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Tekken 3D: Prime only made a brief appearance during Namco’s gamescom showcase, but it’s an intriguing prospect nonetheless. Street Fighter IV and Dead or Alive have both made relatively successful jumps to the 3DS, so it’ll be interesting to see whether the King of Iron Fist franchise can now follow suit.
It’s clear that Namco is striving to make the game as technically impressive as possible. Core to the this is the fact that the action runs at a smooth 60 FPS, regardless of whether you’re playing in 3D or not. Most 3DS games drop their frame rate when you enable the stereographic viewing mode (as is the case with SFIV and DoA), but that won’t happen here, giving the title an immediate technical advantage.
Beyond this, precise details of the game remain scant. There will be over 40 characters available, and producer Katsuhiro Harada has suggested that the fighting engine will be similar to the one used in Tekken 6. There’s been no mention of online play yet, but given that both Street Fighter and DoA offered several options in this regard, it would be a major upset if Tekken Prime didn’t include similar features.
Tekken 3D: Prime also includes a three-dimensional version of Blood Vengeance, a feature-length animation set between the events of Tekkens 5 and 6. Starring roles go to schoolgirl Xiaoyu and Alyssa the robot, with the plot focussing on the friendship that builds between them while investigating a conspiracy at their school. Needless to say, pointy-haired evil men Heihachi and Kazuya make an appearance, as do Nina and Anna Williams. No doubt they’ll be joined by several other Tekken regulars.
As with Tekken Hybrid, which also comes bundled with the film, I suspect that Blood Vengeance will only be a major selling point to the most hardcore fans of the series. All the same, if you’ve been keeping up with Tekken’s bizarre soap opera, it should offer a nice bonus. At the very least, it’ll allow you to enjoy robot schoolgirl action on your bus to work.
