Tekken: Dark Resurrection

Tekken originally made a name for itself in arcades, bringing huge success to the franchise, and it was only a matter of time before it made that leap onto consoles. Sony cleverly obtained the license and unsurprisingly it became an instant success, introducing more gamers to the franchise than ever before through the power of accessibility. Now the series tries its hand on the PSP in an attempt to keep up with Nintendo, who have dominated the handheld market for a long period.

Probably the most important aspect of any Tekken game is its sublime fighting mechanics and Dark Resurrection is every bit as good as its console counterparts in achieving that goal. The controls are tight and respond to your every whim, and the matter of pulling off those tricky combos has never been easier, there are a few downsides to using the systems D-pad but those can be easily overcome.

You can expect most of the same modes here that you’ve come accustomed to from past titles in the series. There’s your bog-standard arcade mode which will need completing by each and every character (34 in total) in order to unlock all the media content on offer. There’s a multiplayer mode which lets two players battle it out for ultimate supremacy, but the lack of online play is becoming more of an issue with every release. Quick battle, time attack, team battle and practice mode all come along for the ride but all of them seem to be losing their appeal. The dark horse however comes from the Dojo mode; this pits you against a number of pretty tough opponents on your quest to become the ultimate fighter.

Unfortunately they have eradicated the task of unlocking characters in Dark Resurrection; all of them are readily available from the get-go. What they have done however is implemented a money system in which every time you win a battle your funds increase, once you’ve amounted enough cash it can be used to purchase new outfits for your characters. While this doesn’t offer all that many customisation options it does add just enough variety to assist in keeping thing’s fresh.

Tekken 5 introduced what are known as artificial intelligence profiles, these are a way of making your own ghosts which you can play against in a number of modes. It also gives you the possibility of making a fighter that can play to yours or a friend’s style of combat, this can help you find the weak spots of your opponent and give you that upper hand in battle. Your ghosts can also be swapped online so if you’re looking for that added challenge then this is your chance to stand up against the best in the world; even if it isn’t the way you may have envisaged.

The graphics are simply astounding, certainly the best I have seen from any handheld game to date and really raises the standard for portable games everywhere. The characters are presented in glorious detail and move across the fantastic-looking backgrounds as smoothly as you could wish for. Perhaps the best thing about all this is that they achieve these visuals with little or no slowdown issues, plus the loading times are manageable so the action flows nicely from one fight to the next.

The games soundtrack does a solid enough job although fans should expect a lot of recycled effects and sound bits from previous Tekken titles. All-in-all Dark Resurrection is a perfect introduction into the world of portable gaming for The King of Iron Fist Tournament; they truly have created something that wouldn’t look out of place on a PlayStation 2. A perfect indication of just how beautiful PSP games can look, and a great example to set for future titles.

Update: There is now a patch available for online play.

Craig Bryan, NoobFeed