Tekken 2

Tekken 2
Heihatchi's back and now it's time to pick a fight.
Genre(s): Fighting Platform(s): PlayStation Arcade Release Date: August 3, 1995 NA April 26, 1996 PlayStation JP March 29, 1996 NA August 25, 1996 EU October 1996 Developer(s): Namco Publisher(s): Namco Predecessor: Tekken Successor: Tekken 3

Tekken 2 is a fighting game developed and published by Namco. The second entry in the Tekken series, it was released for arcades in 1995, and ported to the PlayStation the following year. The arcade version was later released in Tekken 5's Arcade History mode for the PlayStation 2.

Plot

Two years after the events of the King of Iron Fist Tournament, the Mishima Zaibatsu, under the leadership of Kazuya Mishima, has become more corrupt and powerful than ever before, and is involved in many illegal operations. While his father Heihachi Mishima was rather ruthless in his endeavors, Kazuya acts completely without a conscience. He hires assassins to eliminate any of his critics and rivals, attempts to extort money from several businesses and organizations, and smuggles endangered species to conduct genetic experiments on them. The reason for his evil deeds is because he has allowed the Devil within him to consume his soul and mind as a result of his hatred towards Heihachi. Meanwhile, Kazuya is sentenced to being arrested by animal rights activist and operative Jun Kazama for his experiments. Heihachi on the other hand, whom Kazuya had defeated and thrown off a cliff two years ago, has climbed back up and is training himself, plotting to overthrow Kazuya and take back the Mishima Zaibatsu. In an attempt to rid himself of Heihachi and his enemies once and for all, Kazuya announces the King of Iron Fist Tournament 2, with a large cash prize of one trillion dollars, knowing that Heihachi will appear in an attempt to get his revenge.

Why It Rocks

1. The gameplay from the previous game has been balanced and now the Ai feels a lot less cheaper.
2. Introduces lots of stuff that would later become staples to the series:
   • Survival Mode: You keep playing one round against your opponent and once you beat your opponent you continue to the next round while gaining a little bit of health, you keep doing so until you lose and see how many rounds you won.
   • Time Attack Mode: You keep playing normally as if it's arcade mode except that you try to be as fast as possible
   • Team Battle Mode: You and Your Opponent can select up to 8 characters and fight each other with said character, if said character dies, you fight with the next one and so on until one player loses all characters, can be played against CPU or a real life player..
   • Practice mode: You choose a character for you and one for your opponent and start practicing to learn more combos and attacks.
3. 25 playable characters (17 returning and 8 newcomers), some of these characters including :
   • Jun Kazama: A mixed martial artist who although barely returns in the series, would have a major impact on the series.
   • Lei Wulong: A Hong Kong copy practicing Five Animals Kung-Fu who would be a big fan favorite to the series.
   • Bruce Irvin: A Muay Thai kickboxer that's really good at kicking
   • Roger and Alex: genetically-altered boxing dinosaur and kangaroo who are palette swaps of each other..
4. All characters who were previously clones are now different, such as Prototype Jack and Devil.
5. All sub bosses now have their own endings as well, giving the player huge replayability.
6. The Voice acting has improved a lot and doesn't recycle them like the first game.
7. Amazing soundtrack and unlike the previous game, it doesn't recycle them in stages and endings.

Bad Qualities

1. Although the game is more balanced than its prequel, some characters can have unfair advantages such as Devil/Angel and Jack 2
2. The Graphics are the same with no improvement over its prequel
3. Final Boss (Devil/Angel) can still feel cheap.
4. The characters still jump really high

Reception

The game was acclaimed by game critics, with the PlayStation version holding a 93% rating at GameRankings. Critics praised the game's light sourcing, fluid character movement, detailed backgrounds, complex system of moves and combos, accessibility to inexperienced gamers, large set of playable characters, and the practice mode, which several critics predicted would become a standard feature in fighting games.

Trivia

1. In Heihatchi's stage, the name "Heihachi and Kazumi" are written on the floorboard of the temple in the style of Aiaigasa, a romantic expression to show the love between couples (the floor carving mark itself was later seen again in the very first trailer of Tekken 7), Kazumi wouldn't appear until Tekken 7.
2. Lots of characters in this game wouldn't appear again until many installments later or in Tag Tournament sub series, most notably Jun Kazama.
3. Football/Soccer star David James blames Tekken 2 and Tomb Raider for his failures in matches, claiming :"I was getting carried away playing Tekken II and Tomb Raider for hours on end," he said after conceding three times against Newcastle in 1997.
4. The arcade port was added in Tekken 5 as part of Arcade History Mode.

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