the Tekken series, beyond them being something of a mainstay of my childhood gaming life. Tekken 2 was one of the first PlayStation games I played courtesy of the demo disk, and the future entries into the series were always at friends' houses. My overriding memory is that my sibling (with that unshakeable authority that an older sibling has when you're a kid) told me that all of the Tekken characters were real people who had given the license for their likeness to the games, like how footballers would for a FIFA game. I believed this unquestioningly for a much longer time than I can justify.

If Michiel's on this one, I imagine he could guess that my TEKKEN main is Bob. I don't know what pulls me to these round fighters, but I played Birdie in Street Fighter V and Wario in Super Smash Bros. from Brawl onwards, so the pattern continues.

Unlike Birdie and Wario, I'm not actually able to do much with Bob. A lot of it is my lack of TEKKEN experience, given that I'm more accustomed to 2D fighters, but Bob's also not terribly easy to pick up and play. He's got follow-up attacks to his follow-up attacks, he's got pretty thorough combos that requires practice I don't have time for, and he's lacking the one thing I turn to obese brawlers for: a big dumb attack that feels satisfying to land.

But he's rotund and silly and says things like "speed and WEIGHT!" with deathly seriousness so I can't see myself playing as anyone else. My fingers are crossed he'll show up in TEKKEN 8 eventually, but for now we'll have to (speed and) wait.

Given the fact that fighting games are one of my lesser preferred genres, and even within that Tekken ranks pretty low on my list of those games I do still enjoy, it's fair to say I'm not the biggest Tekken fan in the world.

This wasn't always the case. Tekken 2 was the game I got along with my PS1 back in the 90s, a time which coincided perfectly with the proliferation of games consoles in nightclubs. I spent so long playing that game at home that even in a club, at 4am, barely able to see the controller in my hands as reality warped around me, I was still able to remember various ten hit combos and obliterate anyone who challenged me on the game. Good times. The best times, in fact.

When Tekken 3 came out and was almost, to my eyes, arcade perfect, I bought it immediately and really enjoyed that game too, along with all the new mini-games included in the package. I particularly enjoyed the scrolling brawler style variant of the game, Tekken Force.

Over the years I became a bit bored with the series. It never seemed to evolve in the same way Street Fighter did, but I did quite enjoy the Street Fighter X Tekken game I had on Vita for a while. It's not a series I still play, and although I would never consider buying any of the new games, I do have a lot of nostalgia for those early titles, particularly on the PS1. A combination of right place, right time, and a lot of fun memories right there.

Growing up as a kid in the 90s, I half envied my N64-owning mates and the dynamic plumber they got to roleplay. But of course PlayStation had its own mascot, a spiky-haired, topless creature who could jump and spin his way to victory. I am of course talking about Jin Kazama. As others here have alluded to, Namco inadvertently made the ultimate game for a 9 year old - an electrifying, moreish fighting game, easy to pick up but tricky to master, filled with bears and dinosaurs and nonsense back stories of betrayals and devil genes. It was pure joy for young me and my young mates, with the versus and team battle modes in particular becoming prime sleepover activities. The most popular I have ever been, and probably ever will be, was the day I finally unlocked Doctor B on Tekken 3, and had kids at school queuing up to copy my memory card. While the series never hit these peaks for me personally, it holds a place in my heart, and listening to the Tekken 2 and 3 soundtracks now is guaranteed to give me a nostalgia trip.

Seeing Tekken 2 and Wipeout 2097 running on demo machines in major high street retailers (remember them?!) circa 1996 was the inspiration I needed to trade in a metric tonne of SNES games for an original PlayStation and these two 32-bit behemoths. And while, in hindsight, I deeply regret flogging off what would now make for a tidy inheritance, I did enjoy all of those texture mapped polygons, particularly in the form of King, Tekken's jaguar-masked grappler. I owned 2, 3 and 5 in the series, and but I would be lying if I said I truly loved them - at least not in the way I do the Street Fighter games. Most of my time was spent gnarled in frustration as a friend or brother would poke away with Law or Howarang while I was failing to pull off a powerbomb for the umpteenth time.

