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Still not Tekken 3.

Though, a fair deal better than Tekken 4. The characters seem a lot more fluid in this latest release, and the engine is a definite improvement. It's good that games are finally taking advantage of the PS2's full potential as a pretty graphics machine - go play Metal Gear Solid 3 and you'll drool when someone points out that not a single frame of the game is prerendered - and Shadow of the Colossus sports some dynamic lighting, which is something that used to be XBox only where the consoles were concerned (I believe Splinter Cell back was the first game to really do it well).

My biggest complaint as far as Tekken 5 matches up to others in the genre is environment interaction. The arenas are all flat, and other than the occasional texture change for broken glass or crumbling walls, nothing ever really happens. Compare that to DOA3 (which came out as an XBox launch title in 2001) and you'll see what I mean.

However, the worst aspects of the game are the extra parts. Tekken 3 and Tekken Tag Tournament both had fun and wacky side games - Ball Mode and Tekken Bowl - respectively, but Tekken 5 is sadly devoid of any similarly clever time wasters. What it does have is another third person side-scroller-esque fighter called Devil Within, which is reminiscent of Force Mode from Tekken 3. But, just like Force Mode, it sucks. Here's a screenshot of it from the official site:

Tekken 5 Devil Within

It's extremely short (like 3 or 4 hours), and I still wanted to put the controller down before I was halfway through. The main game is dependent on money (which you get a big chunk of for beating Devil Within) in order to unlock extra costumes. I was used to Tekken always being nice and giving me extra costumes for each character just for finishing the game with them, but I guess the days of that are over. There's no really quick way to earn money that you can use more than once, so after completing all the essential parts of the game a couple of your characters will still be devoid their third costume. And believe me, you'll have no motivation to sit and fiddle with the game to get the money for those costumes.

Finally, the ending sequences are once again prerendered, and also quite terrible. The game left me really never wanting to go back to the single player ever again. The redeeming factor is that Tekken 1, 2, and 3 are included in the game, but I don't want to put in a disc labeled "Tekken 5" to play Tekken 3, especially considering that the PS2 is backwards compatible (that is, if you haven't played it enough for the laser to stop reading PSX games yet).