What do you get when you take one of gaming's most longstanding and celebrated fighting series and shrink it down, unsullied, onto Sony's PlayStation Portable handheld? Well, in the case of Tekken: Dark Resurrection, it means you get one of the purest and most faithful fighting creations on any videogame format.

To put it quite simply, Tekken: Dark Resurrection looks absolutely superb, possibly because of its beautifully executed widescreen shrinkage; and it's not reaching beyond the realms of reality to say that visually the game ranks as one of the very best available on Sony's portable system. Game sound, character performances, and the largely pumping techno soundtrack are also befitting of the universe, and the resonance of bone-crunching special moves is never anything less than perversely entertaining. Yet, it's the immediacy of Dark Resurrection's gameplay that truly sets it apart from other fighting titles. From powering up the PSP and ogling lovingly at Bandai-Namco's typically lengthy and outstanding pre-rendered intro sequence, which shows off sumptuous quick-cut clips of various in-game characters laying down liberal amounts of smack, the player is then offered a wealth of modes, all of which grant instant access to a vast selection of varied fighting heroes and heroines.

Those gameplay modes include Quick Battle, which is essentially a freeplay mode against the CPU through single one-on-one or team-elimination fights. Story Battle is perhaps the game's central single-player mode, and as with all editions of Tekken, every available character runs through their battles alongside sporadic related narrative segues; culminating in a closing pre-rendered conclusion on completion of the final fight. Battles are tiered progressive fights against a succession of opposing characters that get tougher the further the player advances. The Tekken Dojo pits the player in various League Tournaments on the island of Gorin, which is owned by the Mishima Zaibatsu. Network mode allows players to compete against other real-life opponents via the PSP's wireless (WLAN) connection. Then there's Attack mode, where further sub-category modes Time Attack, Survival, and Gold Rush provide rule restrictions to the arena fighting. And finally there's Practice mode, which, as the name suggests, allows players to hone the many, many, many different special moves and combos on offer from character to character.

All in all, there's an absolute ton of mode content to choose from, as well as character customisations, difficulty levels, and other gameplay options. But, most importantly, Tekken's 34 playable characters are all available from the get-go. That of course means instant access to a plethora of high-impact moves, kicks, punches and throws across seven ladies, twenty chaps, two cat-man hybrids, two animals, one samurai alien, a demon...and a tree. Now that's variety for you. Plus, each character comes with a complete set of unique and devastating moves and combos that induce player winces when incurred and shivers when inflicted-no blood and guts, but excellent stuff all around.

That said, there is one notable criticism to level squarely at Dark Resurrection, and it relates to the execution of said moves and combos. Across the range of existing PlayStation Portable games, owners have rarely been asked to utilise the digital directional pad when in-game, the system's analogue nub generally being used as the main control dynamic. However, Tekken: Dark Resurrection works entirely off the d-pad, and, to be perfectly honest, successfully pulling off tricky directionally-dependant moves (beyond arbitrary and simple punches and kicks) can initially prove extremely frustrating. Persistent honing in the Practice mode is certainly necessary if players really do want to garner the best from the experience on offer, and doing so is recommended because the gameplay rewards are well worth the effort expended.

Tekken: Dark Resurrection, as with any game, should be properly evaluated on the quality of its separate components, and to do so is the easiest thing this reviewer has done for quite some time. Visually the game is never anything short of top-draw thanks to the sheer fluency of its movement, the wide-ranging variety and believability of its characters, and its semi-destructible environments. Musically it's a thumping experience from start to finish, its character performances, while occasionally a little cheesy, are totally faithful to the Tekken style, as are the battle sounds. The content on offer is frighteningly good, and even more so because Namco-Bandai didn't simply scale the portable modes down along with the screen sizing. Finally, the unfailingly satisfying delivery of its gameplay-despite the time required to adjust to the d-pad-makes the entire game the perfect quick-fix accompaniment for those on-the-go moments when dipping into a PlayStation Portable experience is absolutely top of the 'must-do' list.

93%

93%

By Stevie Mostyn