Tekken 5 feels like every other Tekken, which means it fels good, even if a little stale.
I've been a fan of Tekken since the days of the PS. Yet as I've continued to play games and wath as the Tekken series 'evolves' I've become a little bored with the franchise. For me, Tag Tournament was the last great Tekken game to be released. Tekken 4 was just ok, and this one is the same as 4, but with no solid career mode or story. Which is acceptable since it released at a very cheap price.
The fighting is good as always and if you've been playing with the same mainstay character for awhile you'll feel right at home in this game. Everyone pretty much has the same move set and there are VERY few new charaters to speak of. But if you were addicted to the previous games then the enjoyment will most likely carry over to this newer installment. But it WILL seem like you're playing the same game as before.
The only single player thing to do really is the Arcade mode. Which is 10 stages of increasing difficulty. I noticed there is a very sharp difficulty curve on Stage 6. Whereas the previous 5 matches were overly easy, the next 4 being difficult, and the final match to be easy again.
So if you're looking for a single player fighting game, there are much better games you could invest in, especially during this point in time. Tekken 6 has already been released, there's SSF4, and Blazblue. Both excellent games, and of course you can't forget my personal fav, Soul Calibur IV. Also, the new Mortal Kombat is coming out in a little over 2 weeks. The demo makes it seem like an excellent game!
Anyways sorry about that, back to this game. Next I'll talk about the splitscreen. The splitscreen is pretty much the same as any other fighting game. You have regular versus and team battle. Also other players can jump in and fight you at any time during the Arcade mode. The amount of enjoyment to be had with these modes depends upon the two players level of experience.
The graphics in this game aren't very good at all. They really do look somewhere between PS2 and PS3, but definitely not all the way up to PS3 standards, even for the early games. Character models are pretty plain and aren't very sharp. The backgrounds are kinda pretty but don't look that great technically, and the blood and blocking stuff are all 2D sprites! :O
All in all, Tekken 5 ccan be an enjoyable experience but it won't hold your attention for long, unless perhaps you are playing online. The single player offerings of this game are extremely shallow. The graphics aren't attractive. And above all, there are muh better fighting games you could get that are now at similar prices (Soul Calibur IV, Tekken 6, SSF4, Blazblue)