Namco's highly anticipated third installment to their Tekken series
arrived at Namco's Wonderpark arcade in Milplitas, California.  The
machine was a very early beta version (rumor at the arcade was that it
was only 60% complete).  Only nine characters were selectable: Yoshimitsu,
Ling Xiaoyu, King, Paul Phoenix, Forrest Law, Jin Kazama, Nina Williams,
Lei Wulong, and Hwoarang.  There were moves listed on the cabinet for
a tenth character named Eddie Gordo (whose mug shot is featured in
many Tekken 3 website previews.

Basic gameplay remained intact from Tekken 2.  It seemed based on my
6 hours of play on the machine that all of the old characters kept
their basic moves.  The hand-to-hand portion of the combat still 
consists of counter, major counters, and reversals for select 
characters.  Two new features (which all characters have) are
the side step and the quick rise.

The side step is performed by simply tapping the joystick up or down
once.  This motion is contrary to the rumor that the dodge is a
double tap as in Soul Edge.  The quick rise is clearly a move put
in to help characters who constantly get pummeled on the ground
by the "run-in-and-kick-them-on-the-ground" type of style.  If you
press any button as you hit the ground, you will instantly bounce
back up.

Here is a breakdown of the characters (both old and new):

1) Yoshimitsu was the least played of the nine characters.  I didn't
notice any change in his moves, but the few people who used Yoshi 
only repeated a few basic attacks.  He seems to look less and less
human in every installment of the Tekken series (as opposed to
King, who is looking more and more human).  The skull face mask
he wore in the first two games now looks like it is part of his
head.  It reminds me of the queen alien from Aliens or the caged
alien in Indendence Day.

2) Ling Xiaoyu is a Chinese female whose outfits most resemble
Pai's outfits in Virtua Fighter 3.  I selected Xiaoyu the most,
and got reasonably comfortable with her moves.  Xiaoyu has at
least three different fighting stances.  The first is the 
standard, standing up and facing forward stance.  The second is
the standing up and facing backward stance (I'm not sure how I
got into this stance).  The third (my favorite) is a crounching
stance.  She plants her front leg straight out in front, and she
bends backwards, putting most of her weight on the back leg. 
She has a different set of moves from this position, and she
automatically ducks under high and medium level attacks.  I
don't believe she can block low attacks from this position
(unconfirmed).  I can't haven't used her enough to be able
to fairly assess her strengths, but most of the moves listed
on the cabinet suffer from a poor damage-to-move ratio.  I'll
post more after I play with her some more.

3) The new King seems to be based on the old King, not the old
Armor King.  He has a few new moves which qualify him as the 
most improved character (IMHO).  He has a reversal, which is
performed like Nina's (B+LP+RK or B+RP+LK).  I only used it
once, but others at the arcade reported that they could only
seem to reverse kicks.  King also has two new throws:  He can
throw opponents in the defensive crouch and he can throw 
opponents who are laying on the ground.  I'm not sure about
the joystick motions, but some reported that the crouch
throw was D/F+LP+LK.  It seems that King's LP, RP, LP 
combination (used to start his 10 string) has been weakened.
The first two punch come out so slowly that he can almost
be countered on reflex.

4) Paul Phoenix is still a very powerful character.  He was
my primary character in Tekken 2, and it seems that they
haven't changed him a lot.  He has aged well and now sports
the middle-aged beard.  His Phoenix Smasher (QCF+RP) is still
very effective:  It does close to 50% damage as a major 
counter.  I noticed at least one new move: (QCF+LP) which 
does sort of a rushing elbow move that ends in a float.

5) Forrest Law is basically Marshall Law with a few more
variations on the flip kick (like that's what we really 
needed: an even more unpredictable button-mashing Law).  He
was a pretty popular character.

6) Jin Kazama, suppposedly the son of the deceased Jun
Kazama and Kazuya Mishima, has inherited moves from both
of his parents.  Based on how he was played, I can best
describe him has Kazuya with the Can-Can kick and a reversal.

7) Nina Williams seemed almost completely unchanged.  I could
not discover any new moves with her.  (In one of her outfits,
she looks _exactly_ like Sarah Bryant in VF3.  With tight
black pants and a cut off shirt).

