Tekken 6 for PSP Review: Big Things Come in Small Packages

You know I remember “back in my day” when a game was ported to a hand held as Resident Evil would say “it was a shadow of its former self.” I find this fact to be exemplified with fighting games, which I am a big fan of.  I still remember when they first ported Mortal Kombat to the Gameboy(the black and white brick) the game was barely playable to say the least.  I think it probably ran at about 3 to 4 frames per-second and that’s just me being generous.  It’s pretty common knowledge fighting games are usually made to run at the fastest frame rate possible on the fastest console hardware possible.(Which is why most fighters have been bypassing the Wii lately) But, when they are ported to a portable console quite a few sacrifices have to be made.  That is until recently.

Namco Bandai was nice enough to send me a copy of Tekken 6 for the PSP to try out and I honestly have to say it was the best fighter I have ever played on a portable console, ever; and that doesn’t come lightly. After years of playing bad ports of really great fighters it’s nice to see one where they got it right.  The entire roster of characters is represented here in stunning detail. The character models while scaled down slightly for the PSP version still look great! The only thing I could see that might have been trimmed for the port-down to a portable console is the online network play is no longer present. You can still play against people in proximity, in an ad-hoc network but you can’t jump and brawl against people on the PSN, which is somewhat understandable. Another nitpick is the 3d fighter previews are gone in the character selection screen. These are puzzlingly replaced by really low-res pics of the fighters.

The story is basically a continuation of Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection but with a few new characters thrown into the mix for good measure,  bringing the whooping total for Tekken 6 up to 41 playable characters! The story goes something like this, after Jin Kazama won the last King of the Iron Fist tournament and now controls the Mishima Zaibatsu, he has since become a worldwide tyrannical superpower. Jin has declared war against all opposing nations putting the world on a fast track to destruction. His father Kazuya Mishima now in charge of The G Corporation wants to put an end to his son’s reign, simply because it hampers his own ambitions for world domination and put a bounty on his head for anyone that can capture him. Jin’s response to being hunted by his own father and having some of the greatest fighters of the world wish to capture him; well have a fighting tournament of course! And thus King of the Iron Fist 6 is underway and a new chapter of Tekken is written.

Like I stated before, the game looks stunning and less like a port for a hand-held than you would expect. It really shows off the processing power and screen resolution of the PSP, it also highlights the shortcomings of the now almost 6 year old Nintendo DS.  A system that instead of making any real improvements over the last 6 years on its processor, Nintendo simply finds ways of building tchotchkes into the preexisting hardware to keep the price up. The sound on the title is also top notch, and strangely the load times on the PSP are much faster than the PS3.

But now for the important part the game play if you enjoyed Tekken 6 for the PS3 you will definitely be at home on the PSP. The game play is extremely similar, and the feel from the console has been well replicated on the tiny console. My favorite part about this game since it is a fighter, is the ability to simply pick it and play a few rounds and put in down for later. Its become my go-to game for quick bouts of boredom on the go and hasn’t left my PSP since I got it.  So if you enjoyed Tekken 6 for the PS3 or Xbox 360 pick it up and if your looking for a good fighter on the PSP this is a must own.

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