Tekken 3
Tekken 3 is the top-selling computer game from Namco which was released in 1998. I have had a copy of it since the day of its release and play it loads. I love it, it rocks. This bit of the 'darium is where I tell you, my reader, about all the little things I have found in my years of play, things that you won't find elsewhere. This said, you may wonder why you should listen to me instead of buying a guide - hey, it's probably better information, right? Wrong. I have beaten world records in survival mode and time attack mode, and I have discovered things that I haven't found written down anywhere. So believe me, I do know what I'm talking about...
The way I play
My favourite character is Doctor Boskonovich. He's probably my best character, but my Heihachi is also very strong. Dr. B is the most complicated character I have ever known in a fighting game, and that's why his section here is the largest. In my opinion, the top 5 characters are as follows:
1. Dr. Boskonovitch, although he varies in strength drastically depending on his opponents;
2. Paul - I play offensively;
3. Heihachi - I play offensively;
4. Xiaoyu - I play defensively;
5. King - I play very offensively;
Doctor Boskonovich
Doctor Boskonovich is an incredibly complicated, multi-layered character. He is probably most notable for his reversals and counter-attacks, but his wake-up game is nothing short of amazing, and he has surprise attacks like no other. The best way of using him is to use his fast surprise attacks which nearly all deliver a knock down, allowing him to go into his wake up game, and then, when his attack stalls and the opponent recovers, tease him into attacking and pop him with one of those amazing counters. Repeat ad victoria.
The first few things I will talk about are Dr. B's defensive options. You must know these if you are going to win with him.
Defense
You may have noticed by now that Dr. B's block is poor. This is true in the conventional sense, because it is difficult for him to block low and whenever he does block he unbalances and begins to fall backwards. The first thing you must remember is that Dr. B's defense is designed to combat rushes. Single blows cause him more problems than rushes because of the options available to him when he starts defending. When he is blocking a rush, holding back will allow him to block all of the hits, and low ones can be blocked with a down-back. However, if there is a large enough pause, he will then start to fall, at which time he is vulnerable. To stop him falling back, Dr. B has two main options. The first is to stabilise by presing down or forwards. If you press forwards he will recover faster, but he may end up too close to your opponent for your liking. The second option is to attempt a counter-attack. This is best when you have blocked the first part of a rush and there is enough time between two hits to connect. There are 4 ways Dr. B can counter:
Only do panic doctor if the next attack is the last one in the rush, as otherwise you may be hit by the subsequent one.
Also, there is a nifty secret attack that Dr. B can do under the right conditions. If Dr. B is hit with a medium or high attack and he does not block, if the next attack in the string is high, he can press down to duck it. When he rises, he will momentarily have all of Heihachi's move list at his disposal, including his tenstrings! Note that it is not possible to do some of Heihachi's moves, because if you press forward-forward or down it will cancel the 'Heihachi-mode'. Try it against Law's tensrings, the fourth hit in each one is very easy to counter in this way.
Also, one of Dr. B's best defensive options are his parries, reversals and auto-reversals. Master these, and you will come to love playing with him, they are hilariously fun to do.
Reversals, Parries and Auto-Reversals
To do a parry with Dr. B, press S+T. It only works against high and medium punches. For a low parry, press d+S+T. This will dodge any attack that hits low, but it will not actually parry it or reverse it.
The effects of either one of these is marvellous. Firstly, if you parry a high or medium punch, you have three options. The first is to perform a grab by pressing S+T. This initiates Dr. B's excellent multipart throws. The second option is to press X+O and go for a crouching throw. This is useful if you delay very slightly and let your opponent think you are going for the standard throw, as you will nab him as he tries to duck the grab. Not as powerful, but you get a cool soundbyte. The third option is to do nothing. After a while, you will flash electricity and be momentarily stunned, but until then you have a medium to high auto-reversal shield enabled. If your opponent tries to hit you between the time of your parry and the time you spark, his attack will be automatically reversed (If you are playing against Dr. B and he does this to you, remember that Dr. B's reversal is nothing special, you can chicken it too. This is very nice to remember as you can force him to reverse your attack and hit him with a free chicken!).
If you do a low parry, the low parry continues until the attack string ends, i.e. if you low-parry the first of three hell-sweeps, you will dodge all three, without having to press the buttons three times. Also, if the attack string flicks from low to medium or high, you will automatically reverse that hit. For example, if you do a low parry on the first hell sweep in Jin's four-kick jumping roundhouse chain, you will jump over both low sweeps and then automatically reverse the middle kick, all for just that one press of the buttons. Also note that Dr. B recovers extremely quickly after his low-parry, and he remains right next to his opponent, allowing for some very painful results for your foe.
Dr. B's Bad Stomach (S+O) is the easiest way to go into his throw chain, but it is also an auto-parry for a brief while at the start of it's execution, so you can use it instead of pressing S+T for the standing parry, as it will allow you to grab even if the expected punch doesn't come. This is not always a good idea, though, because you will probably have to adjust your hands on the controller in order to do it, and you will be less well-off by doing so. Also, if the S+T parry is missed, by holding up, Dr. B can go into Dr Bounce insanely fast and get in a counter attack on opponents who think you're vulnerable after missing the parry. This is where Dr. B is best, when they think he's vulnerable and come in for the kill, only to have him explode in their faces.
Dr. B also has an auto-reversal against right kicks that hit him on a counter by pressing forward just as he's hit. This is Heihachi's right kick counter and it cannot be chickened. Finally, he has an auto-reversal against Gun Jack's lift up-megaton punch throw, but this can be chickened.
And speaking of Gun Jack, Dr. B is the robot's worst nightmare in a fight. The reason is simply that Dr. B can use his remote control thing to tell Gun Jack what to do. Aside from the above auto-reversal, and the fact that Jack relies heavily on slow low combos which the Doc can parry all too easily and slow medium and high punches that will result in heavy damage from a multipart throw after the parry, if Dr. B hits Jack on a counter with his Jack Tamer (f,f,T) he does something nifty. The Doctor makes Jack do his tile-smasher, which he auto-reverses. If you hold down, he will not do this, and if you hold up, he will instead make Jack do his flying attack. If you stop after initiating the flying attack you will fall and get hit by it. Pretty dumb. If, however, you keep holding up, you will connect with the Dr. Bounce (or press X+O to hit with the flip kick), and if you instead quickly press forwards, you will recover behind where Jack will land, and if you're fast enough, you can back-grab him, or you can just hit him with something. Funky stuff, try it out.