We've seen a sudden outburst of affection for classic fighting games recently, helped in no small part by Capcom's efforts to revive its '90s titles for a new audience.
You'd assume there would be just as much demand for a collection related to Namco's legendary Tekken series, but franchise director Katsuhiro Harada has poured cold water on such hopes.
Speaking to the TheGamer alongside designer Michael Murray, Harada says he doesn't think there's the same kind of desire for old 3D fighting games as there is for 2D ones:
It's different for [2D] fighting games because 3D fighting game players tend to play the latest installment. Starting from early on, it was polygon character models that really pushed the edge of graphics at the time. So when you see it later on, it doesn't look nearly as impressive as it used to. 2D fighting games, because they were just sprite characters and stuff, they don't seem to age graphically that much. And that's not the main reason people played it in the first place.
Murray does give a little more hope but is still sceptical that older Tekken games would be much fun to play today:
If it's a drastically different gameplay change, like a Tag 2 compared to 7 or 8, maybe that's something I would probably pick up and play for a little bit. Or maybe the Tekken Force mode or Devil Within or something like that. But I wouldn't even see myself picking up Tekken 3 and playing against friends for an extended period of time. So yeah, there is a difference we feel between the 3D fighters and 2D fighters in that respect.
What do you think? Do 3D fighting games really age worse than 2D ones? Would you be willing to pay good money for a collection of classic Tekken titles? Let us know with a comment below.
Would you like to see a Tekken Classic Collection? (541 votes)
- Yes
- No
- I don't really care