Tekken 3 All Endings Notes

Before start:
Tekken 3 is a very unique game to speedrun for a lot of reasons: Firstly, the run features NO glitches, everything performed in the run was intentionally included by the developers. In order to excel at the speedrun, the runner needs a large set of different skills, including knowledge of the core gameplay mechanics as well as execution skills, and will need to know how to be able to manipulate the AI.

Category, rules:
The category is known as 'Unlock All Endings', in which we will be playing through Arcade Mode with every character aside from a few exceptions in order to unlock every ending. By beating Arcade Mode with a character, you unlock that character's ending. We will be playing through Arcade Mode 21 times over the run. The only characters we don't use are Ogre, Panda and Dr. Boskonovitch as they all share endings with other characters (True Ogre, Kuma and Yoshimitsu respectively). The category is split by difficulty and round number, so runs on Easy and Hard difficulty are separate from runs on Medium difficulty, which is what we will be running on. All other gameplay settings must be at their default settings.

King:
Tekken uses a four button system, in which each button is assigned to a different character limb. Square is Left Punch, Triangle is Right Punch, X is Left Kick and Circle is Right Kick. Moves are performed by pressing particular buttons while also pressing a directional input, like in other fighting games such as Street Fighter.
As mentioned before, the run features AI manipulation; strats in the run are designed around a few different things, namely position, which character I am fighting against and what Stage number I am on. As you progress through Arcade Mode, the AI starts to become more aggressive and the strats used have to adapt to this. With King, I use one strat for the first five stages and then have to alternate to different strats in the later stages. However, due to 'AI RNG', no strat is 100% guaranteed to work, especially in later stages, and so I will have to use backup strats when this happens. For example, on Stages 1-3, the AI doesn't block any attacks at all, while from Stages 6-10 the AI becomes more and more aggressive and will immediately get off of the ground when knocked down. They will also duck under regular throws from Stage 6 onwards.

The only thing we always do with King is start every round with a jumping high kick: We do this with almost every character, as it is very damaging and will almost always hit the AI.

Eddy:
The character route in this game is designed almost entirely around consistency; we use King first as his strats are very inconsistent, however we use Eddy second because in the Character Select menu we can reach him by just pressing down to highlight Kuma and then Up, which saves a few frames.

Eddy has a specific strat in the first five stages; we perform a strong kick, and then immediately execute Eddy's unblockable if the kick hits. As long as we start the unblockable before the AI has recovered from the kick, they should just stand there and get hit by the unblockable. A lot of characters have unblockable strats. Eddy's only works from Stages 1-5, while some characters only work from Stages 1-3 and others work on every stage.

In the later stages, Eddy's strats largely vary depending on the runner's gut instinct of which move to perform at that time. Unlike with the unblockable strat earlier, there is no one strat that is always quicker. We simply perform moves that are likely to hit and cause a lot of damage, which the AI hopefully won't dodge and counter.

Julia:
Julia is the first character to prominently feature juggles in her strats; again, in the first five stages we use an unblockable strat, however Julia's unblockable is a 'launcher'. Launchers are moves which leave the opponent stunned or in the air, allowing the player to juggle the opponent afterwards for guaranteed damage.

From Stages 8-10, we try to use the unblockable attack again, although this time we try to do it as the AI is getting off of the ground. This is known as 'okizeme', or wake-up game, and is a popular term in the Fighting Game Community. We use okizeme strats in the speedrun, by hitting the opponent with the unblockable as soon as they get off of the ground. As the AI gets more aggressive, the AI will also 'tech roll' off of the ground more often: Tech rolling is the only way to immediately get off of the ground as soon as you are knocked down, and from Stages 8-10 the AI will always tech roll when they can. This behaviour can be exploited by using the unblockable to attack them as soon as they get up, which is known as a 'tech catch'.

Julia is also the first character which has strats that are exclusive to 'big characters'. There are three big characters in Tekken 3, which are Gun Jack, Kuma and True Ogre. These characters have bigger hitboxes than normal characters, meaning that more moves will hit them on the ground, such as Julia's unblockable. This means against a big character, we can simply do a hopkick and then immediately use Julia's unblockable, and it is guaranteed to hit the AI.

Gun Jack:
Gun Jack is the only character we use twice in the run, as he has an extended ending which can only be unlocked by beating Arcade Mode with him twice.

Again in the first five stages, Gun Jack has an unblockable strat.

In the later stages, we use a 'Fly' strat: We knock the AI down with moves which they cannot tech roll from, leaving them stuck on the ground. Then, we use Gun Jack's 'Fly' move, which will always hit the opponent while they are grounded.

Against big characters, we use a big strat where we juggle the AI, they tech roll and will be immediately hit by the chop unblockable from earlier. This only works against big characters due to the size of their hitbox.

Mokujin:
This character will randomly pick another character's moveset to use each round. We use Mokujin as early as possible so there are less characters he can mimic, making them easier to recognise. Also, if Mokujin picks the same character to mimic twice in a row, the game doesn't have to reload their moveset, which saves a little bit of loading time.

Anna:
Anna has a 'Chop strat' from Stages 4-10, in which we simply perform the same move over and over. However, after we perform the move, we hold forward for just a few frames afterwards. Because we are moving forward, the AI will try to attack us, at which point we do the move again, causing an infinite loop where we always attack the AI before they attack us.

This is a good time to explain high, mid and low moves; every move will either hit high, mid or low. Throws are also high. When you block moves, you can either block high or block low. Blocking high will block high and mid attacks, but not low. Blocking low will block low attacks and high attacks will whiff, but you will be vulnerable to mid attacks. In the later stages, the AI will often duck under high attacks and then 'whiff punish', meaning you have to make sure a lot of your strats are either mid or low moves.

