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What's more technical Tekken or Street Fighter?

Elder Legend

Elder Legend

Banned
Dear fighting game gurus - which franchise is more technical based versus not as technical when it comes to mechanics and frame animations?

I am far from a fighting game expert or anything like that, but I always enjoyed playing casually with friends and soft competitive in online matches.

I never played Tekken in my life but always wanted to try and never got around to it. Tekken 8 is looking like the first true next gen fighting game. Is it worth trying out Teeken 7 to get a feel for it before Tekken 8? And how does it compare to Street Fighter games? The only Street Fighter game I've put any time in was Street Fighter 4. I probably played the older ones when I was a kid/child but it was so long ago that it doesn't even matter. Street Fighter 6 is looking quite good, I never touched Street Fighter 5.

The only fighting games I've played in the last decade or so were Killer Instincts (I love the arcade feel of it) and of course MK X and MK 11 both very good games. I even have a platinum trophy on MK X and all the DLC trophies as well. That was the last fighting game I truly put time into.
 
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AJUMP23

AJUMP23

Gold Member
I don’t know. I play fighting games at a low level. Teken was always more fun to me in the console. I did love getting a win at sf2 in the arcade though.
 
Frayed Ends of Sanity

Frayed Ends of Sanity

Member
Virtua Fighter is certainly the right answer when it comes to the most technical fighting game overall.

But between SF & Tekken, I'm gonna say Tekken. Yes you can button mash and accidentally get something cool to come out and it's super fun casually but people who know what they're doing is going to wreck you. I love SF and that requires a different set of fighting game skills being a 2D game. Maybe it's just me but I could never wrap my head around the crazy juggles and off the wall/ground combos you can do in Tekken.
 
Fahdis

Fahdis

Member
Salmon said:
Virtua Fighter!

Street Fighter or course. Tekken is a button masher game, and even a first time player can beat you in that game just by mashing different buttons. In Street Fighter you have to be skilled to be able to win.
Click to expand...

*picks Eddy*
*beats his little siblings and a neighbor in a few games with the second broken controller*
*self-fullfilling prophecy*

TEKKEN IS A BUTTON MASHER!
 
A

azertydu91

Hard to Kill
That's a tough one but I think that Tekken has too many opportunities to juggle ans eat away a lot of health without really knowing what you are doing.
Sf has a more punishing neutral and I think it is more important to understand what your charcter can do as well as what the opponent can.
So I'd say SF is more technical because I think that there's no way you can get a lucky match out of a 100 played agaisnt good players whenI think it can happen in tekken.
 
SpiceRacz

SpiceRacz

Member
Virtua Fighter players looking at this thread:

40i2xy.jpg
 
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Wandering Leopard

Wandering Leopard

Member
I've been playing SF for years but I'm trying to get into Tekken right now, the combos seem ok (depending on the character) but it's annoying I have to learn the general movement (Korean back dash / forward dash stuff).

I would maybe go with Tekken because a lot of the characters have more depth/moves, as well as stances, and you have to combine all of that with good movement.
 
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NeverYouMind

NeverYouMind

Gold Member
As a Virtua Fighter player I have to say Guilty Gear Xrd has some of the most convoluted mechanics. As far as player vs player interactive situations Street Fighter has a few more layers, but juggles in Tekken have reached absurd heights of convolution and the ass backwards hinderances to movement have continuously been part of the series (outside of Tekken 4). In general, 3D movement is less technical than jumping mechanics in most 2D fighters.

That said, I am kind of burned out on convoluted mechanics and have started to enjoy the simplicity of Dead or Alive 6.
 
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Crayon

Crayon

Member
It seems like Tekken has a reputation now of being harder to learn. Not for me, personally. I always found 3D fighters easier because of the general pace and the input buffers.

Virtua fighter had this reputation of being ultra complicated forever. In reality, it's the most simple and easy to understand fighter out there.

So idk. I think you just have to try for yourself. Pro tip, don't get hung up on that f****** Korean back dash. People get obsessed with that s***. You only need to be able to be able to do it once, not all the way across the screen.
 
Neff

Neff

Member
I've played Tekken, Virtua Fighter, Street Fighter, King of Fighters and Soul Edge/Calibur extensively for decades and Tekken is the most technical by far.

