After something like a week, I have finally gotten around to writing the second out of three reviews for The Otaku’s Gaming Study Part 7, a series where I do smaller reviews for series more than a couple of months old and due to a few time constants (and the fact that so far the “Smaller Reviews” thing hasn’t really been working out when it comes to actual length) I have split it up into three separate reviews over three in one post. I was hoping to have my review out of Metal Gear Solid: HD Collection but ended up coming across this and decided to give it a review while I had the chance. This time around I am reviewing Tekken Hybrid, a bit of an interesting release which includes a HD remastered game, a movie and a prologue game to the next installment in the series. Before I continue on with the review, I would like to make a few things clear: This was conducted on an Australian release of the Playstation 3 version kindly provided by Sony Computer Entertainment Australia. While the game does include 3D television functionality, this was not observed or tested for during the course of this review. The game was developed by Namco in Japan and is of the fighting game genre.
As each of the three titles on the disc is more or less different in many ways, I will be reviewing them individually rather as a whole. The main attraction I felt with this release, and thus the first one I installed from the disc was Tekken Tag Tournament, an updated version of the original Playstation 2. I will openly admit that I am not a follower of the Tekken series, with my repertoire of fighting games consisting mostly of 2D anime-inspired fighting games such as Blazblue or The King of Fighters so this was perhaps a first for me in this style… and I have to hand it to them it is pretty good minus a few kinks here and there.
The game features a diverse character cast of around 40 characters and while this range of characters does mean a lack of uniqueness between them – still permits for some interesting battles when joined with the games Tag system. The tag system allows you to have two characters on your battle team over one which while having one knocked out results in the match going to your competitor, allows you to swap in or our characters with a full health bar and a slightly different move set to perhaps help you combat your enemy. One of the things I did not appreciate above this however was that the CPU never openly embraced this sytem and would occasionally stand there with a rapidly decreasing health bar and get KO’ed before switching to their other member.
Other than that inclusion, there is nothing much to separate it from other similar games on the market. The games control mechanics are perhaps some of the more easier to pick up and lack the need for fifty different button presses to pull off a special attack but I still would have liked a little more variety in attack mechanisms to make battles against a CPU feel more spontaneous. Taking a look at the original Playstation 2 release, the game looks ok with the HD remake, but while the animations may have achieved a significant level of improvement – I think more work could have been done on the environmental and character designs which were lacking in detailing. The game comes with everything unlocked, so no having to unlock characters or a rather interesting Tekken Bowling game.
The game also includes another smaller game – Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Prologue, a sort of preview game for the next game in the Tag series. The game allows you to select from four characters (Xiaoyu, Alisa, Devil Jin and Kazuya – or as I like to refer to them as…. School Girls ‘n’ Demons) and pitch them against each other in a set of four battles. As it is a brief demo game, expect to come across a number of battles where you are fighting the exact same enemies and with the exception of improvements in design and animation, there is nothing much I would consider worthwhile in playing this game unless you are of course – a fan of the Tekken franchise. Of course, they have included a few trinkets in the set with a Model Viewer which allows you to look closely at their character designs as well as trophy support so you can get your hands on a few trophies while testing the game.
Finally was the inclusion of the CGI animated film Tekken: Blood Vengeance which takes place between Tekken 5 and Tekken 6. As I have said before, I am not all too familiar with the franchise to I am not going to pretend like I understood everything that was going on, but I do have a few comments to make from my experience watching it. The comment of most importance to make is that in terms of visual performance, it was top notch and the action scenes and character designs in particular were highly memorable and well worth watching just for them. On the other hand, the actual plot offered very little in terms of anything to the point where there were entire sequences that was bland and seemed to just be there to facilitate the action…. which as mentioned above looked brilliant.
As this is a game and film hybrid disc, I am just going to give it a single grade, however as usual I have a few comments to conclude this review. I think if you are a fan of the series then there should be something here for you – a HD remaster of one of the big PS2 releases for the series, a visually impressive film and a demo for a new game. On the other hand I don’t feel this is a game worth your money if you are new to the series or genre, and might be better off with one of the older, cheaper but from the looks of it still pretty decent releases in the series that might offer more weight in the gameplay department (As I haven’t actually played any other game in the series, I can’t really recommend one in particular, but I am personally going to try and pick up Tekken 6 over the next week or two so I might do a small “The Otaku’s Gaming Study Part 8” review on it). But personally, I enjoyed myself playing this game even if I am not overly familiar with the genre and while I would have liked a bit more substance to the gameplay it should no doubt appeal to fans of the series.
