Sporting a new logo and a new feature trailer, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is slated for a September release this year. The game will come with over 50 characters, some of which are DLC, but ALL DLC characters will be free. Lots info after the jump!
Tekken Tag Tournament 2 for consoles will be based on the latest Unlimited update and will feature many enhancements and additions such as the character roster passing the 50-mark, as well as some being available as free DLC. Namco Bandai does not want to charge a dime for characters to help maintain competitive effectiveness.
They also announced that DLC planned for the game will be mainly cosmetic, such as costumes and customization. The caveat though is that DLC characters will be first made exclusive to those who pre-order the game, for a limited time. They will be available for free a bit later for every one, of course.
The game will have new stages, all forms of Unlimited’s multiplayer options, as well as a new Fight Lab mode.
Via Andriasang:
The magazine details the new Fight Lab mode. In this mode, you build up a robot. You’ll have to play mini games and engage in boss fights. Clear these, and you’ll get parts which can be used to customize your robot. Eventually, you’ll end up with a robot decked out with parts and skills to your liking.
EGM also had an interview with Katsuhiro Harada, the series’ producer, where he talks more about how Fight Lab mode would become a new standard in fighting games in the future:
The set-up is this: Violet (the alter-ego of Lee Chaolan) brings back his Combot project, but an unfortunate accident leaves him having to start from scratch with a prototype model. The player is then tasked with teaching the Combot prototype how to fight—the catch being, of course, that doing so is actually teaching the players themselves how to fight.
This training won’t just come through your standard “do a move” or “complete this combo” requirements, however. Harada brings up the various mini games that have been a part of the Tekken series for a while now, and how they can serve as the inspiration for giving players a better method of learning a game’s systems.
One hypothetical example he gives is learning how to side-step as a dodge. Typically, you’d be asked to side-step a move performed by a CPU opponent, which would result in either a “pass” or “fail” being doled out. What if, instead, you were playing the role of a young bear who is having sushi thrown at him? The bear has to dodge out of the way of the sushi as a mini game—which, of course, would give the player a chance to perfect their side-stepping skills.
Another (again, hypothetical) example from Harada is Tekken Ball. What if we bring Ganryu into the picture, and have players try to perform aerial juggles on him. The more Ganryu is juggled, the more his size inflates—until he finally explodes if the player is successful in pulling off a long enough string of juggles. A little gruesome, sure, but another example of how learning gameplay elements can be offered to players in a more enjoyable and easily understood package.
In another interview with interview with VideoGamer, Katsuhiro Harada mentioned that Tekken Tag Tournament 2 will use a modified version of Soul Calibur V’s netcode. This is great news considering how tolerant SCV’s netcode is with lower bandwidth in comparison with their previous netcodes.