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Tekken Tag Tournament 2: Wii U Edition's Tekken Ball mode fleshed out in new trailer
Kids these days (with their skinny pants and their Beibers and their Twitter accounts) probably aren't familiar with the concept of "Tekken Ball." The PlayStation version of Tekken 3 hit living rooms a little over 14 years ago, after all, and aside from including the best unlockable character in any fighting game ever, it also introduced a generation to the magic of punching a giant iron ball at a dinosaur. Since Tekken Ball is returning in Tekken Tag Tournament 2: Wii U Edition, Namco Bandai has put out a video (above) explaining the mode so all y'all whipper-snappers won't be at such a horrendous disadvantage. We promise to go easy on you, at least for the first couple of rounds.
Tekken Tag Tournament 2 coming to Euro PSN Nov. 21, XBL and eShop later
Tekken Tag Tournament 2 will be available digitally through the European PlayStation Network next Wednesday, November 21, thus fulfilling a need for PS3 owners on the not-America side of the planet who require both game-purchasing convenience and a bear with which to punch a dinosaur. Similarly, the game will also be available on Xbox Live Games on Demand sometime in late December.A digital version of Tekken Tag Tournament 2: Wii U Edition will be making its way to the Wii U eShop at some point during the new console's "launch window," which Nintendo has said will last until March of next year. If you do plan on downloading TTT2WUE, though, make sure to buy an external storage device of some kind. As we learned last month, the game won't even fit in the basic model's built-in memory.
Tekken Tag Tournament 2: Wii U Edition features Nintendo-themed 'Mushroom Battle' mode
During a private pre-Tokyo Game Show event held at Namco Bandai's massive headquarters in the Shinagawa ward of Tokyo, we had a chance to experience a guided tour of the special (and fittingly bizarre) exclusive features coming to Tekken Tag Tournament 2: Wii U Edition.Though there are some ancillary new features that take advantage of the Wii U's hardware, the real meat of Tekken Tag Tournament 2: Wii U Edition's console-specific feature set is its "Mushroom Battle" mode, which incorporates power-ups and music from classic Nintendo games into standard Tekken matches. Mega Mushrooms, Poison Mushrooms and other classics litter the floor of a standard match, each performing their expected function when walked on by a character. The results are, predictably, completely hilarious and wacky.Absorbing mushrooms (or other power-ups like Invincibility Stars) changes the dynamic of the match, as larger characters do more damage and smaller characters move more quickly, for instance. We asked Harada if balance was a consideration while designing Mushroom Battle mode, and he told us that breaking the traditional conventions of Tekken is what makes the mode so entertaining.At present, it is unknown whether the mode will be online-enabled - in fact, Harada was unable to answer any questions regarding the Wii U's online infrastructure - but we're sure to learn more over the coming months.
Touchscreen controls coming to Tekken Tag Tournament 2: Wii U Edition
One of many Wii U port inevitabilities will be coming to the new console's version of Tekken Tag Tournament 2: Touchscreen controls. Specifically, the WiiPad's screen can be used to map out custom shortcuts to specific abilities, which can then be tapped in succession to perform combos.Series producer Katsuhiro Harada demonstrated the feature during a pre-Tokyo Game Show event at Namco Bandai's headquarters in Shinagawa, Tokyo, wherein banks of on-screen buttons were pressed to activate moves that would normally require directional inputs and/or simultaneous button presses.If this sounds at all familiar, its because a similar system was implemented in Dead or Alive Dimensions on the 3DS, though from everything we saw it did not appear as though TTT2's shortcuts can be used to perform entire combos with one button press, as is possible in DOAD.We asked Harada if WiiPad shortcuts will be available for use while fighting online, and he said that he wants that to be the case. He made it a point to mention, however, that some moves (such as the Electric Wind Godfist) will not be executable as shortcuts, and that a classically-skilled player will still have the advantage.
Tekken Tag Tournament 2: Wii U Edition launching with then-available DLC characters unlocked
When the special feature-laden Wii U version of Tekken Tag Tournament 2 eventually comes out at some unknown point in the future, any DLC characters and/or stages that have already been released on the PS3 and 360 versions will automatically be available, series producer Katsuhiro Harada said during a private Namco Bandai event this week.Though the Wii U version includes unique gameplay modes and costumes, Harada feels that it is important for all versions of the game to be in parity with one another when it comes to character availability. He also stressed that the DLC content recently discovered on the Xbox 360 version's disc does not represent the game's entire DLC road map, and that "not all of the content that we've planned for the PS3 and 360 has been revealed yet, so there's still some stuff left."
