Tekken Tag Tournament (鉄拳タッグトーナメント Tekken Taggu Tōnamento, lit. Iron Fist Tag Tournament) is the fourth installment in the Tekken fighting game series and a spin-off of the main series, focusing on tag team battles. It is not canonical to the Tekken storyline. The game was originally available as an update kit for Tekken 3, running on the same System 12 arcade board. Tekken Tag Tournament was first released on arcades in 1999. It was ported to the PlayStation 2 home console in 2000 (released as a launch title outside Japan), though the PS2 version ran on an enhanced game engine with better graphics, which allowed the characters and stages to appear less angular and more detailed compared to how they used to look in the PS1 Tekken trilogy. The game combines most characters found in both Tekken 3 and Tekken 2.

The game received a sequel 12 years later, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, as well as a remastered for PlayStation 3 version entitled Tekken Tag Tournament HD.

Contents

• 1Story
• 2Gameplay
• 3Tekken Tag Tournament HD
• 4Moves
• 5Characters
  • 5.1Returning characters
  • 5.2New characters
  • 5.3Cameos
  • 5.4Unlockable characters
• 6Stages
• 7Music
• 8Trophies & Achievements
• 9Gallery
• 10Videos
• 11Trivia
• 12See Also
• 13References
• 14Navigation

Story

Tekken Tag Tournament is a non-canon game, having no storyline. According to Namco, it brought back the characters that did not return to Tekken 3: Baek Doo San, Bruce Irvin, Jun Kazama, and Kunimitsu. Their ages are unchanged from the previous Tekken games. It is more of a compilation of the Tekken series giving fans the opportunity to play as almost every character in the series up to that point, including many of those that had apparently been killed off in the main Tekken storyline. Of all the returning characters, Kazuya Mishima was the most heavily promoted, as he was featured prominently on the game’s cover art and promotional material.

Gameplay

Tekken Tag Tournament was notable for having the largest character roster in the series up to that point, boasting a total of 39 playable characters. 37 characters return from previous installments in the series, and two new characters, Tetsujin, a costume swap of Mokujin, and Unknown, the boss character in this game, were introduced. The most prominent feature is its tag system. A player selects two characters and may tag out between them to utilize special combos and throws. When in Team Battle mode, the fights are also tag fights unless there is one person left on a team where they will fight alone.

Certain pairs of characters, when selected as a tag team, have special intros, win poses, lose poses, Tag Throws and also Netsu ratings. The Netsu ratings affect gameplay, and whether a character ‘liked’, was indifferent to, or ‘disliked’ another, would result in faster or slower ability to gain a damage boost when their partner was damaged. The special intros, win and lose poses are more lore based, and do not directly map onto the Netsu system, though the Netsu system can give hints as to who will have a special interaction. Some special intros can only be seen if the characters are wearing certain costumes.

Tekken Tag Tournament included a mini-game called Tekken Bowl, that challenged the player to use a team of characters to play a bowling game. Depending on the player’s selected character, different attributes would be placed into effect in the mini-game. For example, Bryan Fury has a powerful roll due to his super strength, and he can use a targeting system to make more accurate shots because of his cybernetic enhancements. A physically weaker character like Julia Chang would have a much less powerful strike, but would be easier to control when placing the spin and amount of force on the ball. Yoshimitsu also has a targeting ability, which can control how straight the ball goes, making him one of the easiest to control characters of Tekken Bowl.

The soundtrack of Tekken Tag Tournament was also different from its predecessors, with strong techno and electro vibes.

Complementary pages:

• Tekken Tag Tournament/Netsu System
• Tag Throw

Tekken Tag Tournament HD

Tekken Tag Tournament HD is a high-definition update to the original game. It was included in Tekken Hybrid and showcased enhanced graphics and included trophies. This HD re-release, however, removes the “1 on 1” single-player and “1 on 1 VS” game modes from the PS2 version of Tekken Tag Tournament.

Moves

List of moves by character that can be performed in Tekken Tag Tournament.

