Some of my best memories of gaming are of fighting games. Way back in
the mid to late 90s, we used to gather around one of our NES knock-offs
and take turns fighting each other in Street Fighter II. Later on, we
graduated to playing the first Marvel vs Capcom on the original
PlayStation. Not like we knew what we were doing in these games, we just
liked to try and beat each other up. But as time went by, newer
consoles came along with newer and better fighting games. What is widely
regarded as one of the best fighting games of all time was a game
called Tekken 3 on the PlayStation. This was the first fighting game I
played that incorporated 3D in more than just a visual capacity. As time
and consoles went on, I eventually lost my taste in fighting games
after Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection on the PlayStation Portable – a game
which I will still defend with my life as the best in the series –
until early last year when I got my hands on Marvel vs Capcom 3: Fate of
Two Worlds. This game rekindled my interest in fighting games and a
year and a couple hundred of Street Fighter game binges later, here I am
with my first 3D fighting game in almost five years with Tekken Tag
Tournament 2.
Round One! Fight!
The story of the Tekken series has never been the franchise’s
strength, unless you’re really into batshit insane stuff like the ‘Devil
Gene’, not to mention some of the wackiest playable characters in a
fighting game, which include a kangaroo with boxing gloves, a bear who
has a crush on a panda, the panda who is completely oblivious to the
bear’s advances and a tree spirit that awakens every now and again when
the world is in extreme peril. Despite all this, the games have managed
to have a deep and compelling storyline about daddy issues on a cosmic
scale if you follow the canonical endings of Jin Kazama – the closest
thing the series has to a main character. Tekken Tag Tournament 2 itself
has very little bearing on the main storyline of the franchise, though.
Much like its predecessor, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is mostly a
fanservice game that focusses on letting you battle it out with your
favourite characters from the Tekken roster, including the ones who are
supposed to have died in previous games. The excuse plot doesn’t really
explain anything other than, “Here’s another King of Iron Fist Tournament. Beat those guys up.” But then again, very rarely has a fighting game needed a story to be compelling.
Yes, one of the playable characters in the game is a BEAR!
The game has a bunch of gameplay modes, all divided into two sections – Online Play and Offline Play. Both of the sections are pretty self-explanatory, with online play giving you the option of joining matchmaking to pit yourself against either random strangers, or people you know. Online play also has other options including the ability to watch and save replays of online matches and looking at your player record. The bulk of the section is in the matchmaking, and once you start a game and find an opponent who has more than one bar in terms of latency, you’ll want to keep playing against that person and improve your skills. The biggest issue here isn’t even the game’s fault. Finding a match takes forever, and when you do find one, there are extremely high chances that you’ll lose because of the insane lag. This is mainly due to lack of interest for fighting games in India.
Every character has their own unique fighting style
The Offline Play section is where I spent most of my time, honing my skills against the computer in Arcade and Time Attack modes. Arcade Mode is where the “story” of the game happens. When I say story, I mean an excuse to keep fighting until you get to the last boss and unlock some move for your character that’s supposed to explain... something. Regardless of the story, the game modes themselves are pretty fun, and this is compounded by the solid fighting mechanics of the game, as all the characters feel unique to play and this is helped by the fact that each of the characters incorporate many real-life martial arts into their moveset (Devil Jin and his laser beams notwithstanding).
Multiplayer in offline play may be where you manage to spend most of
your time if you can find enough friends who are jobless enough to learn
the game. Not much can be said about the Versus Mode that hasn’t
already been said though, as the game’s strength lies in its solid and
well thought-out mechanics.
The game boasts well thought-out tag mechanics
The mechanics of the game are extremely different from the
mechanics of the much more popular Street Fighter games. The only
meaning high, mid and low attacks have in this game is the direction of
your attack. The power of the attacks aren't in any way related to the
direction of attacking. Rather than the high, mid and low attack system
from Street Fighter, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 opts for a system that
seems pretty simple and intuitive at first, but is deep enough to make
you spend months mastering a single character. This is helped by the
fact that each character has more than a hundred different combos, which
are pulled off by chaining attacks from the right limbs together. Other
than the standard D-Pad controls for movement, the game maps each of
the four face buttons to a separate limb. For example, Square will make
you attack with your left hand, whereas circle will make you attack with
your right leg. The standout feature of the game, much like the first
Tekken Tag Tournament, is the tagging mechanics. You can either switch
characters in and out to keep them out of dangers, or if you're feeling
especially ballsy, use tagging as a way to prolong combos and juggles to
keep your opponent disabled until they're knocked out. The tagging
works by simply pressing the Tag button, which would do different things
depending on your combo or timing, ranging from simply switching
characters, to setting up elaborate combos where you will constantly
switch characters in between for prolonged beatings.
Fight Story acts as a very deep and funny tutorial
All in all, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is a very entertaining game
with a low entry bar but an extremely high skill ceiling. Veterans will
obviously love this game – if for nothing other than the hilariously
large 50-character roster – but newbies won’t have difficulty in getting
into the game, as the game boasts an extremely comprehensive tutorial
mode called Fight Story. Fight Story explains many things, including
intricate combos and the difference between high, mid, and low attacks
and the advantages and disadvantages of each, all wrapped up in a
stupidly funny storyline that involves none other than Lee.
Though many people may still be put off by the complexity that exists
in the game, including the severe need to master juggling on higher
difficulties, veterans of the franchise or of fighting games in general
might find a great new game to try and master. Personally, I’ve put in a
lot more hours into this game than I’d like to admit and it sits firmly
on my shelf alongside Street Fighter III: Third Strike and Super Street
Fighter IV: Arcade Edition as one of my all-time favourite fighting
games.
