{"id":37438,"date":"2024-09-24T14:23:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-24T05:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=37438"},"modified":"2024-09-24T14:23:02","modified_gmt":"2024-09-24T05:23:02","slug":"tekken-tag-tournament-core-concept-was-based-on-a-joke-that-accidentally-got-approved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/tekken-tag-tournament-core-concept-was-based-on-a-joke-that-accidentally-got-approved\/","title":{"rendered":"Tekken Tag Tournament\u2019s core concept was based on a joke that accidentally got approved\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In his \u201cHarada\u2019s Bar<\/a>\u201d series on YouTube, Tekken Project director Katsuhiro Harada revealed that the long-running fighting game series\u2019 PlayStation 2 launch title, Tekken Tag Tournament, actually started as an off-the-cuff gag he made in a meeting in response to sudden demands from upper management.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTag sold extremely well, even though we came up with the concept in just 5 minutes.\u201d Harada divulges. He goes on to explain that the successful fighter-swapping take on Tekken was born out of the ashes of the first version of Tekken 4, which would have been a PC game with a completely different concept to any entry in the fighting game series so far.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Tekken
(Image credit: Kotaku<\/a>)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll of a sudden, the bosses told us that the (first) Tekken 4 project got cancelled.\u201d Harada recounts. He then recalls management telling the Tekken team, much to their surprise, that \u201cSince sales are not doing well, we need to release a new game within 6 months.\u201d The game had to be similar to the series\u2019 previous game, Tekken 3 (1997), but not the same. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harada proposed a tag game where players could switch between two fighters. \u201cDue to the memory capacity, we couldn\u2019t have 4 characters on the screen, only 2,\u201d he explains. In Tekken Tag Tournament, players can press the shoulder buttons on the controller to switch characters. If both players happen to perform a tag at the same time, this results in an amusing second or so in which there are no fighters on the screen.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Tekken<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As Harada explains it, he had just proposed \u201cThe first fighting game in the world where there\u2019s no-one on-screen for a moment… It was a joke, so my seniors in the Tekken team burst out laughing.\u201d To his surprise, the bosses liked the idea, and the team got to work on Tekken Tag Tournament, which hit arcades in 1999. As an early PS2 title, it was well-received and quickly sold 400,000 copies in the first four days after release (Source: Edge Magazine Issue 94, page 74<\/a>). Going on to shift well over 2 million units during the PS2 era, Tekken Tag Tournament spawned both a sequel (Tekken Tag Tournament 2) and a PS3 remaster. Not bad for a game that was proposed as a joke. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Katsuhiro Harada reveals that hit PS2 launch title Tekken Tag Tournament was proposed as a joke in response to sudden demands from management.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":37441,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-37438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"\nTekken Tag Tournament\u2019s core concept was based on a joke that accidentally got approved\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Katsuhiro Harada reveals that PS2 launch title Tekken Tag Tournament was proposed as a joke in response to sudden demands from management.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/tekken-tag-tournament-core-concept-was-based-on-a-joke-that-accidentally-got-approved\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tekken Tag Tournament\u2019s core concept was based on a joke that accidentally got approved\u00a0 - 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