Tekken system

Be sure to be familiar with our Legend

Warning! This article contains some personal observations and thoughts about the game system of Tekken 5. Although not official, the issues presented by the author are supported with examples and hopefully well-explained. :) Enjoy the reading. :)

Movement

Movement in Tekken is not that simple as it may seem to be. Basic movement consist of the following commands:

F or B - move forward or backwards

f,f or b,b - dash forward or backwards

u,n or d,n - sidestep to the background or to the screen

u,U or d,D - walk to the background or to the screen

f,f,F or f,F - run
Of course you can also duck (d, d/b or d/f) and jump (u, u/b or u/f). Some characters can crouch dash (it's a special dash forward which dodges high moves, like Mishima's f,n,d,d/f) or sway (Like Paul's QCB). But knowing these commands is not all! You can easily cancel one command into another. This is essential in a fight, because dashes, backdashes and sidesteps are alone very vulnerable to opponent's attacks. If you add a cancel you can not only fluently move across the screen, but you can also block in any moment you want.
To backdash safely, remember that b,B won't make your character block! You have to do a quick backdash cancel:

b,b~d~b - just for example, because it can be any command you like.
You can chain dashes, backdashes, sidesteps, crouch dashes and sways at your will. Be sure to master the movement, because it's one of the most important basics of the gameplay.

Command input, buffering and canceling

There are several types of command input in Tekken.

Pressing buttons at the same time, e.g. Ki Charge 1+2+3+4

Pressing button(s) one after another ("tapping" a button), e.g. f,f

Pressing buttons quickly one after another, e.g. Yoshi's 4~3

Delaying the input, e.g. Yoshi's 2>3

Adding the "neutral" command to the sequence, e.g. Mishimas, f,n,d,d/f

JustFrame inputs, e.g. Yoshi's 3:D/B
Of course these types of command input can be combined togehter.

Buffering a command into another one means to input a command during the retraction time of the previous command. This technique allows to perform a move really fast, just after any previous one. Examples:

Paul's 1,2~f,F, 1+2 (the f,F motion is buffered into the recovery time of 2)

Yoshi's QCB~f,f,~b+1+2 (buffering the QCB+1+2 throw into dash forward)

Jin's 2,[4]~b+2 (by holding 4 and pressing b+2 in case of opponent's reversal Jin player can perform a buffered chicken escape from opponent's reversal)

Yoshi's f,f+1+2~b+3+4 (can be done only if the command is buffered into retraction time of f,f+1+2)

Asuka's 1,[2],n,4 (by holding 2 and pressing 4 Asuka can perform a 2+4 throw)
etc,etc...

Canceling a command can be done by inputting a second command that calls away the previous one. Some moves have programmed cancels:

Asuka's f+2 (cancel by ~D) and f+3 (cancel by ~b)

Nearly all character's stances can be cancelled
There are also other cancels possible, they aren't programmed but nevertheless exist due to Tekken's sophisticated game system:

Yoshimitsu's Meditation cancels as a major example. (See the analyzis of this stance HERE) In such a command like 3+4,f~u/f+4, the "f" command cancels Meditation and is itself immediately cancelled by u/f+4 command. This prevents Yoshimitsu from turning around and makes him perform a BT hopkick.

Ranges

There are a lot of hit ranges in Tekken 5:

high - block by pressing b or duck by d/b, d/f or d

mid - block by pressing b (sometimes can be low parried, like Yoshi's BT 3)

Special mid (Smid)

block by pressing b or d/b. Can be low parried.

low - block by pressing d/b or jump over (u/f, u or u/b). Can be low parried mostly.
The following ranges can have various properties:

Ground-hitting - mostly some mid, Smid and low moves

Unblockable - can't be blocked (but e.g. Ul (unblockable low) can be jumped over)

There are also other properties that are sometimes underestimated: the priority of a move and the area that a move can cover (horizontal moves usually catch side-steppers, vertical moves that aren't ground-hitting sometimes can hit out of opponent's low stance.) Examples:

Yoshimitsu in his d+3+4 Indian stance can't be hit by Paul's QCF+2 or other Yoshi's d/f+2, but can be hit by his or Yoshi's d/f+1;

Feng's SS+4 can easily hit sidesteppers;
There is no rule for this. A move has great priority if the game creators decide that it should be good. (And that's good!... to some extend :) "High risk-high reward" - this rule is not always the case in Tekken...)
As for the newly developed "crushing system" of Tekken 5, it is definitely not perfect. IF we take into consideration only "high and low crushing" system. Some moves can even go under mid moves! If there were any information about the existance of mid-crushing moves, that would be OK. The mid-crushers would be crushed only by vertical, mid moves (those with high-priority like Paul's d+1, d/f+1 or so). But I don't know anything about this. Officially, there's only high and low crushing system. So there's definitely something wrong with it. :)

Opponents can use high-crushing moves under Yoshi's b+1,1,1... but they can't even duck under Nina's, Anna's or Law's punch series. Where's the balance? :)

Ganryu's b+2 can sometimes crush even mid moves.

Some characters have high-crushing WS moves (like Kazuya's WS+2, Raven's WS+1) whereas some characters not, although the moves may look like this (Yoshi's WS+2)
And so on. All the player can do is practice and get used to the moves' properties and get used to the fact that there are no ultimate rules in this game. Every character make his/her own rules. That makes this game not balanced although I think Tekken creators spent a lot of time to create well-balanced fighters. They almost succeeded. :)

These pieces of info are the basics... to be continued with advanced system!