Tekken Hybrid (PS3, 2011)

Tekken Hybrid? What's that all about? Let me tell you...I love Tekken. I may have even gone as far as to review their spellbinding movie on this very site. Anyway, after the disappointment that was said Tekken movie, I was deeply curious about what the upcoming Tekken Blood Vengeance CGI film was gonna be like. It was impressive when I finally saw the trailer, as the characters looked exactly like they were supposed to, and it actually looked like they were following the Tekken story (as loose as it is). The big thing that they showed that caught my attention was footage of Jin, Kazuya and Heihachi fighting each other. Nothing says Tekken better than that. So, let's go back to Tekken Hybrid. What is it? Tekken Hybrid is the movie Tekken Blood Vengeance, pared with an HD remake of Tekken Tag Tournement (the one that made me love Tekken in the first place) and a prologue demo of the upcoming Tekken Tag Tournement 2! That's a pretty easy sell for a guy like me, so I picked it up.

Tekken Tag Tournement 2 Prologue

My first stop on this bargain was the Tekken Tag Tournement 2 Prologue. Right away, I noticed that while most modes were open, there were only 4 characters to play as.We had Jin and Kazuya in their Devil forms (if you aren't a Tekken fan, I really can't explain it to you) with Xiaoyu (a dull girly charater) and Alisa (the robotic chick who ruined most of Tekken 6's scenario mode by being too happy and annoying). Oh well, at least we have two characters who aren't frustratingly stupid. I played it for a few minutes before deciding, there are no characters and I don't feel like playing anymore. Overall, it looks pretty much like a Tag version of Tekken 6 and handles about the same too. I guess it's alright, but it didn't sell me on Tekken Tag Tournement 2.

Tekken Tag Tournement HD

This is the reason I bought this anyway. It was me grabbing back a piece of my past. 11 years ago, I discovered that I liked fighting games, because my friend gave me his copy of Tekken Tag. Years have gone by, and the fighting game has evolved a great deal, so it was interesting to see how well this old game holds up. First off, the HD look is nice. The graphics are terribly under detailed, but in a way that adds to the timeless nature of this game. With full HD, it looks smooth and stylized. The gameplay on the otherhand, didn't fare so well. It still is a perfectly playable game, but for some reason there is an auto block feature on, where if your character is just standing around he automatically blocks everything. I don't like that. Not to mention, on several occasions I found myself struggling to even play it without using cheap tactics (Heihachi's  back + right punch attack). Don't get me wrong, it's still a fine game, but I've encountered so much better out there with Street Fighter 4 or even Tekken 6. I don't see me sinking hundreds of hours into this one, like I did back in the day.

Tekken Blood Vengeance

Oh boy, here we go again...another Tekken movie. The live action one blew it, but this was actually made by Namco. It can't be that bad. The basic plot is that a crazy powerful business man throws a tournement and whoever wins it takes control of his company. There are of course subplots between many of the characters, as well as rivalries and so on, such as Jin's rivalry with his father, Kazuya who has a rivalry with his father Heihachi...and so on. Look...all that matters is that it isn't following any of the lame characters from Tekken...

Uh...huh... so...behold. Xiaoyu and Alisa are our main characters...

Yeah, so I shit you not... the movie follows these two on a journey through high school to try to get the attention of a boy...who isn't even a character in the games.... Don't worry, two Tekken characters are jammed into this movie as teachers too! Anyway, they both are supposed to find this mystery boy for whatever reason... (I've seen it and I forget already) for Jin and Kazuya who are trying to one up eachother. Again, by finding some random boy who Jin apparently went to school with at one point, two of the worlds most powerful men will be able to one up eachother.

Somehow they manage to pad out this girly BS story for the first hour and ten minutes of the movie. They eventually end up with a huge confrontation between Heihachi, Jin and Kazuya at the very end. This battle would have been much more interesting if we were building toward it, but oh well. At least this movie acknowledged that those 3 characters are so far out of Xiaoya and Alisa's league that it's insane. The big final battle goes on for about 20 minutes and is easily one of the coolest things I've seen in a while, but this movie doesn't get a free pass as it ends with a huge cop-out and goes right back to the two blandest Tekken characters talking about friendship.

My friend gave an analogy of this whole movie that I think, despite it's vulgarity, sums it up pretty well. Picture an incredibly beautiful girl who wants to pleasure you better than you've ever been pleasured before, but only under the circumstances that she will bite your business for over an hour before she does it. After finally making it through the most nightmarish pain of your life, it all turns around and feels great, however, just when you are about to reach your happy peek, she starts biting you again.

This movie is a psychotic dominatrix, and if you are into pain, I highly recommend it to you.

Overall
I can't recommend this purchase. Tekken Tag HD is the only real selling point here, but even then, it's a little too dated now. The demo makes me sick for putting those two stupid characters in, and the movie does the exact same. I don't know what the hell the story writer was thinking but I hope he gets the dominatrix treatment mentioned above.