August 22, 2014

Tekken Pachislot trumps competitors with Nina Williams content en masse





Tekken Pachi-slot Nina CG scenes Yamasa
Goddamn, and I thought CR鉄拳 had a lot of Nina content. Well, it got trumped by 鉄拳3rd in that regard, the Yamasa developed pachi-slot machine that has been released to Japanese pachi-slot/pachinko parlors in early July, and just recently got ported to iOS mobile devices.

Tekken Pachislot Nina Swordfight Video Scene
Tekken 鉄拳3rd Yamasa Pachislot screenshot
鉄拳3rd Yamasa screen-shot fight scene
鉄拳3rd Pachislot Yamasa screens Nina Williams
鉄拳3rd Tekken Arcade screens Nina motorbike
Tekken Pachi-slot Yamasa screen Nina Williams
Tekken Yamasa Arcade screenshot Nina Williams CG
鉄拳3rd for iPhone and iPad has been released on August 13, and has been charting pretty high in the Japanese charts for paid iOS apps since. The pachi-slot's "story" basically centers on 3 individual campaigns, a Jin campaign, a King campaign and one for Xiaoyu. Each of these protagonists is partnered with another main character for these campaigns, Jaycee for King, Alisa for Xiaoyu, Nina for Jin. The story itself, naturally, is pretty light, but the game is very successful in giving each of the 3 campaigns a different theme. While King+Jaycee's is kind of adventurous and spiritual, and Xiaoyu+Alisa's has a more humorous and playful feel and look to it, Jin+Nina's is definitely the most dramatic and very much focused on action. Jin and Nina team up for most of the campaign, though each of them has their fair share of solo scenes. There are about 9 major scenes that feature Nina very generously, with 4 of them focusing solely on her. We get a short but beautifully animated scene of Nina swinging a katana, a long and action packed scene featuring Nina and Jin on a highway, riding motorbikes and facing off against a tank(!), and, of course, the obligatory sibling rivalry bit where Nina "sneak[s] into Central Tower", steals (I presume) some kind of tube, triggers an alarm, has to face off against Anna and her (or rather Kazuya's G-Corp-) henchmen and escapes by effortlessly wall-running past them, throwing a grenade and jumping through a glass window seconds before the building explodes. It's silly, it's typically Japanese, and it's totally awesome! What's so cool about these videos produced specifically for Pachinko and Pachi-slot games is the possibility of the player failing at certain key moments in the game, so many of these sequences have several different outcomes. Nina might escape Anna via that flashy wall, but she might also be hit by a bullet mid-wall-run and then shot by Anna while lying wounded on the ground,... or she manages to knock Anna over right before being shot and escape that way. My favourite video has to be the short scene of Nina sitting outside a café, then getting up after noticing the camera (/the player) approaching from behind in her make-up compact mirror, and either (depending on what scene you trigger while playing the game) blowing a kiss at the camera, doing a gunshot motion with her hand or throwing her black(!) lipstick at us, smearing it all over the camera lens. It's one of the shorter scenes and nothing too exciting, but we get the chance to see Nina in a more intimate moment than we are usually used to, in an ordinary everyday public place no less, which is very rare for her. Not only did she change into a nicely fitting black-pants-white-leather-jacket combo, but the whole makeup pocket mirror and lipstick thing certainly reveals the more feminine side of her persona which we only get to see from time to time. We've seen similar scenes in her Tekken 6 ending cinematic, the  intro for the original Tekken Tag Tournament, and Tekken 2. It's certainly a rare sight, which makes it all the more satisfying when we get to see developers/writers/character-designers acknowledge that side of her.
For anyone wondering where the rest of the videos from the CR pachinko are that I was going to post, I will probably put them up together with the videos discussed in this post in a way that doesn't impair their original look/resolution. There's a whole bunch of them now, all of them cut into several small scenes, so anyone that's interested, I certainly need to stress your patience a bit longer.
Anyway, EXCELLENT job on 鉄拳3rd, Yamasa!

Tekken Lee Chaolan Excellent Batchtub Yamasa




15 comments:

  1. i love u l want to see nina beat up anna!

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    1. Haha, thank you!
      You will see her beat up a lot of people once I put all the videos together.

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    2. can u please send me the video files ttoo? guangyao999@gmail.com
      Nina is simply amazing!

