In early 1996 or thereabouts, I went on a middle school trip to Valleyfair, an amusement park on the outskirts of the Twin Cities. My whole class was beyond excited to go, and spent a whole day screaming on roller coasters, filling up on “food,” building friendships, and so on. Not me, however – I went on no rides that day. I spent that whole day – truly all of it – hunkered down at the park’s minuscule arcade playing Tekken 2.
As previously noted, fighting game storylines are almost always absurd (that’d make for a great blog of its own, honestly), and the Tekken series is no exception. The series is largely centered around the Mishima clan, a family genetically predisposed to have utterly terrible hair. They run a namesake company that is comically corrupt, killing would-be detractors and conducting experiments on any endangered species they can find (yes, really).
At the end of the previous game, Kazuya Mishima takes over the company (via a fighting tournament, naturally) and threw his father Heihachi off a cliff – an act that Heihachi previously did to Kazuya when the latter was five years old. Yeesh. Eventually, Heihachi recovered, climbed back up the cliff, and is seeking revenge. Knowing his father is seeking to take back the company, Kazuya (who, by the way, is corrupted by a “devil gene” that makes him extra evil) arranges for another fighting tournament to settle things once and for all.
Of course, such a tournament has attracted a larger cast of characters, including the assassin Nina Williams, the not-even-remotely-subtle Bruce Lee ripoff Marshall Law, the android Jack, and a goddamn bear:
Fun fact – later in the series, Kuma (the bear) develops a bitter rivalry with Paul Phoenix, an American martial arts master. Tekken is great.
Anyway, the gameplay of Tekken 2 helped to define what you’d expect from the series. Each character feels pretty different and has an intricate and unique move set. You may have vivid memories of Law’s extremely strong and cool backflip attacks – that’s just one example.
It introduced the series’ “neutral guard” mechanic, in which characters automatically block when idle. The home version of the game has numerous unlockable characters, survival and time-attack modes (among others) – for a mid-90′s fighting game, it has a surprising amount of depth. The PS1 version looks great and has mercifully short load times, which means it’s aged surprisingly well.
A lot of people will argue that Tekken 3 is the best in the series (and it’s great), but this one will always be my favorite. It brings back some great memories, and it was the one that made me a big fan of the franchise. Tekken 2 is reasonably easy to find for PS1, and is playable via the “Arcade History” mode of Tekken 5 on PS2. It’s also available as a download via PSN on some platforms.
Next week’s game is another absolute classic, albeit in the absolute worst way possible. You won’t want to miss it.