Review: Tekken 6 (PSP)

OH LOOK IT’S SO TINY… OWW IT PUNCHED ME IN THE FACE!!!

Tekken 6 for the PSP has been garnering a lot of attention these past few months within the gaming community, and for good reason. Once screenshots came out as well as info of the full 40 character roster fighting fans have been waiting to see if…well, if anything got screwed up. Namco Bandai wouldn’t release a sub-par franchise game – well there was that crappy Tekken 3 port for the Game Boy Advance – but that was a while ago, I guess. So the question is, how well did it all come together? How true to the console game does this stay? Click to see.

I suppose I could do another full fledged Tekken 6 review, but we’ve been down that road once already. I’ll start off by saying that this is a faithful port of the console versions (these versions by the way actually being Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion). A story mode has been added (finally) and play-throughs unlock items in the gallery. Although the graphics have been downgraded this is still one of the most graphically impressive PSP games you’re likely to see for a very long time. The moves are all there – the PSP’s D-pad takes a little getting used to as does the slightly different timing, but a few fights into it and you’re back to form. The multi-level destructible stages are still in which is awesome. The multiplayer is nice with a good Ad-Hoc setup, a lack of infrastructure is disappointing but swapping ghosts with friends is cool. Namco Bandai has jam-packed this game with the goodies that hit all the right spots with fighting game fanatics.

Like many other console-to-PSP ports, Tekken 6 has issues not present in its big brothers. The Story Mode is finally here, but it’s a paltry four matches long. This makes me wonder why Namco Bandai didn’t just add a prologue and epilogue to the Arcade mode. The way that Ghost Mode is set up makes it so that you can download another player’s ghost – but it shows up randomly so a specific fight against that ghost is impossible. And lastly, Tekken 6 suffers from an age-old fighting game problem: a super-cheap boss. Azazel can block any move without animation making strategy-building a problem. It’s more difficult when a majority of it’s moves are unblockable. Haven’t been whupped this much by an end boss in a long time. A short list, but these things can still hamper the fun factor a bit.

Overall I recommend Tekken 6 for the PSP. It has some flaws to be sure, but they barely matter when stacked up against the frenzied fighting fun-fest. I’ve played quite a few PSP fighting games – and this one has impressed me the most. So go out there, pick up a copy and start beating the crap out of your friends. They probably deserve it.

[A copy of this game was provided by the publisher for review purposes.]