Review #709: Tekken Advance

 Half the buttons, half the roster, all Tekken!

 Before Tekken 5 and 6 made it to the PSP, before the 3DS got its very own Tekken, we had Tekken Advance. In a few words, it's a portable version of Tekken 3, kinda. Back when it first released, and I was already playing Tekken Tag on the PS2, I always had time for a few rounds with this version, albeit in the form of a rom. But now I finally own this game, and it's about time.

 The game features a revised roster based on the original Arcade release, meaning only 10 characters, albeit instead of Eddie and Lei we get Gunjack and Heihachi. Ogre isn't even the game's final boss! The game is offers a nice selection of modes: Arcade, VS Player, Time Attack, Practice, Tag Battle, VS Player Tag Battle and Team Battles, not bad. In order to unlock Heihachi you have to beat the game as the nine initial characters(Gunjack, XiaoYu, Nina, Yoshimitsu, Paul, Hwoarang, Jin, Law and King) and to unlock Team Battles you need to finish the game as Heihachi.

 Since the GBA is a bit lacking the button department, we've only got three buttons: Punch, Kick and Grab. You can sidestep left and right, which is pretty neat. As a matter of fact, the game run on a pseudo-3D plane, using surprisingly good looking digitized sprites. Some animations are shockingly smooth, while a few look a bit choppy, regardless, it looks good and runs pretty smoothly. Having only two buttons means that you can't do as much stuff as you could on the original game, but the developers managed to cram a relatively large amount of moves per character, you can even pull off Electric God Fists! That said, a few inputs, like the one's for the EGF are a bit hard to pull off. In any case, the juggling works pretty well, it feels like Tekken and that's what matters most. You can pop your enemy into the air and then try to continue the punishment with other moves, it's a very accurate, but limited, rendition of Tekken.

 This is not an "alternative" to Tekken 3, nor is it a game to practice your combos and what not on the go. This is a game for people that love Tekken, as a game and not as a competition, and for what it is, it works really darn well. It's probably one of the best fighting games on the GBA, and that's saying a lot considering the great fighters this console had, such as the fantastic port of Street Fighter Alpha 3.
 7.5 out of 10