t6 has a 5gig install on ps3 to make loading practiclly non existent.

Holy cow! The TTT2 Prima Guide is also available in the UK.

I thought this was a US thing only. If anyone is interested its going for about £13 with free delivery on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tekken-Tag-Tournament-Prima-Official/dp/0307895963

The guide includes frame data for the entire cast (probably not the additional 6 characters recently discovered on the disc though), which is a great inclusion and I think a first for a Tekken guide. IIRC contributos include Anakin and Aris and a couple of other well known players. 

It's a bargain quite frankly. Full frame data for 50 odd characters, strategies for general play and character specific stuff like combo/juggle filler all for £13.

At least madcatz are bringing out WiiU sticks. Imagine this on that WiiU pad!

I may buy this on WiiU. The mushrooms and outfits look amazing.

regmcfly wrote:

I may buy this on WiiU. The mushrooms and outfits look amazing.

Zelda punching link in the crotch just before Bowser comes in seems funny to me.

Wow, what an OP, kudos. I'm still trying to get into Street Fighter X Tekken but since Tekken was "my fighter" right up to and including Tekken 4 (doesn't deserve the brutal criticism) I think I'll be back for this one. Looks hard-core ridiculous and fun-loving in a way that I don't think 4,5 or 6 were. I think I'll be waiting for a price-drop though. I don't know how the hell they think anyone new can get into these modern beat-em ups with their ridonkulous rosters. Being great at a beat em up means knowing everyone's moves. Freakin impossible.

Someone tell us how the guide is if they get it, reviews are iffy.

The tag combo system is sublime once it clicks. Spent the last couple of hours mucking about with it, best I could find between Drag and Jack was a 97 damage juggle but I think there's more hiding there if I can fond out what their most damaging juggle enders are.

I'll let you know how the guide is, errors in frame data i can live with as long as they aren't ridiculous, but having the entire 50 character starting lineup's moveset on tap, that's massive.

Updated OP with links to WTF Teams and Player Cards. 

Also someone found an situational infinite with Ancient Ogre which seems to have got some people worked up.

That said it requires you to be back to the wall, and be crouching when you get hit by the third kick from Ancient Ogres now aptly named Infinite Kick string.

Also where is Escape, Bear and Badger team needs setting up on the WTF!

Fancy some PTD this week?

I'm here. I mean, it's hardly a Mandrake the Magician cape and slippers appearance, but it'll have to do. I'm gonna text-you-up on Baek, Rouj, but first a bit of a grumble...

I wish I wasn't about to say this, but I'm quite disappointed.

Pair Play's online omission really hit home when I started playing. I could forgive all I'm about to write tenfold had it featured. Niggling whinges first...

Character proportions are awful. A 7-feet tall 'roid mountain was hardly congruous to reality in T6, but Marduk's frame was pretty well-balanced. In Tag 2, Lee's a no-neck, hunch-shouldered, fat-handed twat. I'll be leaving him in his original top because he's the most proportional in it.

Worse than hands are feet; boots are comedy-sized! Costumes are lacking.

Bigger fish...

EWGF tracking is much-improved. Mishimas are likely top-tier again after their uncharacteristic T6 blip. Leccy remained one of the best on-block moves in Rebellion, but the ability to sidestep them led Mishimas to tighten their overall games. Now it's back to being their focus, at the cost of boring bare folk on the end of 'em.

That's a buff, let's talk nerfs.

BAEK BUSINESS

Beloved Baek! FLA SS has been patched out, Rouj! It was a glitch in T6 - unique to that game - that was never intended. But as we all know, glitches have a happy history in fighting games of becoming trademark moves. I was fine with this move because it would only SSR, and it was perfectly punishable when abused. On the upside for Baek players, it was a brilliant evasive tool against bulldoggers. Shame.

Keeping with Baek, they've also removed his JF Sky Rocket - f~f:3. As a very fast mid launcher with great range (delayable between f~f), it was probably my favourite T6 launcher. It remains in a slower form via a DP input, but his BnB follow-up is down from 81 to 75 damage. And I'll talk a little bit about the implications of this in a minute.