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    3. Hai guys!! Please, I dont understand where to see all the video with Nina and jin! Can u send me ti my email or ...? viktoriakim@libero.it

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  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. Wow, anymore Anna scene in this game?

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    1. Not many, no. You bought CR Tekken for the Anna videos, no? I wouldn't recommend buying the pachi-slot app if you're interested solely in Anna, wouldn't be worth it. I can send you the video files if you like, since there's only a few.

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    2. Thx for your suggestion! Is it convenience to you send me the video file via email? sccatke@hotmail.com

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  4. Okay, this is...a lot more than the previews for that game had me expecting. 0_0 Random thoughts:

    1) Interesting to see what looks like straight rips of the TTT2 character models being used instead of the (I assume) original FMV models in CR. When I first saw 'em I figured their use would be limited to straight fighting scenes, but it looks like they can get a lot out of those polygons.

    2) Also interesting that both CR and 3rd feature Nina infiltrating a building then getting caught by Anna and some guards...and the corridor she's in looks awful similar in both cases. Sheer coincidence, or are the Tekken devs sending around a style sheet/plot outline document for these games?

    3) Major point lost for referring to Blood Vengeance's G-Corp soldier designs. THAT'S NOT WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE GAH!

    4) Not really feeling the white jacket. Doesn't look like something Nina would wear on a motorbike. It's not as clingy and sexy as her 'riding suit' variations in T6 or the Blood Vengeance pleather gear, nor does it look sturdy enough to give protection from a tumble. The balance of colour between it and the dark blue pants is a bit off-putting too.

    5) Love the callback with the lipstick mark on the RPG.

    6) While I'm being nitpicky about looks, much though I love seeing Nina with a sword, the classic-style katana seen here doesn't really suit her, visually. It'd be nicer to see her toting some sort of modern tactical sword, with a black carbon-fibre blade or somesuch. She's not one for sentiment or spirituality, so she'd go for whichever tool offers the best practical advantages, not the one that looks nicest.

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    1. As always, your comment is more interesting than my post you're commenting on :-))
      Yeah, they're all TTT2 models. A lot of the sceneries and many of the accessoiries are also straight from the game. They work pretty well though and look a lot like TTT2 ending cinematics, which also used the in-game meshes.
      Looking at all the CR videos, I feel like they not only had 1, but at least 2 new Nina models created exclusively for the pachinko. Actually looks more like 3 different models in total, just for Nina. I can't think of a reason why they would do that, but hey, I'm certainly not gonna complain.
      Your second point is such an interesting idea. I'm ashamed to say I never even thought of a style sheet/plot guideline, even though the corridor thing jumped out at me immediately when seeing the videos for the pachi-slot. It's not even a far stretch, considering how major companies like Namco operate today, and how we just found out that the love umbrella carving from the TK 7 trailer can be found in TK2.
      Regarding her outfit, I guess I'm just a sucker for Nina wearing casual stuff. Some of her outfits (especially her current signature look) are so out there, that a very basic jacket/pants combo instantly gets me at Hello. B/c her combat suits and the like are so extreme, the more basic some of the other stuff is, the better imo. I was also one of the very few people who was absolutely in love with her white pants, red jacket combo in Tekken 6. It's one of my absolute favourite looks for her and it pains me that seemingly everybody else hated it and refers to it as the soccer-Mom look lol I thought she looked like a hotter T-X Kristanna Loken haha
      Her TBV patent leather combo needs to return, though. Better sooner than... never. Oh Namco.

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    2. Oh, I don't mind Nina wearing something that isn't combat-friendly - and since you mention it, count me as a fan of her T6 2P outfit as well. Thing is, a large part of why that one worked is that it's elaborate and (dare I say) classy, what with the belt holding the jacket closed at the waist, a separate blouse under the jacket, simple chain, the rolled-up sleeves and the strappy but modest heels. It's simple at first glance but there's rather a lot more to it. The outfit in '3rd' just isn't nearly as stylish, and honestly doesn't look all that casual at first glance either; the assymetrical lapels and pockets are a bit too extreme-sports to convey a relaxed setting, ditto the fingerless gloves. Also, the colours don't work nearly as well as red top/white pants did in T6.

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  5. 1 more video with Nina here. http://youtu.be/Fe9Ivl2EW_I?t=5m56s

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  6. can u upload the nina vs anna vid?

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  7. Hi, can you please send me all the CG videos (or a link) for Nina in this game? My email is u06ec322@gmail.com

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