On our site, we’ve got guys associated with certain games. A short and very incomplete list would look something like this: if I want to talk Madden, I hit up Nathan. If it’s anything Nintendo, Steve’s the man. For Tekken, it’s Eric, and his excellent review from September of Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (TTT2) is highly recommended reading for anyone looking for a complete review of TTT2.
What the Wii U Edition manages to do, right at the Wii U launch no less, is put together what is probably the most complete port of a previously released game of them all (and there are quite a few of them). From what I have gathered and read online, the only mode missing is the WTF, also known as the World Tekken Federation. Even without it, and it could be added in later on I suppose, TTT2 is jam-packed with content sure to please any Tekken fan and quite possibly garner new ones. Also of note, and this is actually pretty amazing when you think about it, this is the first Tekken game on a Nintendo console (not handheld, but home console) to date.
Both in terms of presentation and in playing TTT2 on the Wii U, the robustness of the game and the feel of it doesn’t miss a beat. I have played several Tekken games off and on over the years, especially this generation, and TTT2 on the Wii U maintains that sort of Virtua Fighter meets Street Fighter feel. Despite it’s constant goofiness — starting with the characters including a variety of animals, robots, and deities — Tekken is quite possibly the most technical fighter I have played. At the hands of a relatively unskilled player like me, the game looks stiff and disjointed because my flow of movements is exactly that. When played by some of the folks I bumped into in online, Tekken can be a thing of beauty.
One of the new features that TTT2 brought (on the PS3 and 360 as well) was the Fight Lab, which is required material for anyone who wants to stands a snowball’s chance online or against the CPU on Very Hard and Ultra Hard. More than just a simple ‘press this button’ tutorial mode, the Fight Lab actually has a bit of a story to it, although it’s about as off the wall as the Iron Fist Tournament itself. Still, the effort in making the mode more than a boring and discouraging tutorial mode is appreciated. You’ll learn all about the different ways to move, attack, and involving your tag partner. Nothing short of hours of dedicated practice will make you great, just like any other game, but the Fight Lab is a pleasant and helpful start. Fight Lab is complimented with a host of offline modes including Story, Arcade, and Ghost, Survival, and Time Attack modes.
There are also the new Wii U modes, which are offline only and almost all heavily influenced by Nintendo franchises (especially Mario). In Mushroom Battle, normal Tekken battles are greatly altered by the randomness of mushrooms. There are three types of mushrooms and a star for a few seconds of invincibility. Poison mushrooms shrink your character and cause you to do less damage — similar to the super mushrooms which make you grow, you can touch several of these to become either really small or so big your head and shoulders are outside of the upper bounds of the screen. The ability to throw is lost once players are I think three size-levels apart, but for the most part gameplay stays the same. Sure, one player might be way bigger than the other and their moves do more damage, but they can be brought down to size if they come in contact with a poison mushroom. This mode has six stages that have descriptions telling you what types of mushrooms to expect. I wasn’t too impressed with Mushroom Mode, but I appreciated the creativity and effort.
Another addition is the return of Tekken Ball which has been missing from the series since PSX days. Tekken Ball has three modes, although the latter two are harder and unlocked only after playing through the first mode, which I did not do. I found Tekken Ball to be mildly interesting and it may be something I revisit, but basically envision 1 vs 1 or 2 vs 2 volleyball with a very unique ball. Rather than having the physics of a normal ball, the Tekken Ball moves slowly and can do serious damage if touched at the wrong time. Players basically hit the ball with their best solo or tag combo and attempt to get it to contact the opposing team. When you first start out, despite a nice multi-screen tutorial (as the Mushroom Mode also has), expect some learning curve time as you get used to the mechanics.
The Wii U Edition also has lots of preloaded Nintendo themed costumes applied to characters from franchises including Mario, Zelda, Star Fox, Metroid, and F-Zero. You can see some of these in the screenshots in this review, but passionate and knowledgeable Nintendo fans are likely to get at least a smirk out of this.
Naturally, the inclusion of the Wii U Gamepad makes an impact with TTT2 as well. You can opt to play the game on the Gamepad, which will keep it fully in sync with the TV, or you can play with the Gamepad as complimenting the action on screen. When you do, the Gamepad shows four preset commands for your character. Think of it as a convenient, maybe cheap, depending on who you ask, way of making executing four combos of your choice (from the list of 180 or whatever it is your character has) as easy as tapping the one you want. For not very skilled and not all that dedicated Tekken fans like me, it’s a welcomed feature. When not in the middle of the action, you can edit character costumes with the stylus too, but I didn’t spend long doing this.
Online play is really about the same as the other Wii U ports that I have played online: it works, and usually works quite well, but the community is small right now. With TTT2, I had a hard time getting a Friendly Match to work. What would happen is I would get dropped into the pre-fight room where you can practice on Combot (who doesn’t fight back) until a match or new challenger is found, which is normal. However, in the Friendly mode, it always errored out within thirty seconds and booted me off of the Nintendo Network, at least as far as the game was concerned (in reality I was still connected). I didn’t have any trouble finding Ranked matches though, which attempt to place you against competition close to your skill level. In the matches I tried, I didn’t fare well at all, but more importantly the game played really well and the connection apparently was not completely optimal as the game warned me before accepting the challenge.
As for presentation, without having experienced TTT2 for any significant amount of time on the other consoles, I feel confident that the Wii U version is just as crisp, colorful, detailed, and fluid as the PS3 and 360 version, further bolstering this as one of the very best, if not the best, Wii U port available.
To the summary…