4/5 ★ – Empyrean's review of Tekken Tag Tournament 2.

A love letter to the franchise, an apology for 6, and also Snoop is here. Tag 1 is my favorite Tekken, so TTT2 had big shoes to fill. Whilst it’s a bit flawed in its overall execution, Tag 2 represents the pinnacle of modern Tekken complexity. The potential for player expression is seemingly endless. That’s great in theory, but it does lead to perhaps the most frustrating and unfair game in the series. There’s a reason even the pros hate ranked. If you play as a team and get launched by someone who knows what they’re doing, that’s basically your entire lifebar gone. I already didn’t like the increased emphasis on juggles and walls in T6, and it’s at its absolute zenith here, but I think it says a lot about how good Tag 2 is that I’m willing to look past that and respect the depth of gameplay. Whilst it definitely could have been better, mainly in its handling of legacy characters (why is Ogre so bad?!), the inconsistent quality amongst endings, and BamCo testing the waters for their greedy monetisation, Tag 2 is probably the most fun I’ve had with Tekken since the original Tag. It fleshes out the mechanics from the first game (which was its major flaw) to a fantastic degree, and has a little something for everyone (providing you don’t play online). Had this not almost sunk the franchise (again) I suspect the series would have gone further into technicality rather than accessibility.