Tekken Hybrid

Tekken Tag Tournament was one of the early highlights of the PS2 era, and it’s possibly the most fondly remembered of the series. Nevertheless, nostalgia has its way of clouding one’s judgement, and the question we should all be asking is: is there enough value in this Tekken Hybrid package —even with a Tekken Tag Tournament 2 demo and a schlocky animated movie included— to justify paying a decent price again for this 11 year-old title?

The good news is that the gameplay more than holds up. It’s still fast and supremely tight. It may lack the elegance and flash of later games, but it remains a dream to play as a pure fighting game. With our ageing memories it’s hard to tell, but we also suspect that the engine has never run this smoothly.

Time has been less kind, however, on its looks. The textures may be tidied, colours sharpened and some of those rough edges may have been smoothed out — it’s amazing what a bit of glasspaper can do for a pixel — but it’s still not enough to save it from looking unmistakingly last gen. Some of the character models look very blocky, particularly Kazuya — whose shoulders would be classified as lethal weapons in any self-respecting civilised society. It’s pleasant enough on the eye, but we doubt we’d be this forgiving if it was a new game.

More frustrating, though, is the lack of anything new. This is essentially the exact same Tekken Tag Tournament that was released all those years ago, but with polished visuals, trophy support and everything unlocked from the beginning — which suggests that even Namco doesn’t expect players to hang around for too long.

We obviously appreciate the inclusion of trophies, but an online component would have gone a long way to making the package more attractive, just as it did for Capcom’s re-release of Marvel vs. Capcom 2. 

READ THE REST OF THE REVIEW AT PS3 ATTITUDE 

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