January 30, 2002 - It's definitely a trip to see Tekken on a handheld. But what's more is to have it relatively intact on lesser-capable hardware like the Game Boy Advance. The GBA system is a powerful gaming system, but it's no PlayStation...so to have a development team at Namco tackle the project of bringing the company's fighter to a 2D system is quite an ambitious action. For all intents and purposes Namco has successfully brought the series to the GBA, but, of course, it doesn't exactly beat out the real thing. Naturally, Tekken's better off on the console and arcade systems, but it's nice to know that Tekken fans can get their fix on the go with Tekken Advance.
Features
- Ten fighters, one hidden
- Arcade, Vs. and Team Battle modes
- Battery save
- Link cable support for two players
- Only for Game Boy Advance
Even with the simplified controls, the game still plays like Tekken -- each of the nine has his or her distinct fighting style, moves, and combinations, and they do react to hits in almost the same fashion as they do in the console and arcade versions. The actual fighting in Tekken Advance depends more on up-close brawling than distance moves a la Street Fighter's fireball techniques. It's all about learning each character's specialized techniques through controller and button combinations...and while the controller configuration has been abridged somewhat for the Game Boy Advance, each character has a seriously long library of actions to master. The 3 on 3 matches doesn't seem to be as strategy-filled as the Tag Team mode in Tekken Tag Tournament, because we haven't found any way to link two teammates' moves together in the portable version...it's more there to swap out weaker fighters during the battle. But despite the limitation during the tag battles, this option does add a lot more playability to the game...and we're glad to see it implemented on the handheld.
Without the processing power to push a believable texture-mapped 3D engine, the Game Boy Advance has to make due with a 2D-ized scaleback for its own version of Tekken. On the one hand, it doesn't hurt the overall design all that much because the past three incarnations of Tekken had basic 2D gameplay with 3D characters...it's the truth, no matter how much you want to argue the point. On the other, the game can't have all sorts of nifty things like dynamic cameras and extra characters because the fighter graphics consist of cartridge-hogging, prerendered sprites.
But with what was available to Namco's handheld development team, they did a grand job...the game looks and sounds fabulous on the Game Boy Advance. Characters have been rendered with literally hundreds of animation frames apiece to give a certain fluidity to their motions...it's not quite as smooth as a polygonal engine, but you honestly wouldn't call Tekken Advance "choppy." The GBA version does a great job mimicking the rotating floor and arena surroundings using the GBA's hardware background effects, and the development team even zoom the action back and forth to copy the camera moves in the console versions. There are some extremely stupid "cutscenes" for grapple moves, though. Use King's, for example, and the game will cut very quickly cut over to a still shot of King grappling or throwing a non-descript silhouette...a poor replacement for seeing the action actually performed by the character sprites.
Tekken Advance admittedly isn't the most fun fighter by yourself, since there aren't a whole lot of single player modes available...and unlike the past Tekken games, Tekken Advance doesn't have anything significant to unlock, other than playable Heihachi and Team Battle mode (which is not as cool as the readily available 3-on-3 battles anyway). But it is link cable supported, and that's where this game really shines...fighters are never really challenging or fun against the computer AI; playing against a human opponent is just oodles better since techniques and strategies change drastically.
And yes, Namco did include battery save (hooray!), so the game will record the character usage data, as well as the top Time Attack modes cleared on the cartridge.
Closing Comments
Tekken Advance is an extremely pretty game and a relatively fun game, though it's more fun if you include an actual human opponent into the mix. I'm a little disappointed to find out that Tekken Advance doesn't have a whole lot of options, because half the fun of the past console versions was unlocking all sorts of extras tucked away in the game. Granted, there's not that much room on a GBA cartridge, but honestly how hard would it have been to include a mini-game that uses the existing sprites and backgrounds...like Tekken Ball in Tekken 3? It would have at least increased the single player value considerably since you can only go so far with ten fighters and realistically two play modes. The fighting engine is a great one on the GBA...just don't expect anything more than that and you'll be a happy camper.
| Rating | Description |  |
|---|---|---|
| out of 10 | click here for ratings guide |
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| 6.0 | Presentation Only ten characters have made the cut due to the limited cartridge space...and there aren't that many gaming modes compared to the console versions. |
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| 9.0 | Graphics Though it's sprite-based, Tekken Advance looks extremely close to its PlayStation counterpart....it's almost scary close. |
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| 10 | Sound Extremely clear digitized audio, and excellent music composition. Get out the headphones, because this game sounds awesome. |
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| 8.0 | Gameplay Very tight fighting that relies on mastery of each character. It'll take a bit to get used to the limited control scheme, but you'll get it. |
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| 6.0 | Lasting Appeal If you've got a buddy to play against, it's well worth the two cartridge investment. But single-player, there isn't a whole bunch to do. |
|
| 8.5 |
OVERALL (out of 10 / not an average) |
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Rating Info
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