The final Baek nerf is that he can no longer Bound opponents with WS 2,1 after a d/b+4. The netcode's finally good enough to alleviate d/b+4's annoyance, and now it won't combo! I think 3,3,3,4 might be all that's on.

/BAEK

Just quickly, Paul's lost his Ultimate Punishment after a tackle. I felt UP was a classic part of Paul's 50:50 DNA. Though he's improved elsewhere, that's not my point.

So going back to Baek's easier and weaker juggle, I feel that's a pointer to potential for wonky tierage down the road. Because wall-carry aside, I can't help but think something's wrong when Baek's hitting 75 for a still-technical juggle, when Paul does 65 for a ranged JF Demo Man. Demo Man's unsafe (praise be), but it's an early indication of damage-levelling capping difficulty's reward. For Baek at least, there's less reward for hard stuff - important if he's solo, and high damage for relatively easy tag combos. (Raven seems to be about 5 down across the board, as well; from a quick play...)

I don't mind nerfs so much, but dumbing down gets my goat. Especially when variety-giving moves are removed or made unviable.

In merging elements of TTT and Rebellion, my first impression is that Tag 2's arrived at a marriage with baggage on both sides. DR remains my favourite for its pure, sharp movement, without Rage and Bound. But while I dislike Bound in principle, it did raise Tekken to its showmanship peak. Unfortunately, it also made for a cheaper, spammier game. From pros as much as anyone.

To end on a major positive, the graphics are by far the best in this genre's town. Arctic Dream is the fuzzy embrace of Christmas Past's woolly arms. Artistic eyes might draw unfavourable comparison to a packed garage of LED garden reindeer. Gaudiness is king, no doubt, but in giving a home to aurora-sailing fat Santas, sledging fat Santas, eating fat Santas and enough bulbs to fire up a Greenpeace meet, it's beautiful. I haven't felt as cosy in a fighter since I enjoyed the icy charms of King George Island.

The reason I love King, is that. After his stellar orphanage work, like.

[edited for twice calling Baek Beak]

Finally, in reply to this:

Because I don't know what the hell I'm doing I can't see much difference, is there a real disparity between characters and what makes the best better than the others?

If you believe early indications, the Mishimas are the best (Kaz, Hei and DJ; maybe Angel), and that's primarily because EWGF is unpunishable on block, does big damage on hit (it's a launcher), is quite hard to duck on reaction (certainly out of a Wavedash), and tracks very well. Tekken 6: BR was very balanced, so don't worry about tiers before bedtime yet.

The Mishimas were demoted from S-tier in Tekken 6 because EWGF tracking was nerfed. But there's really no one thing that makes a character good. Jack has poor movement speed, but he isn't rubbish. Xiaoyu doesn't hit hard; not rubbish. I suppose you could do an aggregate of...

Frames and on-block punishability of each character's high-priority moves
Damage potential from good lows, if any
Damage potential from high-crush mids, if any
Fast tracking moves, if any
Low-crush launchers (hop-kicks/knees), if any
Wall damage potential, especially if the character's a juggler (Lee)
The quality of moves with high stun, if any (Heihachi)
Quality of ranged mids
Quality of while-standing (WS) launchers, if any
Speed of launchers
Speed of lows
Quality of haircut

That's a shame, although to be honest I think you've written it off before really getting to grips with it. Like I said earlier, this series (to me at least) definitely needs a week just to get to grips with the finer points of moving about, getting up and finding your chosen teams best few moves (not a whole list) and what Bounds etc work best.

I disagree with the characters being too similar, there are definite groups of similar styles but in a game with 50 ish characters you never feel like your slogging through the same few pre-set re-skins. Like you already said, everyone has so many moves anyway, it makes it varied.

The Tag mechnaics definitely take a bit of time (again, more than I think you've really given it) but they click fine once you have spent a bit of time in Practice mode. 

