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Tekken 2 is a 3D fighting game released by Namco in arcades in 1995. A PlayStation version was released the following year in 1996. This was probably near the height of the 3D fighting game craze and Tekken 2 was well reviewed and very popular. Around 40,000 arcade units were sold along with 5.7 million PlayStation copies. The arcade version used the Namco System 11 board which was developed based on a prototype of the PlayStation so the two versions are almost identical in terms of graphics and game play. While the 16-bit generation of game consoles came pretty close to arcade perfection, the 32-bit generation of home consoles were arcade perfect or so close it didn’t matter in most cases and this is a big reason there isn’t much in the way of major arcade releases today.
Tekken 2 continued the same basic formula as its predecessor. Controls were mostly the same though there were some new moves for some characters including attack reversals, back throws, chain-throws, a sidestep and a few others. There were eight new characters as well, in addition to 17 characters returning from the previous game. Interestingly, the arcade version only had ten playable characters initially with others becoming available with updates. The home version introduced some new game playing modes such as Survival Mode, Team Battle Mode and Time Attack Mode that became a standard through later iterations of Tekken. As with the arcade version, only ten playable characters were available at first. However, additional characters could be unlocked by completing the arcade mode with various characters.
Tekken 2 was almost universally praised and received a variety of awards from various game publications including Gamest Awards, GamePro, EGM, and GameFan among others. If you are a fighting game fan then it is almost certain you have played this one before or at least one of the others in the series. If not, what are you waiting for? Even if it isn’t your favorite, it was a big influence on fighting games that followed. For the most part, I tended to only play the Soul Blade/Soul Calibur series as far as 3D fighters are concerned and I still prefer 2D fighting games to the extent I play fighting games at all.
In addition to the original PlayStation release, Tekken 2 was also included as a playable bonus in Tekken 5 for the PS2 and it was available as a download for the PS3 and PlayStation portable. If you happen to live in Brazil or Mexico then you could also get it via Zeebo which was a game device/service with which games were downloaded. Tekken 2 was followed up with Tekken 3 in 1996, Tekken Tag Tournament in 1999, Tekken 4 in 2001, Tekken 5 in 2004, Tekken: Dark Resurrection in 2005, Tekken 6 in 2007, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 in 2011 and Tekken 7 in 2015. I don’t think I’ve played any of them past Tekken 2 or possibly Tekken 3.
