Tekken is actually the most popular fighting game in the world.
A number of people here stopped playing after Tag 1 because they didn’t like the drastic change to the series that 4 brought. I personally think it’s one of the best because poking and picking your moments to go on the offensive became more important. Tag 1 was amazing, but at high level, that game was nothing but run away. BDC all day and punish whiffs with twin pistons/ewgf/dark upper, etc. Tekken 5 introduced the crush system, which fixed a few things, but broke some in the process. It nerfed the overly strong d+1 (it was like 2p in VF, except you couldn’t do shit about it), which then made it a tool you had to think before throwing out, but, it made hop kicks retarded. They’re like wake up srks that scrubs like to do, except you can do it any time, you lose 50% to 65% if you get hit by it, and you’re not getting punished hard for it if it’s blocked–most hop kicks on block are only jab punishable (about 8% of your health). Backdashes and steps were also too good. DR nerfed juggle damage a bit and got rid of the infinites and broken shit, but the game became like a boring Tag. Run away all day because backdashes and steps were ridiculously good. BDC poke, BDC poke, BDC launcher, etc. Despite it being boring at higher levels, the game was still very good. It’s the best Tekken we’ve had since Tag, imo. 6BR nerfed step and backdash, nerfed juggle damage further, buffed poke damage, slowed the game down, and made every character’s model bigger and moved them closer to the screen/foreground. The result? The game moved like molasses and a few pokes could kill you faster than combos/juggling. And that’s not even adding rage mode to the equation. Christ. The game was extremely boring and stupid as a result.
Tag 2 is the same as 6BR, except they sped up the game a very little bit, lowered max health value (two characters instead of one. Makes sense so we don’t go to time ups all the time like week 1 Skullgirls), and added tag mechanics. Lowered health + buffed poke damage + rage that can happen as early as when your character loses 30% health (your partner gets rage when your active character loses a certain percentage of health. Percentage depends on relationship between the characters) = a lot of situations where the game plays like the video I posted. Shit’s dumb as fuck. It shortens the gap between high level players and scrubs because it’s giving scrubs more tools, and raising their chances, to scrub a higher level player out. MvC3 syndrome.
Compared to the fighters out today, Tag 2 is still going to be one of the best/solid/balanced in the market, so people will like it, but if you play VF and enjoy it, there’s no reason to subject yourself to the ridiculous shit. If Tag 2 is your first Tekken [in a while], find a mentor quickly. Tekken is much harder to learn than VF, because the mechanics are not intuitive, and you will get destroyed by high level players VERY badly.