Escape, some games soon? You're about on 360 still yes? Rouj and myself have made a MM team if you want to join. I think Marduk looks absolutely awesome in this tbh. Especially once you've slung some unlocked gear on him. The shadows that break around him on the Oil Rig stage are incredible. In fact this game has the best stages I've seen full stop. The Indonesian one with the shadow puppets in the background is a particular favourite. 

Haven't checked out Lee so much but Duk and Alisa both look awesome, as does Jack's Jeep Transformer (Prowl?) Alt.

Not denying what you say about putting more in to get more out, Pez, it's just that it dodn't give me glimpses of excitement in the few hours I played - all I could see was a huge wall to climb.

I can see it being very rewarding for the dedicated, and I will enjoy watching tournament footage. Willing to give it another shout when it's ten quid, just isn't a £35+ purchase for me.

Well that was unecessarily insulting, just becuase I don't like the game you do. A game that is flawed in ways you want to ignore. I would say that is fanboy behaviour.

I gave an account of what I played, you don't like it so you insult me..fine.

Dark Souls was mentioned only by you, so I'll ignore that argument since it has no relevance to Tekken mechanics. Getting good at neuro-science is somthing hard that I don't wnt to do too, but let's move on since you proved a couple of my points right anyway.

Most players have a core of 10-30 moves

So they are too long. Glad we agree. Why not get rid of the rest? Variety isn't fun when the variables are dull or useless.

The tag system has 5 options

With more time I could learn those. I did allude to that, but for a four hour rinse I still had no idea how it was working, so I'll disagree that it's acessible.

Alex, Tiger Jackson, Christie, Panda, P.Jack, Marshall Law, Unknown, Angel, Sebastian, Slim Bob, Violet, Michelle Chang.

That's a lot of clone characters. Yeah you're right - they were too busy raiding the back catologue to create new designs that might appeal to non-tekken players.

So you can knock them down to under 50% with a steady couple of moves, then wait for an opportunity to unload anything that will do 50%

A 50% combo is very hard to do, correct me I'm wrong. So beginner/intermidiate players are going to eat a lot of rage deaths. In 4 hours of playing we got rage mode every time.

Just want to also reiterate that I'm disappointed Roujin. You might want to look beyond being upset about your favourite game and not throw insults at me in future. 12/60 characters and we do't have a clone problem was said like a true apologist for bad design, I'm done.

Nick, I’m sorry if you’re offended, but you threw out a bunch of the most cliché criticisms that are levelled at 3D fighters in general by people who know nothing about them. That’s not you, hence my surprise, and to be honest annoyance with your summation, you know far more about the genre and how things work than someone who never plays them, so why make such obtuse observations that show little to no forethought?

I’m a fan of Tekken, yes, but I’m not a fanboy, I’ve invested time in a lot of fighters this gen, outside of Tekken - SF3OE, SFIV, SFxT, KoF, SC, VF5.

Your assessment of the move list is an example of what I’m talking about. In your opinion, because most players use a core set, the rest are or should be made redundant because they are rarely used and that move lists like that are a hindrance. But that’s not the case, because at its deepest level Tekken becomes one massive frame data metagame. The larger move lists give you a range of moves at incremental startup frames. If you put the time in (I haven’t ever, not really outside of trying things in matches and seeing what worked), you can learn your most damaging punishers frame for frame against the most common moves used by other characters. So for instance, rather than punishing everything with your fastest 10f string as it’s a good, safe, go to punisher in all situations, you can start using specific, slower but far more damaging or advantageous punishers that either launch, track movement to the sides, cause knockdowns, etc.

There is a lot to learn overall in Tekken, if you were to consider learning everything (which is impossible, I think most top players acknowledge that you can’t learn everything) however that is not the same as saying that you need to learn a lot before you can participate.

I don’t know what your beef with the Dark Souls comment is, that is a game with a renowned learning curve as has been discussed previously. A learning curve is a learning curve, is a learning curve, surely? You enjoyed overcoming the challenges of Lordran, a place filled with many different weapons, many of which are rarely used by most players but have specific little attributes that can be harnessed by those who put the time in to learn the differences between each weapon. It seems like it has a parity with Tekken, no?