Ask anyone who owned a PlayStation in the late '90s to name a fighting game, and there's a good chance the answer is Tekken 3. Namco's 3D fighter hit arcades in 1997, landed on the PlayStation in 1998, and went on to sell more than 8 million copies on the console, making it one of the best-selling fighting games of its era.
👉 Play Tekken 3 in your browser (free, no download or sign-up)
A Fresh Start for the Series
Tekken 3 jumps nearly two decades ahead of Tekken 2, which meant most of the cast was brand new. Heihachi Mishima is back, older and still scheming, but the spotlight belongs to a new generation:
- Jin Kazama, Kazuya's son, raised by Heihachi and out for revenge
- Ling Xiaoyu, a fast, tricky fighter who quickly became a fan favorite
- Hwoarang, the Taekwondo hothead with relentless kick strings
- Eddy Gordo, whose capoeira style made him the go-to pick for button mashers everywhere
- Bryan Fury, Forest Law, Julia Chang and more
The main villain is Ogre, an ancient being that has been hunting the world's best martial artists. Veterans like Paul, Nina, Yoshimitsu, King and Lei return too, and the hidden roster goes deep, with characters unlocked by beating Arcade mode again and again.
The Big Change: Sidestepping
Earlier Tekken games were 3D in looks but mostly 2D in how you moved. Tekken 3 changed that. By tapping up or down, you can sidestep into or out of the background, dodging straight attacks and opening up your opponent for a counter.
It sounds small, but it shifted the whole game. Linear attacks became risky, movement became a real skill, and matches felt like they happened in a space rather than on a line. Jumping was also toned down, which pushed players toward ground game and footwork.
How It Plays
Tekken's control scheme is still one of the most intuitive in fighting games: four buttons, one for each limb. Left punch, right punch, left kick, right kick. Press the button for the limb you want to move, and the character does exactly that.
A few core ideas carry most of the game:
- Blocking is done by holding back (or down-back for low attacks)
- Throws can't be blocked, but they can be escaped with the right button
- Juggles are the heart of high damage: launch your opponent into the air, then keep hitting them before they land
- 10-hit strings let you practice long, memorized combos for big payoffs
The result is a game where you can have fun on day one, but still find new depth years later.
More Than Just Arcade Mode
The PlayStation version was packed with extras that made it worth owning, not just renting:
- Tekken Force, a side-scrolling beat 'em up mode
- Tekken Ball, a ridiculous volleyball-style mini-game
- Gon, a tiny fire-breathing dinosaur exclusive to the home version
- Practice mode for learning combos and move lists
- A Theater mode to rewatch character endings
Tips for First-Timers
- Pick one character and stick with them. Paul and Jin are great for learning fundamentals.
- Learn one launcher and one follow-up juggle. That alone will win you a lot of matches against the CPU.
- Sidestep straight attacks instead of always blocking.
- Don't be afraid of Eddy. He looks unstoppable, but his patterns are easy to read once you block a few times.
Under the Hood (for the Devs Here)
Full disclosure: I built OnlineClassicGame, the site linked in this post. My last two posts were about arcade games, so here's something different: PlayStation emulation in the browser.
The site runs RetroArch cores compiled to WebAssembly, loaded through Nostalgist.js. For PlayStation games I ended up with a primary and a fallback core:
- mednafen_psx_hw as the default, for accuracy
- pcsx_rearmed as the fallback, which is lighter and more forgiving on weaker devices
That setup came from a simple lesson: what runs perfectly on a desktop browser doesn't always run on a mid-range phone. Having a fallback makes the difference between "slightly less accurate" and "doesn't load at all." The front end is plain vanilla JavaScript (ES Modules) and Tailwind CSS, with no build step.
Give It a Try
Whether you spent your childhood mashing with Eddy or practicing Jin's electric wind god fist, Tekken 3 still holds up as one of the most fun 3D fighters ever made.
Who was your main? Let me know in the comments.
