RARE 鉄拳 Tekken Tag Tournament Beta/Early Arcade Footage

My god. I thought it was gone from the face of the Internet forever, but wow, I finally came across this lost gem after so many years.

So, to fully explain, these beta clips used to be on YouTube as a part of a video named "Tekken - Classic clips collection #2", which was uploaded by TripleLei sometime in 2007. According to the original video's description, the clips came from tekken.net (an old site, now Tekken Zaibatsu). Unfortunately, after several years, TripleLei's channel was taken down, although some of its videos have been reuploaded since then.

Now you're probably wondering, "Where and how did you grab these clips then?" There are two answers: Internet Archive - Wayback Machine and IGN. In regards to Wayback Machine, after trying it out on an old YouTube video which is currently marked as private (and it worked), I was curious if it would also work for such video, and lo and behold, it did. I couldn't find a way to download or extract the video within the Internet Archive, so the best way I did was to use a screen recorder. On the other hand, IGN has a lot of obscure videos in their site and some, if not most of them have made its way on IGN’s YouTube channel. Surprsingly enough, the beta clips that were found in such video are in the list of those obscure videos, although not all of them. I have absolutely NO CLUE why or how did these clips ended up at such place like IGN considering they originally came from a Tekken fansite, but this was quite a MIRACLE to say the least. You can just easily tell the difference between the ones at Internet Archive: Wayback Machine and IGN, which is the video quality.


As proof, here's the Internet Archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/200703071...


And here are the IGN video links (website and YouTube channel):

   • Tekken Tag Tournament PlayStation 2 Gamepl...  

http://www.ign.com/videos/2000/02/04/...

http://www.ign.com/videos/2000/02/04/...

http://www.ign.com/videos/2000/02/04/...


Now that I have explained everything, it's time to point out some differences from the actual/final version by these set of clips:

The most obvious difference is that the UI text font for “Round #/Tag Battle”, “Ready?”, “Stage #”, the time record, “Insert Coin/Credit/Free Play/Press Start”, “K.O./Perfect”, and “Wins #” are all lifted straight from Tekken 3.

Instead of the Namco logo before the Attract Movie, “Namco Presents.” is shown, again, lifted from Tekken 3.

The Attract Movie lacks the scene with Lee driving the Honda S2000. You would notice that the scenes with Jun and Nina are slightly extended, thus explaining the absence of Lee’s scene.

In addition to that, the Attract Movie theme is slightly different in terms of instruments and notably, the presence of a robotic voice saying "The King of Iron Fist Tournament!"

Some of the character hit effects are different from the final version: Jin has his blue lightning effect from Tekken 3 rather than the red one in the final version, Ganryu and Jun both have Jin’s hit effect (again, the one from Tekken 3), Baek uses Hwoarang’s hit effect, and Armor King uses King’s hit effect.

Normally, when you do a Tag Combo, the red part of the character’s health bar depletes; its indication being that it flickers. Either due to the video compression/quality, when Tag Combos are pulled off in the beta clips, a chunk of the red part on the character’s health bar doesn’t deplete/flicker at all.

Tiger is errorneously referred to as Eddy from his lifebar, whereas in the final version, he is correctly referred as such.

In the beginning of the Jun/Law vs. Michelle/Lei clip, at the point where the announcer says “Tag Battle…FIGHT!”, the characters on screen don’t perform their intro pose unlike in the final version. Note how Jun and Michelle are briefly in their Tekken 2 fighting poses/stances before jumping into their actual fighting poses/stances.

Usually, when a character gets K.O'd, the final blow would be repeated a few times before finally showing the “K.O.” text. In the early build, the word “Replay” would show up when this happens. The “Replay” text itself is, once again, lifted straight from Tekken 3.

So yeah, that’s all I can find. If there’s anything else different, please let me know. And while we’re at it, for those who do not know, I made a playlist months ago dedicated to early/beta footage of Tekken 4. Check it out while you can:    • Tekken 4 Beta/Early Arcade Footage  


Thanks for reading and (belated) Happy New Year!