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Tekken Tag Tournament Review
Mark Simons
00/12/0000
It's finally here, one of the most anticipated titles for the PlayStation2.
It's finally here, one of the most anticipated titles for the PlayStation2, and I've been playing it solidly for the last few days. It's tough for some eh!
To put it simply Tekken is the best fighting series on the PlayStation, and up there with the greats of Virtua Fighter and Street Fighter. Essentially this game is a straight conversion of the Tekken Tag Tournament that is in the arcades, itself a simple variant on Tekken 3. Both TTT and Tekken 3 ran on the System 12 arcade board, which is basically a PlayStation with more RAM. Therefore we have a conversion, that like Soul Calibur to the Dreamcast is so much better than it's arcade forebear.
In traditional Namco style the game kicks off with a stunning intro, unfortunately this is a little short, but very impressive to say the least. However concerns me is not the FMV, but the in-game action, and in this respect TTT more than lives up to the hype. In short the game looks absolutely stunning. Yes, before you ask the backgrounds are separate from the playing floor, and when watching the game the resulting effect is a little odd. But these backgrounds are all jaw-dropping in their gorgeousness. All feature animations of some sort, and most have fully three dimensional people in the background, either doing their own thing, or watching and cheering the fight. The arena floors themselves look down right amazing, with some stunning lighting effects on a couple, and impressive detail on others. It has to be said that complaints about aliasing and lack of texture memory are really made redundant by this game, and I haven't even mentioned the characters themselves.
In Tekken 3, the characters looked great, at the time, but the facelift that Namco have given them for this conversion is just amazing. The detail, although not always apparent during fighting, is brilliant, with fully animated faces for all of the fighters. Their faces are so detailed that the insides of their mouths are rendered fully in 3D! The animation is superb and very smooth as the game never drops from 60 frames a second, no matter what is happening on screen. Lighting is also enhanced greatly by the very high polygon count of the fighters and the end result is brilliant, and showcased very well in the real-time endings.
Ok, so the graphics are nothing short of stunning, what about the audio? Well, it has to be said that the sound in this game is not as great as I would have liked. Quality wise there is no problem, everything sounds great, but the sound samples are essentially those found in Tekken 3, but unfortunately the music is not. Personally speaking I thought the soundtrack to Tekken 3 was brilliant, featuring both the arcade music, and an arrange version. However with TTT the music is not that great, and this is for all of the music in the game, intro, endings, embu and actual fighting music does not touch that found in Tekken 3. That said the music is not bad, and does fit the game well, it's just that I would have liked more.
When Tekken 2 came out on the PlayStation I really did get into it, and to me the control and fighting engine was the best out of all the 3D fighters on the market. The same could be said of the excellent Tekken 3, but now times have changed, VF3tb has made it to the home, Soul Calibur is on the Dreamcast and Dead or Alive 2 has mixed things up on both PS2 and Dreamcast. Now TTT finds itself outdated by the latter two, and outclassed by VF3tb. Essentially the fighting action in TTT takes place on a two dimensional plane, you can step in and out of the screen, but this is nowhere near the full freedom of movement of the other games that I mentioned. Personally speaking I think that the TTT fighting engine is great, it may be basic, but it's excellent fighting where practice is rewarded, more-so than in Soul Calibur and DOA2 where button bashing can lead to success. Obviously Eddy is the exception to this rule in TTT, but whoever chooses him shall be laughed at for their lack of skill **coughSTEVE!cough**.
Whilst the fighting engine is old, the characters are well balanced and there are lots of different fighting styles contained within the game. Many people, including myself, would argue that VF3tb has a better, more in depth, fighting system, but with depth comes difficulty, and VF3tb has this aura of being a game for the hardcore fighter. Soul Calibur and DOA2 feature fighting engines where pulling off spectacular moves are quite easily achievable without knowing too much about what you are doing. TTT seems to tread the very fine line between hardcore and mainstream acceptance very well. However I must lay some criticism at the feet of the tagging element of the game, as it just seems, well, the only thing I can really say is that you don't feel part of a team as such. This feeling is compounded by the fact that when one character looses all of their energy, the round is over, and this seems wrong. The actual tag speed is a little slow, meaning that creating tag juggles and throws is quite difficult, but then that is a thing you can practice. Essentially though you don't feel like you are using your characters together, basically like the feature was hastily added for the arcade game. Thankfully though the tag feature is implemented well, so it doesn't actually detract from the game, but it could have been better.
Namco usually excel themselves when it comes to putting in additions to their arcade ports, and TTT has one of the best bonus games ever. Tekken Bowl is the name of the game, and it's just characters from the game, er, ten pin bowling. It may not sound too good, but trust us when we say that it is very fun, and a great addition to an already great game. There are all the usual offerings as well, practice mode, survival, time attack as well as a standard one on one fight option with no tagging. Carried over from Tekken 3 is the theatre mode where you can watch all of the FMV\\\\\\\'s and real-time cinemas that you have gained access to. All of the characters have multiple costumes, and as the endings are real-time you can choose which costume you character wears when viewing their sequence. No real value to this, but it's fun dressing up your favourite Tekken characters, or perhaps that's just me... Also of no particular value is the ability (once you've unlocked it of course) to take snapshots of you in game action and save them to the memory card. Quite why Namco included this is unknown, and having to pause the game to take a photo can be a tad awkward, but still it's a nice addition.
The bottom line is that this game is brilliant, and I would recommend it in an instant to anyone who even has a passing interest fighting games. Whilst it may not bring innovation to the fighting game market, it is still a damn fine game. Oh and it is also a great way to show off that import PlayStation2 you just shelled out £600 for to your friends!
