It happens to the best of us at least once
Although most modern fighting games are tuned to cater more to the competitive / eSports scene, there’s still quite a few new games that keep in some of the old cheese that can catch players off guard.
That includes Tekken 8 leaving JACK-8 one of the funniest moves he’s had for 30 years now, and while we almost never see it in a tournament, the big boy can end a round in just a few seconds.
We got to see that hammer come down in the top 8 of FlyQuest Fight Series #21 this past weekend, and the commentators almost had to leave the room when it did.
In game four of the winners quarter finals set between the pro PAR|JoeCrush and his signature JACK against photographer turned player Kytaie, the mean machine kicked off the first round by winding up.
After a few seconds of neutral play, JoeCrush back almost all the way up and starts charging up JACK’s Gigaton Punch special where you can see him spinning his arm around as the announcer counts up to five.
Once JACK reaches that fifth rotation, he’s fully loaded and destroys Jun’s entire health bar in one punch to give JoeCrush the perfect.
TEKKEN TOP 8 JUST STARTED AND THIS HAPPENED IMMEDIATELY #FlyFS pic.twitter.com/SzPAECQ6oL
— FlyFighters (@Fly_Fighters) August 3, 2024
JustASpirit and Ashurvok instantly lose it when the Gigaton connects and have a hard time trying to recover like they just got hit with the punch.
Joe having his character decked out like RoboCop was pretty funny too.
Once the clip made its way onto social media, the rare tournament occurrence caught the attention of longtime Tekken Project Director Katsuhiro Harada.
The Bandai Namco boss would respond with just one word, “Awesome,” to the dismay of Kytaie.
This obviously didn’t actually end the set, but I’m not sure how you come back from that one.
@Harada_TEKKEN PLEASE IM JUST A NEW PLAYER I JUST STARTED MAN THIS CAN’T BE IT FOR ME
— Peter (@Kytaie) August 4, 2024
JoeCrush would advance with a 3-1 victory though at least Kytaie did still manage to take a game off of the pro competitor before that.
JACK’s Gigaton Punch has been present since the original Tekken, and though it’s been adjusted as the years have gone on, it’s basically worked the same for 30 years.
The more times the robot swings his arms, the stronger his punch becomes. If he reaches at least five, the blow can one-hit KO like we just saw.
Getting to that point does force JACK to basically stand there for almost three whole seconds, so that’s supposed to give the counterplay of being able to side-step, back away or knock him out of the charge before it’s complete.
If you’ve never really encountered the move, however, because it is basically a silly gimmick that rarely comes up like this, there’s a good chance you’re taking that hit.
While we are having a laugh at this funny interaction, I do hope that Kytaie isn’t truly discouraged since most of us can probably relate.
I can guarantee that almost everyone here has been hit by the Gigaton Punch, Ralf’s Galactica Phantom, Instant Kills in Guilty Gear, Ike’s fully charged Eruption, etc.
A lot of them are designed as moves to catch people off guard and serve as a teaching moment when trying to get more into fighting games.
Heihachi has a few of them that we’ll be seeing more of when the elder Mishima arrives as the third DLC character for Tekken 8 later this year too.
Kytaie would come back and win the next match against TreTheSensei before ultimately finishing in 5th while JoeCrush won the whole thing.
So I’ll turn it over to you all now. What’s the wildest move you’ve ever been hit with in a fighting game that caught you by surprise?