See: Tekken Tag Tournament Moves

Characters

Returning characters

ALEX
(unlockable, costume swap of Roger)

ANGEL
(unlockable, costume swap of Devil)

ANNA

ARMOR KING

BAEK

BRUCE
(unlockable)

BRYAN

DEVIL
(unlockable)

EDDY

GANRYU

GUN JACK

HEIHACHI

HWOARANG

JACK-2
(unlockable)

JIN

JULIA

JUN

KAZUYA
(unlockable)

KING

KUMA
(unlockable)

KUNIMITSU
(unlockable)

LAW

LEE
(unlockable)

LEI

MICHELLE

MOKUJIN
(unlockable, costume swap of Tetsujin)

NINA

OGRE
(unlockable)

P.JACK
(unlockable)

PANDA
(unlockable, costume swap of Kuma)

PAUL

ROGER
(unlockable)

TIGER
(costume swap of Eddy)

TRUE OGRE
(unlockable)

WANG
(unlockable)

XIAOYU

YOSHIMITSU

New characters

TETSUJIN
(unlockable)

UNKNOWN
(final boss, unplayable in arcade version, unlockable in console version)

Cameos

• Crow – seeing in the background after a strike in Tekken Bowl
• Doctor Bosconovitch – seeing in the background in Tekken Bowl

Unlockable characters

Stages

Character	Condition to unlock
Kunimitsu	Beating Story Mode one time with a character.
Bruce Irvin	Beating Story Mode two times with a different character.
Jack-2	Beating Story Mode three times with a different character.
Lee Chaolan	Beating Story Mode four times with a different character.
Alex / Roger	Beating Story Mode five times with a different character.
Wang Jinrei	Beating Story Mode six times with a different character.
Kuma II / Panda	Beating Story Mode seven times with a different character.
Kazuya Mishima	Beating Story Mode eight times with a different character.
Ogre	Beating Story Mode nine times with a different character.
True Ogre	Beating Story Mode ten times with a different character.
Prototype Jack	Beating Story Mode eleven times with a different character.
Mokujin / Tetsujin	Beating Story Mode twelve times with a different character.
Angel / Devil	Beating Story Mode thirteen times with a different character.
Unknown	Beating Story Mode fourteen times with a different character.

Eddy-A

Eddy-B

Heihachi

Hwoarang

Jin-A

Jin-B

King

Law-A

Law-B

Lei

Nin

Nina-B

Ogre

Paul

School-A

School-B

Unknown

Xiaoyu

Yoshimitsu-A

Yoshimitsu-B

Music

There were two soundtracks released for TTT, entitled Tekken Tag Tournament Original Soundtrack and Tekken Tag Tournament Direct Audio.

Trophies & Achievements

Main article: Tekken Tag Tournament/Trophies and Achievements

Gallery

Main article: Tekken Tag Tournament/Gallery

Videos

Tekken Tag Tournament Playstation 2 intro.

Intro.

Tekken Tag Tournament HD Embu

Embu 1

Tekken Tag Tournament HD Embu 2

Embu 2 featuring the animal fighters of Tekken

Tekken Tag Tournament – Michelle + Julia

A sample gameplay with Michelle Chang and Julia Chang.

Tekken Tag Tournament – Julia + Michelle

Another sample gameplay with Julia Chang and Michelle Chang.