Crayon said:
Virtua fighter had this reputation of being ultra complicated forever. In reality, it's the most simple and easy to understand fighter out there.
Click to expand...

Indeed. I think most people who say VF is highly technical are just repeating what they've heard over the years. Make no mistake, it's an unfathomably deep game, but you can get fantastic results by using a very small pool of moves because the pace is so fast and the damage is so high. It's more a pure battle of wits than an execution-fest. Tekken is similar but it requires a great deal more memorisation and dexterity, not to mention extensive knowledge of match ups because the roster is so huge. Tekken is truly mind-boggling in its scope of mastery.
 
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Happosai

Happosai

Hold onto your panties
I love Tekken and started with the first. I don't recall any of them being particularly challenging. Street Fighter depends...the Alpha games and way of the Hado mode in Ultra : The Final Challengers was something different. Overall, tough comparison as both are enjoyable but difficult depending on your skillset I guess.
 
TranscendentDee

TranscendentDee

Member
From my observations it usually easier for high level Tekken players to convert to other games and be competent at them but people who come from other games try to play Tekken they have more difficulty learning.

Sonic Fox is perfect examples of this.
 
DForce

DForce

NaughtyDog Defense Force
Street Fighter is more technical than Tekken. There's just a lot more information to learn.

If you're looking to get good at Tekken 8 or Street Fighter 6, then I would suggest playing either Tekken 7 or Street Fighter 5.

Getting good at a fighting game is going to come down to becoming familiar with the characters you're facing (and your own) and how to get out of tough situations.
 
L

Lasha

Member
Tekken feels more intuitive than street fighter because moves are slower and each button is rationally matched to a punch or kick. Tekken is far more technical at high level play though and it's not even close. Movement is a weapon in a way that it's not for street fighter. The price for being caught out is so much more drastic.

High level street fighter is also incredibly technical though. a new player can progress further before hitting a brick wall unlike Tekken where players can do rudimentary 10h and kbd after the first few ranks.
 
TheDreadBaron

TheDreadBaron

Gold Member
Salmon said:
Virtua Fighter!

Street Fighter or course. Tekken is a button masher game, and even a first time player can beat you in that game just by mashing different buttons. In Street Fighter you have to be skilled to be able to win.
Click to expand...
That didn’t take long. Would love to hear your opinion on Smash Brothers 🤣
 
JTCx

JTCx

Member
None of them are more "technical" than the other. Dudes keep on throwing that word around not knowing it means.
 
Pelta88

Pelta88

Member
Tekken is more complex in terms of input but the speed required in SF makes it the more technical game to me.
 
Rhazer Fusion

Rhazer Fusion

Member
I’m probably in the minority, but I think Street Fighter is more difficult. I think it’s more execution-heavy especially games like SF4 or SF3: Third Strike. See how far you can get by just press buttons in SF even with good timing. Tekken has more mechanics and a plethora of moves to learn, but I think it’s more forgiving. What I mean by more forgiving is the combos and most of the execution. The Korean backdash is hard to properly learn in Tekken, but I think you can sometimes mash out certain offense at times especially with characters like Law and Leroy for example. Mashing doesn’t seem to work well in Street Fighter at least to my experience.

Imo, links and combos in SF5 have to executed nearly perfect for them to work while I think Tekken combos are more lenient with the timing and execution.
 
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March Climber

March Climber

Member
Salmon said:
Street Fighter or course. Tekken is a button masher game, and even a first time player can beat you in that game just by mashing different buttons. In Street Fighter you have to be skilled to be able to win.
Click to expand...
You're thinking of Dead or Alive, not Tekken.
 
Raonak

Raonak

Banned
Tekken has a lower skill floor (due to more lax execution windows) but also a higher skill ceiling (due to the large amount of characters + movesets).

It's easy to pick up, and impossible to master.
 
Ailynn

Ailynn

Faith - Hope - Love
I hate to admit it, but a couple of friends and I were kinda Street Fighter snobs back in the 90's. When my friend Wade entered a local Tekken tournament and had never even played before, yet he ended up making it to the final 5 using only the flatulence of a bear to rip through the competition. Much of the crowd found it hilarious and it only fueled our feelings about Street Fighter games being superior. :lollipop_grinning_sweat:

Ge0inZt.gif



I've learned a lot more since those days and know both games take a lot of technical skill to excel, but I'll personally always prefer the Street Fighter combat style.
 
