Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (Hands-On) (Wii U) Preview

By Stuart Lawrence 05.08.2012

Review for Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (Hands-On) on Wii U

Tekken has been a well established series since it captivated fighting game fans back in the mid-1990s. Since then it has seen six main series titles and a few spin-offs, including the original Tekken Tag Tournament. Namco Bandai is set to continue the series of spin-offs with the upcoming Tekken Tag Tournament 2 and this one's coming to a Nintendo console as well! Here are some early impressions of the Xbox 360 version that was shown at a Namco-Bandai event in London recently.

The first thing noticed about Tekken Tag Tournament 2 was how easy it was to get into despite never playing Tekken with an Xbox 360 controller before. This should help both fans of the series and newcomers that might want to get into the series. It was, however, slightly more difficult to pull off some of the special moves, and whilst playing as Paul Phoenix and Marshall Law surprisingly the reaction times were sometimes slightly slower than would have been liked, but there is a possibility that it might just have been me...

Going through arcade mode did turn into a grind due to my lack of playing over recent years, but that didn't stop me from finding a way through at first, though, since you can just use simple punches, kicks and throws to beat the opponent. There are also various tag assaults to continue combos against an opponent, or a tag throw can be initiated, which can be escaped from.

Screenshot for Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (Hands-On) on Wii U

It also features 'Bound' hits that allows for the stunning of competitors to continue combination moves, although I ended up doing them by sheer luck more than anything and ended up losing in Arcade Mode due to rusty skills.

A new mode that was well advertised at the event was the Fight Lab. In this players train as a robot to harness and learn new skills from different characters through challenges from opponents of various shapes and sizes. This turned out to be a great feature since it forced me to get better at the game without it being overly frustrating. The end result was me being able to use moves a lot faster than before and even getting an elusive win against a human opponent!

Screenshot for Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (Hands-On) on Wii U

Final Thoughts

Overall, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is looking good for the current generation of consoles. The graphics are pretty much what you would expect and so is the gameplay. The Fight Lab seems to be a great new feature that will need some patience for people willing to try it, but it worked for me. What the Wii U version will entail is still in question, but even if it is merely a port with no extras it will definitely look good.

Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (Wii U)

Developer

Namco Bandai

Publisher

Namco Bandai

Genre

Fighting

Players

C3 Score

9/10

Reader Score

8/10 (1 Votes)

Out now

Out now

Out now

Out now Also on Also on Nintendo eShop

Comments

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Coldasice (guest) 05.08.2012#1

Good preview. I wonder how well this will do in general. There are so many better brawlers out there. Take Street Fighter, Soul Calibur, DoA - all > Tekken. That series died in the 90s.

real (guest) 06.08.2012#2

Actually it did not die. It still out sold all of the fighting games including street fighter and soul calibur. Guarantee TTT2 will have more sales than Street fighter x tekken, doa 5, and soul calibur 5. Heck TTT2 already has its own TV show.

Dimensions (guest) 06.08.2012#3

Please....Street Fighter isn't that great compared to tekken...I dont even know why soul calibur would be better..they're two different fighting games... doa 5 wont surpass this game's sales...I still believe that tekken is one of the most brilliant fighting games out there right now

elle (guest) 06.08.2012#4

3 years later, and there I can easily find a ranked/player match within seconds.
in street fighter x tekken, I can't find a partner to team up with after waiting around 10 minutes. there are few scramble mode rooms available too. player and ranked rooms are O.K., but the game didn't live up to the hype.

jango5519 (guest) 06.08.2012#5

You wish it did, SF4 killed street fighter. SC died after Soul Calibur 4 and 5. Dead Or Alive never took off. Street Fighter sold 32 million game copies in over 20 games, Tekken sold 40 million copies in 7 games. SF, SC, DoA, are nothing compared to tekken now.

PhoenixRise542 (guest) 06.08.2012#6

I like all those titles but even i gotta admit none of them can touch Tekken right now. Capcom hasn't made the best business decisions so Street Fighter has been "so-so" lateley; Soul Calibur V was pretty good but to this day no game in its series has really achieved more recognition than SC2; and as for D.O.A until now they've only been using sex appeal to get noticed as opposed to anything fighting related, years ago it was at the bottom of the barrel in 3D fighting games-i don't think it will beat Tekken in sales but i do think it will be the most successful of any DOA game.