A great game to start with, but after a while...
Tekken Tag Tournament was exactly what I expected. It’s in fact Tekken 3 with updated graphics for the PS2. The difference is actually the “Tag”-system. This is where you select two fighters who work together to defeat the two opponents. You can easily switch characters with just one simple press on the button. You have to pay attention though, cause when one of the two fighters is knocked out, then you’ve lost. So when you’re low on health, just switch to the other one. You can also commence great combo’s working with both characters, so sky’s the limit!
Considering this is one of the first PS2 games, I must say that the graphics look really great! The stages look very detailed and the characters look great too. The one thing I want to comment about is that the stages aren’t interactive, like the ones in Mortal Kombat or Dead or Alive. I don’t know if this was done in the later versions of Tekken, cause I haven’t played any of them.
The sound in the game is very good. The SFX sound great and realistic. The music however is something else. It really depends on the stages actually, cause some have great music and others do not. Sometimes I wished I could turn it off at just one stage, but unfortunately that’s impossible… :)
There are (due to good Tekken-tradition) several things to unlock in the arcade mode. One of them is the Tekken Bowl mini-game. It’s not as much fun as the beach ball mini-game in Tekken 3, but it will do. Of course there are also several secret characters as well as ending sequences for every character to unlock.
The downside of this game with me was that it didn’t keep me in its grip for very long. After a while it just got very boring to endlessly beat the game. It didn’t get any harder and it was the same every time I played it. I also couldn’t find the will to really explore all the moves and combo’s so that didn’t make it interesting to keep playing. I know this is just something that’s bothering me, and not most of you. But to me this is the reason that kept me from touching the game ever again.
To my opinion, Tekken Tag Tournament is a great game to start with, but in de end it gets a kind of boring. But that’s just my opinion! :)