My experience with Tekken is extremely limited but one memory that really stuck out to me was that it was the first game I ever played for the Playstation back when my cousins had this new shiny console in their house when we visited one evening. I remember my jaw dropped at the FMV intro and convinced me videogames were entering an exciting new era. I also remembered the intro freaking me out because Yoshimitsu looked quite disturbing in those graphics. The actual game I don’t remember much at all, funnily enough.

This changed a few years later when I was playing Tekken 3. Now me and my mates were either taking turns in the arcade mode or fighting each other. Fighting in 3D was such a different experience from Street Fighter 2 and sidestepping added an extra layer to avoiding attacks that could not be done in previous game generations. For me though, the highlight was the characters such as Eddy, Doctor B., Jack as well as weirdos like Mokujin, Kuma/Panda and Gon. This was always a fun time to spend an evening with friends and was a title that was badass as well as being unafraid to indulge in silliness every now and then.

The only other Tekken I played was Tekken 4 but I remember nothing about it only that I found it really lacking in content compared to 3 so was disappointed in it overall. Again that may not be the case as it was so long ago but the fact that Tekken 3 was even further back and I have far more vivid memories tells me that 4 made a much smaller impact on me than most other PS2 games at the time.

TWR: 3 best Tekken

Growing up in Denmark in the 90s, Tekken was THE fighting game series. Tekken 2 was popular, starting with a fabled PS1 demo disc where I must’ve sunk many hours into the games two-character showcase, and I still remember peoples cries of foul play during the full game whenever someone who knew how to trigger Devils’ laser beams came along.

But Tekken 3 was a full on phenomenon. Everyone wanted to know how to trigger the super moves and unlock the games various secrets, and at after-school clubs it was in constant demand.I think the games presentation was a huge factor, as the default characters came off as “real” rather than “cartoony”, while things also being bloodless and polygonally chunky enough that parents weren’t squeamish about the game.
But I also think the games offbeat personality helped a lot, as there were all sorts of eye catching weirdos off to the side of the “normal” dudes. I certainly gravitated quickly towards Yoshimitsu, because his ridiculous moves were surprisingly easy to master, and seeing my opponents frustration as I used my sword as a helicopter or a pogo stick, or teleported and healed myself, never got old. And of course everyone eventually wanted to know how to get the weird little farting dinosaur. I doubt anyone cared about the actual story of the game but people would still gather to watch character endings because they were fun and pretty little pre-rendered vignettes. I remember being disappointed that Tekken Tag Tournament featured no story at all, but on the flip side it had Tekken Bowling, which, much like Tekken Ball, I possibly sunk as much time into multiplayer-wise as the fighting itself.

Tekken 4 was a major comedown for the series for me, and I remember it mostly for having loads of Walls, and a disappointing lack of end-of-campaign monster opponents. Tekken 5 was an improvement on both these counts and also allowed you to play dress up with the characters. It gave me everything I felt I wanted from a “Next Gen Tekken” to the degree that I haven’t kept up with the franchise since. It’s moment in the culture was well and truly over.

Still, when I saw a delightfully smirking Kazuya join the Smash Bros roster years later I couldn’t help be excited. For most people my generation, odds are high they have strong opinions on whether using Eddie in Tekken 3 is fair. My very much non-gamer wife still knows who Ling Xiaoyu is, decades after maining her in casual gaming sessions. And a few months ago, I got a call from my father in law who wanted to know If I had experience with Playstation 2’s and the saving of games, because his grandchildren had dusted off Tekken 3, and were frustrated they couldn’t retain the characters they’d unlocked. I can’t wait to show them the farting dinosaur.

For whatever reason, Tekken 3 grabbed hold of my generation in a way no other fighting game did, at least for a while, and if I ever end up buying a modern Sony console odds are I will check out Tekken 8, if only to see the apparent blowout conclusion of the Mishima family feud.