Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (www.the-usher.com)

"Tekken a second for me to blow your mind"

It’s the ultimate Tag Battle in the ultimate sequel to 2000s Tekken Tag Tournament, fighters from the series past, present and possible future come together for this no holds barred battle royale, including the dominating Heihachi Mishima who has found the secrets to eternal youth, with this power he will kill his troublesome son Kazuya Mishima and his brooding grandson Jin Kazama.

Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is not a revelation to fighting games, it doesn’t feature an engaging plot (in fact the game is not even canon to the Tekken story) or even a batch of new characters, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is more Tekken, a pretty good Tekken, but alas just more Tekken, is that a bad thing? Well that’s what this review is going to find out.

If your new to Tekken here is the basics of game play, like other fighting games the game has a side on view of you and your opponent, unlike street fighter with is on a 2D plane, Tekken is on a 3D plane which allows you to sidestep and circle your opponent. The game is a lot more up close then other fighters, with a focus on actual real world fighting styles then other games. Though the game isn’t too realistic as you can ‘juggle’ your opponents with combos which allows you to maximise the amount of damage you deal to your opponents. The game is very easy for people to pick up, but be prepared if you want to master it, this game is difficult to get good at.

So what does this Tekken have that other Tekken’s don’t have? Well the most obvious is the Tag combat, exclusive to the Tekken Tag series (obviously) It allows you to use a team of up to two fighters, this opens up even more of the already deep combat system, allowing you to tag in after launchers and bounds to continue the combo with your team member, it’s a brilliant system that allows amazing combo potential, hours can be spent mixing up characters to test synergy and discovering combos you never thought would be possible. Though one question is why isn’t this just a feature in the main series? 2011s Mortal Kombat introduced a tag mechanic into the main series so why can’t Tekken? Especially since most people prefer using the Tag Mechanic over single matches.

Another big point is the roster, which at the current time stands at around 60 characters, no on disc Ł16 DLC antics either, as long as you have online they all be on the character select as soon as you start the game, ready to go. Whilst it’s great to see all these characters, allot of them featuring only one or two unique moves. One character is literally just another character in a disguise, which may leave players thinking a lot of characters are wasted slots, hardcore Tekken characters will love it though, a lot of classic Tekken characters make their triumphant return to the series, and it is very cool to see certain characters team up.

One of the biggest flaws with the game, are its menu’s. They are fiddly and cumbersome, to do very simple actions in the character customization menu becomes an overly elaborate performance. You must go into a menu, purchase the item you want, then leave the menu, then go into a separate menu, select the item you want to put on, then take a photo of it for the character select screen. If you want to see what your character looks like in more than one item of clothing you have to do this multiple times. There is no way to view your character in multiple items of clothing without going through this process.

The games soundtrack is lacklustre compared to the rest of the franchise, though this is not to say it does not have its moments. The main issue with the soundtrack is that the style of music has been updated to meet modern treads, instead of following its own unique style which was much closer to 90’s dance music. There are simply too many dub-step break downs in the soundtrack; tracks begin to blend into each other. Then there’s Snoop Dogg. Why Snoop Dogg was selected to record and release a song for this game I have no clue. His style of music does not match that of Tekken’s classic soundtracks or the new dub-step based one.

Fight Lab. This new mode was labelled as a stripped down character creator and story mode which saw you creating your own fighting robot and creating his own move set from the moves of existing characters. What we actually got was a glorified and cumbersome tutorial. For old fans of the series the mode is pointless and frustrating as it is the only way to build up the combot character making the featuring useless. For new fans its acts as a very basic tutorial, it does not go into any detail on how to create your own combos or juggles it simply lets you know they exist. The one reason to play through the mode is to hear the humorous dialogue of Violet and see some very special cameos.

In conclusion, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is still a ride worth taking to Heihachi land. While this title brings nothing new to the Tekken formula it stills refines it and brings back the tag system, this game is a good place for beginners to jump on.

Review by Ellis Atkinson & Jarrod Beauchamp

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