8) Lei Wu Long was very frustrating to fight against.  He is
still very fast, but he has some new moves which are difficult
to see coming.  He also seems to be drunk, as he swaggers
exactly like Shun Di from VF2 and VF3.  One guy had a 29 game
winning streak using mostly three different attack, which
varied high, medium, and low attacks quite quickly.  (He was
pretty upset when I eeked out a victory with Ling Xiaoyu to
prevent his streak reaching 30).  :)

9) Hwoarang is a derivative of Baek Doo San from Tekken 2.  
One interesting thing about Hwoarang is he can switch his
stance (from right foot forward to left foot forward).  
Not only does he look like a boxer dancing around the ring,
but he has different moves depending on which stance he
is using.

So how do the graphics compare to the old Tekken?  I would
say that the improvement from Tekken 2 to Tekken 3 is
much greater than from the first to the second.  The
backgrounds seem to be contructed of polygons, but you
can never reach them (i.e. no ring-outs).  How is 
this accomplished?  The ring in which the character fight is
a scrolling, repeated texture, which always keeps the 
characters in the center.  Unfortunately when the camera
rotates around the fighters, you can see where the
floor texture is sliding past the polygonal background.

The character graphics are much improved:  Nina's face
no longer looks like it was constructed from Legos.
The game is still running at a high frame rate (I 
assume 60 fps), so the character animation is as 
smooth as the first two.

In summary: I would suggest practicing your Tekken 2
characters (Paul, Nina, Law, Lei, Kazuya, and Baek) because
the moves and the 10-stringers are almost the same.

I will post more information after I play the game again
(probably on Monday).

[MONDAY]

I have logged another 10 hours of gameplay over the past two days on the
beta machine at the Namco arcade in Milpitas, CA.  Here are some more
thoughts about the game:

An interesting thing happened this evening.  A local Tekken 2 player
began to play Tekken 3 and amassed a 30+ game winning streak using 
Paul Phoenix.  He used all of the same strategies from TK2, including
his excellent counters and his many L,M attacks.  About four or five
people who were playing against became *really* angry that he was using
TK2 strategy to play TK3.

Earlier in the day a few Nina's dominated the machine with the same
style of play popular duing the Tekken 2 era.  These seasoned players,
who were using characters they were familiar with, made it really 
difficult for me to learn the new character (Ling Xiaoyu).  
Conclusion: the old characters can be played using old strategies and 
Tekken 2 players have a big advantage.  (There is no VF3 style "fuzzy 
logic" in TK3, AFAIK).

I noticed a few people asked about the audio in the game:  In 
the version we were playing, there was a very menacing 
announcer which really added a dark mood to the game.  He reminded
of the announcer from MK2, who always used to give me the chills.
I didn't really concentrate on the music because the fighting sounds
were much louder.  (Wait until you hear Ling Xiaoyu's death 
scream for the first time:  It practically can be heard all the 
way across the arcade).  Many characters have new sounds: like 
Yoshimitsu's high pitched whine and King's increased number of
cat-like growls.

I'm not sure what to think of Tekken 3 yet.  It is definitely a
beautiful game (can it really be ported to the Playstation?), but
I am concerned that the gameplay has not changed enough from 
Tekken 2 to interest new players.  I will reserve judgment in
this area until I get a wider sampling of gameplay.  It is very
likely that it seemed like we were playing Tekken 2 because that's
the only way the players knew how.  I tried to stir the mixture
by playing Ling Xiaoyu (who is not a derivative of any previous
Tekken character), but I was alone in my efforts.  Most people
stuck with Paul, Nina, Law, King, and Lei, using the strategies
from Tekken 2.

If I get a chance to play the machine again this week (before
they take it away), I'll try to write a move list for Ling
Xiaoyu.  There are about 8 moves listed on the cabinet and about
5 or 6 that I've figure out.  (Though I still can not find a 
10-string for her).

If you have any questions, please feel free to send me some
email.

--
Yuji Garett Higaki			Sun Microsystems
caballo@rescomp.stanford.edu		yuji.higaki@eng.sun.com
Department of Electrical Engineering	Networking Products
Stanford University