Trivia

• Tekken Tag Tournament is notable for these distinctions:
  • It is the only game to feature a licensed car; in this case, the Honda S2000 which is driven by Lee Chaolan in the first arcade intro cutscene.
  • It features the highest amount of participation by the Jack robots so far, being three.
  • The first appearance of the Tekken Bowl Mode.
  • The first Tekken game released for the PlayStation 2.
  • The last game where all of the fighting arenas have no walls.
  • The first game since the original Tekken to have the same stage music in every character’s ending. This is not the case with Unknown’s ending, however.
  • The last game where the character falls into the “arched back” animation if KO’ed while standing since Tekken 2, instead of the standing KO’ed animation from Tekken 3.
  • The first game in the series where players can preview characters’ moves in Practice Mode.
    • This is also the first game where all of the characters’ moves are in their move lists.
  • The last game where characters perform their win poses between rounds.
  • The first game where the fighters can jump up immediately after hitting the ground.
  • The last game where Jin uses Mishima Style Fighting Karate.
  • The last game where screaming no longer echoes when a character is KO’d.
  • The first game where health meters no longer load up before a fight begins.
  • The only game where Mokujin is a costume swap of another character.
  • The first game to feature stages with spectators or background people who are not watching the fight.
• In this game, all Tekken 3 characters get an alternate version/color scheme of their Player 1 and Player 2 outfits.
• Marshall Law is the only character missing from this game that would later return in the canonical games.
  • Doctor Bosconovitch and Crow are missing as well, but neither would return in a canonical game. Doctor Bosconovitch would make his return in Tekken Tag Tournament 2.
• The differences between arcade and home versions are the stages’ backgrounds and the characters’ facial expressions during a battle:
  • The arcade version remains graphically similar to Tekken 3, as both Tekken 3 and Tekken Tag Tournament run on the Namco System 12 arcade hardware.
  • The home version (starting from PlayStation 2) marks the first Tekken game to have characters with facial expressions during a battle, fully modeled stages, animated environments, and having crowds on certain stages, which later apply to post-PlayStation Classic trilogy Tekken games.
  • When fighting True Ogre, the stage background in the home version is no longer blank like in the arcade version.
• Unknown is the only character in the game to have a CGI ending, all other characters use the in-game graphics.
• The chain throw combos seen in King’s ending were later installed as an actual chain throw combo in Tekken 5, although all of the moves were based upon existing throws in Tekken Tag.
• The non-canonical premise of the game may have been inspired by SNK’s The King of Fighters ’98, which similarly ignored series canon for a “dream match” that brought back deceased and obsolete characters.
• Characters like Alex, Angel, Forest Law, Jun Kazama, Michelle Chang, Ogre, Prototype Jack, True Ogre, and Unknown, would not be playable again until the game’s sequel, Tekken Tag Tournament 2.
• After this game, Anna Williams, Armor King (replaced by a second Armor King), Baek Doo San, Bruce Irvin, Ganryu, Mokujin (who is replaced by Combot in Tekken 4) and Wang Jinrei would not appear again until Tekken 5. Roger does not make any more playable appearances after this game and is replaced by Roger Jr. in Tekken 5.
• If the player pairs up Kazuya Mishima and Devil on the same team, they are able to morph into one another instead of tagging out of the fight.
• Many characters have special before-battle and losing poses if they are paired up with certain characters.
  • For example, Law and Lei lay down on the floor in a comical fashion if they lose.
  • Nina kicks Bryan in the crotch with them both getting into their fighting stances immediately afterward if they lose a match.
• In before-battle poses, some characters will do things with/to their partner occasionally depending on the leader.^[1]
  • For example, when Paul and Kuma are paired, whomever the leader is will do their special attack to the other (Kuma will do his Salmon Hunter move on Paul, and Paul will do his Phoenix Smasher against Kuma).
  • Heihachi will turn Lee over his knee and spank him if paired together.
• Ling Xiaoyu is the only character in the game to have two endings. It is viewable by beating Arcade mode in her school girl outfit. Xiaoyu also has the most outfits with an additional secret green/orange costume, only obtainable by selecting her with a random select.
• There are no replays after every round, but after Arcade Mode has been completed, the player will be shown replays from the last round of every match while the word “replay” flashes on the top left of the screen rather than the top right. However, in Tekken Bowl, the word flashes on the bottom left except when a super strike occurs.
• The stages in this game are the exact same locations from Tekken 3, being set in a different time of day. For example, Lei Wulong’s Hong Kong Street stage took place in the daytime in Tekken 3, but in this game, it takes place at nighttime.
• Although he is not playable, Doctor Bosconovitch appears as a spectator in Tekken Bowl. He can be “KO’d” by throwing the ball away from the lane towards him, which counts as a miss.
• In Tekken Bowl, pressing the X button when the shot power bar is at its absolute maximum will result in an “Over Charge.” The character will hang onto the ball when throwing it, sending them sliding down the lane and crashing into the pins in a comedic fashion. This will count as a miss, and the message “Caution: Please do not try this at home” will display.
• While Tekken Tag Tournament is non-canon, it looks as though it would have taken place during the same time as Tekken 3 since all of the characters that were in that game’s roster, as well as the fighters who last appeared and debuted in Tekken 2 but did not return in 3, have not aged yet.
• The European instruction manual showing Jin’s biography incorrectly has a picture of Kazuya instead of Jin.^{[citation needed]}
• This game marked the only appearance on the PlayStation 2 for Kunimitsu, Jack-2, Michelle, Gun Jack, Forest Law, Angel, Ogre, Armor King, Jun Kazama, Devil, Roger and Unknown. Some of these characters do make a cameo in character prologues and endings in other PlayStation 2 games, however.
• Tekken Tag Tournament is one of the two games in the series to be released with an alternate cover. The Japanese and PAL covers shows a Kazuya’s face alone, while the North American cover shows Kazuya as well as Bryan, Ganryu, Heihachi, Nina, Gun Jack, and Michelle behind him.
• According to Harada, Sega had attempted to make negotiations with Namco to port Tekken Tag Tournament to the Dreamcast, offering a Virtua Fighter character of their choice for free in the game, but the offer was declined.^[2]
• Tiger Jackson is the only character whose name is not said by the announcer
• The game originally had a Turbo Mode that was only released in certain events though certain attacks would also launch an opponent high; similar to Tekken 2′s Sky Mode. Oddly, all characters would exclusively use Anna’s intro and win poses.
• While there is no traditional stage selection, the player is able to select a stage for Practice Mode by hovering over the option on the main menu, holding L2, and tapping R2 up to twenty times depending on the desired stage.