TEKKEN (GBA)

Tekken the fight to the GBA...

By ANDREW BROWN

Tekken games. As deep as Chess and as fun and action-packed as Hungry Hungry Hippos.

I like to consider myself a bit of a Tekken veteran, even if it took me about 5 years to stop mashing the buttons and actually learn the moves.

Now a prayer of mine has been answered in the form of a little cartridge: Finally Tekken can be played on the beach, on the patio or wherever good times are had.

It's quite amazing to see how intact Tekken is on its trip to the GBA too.

Whilst this time around the game is more or less a 2D fighting game, the side stepping of Tekken 3 has been included, and the levels scale and rotate around the fighters in a pseudo-3D manner, giving it a genuine Tekken feel.

Essentially, this is Tekken 3 junior -- same characters, familiar music and familiar stages. The character models however, are renders from the PS2 version of Tekken Tag Tournament and they look really pretty to say the least.

At times (you may have to blur your eyes a bit) this game looks even better than its PSOne brethren. Unfortunately, Tekken Advance's control setup does feature four attack buttons. Instead of one button assigned to each limb, you'll have to settle for B to punch and A to kick, with R used to grab an opponent.

Even though the controls are watered down, if you're familiar with any moves from previous installments you won't have much trouble figuring out how to pull it off in this one.

One of the best things of the Tekken series was undoubtedly the huge cast of unlockable characters and extra modes. Sadly, more or less in the hand held version what you start with is all you get.

You can unlock the game's big boss, Heihachi Mishima, by completing Arcade mode with all 9 characters, and by then you will surely have had enough of Arcade mode and want to move on. So what next?

Survival Mode is only Arcade mode with infinite stages and no continues, Time Attack times how quickly you can finish Arcade mode, so each mode is Arcade in disguise, really. Vs Mode is the only thing that can save it from being a game you'll tire from in one day.

Tekken Advance is a great looking, great playing game, but at the end of the day, it's just a novelty, nothing else. If you feel you absolutely, positively, need to play Tekken wherever you are, then by all means pick it up. It's an impressive conversion for sure, but like books to movies, the originals win out.

ORIGINALITY 80%
SOUND/GRAPHICS 90%
PLAYABILITY 70%
ADDICTION 40%
ENJOYMENT 70%