Japanese style cut scenes and super humans immune to bullet fire and explosions resorting to beating the living crap out of each other for our entertainment. You have to love Japanese video games. I think I even saw my PS3 smile a little. So, lets see if Namco’s sequel to one of the most popular Tekken games ever is up to scratch.

CHARCTERS

Arguably the most important part of any beat-em-up is the characters. I’ve always loved the variation in the characters in Tekken ranging from lighting fast Ling Xiaoyu to impossibly old man in robes Wang. And it will be no surprise to returning Tekken players to find a dinosaur, a robot, a kangaroo, a tree and two bears on the roster along with the “normal” characters.

Out of the box Tekken Tag 2 includes a truly massive 49 characters and free characters keep cropping up (on my last count 59 are available!). As ever the characters are all brilliantly well-crafted and unique. They are also all unlocked at the start so as soon as you play a game you will be presented with a truly impressive and daunting selection to make.

One of my favourite parts of Tekken is learning a characters combat style and moves and really feeling like you’ve mastered their style and Tekken Tag 2 doesn’t disappoint.

GAME MODES

Arcade mode is the usual affair where you progress through a series of fights and then fight a special boss at the end. This time around Jun Kazama is the big bad boss. The final boss is challenging but not insurmountable although it can get frustrating at times because she has a truly wonderful one hit KO move. Time Attack mode also returns which is basically the same as Arcade except you are given an overall time at the end.

Ghost mode is a continuous string of battles getting increasingly more difficult and ranking up your chosen characters which attempts to mimic an online environment. Unfortunately the difficulty ramped far too quickly for me and even on easy the computer inevitably reached a point where it was essentially on hard. Basically I could no longer progress through ghost mode with certain characters which are inevitably the ones I want to do it with. It does increase your skill and make you play at a higher level but only to a certain extent because, well, I’m human and unfortunately there’s a limit to my skill!

Feeling slightly disappointed I moved to good old practice mode for a bit of a tune up. Practice mode is great and the amount of options in there will allow you to do pretty much anything you want. It is genuinely useful and a great way to learn a characters style or brush up on a particular activity such as counters or blocking as you can change the options so the AI will allow you to do so.

Survival pits your chosen character or tag team against a sequence of enemy’s until you’re defeated at which point you are politely informed how many matches you won and weather you need more practice. I usually did “Need More Practice” as I didn’t get very far but it’s still good fun.

Team Battle is another favourite of mine and allows you to choose a team size of between one and eight made up of any characters you wish and then battle elimination style until one team is knocked out completely.

DIFFICULTY

The difficulty of Tekken changes a lot depending on whether you have the patch. Pre patch the game was very difficult even on easier difficulties. Post patch easy became, well, easy. This may seem obvious but I really don’t know why easy wasn’t easy in the first place as there are enough difficulties present to still provide a challenge for the ambitious but without ruining it for people who aren’t. Post patch the difficulty is not a problem and while I’m sure no one will complain that it’s too easy on high difficulties it should be playable by all.

ON-LINE

Let’s venture online to see how much better everyone else is than me at Tekken! The game usually finds another player for you to fight with a decent connection after a little wait, it’s not quick but you shouldn’t get too bored. Lag seems OK and doesn’t take the blame for my losses every time. However I have yet to be matched against someone I can have a decent match with. The rank of my opponent is usually “Beginner” despite the fact that they wield some serious Tekken skills. I have no problem with people being a lot better than me but why can’t I have a round with someone of my own skill level? It seems to me that the on-line multiplayer is off limits to those unsure of their skills.

PROGRESSION & CUSTOMIZATION

After any of these matches you will earn G that you can spend on customization items for your characters. The amount you earn depends on the game mode you play but you will need to play a lot to get any of the items. A shirt costs about 900,000G! I have no idea where these people shop but you literally need to be a multimillionaire to get a t-shirt and a pair of shoes. That being said the customization options are in-depth and extensive.

PLOT

The fight lab is a new mode to Tekken Tag 2 and offers a loosely “plot” driven sequence of training sessions where you play as a robot called Combot. You participate in the various challenges set out before you, such as only being able to hit enemies with high, mid or low attacks. As you progress the Combot can be upgraded and you can select moves from the games other characters to customize him in various ways. It is certainly entertaining and worth playing at least once but it’s not going to be a core game mode.

Other than that there are the ending movies which are all fairly short with some containing fantastic fighting sequences, some relating to the games plot (such as it is) and others being totally ridiculous and hilarious.

I believe this is the only place you can see a jealous pet panda riding the teacups at a fair and then hugging a miniskirt clad Japanese school girl who can beat up men literally four times her size. Weird? Yes, but also hilarious.

AUDIO

There are some solid sounds in Tekken. The cut scenes have good Japanese voice acting and nice sound effects. As soon as you are on the main menu you will have up-beat electro and trance pumping out of your sound system relentlessly. You can change the settings and decide which music will play on which stages and it is also one of few games that allow custom tracks on the PS3. The voices in battle combined with the stage destruction sounds and faces being smashed in are good, but there is nothing in Tekken to excite the Audiophile.

VISUALS

The stages are unique and there are few obvious shared elements at all. The rain leaves an extremely reflective sheen over everything, the water pools that some stages have you fighting in react well to the characters movements and even the non-reactive elements in the background are colourful and immersive. Occasionally there are some clipping issues with characters outfits, hair or other elements but it is not often enough or bad enough to spoil the experience. The cut scenes are truly gorgeous, at times looking like something out of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (the stadium on the opening cut scene just looks amazing!).

CONCLUSION

Tekken really does nothing to innovate and whilst it is fun and succeeds as a beat-em-up and a Tekken game this is certainly not the place for imagination. The menu seems awkward and uninspired and I seem to end up at the main menu where just going back a level would have done quite often. As a sequel it is an improvement offering more characters, customizations, stages and game modes than before and as such it shouldn’t disappoint Tekken veterans and newcomers to the franchise alike.

It’s a beat-em-up, and a good one. So if you fancy beating up a velociraptor and a bear with a man-tree-thing and a kangaroo or playing with two different martial artists and mastering kick-boxing and drunken mastery then this is the place for you. As long as you don’t expect the unexpected from Tekken it will entertain massively.

Tekken: Tag Tournament 2 is available on PS3 and XBOX 360 now.