Tekken 6 Review

If only it came with another copy of the game… and another PSP… and someone to play with.

So just like the multiple versions of Tekken 5, there’s a PSP counterpart for the console version of Tekken 6. There isn’t really much to expand on as far as gameplay goes. I mean, what do want me to say? It’s Tekken. It’s the same game you’ve played a half-dozen times before.

[image1]There are over 40 characters to choose from, including the usual bear, wood-man, jaguar-face, and no less than 15 half-naked women, most of whom are minors. The controls survived the transition to the PSP quite well, provided you don’t need to use the nub. Load-times are minimal and even shorter if you install.

You can save ghost data and fight them or trade them with your friends. It’s a nice little feature that’s only sort of cool. I say “sort of” because you can only trade them via ad-hoc rather than via WiFi, and if you’re close enough to do ad-hoc, then an actual fight is almost always preferable. I’m sure you can upload them to your computer and send them to your friends over the internet that way, but it’s a lot of trouble for such a minor thing.

The story mode is a bit of a joke as well, though not many people play these types of games for the masterful storytelling. You select your character, get five or six lines of text explaining why he/she/it is fighting in yet another Tekken tournament, then it’s five fights, role credits. You can take a stab at arcade mode for a few more fights if story mode isn’t enough for you, and you can earn money to buy funny hats and such for the different fighters that don’t do anything but make them look silly.

[image2]Despite all my bashing, Tekken 6 is a very functional fighter for the PSP… it just isn’t as good as Dark Resurrection. There are the usual time attack and survival modes that are exactly what they sound like, but other than that, there’s nothing new. If you want to play Tekken 6, I’d recommend you get it for one of the consoles. The PSP port is just Tekken 6 cut down to fit the PSP – not terrible mind you, just a far cry from its bigger brothers.

Its biggest flaw is that fighting games, even for the handheld, are best played with a friend, or someone at the arcade, or someone you don’t like in front of their girlfriend so you can emasculate them. Handheld fighting games are best only if you’re around someone who also has it with them. Without that, there’s little else to do… like you’re stuck in the desert or something. Who gets stuck in the desert with a PSP? I don’t know. The moral here is to playing fighting games with friends on consoles.

As with all fighting games, Tekken 6 – just like a certain something else – is fun to mess around with by yourself, but certainly more enjoyable if you can play with someone who knows what they’re doing.