An Open Letter to Katsuhiro Harada

Mr. Harada,

My name is Brad (OtakuDante). I'm what you'd call a serious fighting game enthusiast, and fan. I've played many fighters in my time including that of the TEKKEN series. As a long time fan of the "TEKKEN" series I have followed your work rather closely, and have bought each release. For the most part the experience of playing TEKKEN has been fun, and has been something I've been glad to return to on a regular basis. From 'Tekken 3' onward I often times got lost in the local competitive aspects of the game, and even got into some of it's latter online offerings for the PS3 & Xbox 360. There's no doubt that you, and your development staff are gifted in the areas of fighting game creation, and that you know how to make a proper fighting game. With that being said though this latest free-to-play release on the PS3 has become an experience not worth revisiting, in my personal opinion. The online is overrun with the worst sorts of gamers who are all intent on winning in the cheapest way possible. This cheating opportunity which I speak of is available to them for several reasons. One reason in particular is that the "free-to-play" format often times attracts gamers other than your tried & true fans. Online gaming is severely competitive now, and younger, more annoying gamers often times get into competitive online games just cheat their way to the top of the leaderboards.


There's nothing quite as frustrating as getting beat by an inexperienced child who gets lucky by spamming moves, and button mashing his/her way to the top. Getting beat by hackers, and lagswitchers also serves as swift kick to the ego. I myself have always been one to abide by the provided move lists, and the combos that are listed therein. Lately though I've been reduced to playing cheaply myself. Often times when being overpowered by the trolls, hackers, and spamming children I'll change my regular Kazuya into Devil Kazuya, and spam them to death with my eye lasers, and power attacks just to teach them a lesson. Do I feel good about doing this? No. I want to play the game fairly, and in the manner it was meant to be played in. Can I do that? No. The fact is with your new dash attacks in place ( I think they are called " Super Arts"), and characters who are easy to exploit the fun TEKKEN experience I once knew as a young gamer is lost.

The second reason your latest installment of the franchise is failing is due to the fact that the roster of characters you have allowed into the game caters to the gamers who are all about an easy victory. Characters like the recently released Christie, and Devil Jin make it easy for these kinds of players to exploit the game's fighting mechanics. In a 3D environment there's nothing as annoying as a character who uses the Capoeira fighting style. Their wild dance-like moves are hard to read in a 3D setting, and are often times unavoidable. As far as Devil Jin goes his flying capabilities, and laser shooting make a mockery of 3D fighting game mechanics. I should also mention Lili who launches you into the air making your once heavy body fall like a feather. I do realize that you were probably trying to be creative with the addition of such characters, but I think excluding them in future TEKKEN releases should be one of your top priorities.That of course is my own opinion though.

Another thing that bothers me is the lagswitching that goes on in the online modes of "TEKKEN Revolution". As I mentioned earlier the worst sorts of gamers now flock to this game to troll others, and cheat their way to the top. Often times such cheap victories happen, because they are tampering with the lag in order to gain an advantage over another player. It is evident to me that you, and your staff put into place a connection status icon, so that players would know if lag is a problem within an online match. That's a good thing. I think you should take it a step further though. For example, if you were to void a match where one of the player's connection status was fluctuating between 1- 4 bars, and not award either player a victory it would be a win-win situation, and one that would likely deter other would be lagswitchers from cheating their way to the top.I think you're capable of doing something like that, and a feature like that would definitely help pave the way for a better online TEKKEN experience.

For now those are my main complaints about "TEKKEN Revolution". I hope that you take the time to read, and perhaps respond to this open letter. As I said, I'm one of TEKKEN's long time return fans, and would hate to see the game fall victim to the hackers, and cheaters who are ruining the online gaming experiences of today. I hope that TEKKEN for the next-gen is far better than this latest installment of the series, and that you impress us many times over with your future releases.

Best Regards,
Brad (OtakuDante)