Only now, over a year into the PSP's life, is Namco finally addressing this oversight. Luckily, that long wait looks like it'll be equaled by Namco's sheer ambition, because the game in question is no mere portable fighter. It's nothing less than a direct port of Tekken: Dark Resurrection, the latest Tekken arcade game and the follow-up to Tekken 5, which so impressed us on PS2. How Namco's developers managed to squeeze Dark Resurrection onto the PSP is a mystery, but that they have, and the game looks excellent.
Hyper Fighting
If you're one of those folks who fell off the Tekken train (or were never on it, hater), Tekken 5 proved to be a real gem, a huge improvement over the moribund and lifeless Tekken 4. It's cheap on PS2 now -- you should try it. Tekken: Dark Resurrection is one of those arcade-style expansion dealies, with two new characters (plus the return of Armor King) and a host of new tweaks for the existing cast. It's not revolutionary, but solidly evolutionary in the way that fighter upgrades tend to be.
The PSP version of Dark Resurrection will feature most of the same modes as the PS2 version of Tekken 5, with a handful of new additions. The main single-player attraction will continue to be Arcade Battle mode, in which you'll fight various levels of AI opponents to earn cash and rankings. (There'll be about twice as many clothing items and accessories to spend that cash on.) Quick Battle will let you skip the fluff and get to the beatings, while the usual Time Attack and Survival modes return mainly to lengthen the list of options on the title screen.
The main new feature for the PSP game will be called Tekken Dojo mode, which the press materials describe as a fight to the top in a number of dojos on an island owned by the Mishima Zaibatsu group. What that translates to into game terms is anyone's guess, as Namco isn't telling. We're told there will be some sort of mini-game contests not unlike, say, the Tekken Bowling seen in Tekken Tag Tournament. If those mini-games will be featured in the Dojo mode is unclear.
PSP: Pretty Solid Port
And the action itself? Well, we only got to play for ten minutes so far, but it felt flawless. The game runs at a solid 60 frames per second (except in between-round cinematics, it seems -- perhaps higher-detailed models are used there) and the controls are solid; Tekken has never had a problem with PlayStation-style controller layouts. It's fast and fun and it even looks damn good, with the most detailed character models yet seen on the PSP. While hardly a one-to-one graphical conversion, it's hard to imagine it looking much slicker on a portable.
Dark Resurrection will take some advantage of the PSP's wireless capabilities, though not as far as offering true online play. You'll be able to make "ghosts" of your playstyle and upload them to a website where other players can download and combat them. There'll also be ad hoc wireless networking support for local multiplayer.
Bottom line? The PSP has finally gotten its 3D fighter, and the wait will have been worth it. This is the sequel to one of the best fighters of 2005, and none the worse for wear on Sony's portable. We'll update from E3 when we find out more, such as the details of that mysterious Dojo mode.
