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The Art of Tekken: A Complete Visual History HC
£23.80£34.20 (-30%)
Twenty-five years ago, Namco released Tekken and redefined the fighting game genre in three dimensions. Known for its deep gameplay, cutting edge graphics, and operatic lore, Tekken has become synonymous with the PlayStation brand while remaining one of the last vestiges of the arcade. The Art of Tekken: A Complete Visual History follows the series history through a visual feast of iconic games and characters, as well as in-depth interviews with the Bandai Namco developers who made it a reality and the players who made it a phenomenon on its way to becoming one of the best-selling fighting game series in history. It’s a complete visual retrospective of one of the most indispensable parts of gaming history, over a quarter century in the making, including art from all seven games of the franchise and more.
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Additional information
| Publisher | Dynamite Entertainment, 1st edition (23 July 2019) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Hardcover | 250 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 1524107735 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1524107734 |
| Reading age | 16 years and up |
| Dimensions | 25.4 x 2.54 x 27.94 cm |
by Benjamin
Lives up to the great expectation
by Benjamin
That’s what she said~ As a casual Tekken fan, this book was a pleasure to lay my eyes on. There are a few sections to the book: first, a profile of all the entries in the series, including the Tag games. These profiles go over the development, the context and circumstances, as well as the reception of each game. This makes for fascinating reading, as fighting games have such a bold and vibrant culture around them; it’s interesting to discuss that notion over course of 25 years of one series such as Tekken, a series that has had its fair share ups and downs.
Continuing on from that, a large portion of the book is dedicated to showcasing each character of the series. More prolific characters, such as King, Paul and Xiaoyu, get more pages than others, but everyone gets at least one page to themselves. There are a lot of characters in Tekken!
By this stage of the book, you’ll be at the final third, which is dedicated to the culture around Tekken as well as a more detailed profiling of the latest games: Tekken 6, Tekken Tag 2 and especially Tekken 7. From developer interviews to community highlights such as the King of the Iron Fist documentary and player histories, it’s a lovely way to finish off the book.
There are also helpings of concept art, sketch art and CGI art smattered across various points of the book, which makes for an enjoyable viewing at every juncture.
I wouldn’t say it’s an encyclopaedic book, but a celebration of all things Tekken nonetheless. And that includes funko pop figures AND the movies!
If anything, I do genuinely wish the book was larger and had more content to serve. With the title of “Complete Visual History”, I expected the book to be more tome-like in proportions, but it is more of regular sized artbook as shown in one of my pictures. I feel like there is plenty more that Tekken can showcase, but for now, this is an excellent book that will stay on my shelf for a very long time.