Padchuckr

Like a lot of PSP owners I’ve been spending many a long hour looking at my PSP and muttering to myself darkly that the thing has basically turned into a rather curiously shaped paperweight. That was until the arrival of Tekken: Dark Resurrection.So what makes Tekken: Dark Resurrection worth picking up the PSP again for then?

Well first of all and most importantly it’s a proper Tekken game of the old school. It feels right, with good and responsive moves and movement and the graphics are fantastic given its a hand-held. The perennial problem of the PSP, loading times, is very well taken care of and Dark Resurrection plays smoothly without the frustrating waits common to so many games.

Tekken as a franchise has been on the wobble a bit over the years, with the rise of Dead or Alive and the acceptance that really Street Fighter: Third Strike is the last word in competitive fighting games it’s been a bit left out in the cold. Without the porn of Dead or Alive and the sheer raw quality of Street Fighter there haven’t been many reasons to go for Tekken in its later PS2 variations. Dark Resurrection delivers pretty well though, combat against the AI is great fun although the AI suffers from the same problem as in the Dead or Alive series insomuch as it is an incredibly cheap opponent; if you go to ground you will be basically stomped to death without any means to protect yourself and if you want to progress in the harder difficulties you need to learn how to make the most mess of a floored opponent.

As with Soul Calibre 3 there are options to customise your fighters by earning money in various modes of play, of which there are many besides the basic story mode. You can complete the game as standard in Story mode, fight unending battles in Arcade mode or plough through leagues in the Dojo and special battles like survival and time attack in other modes. Added to this is an array of bonus games like bowling which are moderately entertaining if you need a break from cracking heads.
In conclusion it’s fair to say that Tekken: Dark Resurrection is a properly entertaining fighting game and well worth a look if your PSP is gathering dust and you miss the thrills, spills and kills of Tekken on the Playstation.