TEKKEN TAG TOURNAMENT If you've stayed
away from the Tekken series for a long time, Tekken Tag is a very warm
homecoming, delivering the same solid gameplay that Tekken fans crave in large
doses.
The Tekken series has always stood as a
set of console games that went above and beyond their arcade counterparts. From
additional characters to completely new modes, the series has always tried to
add something that the arcade games lacked. Tekken Tag Tournament, at first
glance, is the most dramatic upgrade over an arcade Tekken game to date. The
graphics have been given a huge boost, similar to the upgrade that Namco's
weapon-based fighter, Soul Calibur, received when it hit the Dreamcast last
year. Plus, new modes have been added. But does the series capture the same
magical feeling that made the previous Tekken games such smash hits? Most
definitely.
Tekken Tag Tournament serves as an
upgrade to Tekken 3, adding a few new moves along the way. Fighters that had
appeared in Tekken 2 but were missing from Tekken 3 have been brought back as
well, and most of them have lots of new moves to help balance them with the
more powerful Tekken 3 fighters. Finally, the game is now fought in the same
tag-team style as Capcom's versus series of fighters, so you can switch between
two different characters at any time. Much like Street Fighter EX3 and Dead or
Alive 2, you can have up to four players, with each player controlling a
different fighter in the tag battle. However, unlike most other tag-battle
fighters, Tekken Tag rounds end after only one of the two fighters have been
defeated, rather than letting the battle continue as a one-on-two affair. An
option that let you configure this would have been nice. Aside from the
standard tag-battle arcade mode, there is also a one-on-one mode, that makes
Tekken Tag Tournament more like the previous Tekken games, as well as the
standard team battle (though it is now a tag-team battle), time attack, and
survival modes. Unlockable modes include a theater mode, where you can watch
all of the game's endings; a gallery mode, which lets you pause the game at any
time and snap a screenshot of the action that is saved to your memory card for
later viewing; and Tekken bowl mode, a bowling minigame that lets you hit the
lanes and toss glimmer globes at Heihachi-headed bowling pins. Each character
has a different bowling style that affects speed and control. The character
endings, with the exception of the game's final boss, are rendered using the
game engine. This presumably saved time during the game's development. As a
result, they're short, mostly meaningless, and decidedly less than impressive.
By comparison, the prerendered intro and the final boss' prerendered ending are
simply incredible pieces of footage. In Japan, the TV commercial for the game
is simply an abridged version of the game's new intro movie. Very striking
stuff.
Graphically, the game has taken a very
large leap, and the arcade version of the game looks downright ugly by
comparison. The characters are very, very smooth, and the backgrounds are
amazing and filled with lots of movement, from helicopters to crowds of
spectators. Some stages are well lit, showing off some really excellent
lens-flare techniques. There are also some nice little touches, such as grass
being crushed down by falling fighters then slowly springing up afterward.
However, the game suffers from one particular problem that has in fact been
seen throughout the series, but with the power of the PlayStation 2 behind it,
you'd expect it to be a thing of the past. The problem is the same one that
showed up in Street Fighter EX3. While the backdrops of the fights and the
ground on which you fight look great separately, they don't mesh very well. The
result is two different types of scrolling, making it look as if the battle is
occurring on a small, circular spinning platform surrounded by a nearly
stationary background. It's easy to miss while you're actually playing, but it
sticks out like a sore thumb on watching the game closely. However, the game
has been cleaned up a lot when compared to the Japanese release. The characters
are smooth, the backgrounds and floors appear more refective and vibrant, and
the game just has a significantly more polished look to it. The game uses much
of the same animation and motion-capture data from Tekken 3. Sure, the
characters look pretty incredible, but with the identical animation quality,
even as good as that animation was, the game looks and feels a little on the
stale side. The soundtrack is full of techno and vocoder robot voices that will
either endear you to the soundtrack or drive you up the wall
How much you enjoy the game will directly relate
to one factor: If you played so much Tekken 2 and 3 that you couldn't possibly
play another match, Tekken Tag doesn't offer enough new features to draw you
back in. But if you've stayed away from the Tekken series for a long time,
Tekken Tag is a very warm homecoming, delivering the same solid gameplay that
Tekken fans crave in large doses. Still, you won't be able to stop yourself from
wondering what Namco could have done with the game if it had been designed on
the PS2 (or comparable arcade hardware) from the start. Guess we'll all have to
wait for Tekken 4 to find that out.
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