In Solo mode, it feels like the trade-off to one life bar with a bit of resilience isn’t really worth it. In Tag/Pair mode, it feels like you have two life bars, and both of them regenerate at a steady rate when you’re tagged out. If you’re more of a lone wolf, you could always just play with one character, but this requires a completely different strategy – the lone fighter will regain health over time, and their rage will activate twice every round. This means that it has become incredibly important to think about your character set-up I tend to start with rapid-attacking, bouncy, legs-everywhere Lili (to chip away at health with quick medium and low attacks) and switch out to King, the leopard-masked wrestler, whose double-strength kicks and counters can easily wipe out straggling characters. You have to really think when to tag if you go too soon, you risk losing out on your partner’s Rage bonus, if you go too late, you may end up leaving your weak character in too long, and having them knocked out. This change may seem simple, but it alters the dynamic and pace of the Tekken game fundamentally. So a tactical tag at this point allows you to bring in a heavy hitter, potentially ending the battle right there. If you send out your primary character and their health is taken below 50%, your secondary character’s Rage activates. In TTT2, Rage is a far more common beast. It was a good system, really it gave you a slim opportunity to radically turn the tables in the fight – it was basically your desperate last stand, an all-out gambit. In the past, Rage was only activated when your fighter’s health fell below 10%. If you’ve played a Tekken game this generation, you’ll know something they’ve recently introduced is the “Rage” system – once your health reaches a certain level, your attacks will deal double damage until your Rage runs out. Clicking in the left stick will bring in your tag partner, and bring with it some of the most interesting changes to how Tekken works.

Combinations of the buttons come as throws or can generate combos.

The basics are all there, and pretty much all the same – you attack with four limbs, each face button controlling a different limb. But Tekken Tag Tournament 2 has done something that fighting games have been claiming to do for a very long time – it’s delivered genuine innovation. You’d think that the fighting genre was fairly limited all you’re doing, really, is wearing down a health bar.

Tekken tag tournament 2 tag combos