It's certainly been a while, but Namco/Bandai's long-running fighting series is finally back. It's true that Tekken: Dark Resurrection arrived about a year after Tekken 5 dropped, but have no fear: the portable version of Tekken 6 has arrived hot on the heels of the console versions. Make no mistake: it's an enjoyable title, and Tekken fans will certainly dig it. Of course, this is the kind of stuff critics write before a "but" makes its way into the review. After playing the most recent entries in several other fighting franchises I won't name, I just can't shake the feeling that the Tekken formula needs to be freshened up.

Tekken 6's full motion videos look every bit as spectacular as they ever have. The energy is high and the animations are almost impossibly clean. On the game side of things, well, they also look great. The only criticism I have regarding Tekken 6's otherwise impressive visuals hearkens back to my main problem with the game in general: we've seen all this before way too many times. I'm probably being too nitpicky about the specifics, so I'll end with this: if you've played a Tekken game at least once over the past six or seven years, you know what to expect from the graphics, and you know they are good.

One thing I've always loved about the Tekken games is that while every weak attack sounds painful, each heavy blow sounds like an explosion. Naturally, Tekken 6 features great sound design, from the music to the not-so-subtle sound of each landed hit. The Japanese voice acting works fine, as well; I'm not qualified to judge the delivery of lines spoken in another language. Many of those lines are cheesy from a writing standpoint, but the voices that deliver the lines are strong enough to keep from bringing the game down.

It's the King of Iron Fist Tournament 6. What's there to say? Choose one of a staggering number of characters that have their own sparsely-developed backgrounds and agendas and fight your way to the top... where a dragon awaits your challenge! There is a common narrative ground to each of the characters, but like in other fighting games, they follow relatively predictable paths and aren't interesting in the least bit. If you're a Tekken fan who couldn't care less about the Mishima Zaibatsu or Jin Kazama (a demographic that undoubtedly constitutes 99% of the Tekken fanbase), you won't care about the reasons behind the action.

If, for some reason, you know nothing about Tekken, all you need to know is that it's a three-dimensional fighting game. Each of the characters has his/her own style when it comes to fighting, and it's always interesting to see two fighters with remarkably different disciplines clash. Granted, it's more interesting in simulations like UFC 2009: Undisputed, but of course, Tekken 6 is an entirely different breed of fighter. You've got your combos and grabs, but this is yet another fighter where your best offense may very well be a good defense. It depends on who you are fighting, that's all.

Tekken 6 features several game modes, and they are hit-and-miss. Arcade Battle offers the most satisfying experience of them all; it lasts the longest and offers the most rewards, though to be fair, Tekken 6 gives you cash for pretty much every possible reason. The weak link is Story Battle, which sees your selected character through an introductory and epilogue comic, a few fights, and a couple of weird cutscenes. Provided you can beat the final boss quickly enough, you can blaze through a single Story Battle session in a few minutes. This brings me right to what may be destined to be a universal gripe among the Tekken fanbase.

It's one thing to talk about the general difficulty level of Tekken 6 and another thing entirely to speak of the game's ridiculous final boss. Azazel keeps you on edge by absorbing 80% of your attacks and stomping on you until you are defeated. If that doesn't work, he will roll around on the ground, which is a screen-clearing attack. If you get lucky and manage to knock him down or into the air, you'll manage to get a few shots in before he conveniently disappears and reappears at the top of the screen, ready for a devastating ground assault. I enjoyed none of my fights with Azazel, and I can't imagine anyone else enjoying a boss fight that substitutes cheapness for challenge. Yes, I said it: Azazel is cheap.

It's been said time and time again about Tekken (and sibling franchise Soul Calibur) that button-mashing is a viable strategy. I've never played against anyone who claimed to be "the best player in the world," though I've certainly talked to more than a few people like that. That being said, the differences between mastering the nuances of the combat system and blindly experimenting with directional inputs and button presses are minimal at best. This is a double-edged sword; it makes the franchise accessible for newcomers, but it also makes the games pale in comparison to others when it comes to depth.

If you've got experience with any 3D fighter released over the last fifteen years, you'll find Tekken 6 to be an easy game to get into. If the standard fighting game control scheme has changed any over the years, it's incredibly difficult to tell. Punches and kicks are mapped to buttons that are adjacent to each other, each of them offering a different strength level. Combinations of buttons can result in rapid-fire blows and powerful grappling attacks. Taking the time to learn each character's abilities and knowing when to use each one is a difficult process that is rewarding, despite the fact that button-mashing sometimes works just as well.

I know this section is supposed to be about mechanics that are present in Tekken 6, but I must reference one that, for whatever reason, did not make it into the finished product. Tekken 6 features an Ad-Hoc multiplayer component, but unfortunately Namco/Bandai chose not to include an Infrastructure option. It would have been nice to have an addictive competitive system for this game, but alas, it was never meant to be.

If it's more Tekken you crave, Tekken 6 will fit the bill. If you're looking for bold and risky innovation in your fighting games, this probably isn't what you're looking for. Still, Tekken 6 is a quality package that should satisfy PSP owners who are looking for a fighting fix.