It’s my third day playing Tekken 7, but I have been playing damn lot these past 3 days. That does not mean much though, as I am complete newbie in the genre or maybe even with joysticks. Reason I wanted to try Tekken 7 was that I saw fighting games viewer numbers grew on twitch past few days. It caught my eye and I liked what I’ve seen. Also it is a 1v1 game, which means it is limited to one idiot per team, I can be an idiot and noone’s going to care, nor I will suffer for others being stupid. Why Tekken7 and not SFV or that Dragon Ball game? Well that DBZ game I didn’t like as much as Tekken7 or SFV after watching few minutes of each of them. Then I red about differences of the other two briefly, and the main factor was that it said Tekken7 was more in depth game and harder for newcomers. You might say “but you are newcomer!” Yes, but I also like challenge and depth in games, for example I’d choose Dota over LoL. That’s why I liked Starcraft so much, it’s a very deep game with steep learning curve.

I am PC gamer, Starcraft 2 was my main game for years, so I don’t even feel comfortable with joysticks. I had used them some like 14years ago? on ps1, where I mostly played probably NBA Live, some friend had Tekken 3, so played that like twice too, but pressed random buttons back then so my character does stuff. Well ok, there is also this one time where I recently played few rounds of Mortal Combat X(the new one, not sure if that’s actually X or which one is that) at a party. And that’s probably it.

My experience and enjoyment of Tekken 7 in the first two days was way above what I expected. First time I launched the game I went around menu a bit and checked character customization (since I got rewarded cash and something else immediately), I really liked the amount of customization there, played around a little with it and then went to play few arcade matches vs computer. I don’t know what I was doing, but after completing first few rounds I thought that I should go try campaign, as I was wondering how is it made in isolated fighting game. I have to admit, it wasn’t a normal thing for me to go so fast to the campaign. I am all about that ladder and competition. I’ve been playing sc2 for over 7 years now and I haven’t really started the last campaign, even though campaigns in that game are great and the last one even focuses on my race. Anyhow, I’ve decided I’ll give it a go and learn the game at least a bit that way too.

I’ve started the campaign and selected medium difficulty. I’m not a pleb in gaming, but let’s be honest here, I am complete newb in this genre, therefore I thought it was the right difficulty. I was not skipping through any of the movies as the story was told in an unique way and I wanted to learn about characters that I am about to play with and against anyways. I was giving my best to understand how to play the game the right way, or at least what I thought was the right way. At first It was going smoothly. I was beating those levels in first tries. My first struggle was the fight with Akuma vs Heihachi. After some sweat and many tries I’ve completed the level and felt like I have gained some valuable experience. With some failed tries at next levels and really enjoying the story and the breaks that it gives me from button mashing, I’ve completed the campaign. The story was engaging. The gameplay was rewarding and fun, a bit frustrating sometimes due to difficulty and failed tries though, but I like the challenge in games. I also felt that struggle trained me and that now I have some grasp on how the game is played.

As a competitive guy that I am, I knew that my goal is ranked play. The next day I went for few matches in quick match first, won 3 of 4 or something, and thought ok, let’s get spanked in ranked. Picked Katarina (just like in my quick matches), because I had made unique outfit for her the first time I launched the game and I liked how she felt in quick matches too. And I won my first match quite easily, beaten him again, before he refused to play the third time. I thought it wasn’t a bad start, but it continued! I won 4 more in a row vs different players, then lost a close one (3–2) to a guy who apparently has won all his 6 games (as shown in loading screen with golden stars). Finished my first session at 3rd dan rank by going 13–4. It felt great, even though I knew I was probably beating on other plebians of Tekken 7, I was still expecting to lose nearly everything in online mode at the beginning. It also felt that I was getting better. A bit later I went for some quick matches to try new character. I picked Alisa. Unfortunately, loading screen made me feel intimidated, because the other guy had 1206wins with his character Kazuya and some rank that isn’t Dan. I was wondering why I got matched up versus him, but I didn’t mind it, as it wasn’t ranked and I thought I’ll just do my best, I lost to him twice in close games (3–2 both times), before he left, while I wanted another try cause I thought I could beat him and it was the closes match I’ve gotten so far, ok ok I was also a bit bitter that I lost the last decider by a smidge of a health pool.

That’s all of my experience so far with the game. And I loved it! Seems like some guy from quick match just added me to friends and wants to practice. So I am just gonna do exactly that right now. Can’t pass on somebody who plays teaching such a newb that I am, can I?