Tekken 5 sort of pretends that Tekken 4 never happened. The previous installment introduced a handful of position-change moves that weren’t terribly well received. Tekken 5 takes a back-to-basics approach and removes those moves, making for a game that feels and plays more like the classic Tekken 3 did. The uneven floors you’d sometimes find in Tekken 4 are also gone. Some arenas do have walls, however, and you can still use these to set up some interesting combos. In short, Tekken 5 might not be a total reinvention of the series, but considering just how well it plays now, if Tekken had been rebuilt from the ground up it would likely have been a huge mistake. The fighting in Tekken 5 is some of the best fighting available in 3D or 2D, and its multiple levels of depth give beginners enough flashy moves to quickly feel comfortable playing it, while intermediate and expert players can dig deeper and deeper to find more interesting (and damaging) techniques.

The main single-player mode of play in Tekken 5 is the story mode. This mode takes you through a handful of fights, starting with some still frames and voice-over to help you understand what each individual fighter is fighting for. Along the way, you’ll square off with some fighters that are tied to that story, giving you some pre- and post-fight dialogue. When you reach the story’s conclusion, you are given some static screens with text and a full-fledged, prerendered ending for each character. Tekken’s prerendered endings have always been one of the most memorable aspects of the series, and this collection of occasionally serious but often hilarious endings are among the series’ best. It’s a fun look at the characters that you don’t normally get in the context of a fighting game, and helps give the impression that whoever made Tekken 5 must have had a lot of fun along the way.

Tekken 5 has many of the same character-customization options found in Virtua Fighter 4. You can alter most of the characters (the inability to customize the wooden training dummy Mokujin seems like a missed opportunity for comedy, though) using currency you earn as you keep playing. Some of the changes you can make are simple color tweaks to the characters’ outfits, but you can also pick up accessories, such as sunglasses, necklaces, or a basket full of fish for kung-fu master Wang’s back. Each character has unique customization options, and the options are different for each of a character’s two primary costumes. Some characters also have a third costume that can be purchased, and some of these are just new outfits. Capoiera mistress Christie’s third costume is an entirely different (though obviously familiar) character, who gets his own story mode intro and ending when selected.

Minimum system requirements
* CPU: 2.0Ghz Pentium IV
* RAM: 512MB
* Video Card: 128MB 2.0 Shader
* Hard Disk: 100MB free space
* Operating System: XP/Vista/Seven with DirectX 9

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