Tekken Hybrid (PS3) Review

Posted by Mark Salmela on 12.07.2011

A new collection containing an HD remake of Tekken Tag Tournament, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Prologue, and the Tekken: Blood Vengeance film has been released. Is it worth your time? Read and find out.




Title: Tekken Hybrid
Publisher: Namco Bandai
Developer: Namco Bandai
Genre: Fighting
Players: 1 - 2
Rated: T for Teen


Tekken Hybrid is a new $40 collection from Namco Bandai. It contains the CGI film Tekken: Blood Vengeance, an HD remake of Tekken Tag Tournament, and a prologue for the upcoming Tekken Tag Tournament 2. How does everything hold up? Let’s find out.

The first thing to note is that both Tekken Tag Tournament and Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Prologue must be installed individually to your hard drive. Tekken Tag Tournament comes in around a GB and a half while Tekken Tag Tournament 2 comes in at just over a GB. I was about to comment on how I loved the idea of being able to install the two games so I didn’t need to insert the disc when I wanted to play, but you still need to have the disc in to play anyways. Well what’s the point of installing the games individually to my game folder than? (Edit, as I mentioned in the comments you install both games to your game folder as if they were PSN games. You can't launch either game from the disc icon, hence my frustration for needing the disc. Only the movie can be launched from the disc).



Tekken: Blood Vengeance is a new CGI Tekken film which isn’t related to last year’s live action movie. Without going into an in-depth review Tekken: Blood Vengeance isn’t the best movie. The action scenes are mildly entertaining and well choreographed, but the story is really dull and won’t hold your attention. Unless you’re a big Tekken fan Blood Vengeance isn’t worth checking out. It is available in 3D if your TV supports it.

Now onto the real meat of the package. Tekken Hybrid contains a full HD port of Tekken Tag Tournament, a PS2 launch game. Tekken Tag Tournament manages to look surprisingly good for a PS2 launch title from 2000. The characters themselves can look a little blocky, but the environments and animations look great in HD. The presentation is a little bare boned, with hardly any voiceovers and a limited number of options, but the core gameplay is fantastic.

Tekken Tag Tournament has four modes. There’s the main arcade mode where you fight 7 different teams and the final boss in a traditional arcade ladder, the versus mode, Tekken Bowling which I’ll comment on later, and finally there’s an elimination mode where you can choose up to 8 players per team to fight off in tag elimination matches. There’s no story or story mode available in Tekken Tag Tournament.



All of Tekken Tag Tournament’s features are unlocked from the start, so you won’t have to spend any time unlocking characters or Tekken Bowl. Tekken Tag Tournament’s big feature is the swap-in swap-out battle system where you can switch between characters at any time. If your resting fighter has lost any of their health they’ll automatically regain some of that health while resting, which is where the real strategy of Tekken Tag Tournament comes into play. Judging when to swap characters is a big gameplay factor, since the round will end when one of the fighters on the team loses all of their health, not both. You’ll have to constantly watch both of your character’s health bars and determine when’s the best time to swap them and let the other character regain some of their health. The resting character will also have a flashing health bar at certain times, meaning if they’re tagged in they’ll receive a temporary strength boost, meaning their attacks will do extra damage.

While Tekken Tag Tournament isn’t quite as crisp as some of its successors, it’s still very good. Attacks are performed with the face buttons, which means that there are two buttons for punching attacks and two buttons for kicking attacks. Tags are performed with any of the L or R buttons, or the right analog stick. Blocking is performed by holding the back button. Despite Tekken only using 4 attack buttons instead of 6 like most fighters Tekken has quite the array of moves. Each character is very fleshed out and has a wide range of short and long ranged attacks.



To help round out Tekken Tag Tournament Namco threw in the mini-game Tekken Bowling. At first glance Tekken Bowling appears to be a thruway mini-game that’s very bare-boned. But once you start playing you’ll notice it’s actually a fantastic bowling game. In addition to a solid bowling mechanic each character has individual strengths and weaknesses. Just like the other modes of the game you select two characters, one for each throw of a frame. The more agile characters won’t be able to throw the ball as hard as the bigger characters, but the more agile characters will have more precise control. It’s a fun distraction and helps add some longevity to an HD remake that could have used an online mode.

Finally, there’s the Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Prologue. Tag Tournament 2 features 4 stages and 4 characters. There’s Alisa, Xiaoyu, Devil Jin, and Kazuya, 4 of the characters featured in Tekken: Blood Vengeance. The gameplay is very similar to Tekken Tournament, featuring the same tag-in tag-out system with transitional combos and the ability to regenerate limited amounts of health for the resting partner. When Tekken Tag Tournament 2 finally comes it should be a great fighter, but right now it’s little more than a glorified demo with trophy support.





Pros

- Tekken Tag Tournament HD looks great for a PS2 launch title.
- Tekken Tag Tournament 2 looks great in general, minus the water effects.
- Tekken: Blood Vengeance is a nice addition to the package.
- Tekken Bowling is a great mini-game.
- All of Tekken Tag Tournament’s features and characters are unlocked from the start.
- The tag system is fun and adds an additional level of depth.
- Tekken Tag Tournament features a great roster.
- Trophy support for both Tekken Tag Tournaments.


Cons

- Each game must be installed to the hard drive, but you still need the disc to play them.
- No new features such as online support for Tekken Tag Tournament.
- Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Prologue is a glorified demo.
- Tekken Tag Tournament feels dated compared to more recent Tekkens.
- Tekken: Blood Vengeance isn’t a very good movie.
- One more game like the PSN version of Tekken 5 would have made this collection a steal.



The 411


I hate it when hot chicks turn out to be cyborgs...


Tekken Hybrid is a must own for hardcore Tekken fans. Tekken Tag Tournament holds up pretty well after 11 years and looks good in HD. Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Prologue is a great demo for the upcoming game. Tekken: Blood Vengeance isn’t a very good movie but I’m sure there’s an audience of Tekken fans that will enjoy it for what it is. At $40 Tekken Hybrid is a little expensive for casual fans, since if you don’t like the movie you’re basically getting a remake and a demo, but hardcore Tekken fans should eat this up.

Graphics	8.0	Tekken Tag Tournament looks good for a PS2 launch title in HD. Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Prologue looks great, but the water effects need work.
Gameplay	8.0	Solid fighting mechanics from both games. Interesting use of the tag-in tag-out system.
Sound	6.0	The music is pretty forgettable. Tekken Tag Tournament hardly has any voice-overs.
Lasting Appeal	7.0	You can beat the ladder mode of both games in under 2 hours. But add in addicting multiplayer, Tekken Bowling, and the Tekken: Blood Vengeance movie and there's a lot packed into Tekken Hybrid.
Fun Factor	7.5	Tekken fans will love this package. If you're not a fan of the 4 button Tekken formula, this compilation won't win you over.
Overall	7.0   [ Good ]