Tekken rules the PSP with an Iron Fist

Tekken Dark Resurrection | Sony PSP

For many owners of Sony’s PlayStation One, it was the Tekken series which defined their beloved console many years ago.

Now, Namco Bandai brings the King of the Iron Fist Tournament to the PSP in Tekken Dark Resurrection.

Dark Resurrection is at it’s roots a port of last year’s Tekken 5. Already a success, Namco Bandai was not content with just porting the same game over and instead opted to upgrade many portions of the already superb game. Two new characters have been added to the fold as well as more fighter customizations and a bevy of mini-games.

Tekken Dark Resurrection sports in game graphics that should make any PSP owner proud. Beautiful CG cut scenes extend the already deep (and fairly confusing) Tekken storyline while animated slides kick off the tale of each combatant in story mode.

In game graphics blow the first three Tekken games out of the water and reach near PS2 quality graphics as Tekken fighters do battle across 19 various stages including a penguin inhabited iceberg and a space station orbiting earth.

Dark Resurrection retains the series trademark control scheme, which maps each of the fighter’s limbs to a specific button. The result is an intuitive control layout that takes a little bit of time to get used to but works perfectly once you do.

Although a 3D fighter seems like a disaster waiting to happen on the PSP, surprisingly enough Tekken Dark Resurrection pulls off the daunting feat and leaves other PSP fighter’s in the dust.

Players with a wi-fi connection can hop online and do battle with their friends via ad-hoc or in a new feature to PSP fighting games, download a ghost fighter created by a fellow PSP user to take on. Players can record their own ghost and upload it to the Tekken servers so other players can also directly download these spectral foes. Players without a wi-fi connection need not worry as collections of ghosts are popping up online for download already.

Tekken’s second foray into portable waters (2002 saw the release of Tekken Advance for the GBA) is proving to be quite the critical success, but it remains to be seen if it can be the financial success that the PSP so desperately needs at this point.

Rated 4.5 out of 5