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Closer

Closer

Member
Raonak said:
Tekken has a lower skill floor (due to more lax execution windows) but also a higher skill ceiling (due to the large amount of characters + movesets).

It's easy to pick up, and impossible to master.
Click to expand...

I've been playing both for years and I hard agree with this. Tekken is fun and stressful at the same time while SF* is pure fun to me.

*SFIII not included
 
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EruditeHobo

EruditeHobo

Member
Technical to me means requiring not just lots of knowledge, but specific skills when under pressure. When the opportunity to utilize those skills for your benefit isn't as readily available, that is the more technical game... requiring more/higher level of technique.

Tekken is a much, much vaster game, with more to master (or attempt to master), but that doesn't make it more technical. SF is the more technical game according to my definition; nothing with juggles like Tekken, and the sheer number of opportunities to start said juggles, can be said to be overly technical.

But I'm a pro in neither, played both my whole life and that's just my 2 cents. I don't know what definition someone might have of the word "technical" to have Tekken come out ahead in this comparison.
 
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BossLackey

BossLackey

Gold Member
I think people who are saying "definitely Tekken" probably don't play one or the other or haven't put a lot of time into them at least. I'd say they're pretty close and may even give the edge to Tekken, but I think Street Fighter's art style and smaller movelists lends some people to believe is somehow less sophisticated than Tekken when that's not necessarily the case. Both of them are incredibly difficult at even mid level. Though I think the skill floor for Street Fighter is higher.

I've tried to get a dozen friends into fighting games just so I had someone to play with and every single one of them found SF significantly harder than Tekken. You can't just mash in SF and almost every special is performed with motion inputs and the simplest mistake will get you blown up. In Tekken, it's significantly more intuitive. When there are a 100 moves per character and they're all simple button presses (and maybe sometimes a cardinal direction), you can do a lot more upfront. Additionally, in SF every single normal, special and command normal is it's own tool that are used for very specific purposes. Tekken has many moves that overlap purpose in every character.

At the end of the day, the skill ceiling is astronomically high for both and in my opinion are both the pinnacle franchises in fighting games for a reason. If one is "more technical" than the other, it's by inches.

That being said, Tekken has a very large cast, massive movelists (both of which necessitates a lot of matchup knowledge), a third dimension and differences between P1 and P2 moves/animations. So I'd probably still give it to Tekken, but not by a landslide.
 
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L

Lasha

Member
BossLackey said:
I think people who are saying "definitely Tekken" probably don't play one or the other or haven't put a lot of time into them at least. I'd say they're pretty close and may even give the edge to Tekken, but I think Street Fighter's art style and smaller movelists lends some people to believe is somehow less sophisticated than Tekken when that's not necessarily the case. Both of them are incredibly difficult at even mid level. Though I think the skill floor for Street Fighter is higher.

I've tried to get a dozen friends into fighting games just so I had someone to play with and every single one of them found SF significantly harder than Tekken. You can't just mash in SF and almost every special is performed with motion inputs and the simplest mistake will get you blown up. In Tekken, it's significantly more intuitive. When there are a 100 moves per character and they're all simple button presses (and maybe sometimes a cardinal direction), you can do a lot more upfront. Additionally, in SF every single normal, special and command normal is it's own tool that are used for very specific purposes. Tekken has many moves that overlap purpose in every character.

At the end of the day, the skill ceiling is astronomically high for both and in my opinion are both the pinnacle franchises in fighting games for a reason. If one is "more technical" than the other, it's by inches.

That being said, Tekken has a very large cast, massive movelists (both of which necessitates a lot of matchup knowledge), a third dimension and differences between P1 and P2 moves/animations. So I'd probably still give it to Tekken, but not by a landslide.
Click to expand...

I play both at a reasonably high level. My local scene has pro players and major winners in both games. Take mashing out of the equation since mashers generally don't know how either game works. When I play a set against a pro player in SF I get shut out but there is an illusion I did something because I can take some health here and there because of the way the game works. My matches against Tekken players are just humiliating. I did a F5 against a guy who won a major and I was perfected 5 matches in a row. Getting in against a better player is so much more difficult in Tekken and the combo system leaves little room for error. Both games have high skill ceilings and I don't think saying Tekken is more technical is negative in any way.
 
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