Yesterday marked the twenty-third anniversary of the PlayStation 2's release in North America on October 26th. Often considered to be one of the biggest launches of a video game console, the PlayStation 2 had several flagship titles including SSX, Dead Or Alive 2 HardCore, and Street Fighter EX3 among others. Tekken Tag Tournament was also a launch title for the PlayStation 2's North American release, helping to usher in a new generation of fighting games. While Tekken would continue to remain a fighting game titan, with Tekken 8 around the corner, many fans of the title reminisce of the good times spent with the game in celebration of the PlayStation 2's anniversary.
It always intrigued me as a fan of Tekken, with Tekken Tag Tournament being the second game in the series I would play following Tekken 3. As a kid, I thought Tekken Tag Tournament was "superior" to Tekken 3 in every way possible at the time. It had all of the fighters from the third game plus several new characters that weren't in the game. There were tons of content, even more unlockable characters, and even the origin of Tekken Bowl. While I wasn't much of a fan of the bowling game as I was with Tekken 3's beach volleyball mini-game, Tekken Ball, it was a nice addition to a fully packaged game.
As it turned out, however, Tekken Tag wasn't an "all-new game" as Tekken fans quickly figured out. All of the characters and stages featured in Tekken 3 returned in Tekken Tag Tournament with an alternate color scheme. The older characters from Tekken 2 returned with very little tuning from their original counterparts for better and for worse (more on that soon).
I wouldn't understand it back then but Tekken Tag Tournament was a hodgepodge of Tekken 2 characters imposed in the Tekken 3 engine, with just enough differences to make it its own game. How did such an idea come about? Director Katsuhiro Harada shared a piece of the developmental process of Tekken Tag Tournament in a very informative post on social media that confirmed several things.
At the time, TEKKEN3 was finished and I was working on a prototype of "4" on a phantom board called System15 when management ordered me to release 3.5 within six months. I said it as a joke at that moment, and the project was TAG. The project took 5 minutes to plan and only 2 months to develop (arcade version).
The sales manager [said] "This kind of game won't sell," but it sold very well and the cost was low, so the company made a considerable profit. The port to the console version had to be done in time for the launch of the PS2 due to the lack of memory on the PSX. The PS2's specs at the time had too much room for drawing processing, and the 3D modelers were baffled by the number of polygons, which was even more than enough to place many mobs in the battle stages, so they elaborately created even the teeth in the characters' mouths.
As a result, characters at that time rarely opened their mouths, and the elaborate teeth modeling did not make much sense because of the resolution problem. Still, there was plenty of room for rendering processing, so I wasted a lot of time layering semi-transparency on the ground smoke to make it look nice...those were good times.
Katsuhiro Harada
Breaking down this post, the developmental future for Tekken 3 lines up with what would happen with future titles in the series, beginning with Tekken 5. From Tekken 5 through 7, every game's original arcade version would receive an updated "sequel" that added new characters, stage revisions, balance changes, and other fixes to keep things fresh while also cutting off costs from developing an entirely new game. This was the case with Tekken 5 with Dark Ressurection, Tekken 6 with Bloodline Rebellion, Tekken Tag 2 with Unlimited, and lastly, Tekken 7 with Fated Retribution. Director Katushiro Harada was tasked to make an update for Tekken 3 yet decided to have fun with it and turn it into a "tag team" game.
Coincidentally, Street Fighter EX3, another PS2 launch title, would also flirt with the idea of a 2.5D fighting game with tag elements. Similar to the Versus series, players would be able to tag out of their characters at any time, recovering their health as their partner switches places with them. Certain launchers could extend into tag combos, dealing more damage while also damaging the opponent's restorative "red health." Whoever depletes a life bar first wins the round.
At first, it would appear that management didn't quite understand the craze of "tag battles" but the experiment was a success. Tekken Tag Tournament in the arcade reused assets from Tekken 2, reintroducing characters like Jun Kazama and Lee Chaolan, while also having an all-new soundtrack. Despite having the same menus and background stages as Tekken 3, the alterations are unique enough to be its own game. Some stages that were fought in the day are now fought at night. Stages that were once clear skies are now dark and overcast.
Due to the low cost of development, as most of the work was already done, Tekken Tag Tournament was finished in two months and saw a lot of profit. Its success was what led to the inevitable console port, however, it was decided to work on the new hardware of the PlayStation 2. Many of the elements that couldn't be shown on the older PSX hardware, including high-resolution polygons and facial animations, could be expressed in ways they never could before.
Thus, the game was remade from nearly the ground up while still keeping the original gameplay of the arcade version. While the original arcade was never released on consoles, fighting game fans have held copies of the arcade board. Occasionally they're used for tournaments, such as the example above at an older NYC Tekken monthly from a few years back.
In 2011, the PlayStation 2 version was remastered in HD for the PlayStation 3 titled Tekken Tag Tournament HD with one huge caveat. It was only available as part of the Tekken Hybrid bundle, which included the movie, Tekken Blood Vengeance, and a Tekken Tag Tournament 2 demo featuring Xiaoyu, Alisa, Devil Jin, and Kazuya all with costumes from the movie.
With new information on Tekken Tag Tournament's development, it's interesting to see how an idea once considered a joke had become one of the franchise's most cherished entries. Here's hoping and holding out for the original arcade title to be included in some way shape or form. Perhaps they can be included as a bonus incentive for the release of Tekken 8 as arcade titles we can play in the battle lobby? Only time will tell!