Tekken Tag Tournament Review

For me, Tekken Tag Tournament was the pinnacle of both the Tekken series and fighting games in general. It's variety of characters and unique use of the tag system made me, and many others, a big fan of the series. Released in the arcades the game created a fever leading to tons of tournaments all over the country and the world. On the PS2, the game was used at launch to showoff the power of the PS2.

TTT is not officially part of the Tekken storyline which explains the reappearance of certain characters thought dead on Tekken 3. With 39 characters, TTT has the largest roster of any Tekken game. These characters come from the previous three Tekken games. A player picks two characters and proceeds to beat the shit out of the computer controlled opponents or whoever decides to join in.

Like all fighting games, the setup is simple yet becomes incredibly complicated once you sit down and learn the system. Tekken's button layout includes left punch, right punch, left kick, right kick and just for TTT, a tag button. It takes the right movement of the joystick, correct button presses, and accurate timing to pull off moves for a character. With the tag button, you can switch between characters, and, if you're good enough, special tag combos can be used. Matches are a best of 3 with a round ending when either character on a team is knocked out.

The PS2 version was released at launch and was a good display of what the PS2 can do graphically. It took the graphics of the arcade version and improved on them. In a sense, this was the second game released for a home console that was either the same or better than the arcade version with the first being Soul Caliber for the Dreamcast. TTT for the PS2 included small endings for each character that weren't much for explaining the story of the character. To go along with modes such as Vs., Arcade and Time Attack there's also a mini-game called Tekken Bowl. The game offers a break from the constant fighting. Finally, something for the multiplayer fans is that TTT is a four player game. Each player picks one character, forming two teams, and each player can tag the other team member providing some funny moments for unsuspecting teammates.

Tekken Tag Tournament was a turning point in the video game world. On one hand, the game brought forth a slew of gamers to the arcade. The increases in gamers lead to more tournaments than ever before. On the other hand, once the game was releases on the PS2, it was a sign that there is very little reason to head to the arcade anymore. TTT both took the arcade to the next level, as well as are the beginning of the end for arcading gaming.

- O.G.