In a recent interview, Tekken director Katsuhiro Harada defended the game's tradition of embracing button mashing.
Harada noted that most players never try practice modes and so it is important to allow them to gain the needed experience through the traditional route of playing against the computer or friends.
"It's worth noting that when the fighter genre first hit arcades, there weren't any real tutorials," he said. "Instead, the designers tweaked the difficulty level such that after a couple of credits, you had already gone from beginner to intermediate player -- something you could then improve upon by learning more moves and practicing."
"A lot of other people say that it's too easy for beginners to enter the game and beat people by mashing buttons! Personally, I don't see that as such a bad thing if it gets more people into the series, gets them curious about it."
Harada then suggested replacing the mostly ignored single player practice mode by "an online mode where players can just beat on each other without any life gauges, chatting each other while learning the moves."
