Couch Party Gem: Tekken 7, Fighting Games and Homebrew Tournaments
Posted on: 2026/05/05 10:03:01AM || Views: 10
There are few important things to keep in mind as I talk about fighting games here:
I am very far from an expert at fighting games, only having played a few dozen hours of fighting games in total.
Same applies to my friends that I play these fighting games with. Their experiences vary from slightly more competent to barely knowing how a joystick works. On average, its people who have very little experience with fighting games.
The reason I mentioned all of that is because my praise towards the main game of this discussion - Tekken 7, is focused around the kind of experience it managed to deliver to a bunch of people with very little experience playing fighting games. For reference, I only own 3 fighting games:
Tekken 7
Mortal Kombat X
Killer Instinct (fresh install).
I have also played a few others elsewhere:
Tekken 3 (us neighbor kids loved playing this at our friends house, great memories)
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Heritage for the Future (I haunt technobudda’s dreams)
Mortal Kombat 2
Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike
Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja STORM 4
Smash (I think it was the switch one?)
Do those flash game fighting games count lmao
As most people know, when you let a beginner play any fighting game, they're going to start button mashing. It can be entertaining to them for a little bit but it's hard to maintain a longer term interest towards such games, when all you do is aimlessly press buttons and watch a lukewarm spectacle play out on-screen. Especially rough if the person they're playing against is somewhat competent at the game.
From the games I own, Mortal Kombat X, while being a pretty fun game with a decent roster, fails at being accessible for beginners that are playing it infrequently in a hangout/party setting. You can pin certain combos on screen for you to use as a cheat-sheet, sure, but it’s still generally less intuitive.
This is where Tekken 7 stepped in for us. There are mechanics that makes it a breeze to get a beginner up to speed, which has made it our favorite fighting game to boot on almost every hangout. A mere 2 minute explanation already evolves beginners playstyle from braindead button mashing to somewhat calculated, and as they play with the knowledge they attained, they tend to get better at the game.
I am aware that Assist is generally frowned upon as it prevents actual growth, and the moves themselves aren't even that powerful, but once again, you gotta keep in mind that I'm writing from a perspective of our group that casually plays the game and my appreciation stems from the fact that it allows us to elevate the gameplay from button mashing to something actually calculated. These are the mechanics in question:
- Assist - Lets you hold down a button (Left Button for me), pulling up a menu where it transforms your regular attack buttons into unique moves. Sounds simple, but giving people access to these powerful, flashy moves leads to more even fights against opponents that might have slightly more experience at the game than you do.
- Block when not moving. It's such a simple rule to explain to people. Don't wanna get hit? Don't do anything. Crouch if you wanna block crouch attacks. Done.
- Rage art. I know this type of mechanic is present in most fighting games but its still very fun to have a potential comeback move available to everyone. Explaining to people that it can be blocked by others when they're not doing anything immediately leads to attempts at forcing an action from the other player, immediately making matches more interesting.
Homebrew Tournaments and Fighting Gaming with Friends
Fighting games have really started to pop off in my circle recently, all thanks to one person. She was a first time visitor at our home and after a bit of regular chatter, randomly asked us “Do you guys have Tekken?”, to which I said yes and this simple decision completely altered the timeline. After remembering how fun fighting games in a couch multiplayer setting were, I started offering visitors an opportunity to play Tekken 7, always getting a happy compliance to it.
We've gotten all sorts of people into it: Those who have only played it once or twice, those who have simply heard of the name (post-soviet country here, Tekken seems to be a well known name, alongside Mortal Kombat) or those who haven't even heard of it. Great thing is that we all seem to have fights of very equal caliber, no matter the skill level. However, if someone really good were to join us it'd shift the scales entirely. As it stands though, its balanced very well.
So far, we've had one "tournament". It was more like 5 of us going "Tekken tournament? Yes." and doing it with actual tournament bracket to make it more fun. The amount of hype and screaming in the room was one of a kind and I'm sure has caused fighting games to get cemented further into our minds as a really positive experience. Almost all the matches ended in close calls. There really is something special about winning an extremely tense match and hearing everyone going crazy over it. Everyone left feeling very exhilarated. Can't ask more from a game, really.
We have future plans for more tournaments. I'm in the process of putting together a 3D model of a trophy that I can print at home. I was considering having tournaments page on my website just to keep track of these fun tournaments as a fun way to look back. Maybe I'll get around to doing that sooner now that we're actually doing these more often.
I have some games on my mind that I want to try and introduce to my fighting game circle and one that I'm working on personally. I have two that I want to integrate currently: Killer Instinct (2013) and JoJoban. I'm in the process of figuring out how to easily explain the rules of KI so we'll see how that goes. I'll be writing more about what games I managed to easily integrate down the line so you can keep an eye out for that, if anyone is even reading this. Man I should probably add comments to my blog posts or a shitty view counter.