Tekken 4

Tekken 4, the fourth installment of Namco's famous fighting series, arrived on PlayStation 2 after the series had established itself as an arcade classic, bringing a major leap forward in the form of fully three-dimensional arenas with obstacles, walls, and height differences that could be used tactically in fights. For the first time players could corner an opponent against a pillar, knock them down stairs, or use uneven terrain to their advantage, which felt revolutionary at the time and set Tekken apart from rival series like Virtua Fighter and Soulcalibur. Walls also enabled entirely new combos, since a bounced-off opponent stayed briefly defenseless, and for the first time players could move more freely to the sides of the arena.

Visually, the game benefited from the PS2's power and offered more realistic character models and more elaborate animation, though the controls turned out somewhat slower and less fluid than in previous entries, earning mixed reactions from hardcore fans. Story-wise, the game continued the King of Iron Fist tournament and expanded the Mishima family mythology with new characters such as Steve Fox and Christie Monteiro. The Story Battle mode gave individual fighters short cinematic interludes, while Tekken Force added beat 'em up sections between fights, in which the player fought through waves of enemies in simple levels.

Although Tekken 4 is viewed today more as a transitional entry between the classic and modern eras of the series, its environmental experiments influenced later titles, and the game remains an important milestone in the history of fighting games on Sony consoles. Reviews of the time praised the cinematic intro and graphical precision, though they objected to the slower pace compared to the arcade-born Tekken 3. Today the entry is remembered as a bold transitional step toward the later Tekken 5, which took its interactive environments but restored the speed players were used to. That's exactly why Tekken 4 remains interesting today: it offers a glimpse of the moment the series tried to find itself in a new generation.