Nina:
On the first three stages, we use a 10 hit combo with Nina. This is because the AI almost never blocks on the first three stages and doesn't duck highs.
Nina has the same strats as Anna but more: She also has a 'Slap strat', in which we slap the opponent, they fall to the ground and we then perform an unblockable. The AI cannot tech roll in this situation, meaning there is roughly a 50% chance of the unblockable hitting depending on which way the AI gets off of the ground.

Law:
Law has a strat where we perform a double flip and then immediately perform his unblockable. On the early stages, the AI will either perform a 'getup kick', stand up or roll backwards. We try to keep the perfect distance away from the AI, so that they will try to hit us with a getup kick. If you are just far enough away, the getup kick will miss and you will then immediately hit them with the unblockable. If you're too close, the getup kick will hit you, and if you're too far away, the AI will simply roll backwards. We often try to position ourselves at the start of the round so that the flip leaves the AI the perfect distance away.

We don't use the strat on later stages because the AI will simply tech roll out of the way. However, we do use the strat against big characters as their hitboxes mean the unblockable will likely hit even if the AI tech rolls.

Law also has a Grab strat which we only use against Heihachi. We use the strat as Heihachi usually performs a getup kick afterwards which misses us, while if we used the strat on Ogre or True Ogre, their legs are longer meaning they would hit us with the getup kick.

Jin:
Jin's strats mostly use juggles rather than unblockables. Jin is the first character in the Tekken series to have the famous 'Electric Wind God Fist' move, which is a frame-perfect launcher. The move is performed with the Dragon Punch notation, the same way you input a Shoryuken in Street Fighter. It is generally considered to be the best move in the Tekken series.

Jin also features wavedashing; this is a fast form of movement which is done by repeating the crouch dash/shoryuken motion as quickly as possible, cancelling out of the motion by pressing forward, and then repeating the motion again. Every time you do this, Jin ducks his head and dashes forward, making it a quick form of movement to cover spaces.

Bryan:
Bryan is another character with an unblockable strat, although his unblockable is so quick that the strat can be performed on every stage, although it's still less consistent in the later stages. There is also a tech catch unblockable strat, although it's only consistent on big characters.

Bryan also has his Mach Breaker punch, which is a very consistent punch that deals a lot of damage and allows for a free followup against the AI. This is a good round closer.

Kuma:
Kuma's main strat involves hitting the opponent with a stun move and then using a move called 'Salmon Hunter' which is a powerful move that hits all characters on the ground. This is a guaranteed combo against the AI.

Kuma also sets the Salmon Hunter up in a different way on the later stages; we do a juggle and then tech catch the opponent with an unblockable, following it up with the Salmon Hunter. This is a consistent followup.

Lei:
Lei is one of the more complex characters in the game, noting he has roughly as many moves as every character in Street Fighter V combined. However his strats are incredibly simple: We mostly use the same high kick over and over, as it deals a large amount of damage and is consistent. We also use the Razor Rush combo, which is a five hit combo that can transition into any of Lei's stances by pressing up or down at any point during the combo. This leads to a wide variety of backup strats, making Lei a very entertaining character to watch.

Hwoarang:
This character has four different stances; you start in Left Foot Forward stance, and can transition into Right Foot Forward stance by pressing both kicks. At any point, you can press Forward + X or Forward + O to transition into either his Left Flamingo or Right Flamingo stances. His Left Flamingo stance is very important in the run as it has a high-damanging unblockable, which we use in the first three stages and then also as a tech catch against big characters.

Otherwise, we use a strat that juggles the opponent and leaves them vulnerable to Hwoarang's unblockable. This unblockable is one of the few that hits grounded against every character, meaning that it's almost always guaranteed at the end of a juggle. If the enemy tech rolls into the unblockable, it will leave them stunned, and we can dash forward and hit them with another unblockable.

True Ogre:
There are a few reasons we use True Ogre over Ogre: True Ogre has a larger hitbox, which is good for us because it makes some of his strats more consistent such as the early unblockable strat. True Ogre probably has the largest amount of different strats in the game, some quick and some safe.

Xiaoyu:
From this point, all of the strats for the rest of the game work on every stage, spare for a few exceptions. Xiaoyu's strat is timing-based: We kick the opponent who lands away from us, at which point their only way of getting up is by either standing up or trying to getup kick, both of which can be countered with a dashing kick. Then, their back is turned so they can't block, meaning we can take off the rest of their life with a guaranteed combo. This works against every character on every stage, although there is a strict timing to the strat.

Yoshimitsu:
Yoshi has two strats: One is a back turned death combo similar to Xiaoyu's, and the other is the only 'small strat' in the game, which is only used against characters with small hitboxes. This is an unblockable tech catch, and is used against Xiaoyu and Julia as well as Eddy, due to the fact his stance automatically sidesteps which places him out of alignment with the fast strat.

Tiger:
Unlocked after beating game with 16 characters, same strats as Eddy

Heihachi:
Heihachi is one of the best characters in the game, as he can use an unblockable strat on every character. For the first five stages, you can simply do one attack and then an unblockable, and in the later stages you can do a juggle and then tech catch with the unblockable. It also hits big characters on the ground.

Heihachi also has a Wind God Fist, just like Jin has. Heihachi has no frame-perfect version, however.

Paul:
Paul is identical to Heihachi in that he has one unblockable strat which works on every stage, with it being a tech catch in later stages.

Gon:
In order to unlock Gon, we have to beat him in Tekken Ball mode which is unlocked by beating the game with any 10 characters. We don't unlock Gon until the end of the run because as soon as you unlock him you can fight against him in Arcade Mode, which is not ideal as his small size makes him hard to fight against.

Gon has a few different strats, his early strat is essentially the same move over and over as the AI doesn't usually block it. We then do some combos later on.