Tekken has been a very successful franchise since the release of the first game in 1994 and its decedents have spread across nearly all the gaming platforms. With the release of Tekken Card Tournament, the game goes global allowing you to play with anyone in the world.

The format of the game has changed little over the years presenting you with a one on one fighting experience. To keep things fresh, the game has been juxtaposed with other genres so it’s little wonder that we finally come to the Tekken card game.

The first thing you’ll notice is that a whole bunch of your favourite characters make a return. The gameplay is turn based, with each of the players choosing one of three options, a lot like rock, paper, scissors, but in the game these translate to "Focus", which allows you to take another card from the pack, up to a maximum of five; "Block", a self-evident defence play; and "Strike", you attacking move, but this will use up all your cards. Depending on which cards are played determines your success in a particular fight. It feels a little random because you cannot get a look at your opponent’s cards, which may lead you to pick up a new card only for your opponent to successfully kick you in the head.

To further complicate matters the cards are stacked in a hierarchy of rareness, obviously the more rare the more powerful. So, like many card games, as much thought has to go into how you construct your deck and how you plan to lay them down. Added to this are restrictions on how big a deck you can have and the combinations allowed, presumably to stop players just buying the best cards in the game and trouncing their online foes. This part of the game has a lot of depth and skill is required to build a winning deck. Don’t worry too much as the game comes with a comprehensive tutorial.

The game has two differing currencies, Gold (in-game currency) and Credits (bought currency), which can go towards the acquisition of cards as well as allowing you to pay to combine cards to create more powerful ones. You get gold for winning matches and there is a microtransaction system for buying credits, although if you’re persistent cards will randomly drop.

In play the time limit between each turn keeps the pace up and progress through the bouts gains you experience and access to more stuff.

It’s a decent game, although the online version is superior, it’s just a shame it relies so heavily on actual cash purchases to make real progress, which can quickly mount up making this a potentially expensive pastime.

6

Charles Packer