By Corpsethrust

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*Note – Since opinions are like (censored) with everyone having one, yours will most likely be different from mine. So if you want to put them forward please use the appropriate thread to do so.

Katsuhiro Harada, the Producer/Director/God of the Tekken series, just gave us fans a great Christmas gift - A new trailer for the upcoming Tekken Tag 2! And since I felt like it, I'll analyse/tear up the trailer, frame by frame.

The trailer starts off with the familiar Kazuya-Jin fist collision sequence from the first trailer, a painful reminder of the missed potential of Tekken 6's storyline. One would imagine that something that's hinted at in trailers like these would actually be in the game, but that's for another article. Right now we have a new game on our hands, a new chance for Namco to right their wrong. After the first few seconds pass, we are greeted (again) by the familiar Taiko drums and the muscular back of Heihachi Mishima, who is seen fighting Feng in the next scene- Wait a minute, black hair?!

 

No, your eyes are not bluffing you. This is the new (and improved?) Heihachi Mishima; now with 80% more hair and a mustache that pretty much yells "retro". Add that up with the Kazuya-esque slicked-back black hair paired with the signature Heihachi style twin spikes, and he looks almost like an Italian-Japanese Yakuza/Mafia head honcho. (By the way, cookie for you if you spotted the Ganryu-in-a-suit on the balloon in the backdrop. Bonus choco-chips if you spotted the Tekken-Official website url.)

 As the fight enters slow mo (and FMV), we are given a clear view of Heihachi's shiny new Mishima hair as he shoves Feng away with an Iron Hand and smirks into the screen. It's not only the hair that got the treatment. His face looks younger overall; judging by the looks of it, Heihachi might be in his late forties/early fifties in here. His body is unchanged though, apart from a few scars here and there being missing. This "young" treatment might be in light of the death of Daisuke Gouri, Heihachi's old voice actor (RIP Daisuke-Sama).

Onward with the trailer. We see the new Heihachi now fighting Miguel, who- Wait a minute, new costume?!

“ALL OF MY RAGE”

This is getting better and better. I really dig this outfit - the open orange shirt and jeans are simple yet great looking, and the chain wraps look badass. It's nice to see Miguel getting some love; he really got the short end of the stick in the last game, and it’s great to see him not stereotyped for once.

The view is switched to gameplay again, now showing us more tag throws we hadn't seen in the beta video. Heihachi-Kazuya get a double stonehead - Miguel takes a headbutt from Heihachi on his forehead, and another from Kazuya on his medulla oblongata, ouch. Hwoarang and Baek's looks cool as well - Hwoarang's f+2+3 pushing the opponent into Baek's side throw, ending with both kicking the opponent simultaneously. The third is Lili-Xiaoyu, which looks like a mix of their command throws. It seems like all characters will now have special team throws apart from the run-of-the-mill 2+5, unlike TTT which had special throws for only some pairs like Jun/Mishimas.

Immediately after the special throws we see Marduk getting manhandled by a- Wait a minute, a new character?!

 

Uhhh. I don't know what to say of this actually. The design is nothing special to write home about; I won't say that having a female Lucha Libre practitioner is a unique idea, but maybe that's just my general neutralness about wrestlers speaking up. We'll have to wait to see how she plays, since basically none of her gameplay was shown except for a Hurricanrana throw and a suplex tag throw with Armor King. Overall, I'm not impressed with this new character, but not disappointed either.

Now let’s divert a bit and have a look at the other good stuff. First, the stages – they look absolutely beautiful and are nowhere near the drab and dark themes of Tekken 6, and that’s very good. The redone Arena stage has a very festive aura to it, and the resort stage looks shiny too. There’s a special Christmas themed stage as well, but it lacked a bit of finish for some reason. The best thing, though, is that the stages appear bigger, and that’s a good thing because everyone had great wall carries due to the small T6 stages.

 

 

The music is very slick as well. Akitaka Tohyama did the techno-funk style music in the trailer and judging by it, the game will have some great music.

The trailer ends with Heihachi and Kazuya colliding shoulders as they walk past each other. Little things like these are what make or break a game. So far, TAG2 looks very promising, but until some finalized gameplay videos don’t show up, nothing can be said.

The trailer was very impressive, albeit short, leaving us to crave for more. Let’s hope Mr Harada give out more info and videos soon.

–    CorpseThrust

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