The prologue sections that play before each character’s story mode run feature some of the most detailed backstories in the series. What really cements the game’s tone, at least from an aesthetic standpoint, are the story sequences. It’s easy to see why the choices made with the roster were controversial, but it’s another way the game firmly establishes its more realistic style.
The game even infamously sacrifices one of the series staples, the Jack robots, to put more focus on the real-life martial arts. Instead of making the final boss some kind of god or demonic version of one of the main characters, Tekken 4 returns to the series’ roots and makes the decidedly non-demonic Heihachi Mishima the central antagonist again.
The cast still features a few wacky characters, like Kuma and newcomer Combot, but the standard martial artists make up the vast majority of the roster this time around. In an effort to ground itself further, Tekken 4 pairs its roster back a bit. Many of the characters are traditional martial artists of varying disciplines, but fighting alongside them are ninjas, robots, bears, and other odd faces. As previously mentioned, Tekken’s world is rife with both realistic and fantastical elements, and the series’ cast of characters demonstrates this even more than the stages do.
More evidence of the grounded tone can be seen in the character roster. The game tailors both the aesthetics and gameplay of each stage to fit the more realistic style it is going for, and while this does lead to some major balancing problems, it is also a significant contributing factor to the game’s distinctive identity. Rather than prioritizing the gameplay, Tekken 4’s stages are designed to feel like real-life locations where the fighters just so happen to be duking it out. The Shinjuku stage, for instance, features elevated sidewalks the fighters can walk on as well as phone booths that break apart when one of the combatants is knocked into them. In a break from series tradition, Tekken 4 features sprawling, open maps complete with interactable scenery and uneven terrain. Before Tekken 4, stages always infinitely scrolled no matter how far the characters would walk, and many stages after 4 take place in specially-built arenas. The stages’ grounded aesthetic is further established through their layouts. Whereas the series’ other final stages tend to take place in the most fantastical locations each installment has to offer, Tekken 4’s final stage is a relatively straightforward, MMA-style caged arena with a large audience spectating in the background. Plausible urban settings like a shopping mall or parking garage are far more commonplace, and even the stranger fighting arenas, like the jungle and the laboratory, are relatively grounded in reality. Tekken 4’s stages, on the other hand, double down on the realism. Military wrestling rings, ancient temples, and shuttle launch pads are just a few of the stages combatants square off in throughout the series, and several others, like the space colony and the tornado-ridden wasteland, are even more outlandish. Many stages are typical urban settings or martial arts dojos, but several others have a dramatic flair to them. Tekken’s world has always included a mixture of the realistic and the fantastical, and this is evident in many of the stages throughout the series. One of the most immediately distinct aspects of Tekken 4 is its stage design.