Tekken 3

Tekken 3 maintains the same core fighting system and concept as its predecessors. Three-dimensional movement is insignificant in previous Tekken games (aside from some characters having unique sidesteps and dodging maneuvers), but Tekken 3 adds emphasis on the third axis by allowing characters to sidestep in or out of the background. Fighters now jump more reasonable heights than in the previous games, making them less overwhelming and putting more use to sidestep dodges, as jumping can no longer dodge every ground attack. Reversals, introduced for some characters in Tekken 2, were now available to all characters. New improvements include quicker recoveries from knockdowns, more escapes from tackles and stuns, more moves with juggling enabled, and newly created combo throws.

The PlayStation version of Tekken 3 introduces a beat 'em up minigame called "Tekken Force", which pits the player in various stages against enemies in a side-scrolling fashion. The concept was expanded on in a minigame for the PlayStation 2 versions of Tekken 4, and succeeded by the Devil Within campaign mode in the console versions of Tekken 5. Another minigame in the PlayStation version is known as "Tekken Ball", similar to beach volleyball, where the player must hit the ball with a powerful attack to pulverize the opponent, or cause them penalty damage by letting the ball fall into the opponent's territory.

15 years after the King of the Iron Fist Tournament 2, Heihachi Mishima has established the Tekken Force: a paramilitary organization dedicated to the protection of the Mishima Zaibatsu. Using the company's influence, Heihachi is responsible for many events that have ultimately led to world peace. One day, a squadron of Tekken Force soldiers searched an ancient temple located in Mexico under the premise of an excavation project. Soon after arriving there, Heihachi learns that they were obliterated by a mysterious and malevolent creature known as Ogre.

Having captured a brief glimpse of Ogre before his immediate disappearance, Heihachi seeks to capture Ogre in the hopes of harnessing his immense fighting power for his own personal gain. Soon after, Nina Williams was awakened from Dr. Bosconovitch's cold-sleep machine. Various known martial artists end up dead, attacked, or missing from all over the world, with Ogre behind all of it.

Tekken 3 is the first game to have been released on Namco System 12 hardware, after the original two Tekken games on System 11. The animation for the combatants was created using motion capture.

The sub-bosses of the previous two Tekken games were dropped in Tekken 3, since the developers felt it would make for a deeper and more well-rounded game if they focused on the move sets and playability of the core characters rather than on adding bosses.

The arcade game was a major hit. In Japan, the 15 April 1997 issue of Game Machine listed Tekken 3 as the most-successful arcade game of the month. It went on to be the highest-grossing arcade printed circuit board (PCB) game of 1997 in Japan, and second highest-grossing overall arcade video game below Sega's rival Virtua Fighter 3 (1996). Tekken 3 sold 35,000 arcade units worldwide in 1997, including 15,000 in Japan and 20,000 overseas.

While Virtua Fighter 3 was more successful in Japan at the time, Tekken 3 was more successful worldwide. Tekken 3 later became the overall highest-grossing arcade game of 1998 in Japan, above Virtua Fighter 3 Team Battle.