Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Preview

Do you ever feel that guns are too overdone in video games today? That perhaps the simplicity of beating the dribbling snot out of your fellow human is a lust not fulfilled enough in today’s gaming experiences? In which case I have some terrific news! Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is a thing, a damn satisfying thing, and I got my hands on it at Namco’s Summer Showcase.

I may not be the biggest connoisseur of fighting games, but I do have a soft spot for the ability to slam someone through a floor and uppercut them in the crotch in slow motion to be declared victorious. Tekken has always been a series slightly more grounded in reality, or as grounded as you can get with giant pandas and demon versions of yourself in, at least when it comes down to the combat. Despite my previous love of crotch punching. There’s a little less pomp and light show and much more emphasis on hard-hitting knocks and blows, with a few bombastic moves thrown in for an added sprinkling of awesome. Tekken Tag Tournament was, in my opinion, the best innovation of the series bringing in the tagging system (which I know was technically brought in during Tekken 3, but I feel TTT perfected it) and after a decade-long wait, a sequel is finally here!

If I had to summarise my overall feelings on TTT2 in a single word it would be this: tight. No, stop giggling like a schoolgirl, this is serious business. The controls, the balance, the strategic timing of each tag – it was all incredibly well-balanced and, overall, tight. There was very rarely a point I felt as if I was randomly mashing buttons in a panic, because I knew that the correct joystick movement and precise button smack would get me out of that predicament. Of course, this was all based around using the Tournament Edition Arcade Stick. The control pads just didn’t have the same ease of precision.

Obviously I cannot fully vouch for completely balanced characters – we all know that’s near impossible pre-launch of a fighting game – but I had some truly intense battles with my fellow journalists using a wide range of different fighters and combinations of fighters. Even in the solo vs. tag matches it seemed neither choice, on its own, was going to give you the biggest advantage. If anything, it ramps up the strategy element as you only need to eliminate a single fighter to win the round, so tagging or lack thereof can make a huge impact on your uppercutting timings.

There is a storyline, unlike the previous TTT, but it is not canon to any other Tekken game. Trying to fit any kind of comprehensible canon into this franchise just wouldn’t work. The precise elements of the storyline will remain a mystery until a later date. The main story mode on show appeared to be a seemingly-random slog through 9 stages of assorted characters followed by a final boss battle which I just could not beat no matter how hard I trained. The second round incarnation was just too much for my fingers to handle. However, the roster of fighters was plentiful to say the least.

There will be over 50 characters in the final console version, including the return of Kunimitsu, Michelle Chang, and Prototype Jack from the original Tekken for you old schoolers. Angel and Alex from Tekken 2. Humanoid Ogre (now known as Ancient Ogre), Tiger Jackson, and Forest Law from Tekken 3.

Plus, Tekken 4’s Combot appearing as a playable training dummy in the game’s ‘Fight Lab’ mode – which is a brand new tutorial mode which really helps to bridge the gap between new and veteran fighters. I don’t just mean that as a marketing line either. It really bumped up my play style and I was only on it for 30 odd minutes before I could resist the competitive fray no longer. I doubt I’d have gotten all the way to Stage 9 so quickly had it not been for Fight Lab boosting my skills and teaching me the ways of Tekken combos.

Tekken Tag Tournament 2 hits UK store shelves and online retailers on September 14th for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.