This is a spin-off to a game many consider the premier 3d fighting game franchise. Tekken Tag Tournament was originally an arcade game back in 1999 with a PlayStation 2 port one year later. The North American version was a PS2 launch title. The game itself may be the first 3d tag fighting game at the time. Although, I’d have to look into that more since Street Fighter EX 3 also came out around the same time. However, this review will be about the PS3 exclusive release Tekken Hybrid. The game itself is a package of Tekken Tag Tournament HD, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Prologue, and the 3D movie, Blood Vengeance. This collective ensemble was released in November of 2011 in most parts of the globe and on December 1 of that same year in Japan.
The main part of the package is Tekken Tag Tournament HD. The game comes with the following modes:
- Arcade
- Vs Battle
- Team Battle
- Time Attack
- Survival
- Practice
- Tekken Bowl
- Theater
Arcade is the bulk of the game and where most people will spend the majority of their time. The game sports 32 fighters from across the original 3 Tekken games. And of course, with this being a tag-in fighter, you pick two characters to play with rather than one. The game layout consists of the X, Triangle, Circle, and Square being the main attack buttons with the shoulder buttons acting as character swap buttons Swapping can be done any time during the battle. However, if one of your character(s) gets knocked out, that ends the round even if your other character still has energy. This to me personally is a weird gameplay mechanic choice to make considering Capcom put out games both before (the Vs. series) and during (Street Fighter EX 3) that allowed the player to fight to the last man or woman standing. Now to finish Arcade mode, you have to play through 8 stages. The seventh stage is a rival match depending on which fighter(s) you’ve chosen to play with. And the 8th stage is a character called “Unknown”, who basically has the moves et of any random fighter in the game. Honestly, you can get through a single gameplay of arcade mode in 5 minutes. And that’s me being generous.
VS. Battle is pretty much what you’d expect. Just a simple two-player mode where two players can fight against each other. Complete with the standard level select and handicapping options. There isn’t anything beyond what’s standard for most fighting games.
Team Battle is a more extended version of vs. battle. You can have a match with as little as 1 single character to at the most 8 characters. You can fight against either the computer or another play to the last fighter standing. This mode however doesn’t use the silly mechanic normal, vs, or arcade mode does where if one character gets knocked out, the match is over. For this one, any surviving players get to fight until the very end. To be honest, they should have made it like that in all of the modes, not just Team Battle. That’s just a personal opinion though.
Time-Attack is simply getting through the game within a certain time limit. Again, just like with Arcade and Vs Battle, there isn’t anything outside of the norm here. What you see is what you get. Try to beat the game in the shortest time possible. If you lose and have to continue, that just adds to your time. And that’s pretty much it for Time Attack.
Survival mode is simply put, beat as many teams of fighters as you can until you run out of energy. After every match, the game replenishes some of the energy you’ve lost during the prior match. Again, this is another standard mode with no bells and whistles to it.
Practice is practice. Just a place to get a feel for the game and learn moves and techniques. I don’t think anything else needs to be explained for this one.
Tekken Bowl is a fun diversion from the main modes. It’s literally bowling with Tekken characters. You pick any two characters and bowl in what looks to be a run-down dojo turned makeshift bowling alley. Your first character starts the frame while your secondary character is charged with picking up any spares (unless your first character made a strike, in which case your primary character has a full frame of pins to work with again). Don’t expect any major bowling mechanics in this. It’s just a break from the fighting. The good news is you can play it with a friend for some couch co-op
Now for the next part of the Tekken Hybrid, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Prologue. This is more of a teaser for the full game which is currently available for the PS3. Oddly enough, this sampler has a trophy set and can be played co-op. The game lets you pick from 4 playable characters. Xiayou, Alisa, Devil Jin, and Kazuya (actually Devil Kazuya). In all fairness, for many this was probably the selling point at the time. The demo is four rounds against the demo characters that actually go by fast. It’s also worth noting the game has a model viewer too in case you want to see a display of the demo characters’ movements.
The final piece of the collection is the movie Tekken Blood Vengeance. Without giving you any spoilers, the story of this movie deviates from the games into an alternate timeline between Tekken 5 and Tekken 6. Many of the more notable characters of the series are present such as Kazuya, Jin, Nina, Anna, and a few others. And like most blu ray and DVD discs, they come with the usual options like multiple subtitle languages, teaser trailers, and behind-the-scenes footage. Unlike the subtitles, the audio options aren’t as plentiful as they only come in English and Japanese. From start to finish, the movie is about an hour and a half.
All in all, this is a neat little package Namco is giving here. You can get the game from the price ranges of $11 – $33 on eBay. I’ve also seen it new on Amazon. But to be honest, it seems expensive there as I saw someone trying to sell it used for $74. If you want the collector’s edition, it’ll run you about $125 on Amazon new. But at least you know your game will be intact and all the extras will be there such as the soundtrack, PS HOME code, and the artbook. One big elephant in the room for this package is that there are no online functions. To be fair, it’s understandable, especially for Tag Tournament 2 seeing that it’s mainly a demo. But for the HD remake it may be a tough pill to swallow. Especially since other retro fighting games do have online functions. Overall, at the very least this is worth owning as a collector item and the variety the complete package offers.
See our playthroughs here