Tekken 7: Ranking Every Character From Worst To Best

16. Akuma

Divisively, I'm going to say that despite Namco coding Akuma to play just like a Street Fighter character, fundamentally ends up letting him down in the long run. There's just such a swathe of animation priority and intuition needed to play Tekken that isn't present in Street Fighter, and whilst franchise vets on the latter will be in heaven, he's a very tough character to wield, even after many hours of learning time.

Once you do get over that hump though, it's very easy to inflict a world of pain on opponents, his spin-kicks, fireballs and uppercuts being very easy to pull off, and Akuma's Rage Art being one of the most damaging in the entire game.

It's a shame Namco didn't try to adapt Akuma's moveset and animation style more to the Tekken mould, but what is here is serviceable enough - not to mention adored by certain subsets of fans.