Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

10 Hours or Less

The Bottom Line:

"Masterpiece"

When I was growing up and was in highschool,many of my friends talked about what a great game Tekken 2 was.However,it wasn't until today(September 2010),that I played Tekken 2 for the first time and I see how it would have influenced 3D fighting games with it's smooth,fluid,technical,powerful style.

Many of the moves are very powerful and if they connect with an opponent,will result in the person losing a big chunk of health.So you'll need to time your attacks carefully and position yourself well,Sometimes crouching and hitting your opponent with a low blow can be a sneaky way of dodging an opponent's attack and counter attacking an opponent,but if you get the timing wrong,you will be a sitting duck and vulnerable to a powerful attack/combo from your opponent.Being too defensive can result in your character being grabbed and a powerful grappling maneuver will be performed on them.

The smooth style sets the Tekken series apart from Virtua Fighter and DoA games,Tekken 2 feels very playable,smooth and fluid.

There's good variation in fighting styles and they're fun to use and balanced.Paul can perform a power punch move that does massive damage,but it's a bit slow and makes him vulnerable if he misses with it.Paul is a big guy,which makes he have less agility and speed,but he is very storng.Lei has a great high keep/sweep combo,so if you dodge his high kick,you'll need to watch out for his sweep,and if his high kick connects,so will his sweep.Law is a technical and fast moving martial artist.Heihachi is a powerful but slightly slow moving martial artist.The female characters are very fast,but their small frame means they will suffer a lot of health loss when they're hit by opponent attacks.There's a wrestler character who wears a Leopard mask(named King)who is famous in the Tekken series and he can wear down your health with powerful wrestling moves.There's the bear Kuma who's powerful,but lacks technical skill,and same goes for Jack,who has metal fists.

However,Tekken 2 is not an easy fighting game,you might want to play this game on the easy difficulty level,and even on the easy difficulty,some of the later opponents and the boss can be challenging.I've played some fighting games on medium or hard difficulty levels that are easier than Tekken 2 is on easy difficulty.The boss(who has 2 forms)can be a bit cheap and unfair.

After playing this game,I see how it's influenced Tekken 3,4,5 and Tekken Tag Tournament and some people say Tekken 3,Tekken 5 and Tekken Tag Tournament are amongst the best 3D fighting games ever made.

It's hard for me to judge the graphics,because I can't remember the standard for video game graphics during the time period when Tekken 2 was released.But I'll stay there's some nice city,countryside,desert canyon environments.The city is surrounded by a nice looking yellow sky and skyscappers,and the countryside has some nice hills,farm houses and crop fields and lovely blue sky and clouds.

The music fits in nicely with the arcade,fighting game style action.

Overall,it definately was a great fighting game for it's time and set a good standard for other 3D fighting games to follow.