Tekken Advance

"I never thought fighting games could be so addicting!"

Having hardly ever played a fighting game for a console, I didn’t know what to expect from Tekken Advance. Once I started playing, I was immediately hooked. Tekken has great sound, gameplay, and graphics all interwoven into one great fighting package. Looking for a fighting game for the Gameboy Advance? Look no further, because Tekken Advance should answer all your fighting needs.

I think you could classify this game as a “button-masher”. Most of the time I have no idea what I’m doing, just hoping to land in a good punch or kick here or there. After a while you will get a general idea of what buttons perform what specific moves, but other then that it’s fun just to go crazy. If you really want to learn the moves, there is a move list inside the game in the options menu, that explains how to do each and every move for each character.

The wide range of characters will have you debating who you want to use, each and every match. You may opt to use the guy with the sword, because his spinning moves can pin the enemy and let you get a few good shots in. If you want brute strength, use Gunjack. His robot looks and strength gives him an edge if you are able to get some good punches on the opponent. If you prefer long range attacks, one guy called Law can do a backward flip that throws the opponent to the ground. If you continuously do this move, your opponent will be sort of “juggled” in the air, without being able to move and continuously getting hurt. With nine characters and one unlockable one, you won’t be at loss when searching for the right character for you.

Apart from other fighting games, this particular one offers an abundance of special modes that never get old. The traditional Arcade mode is found here, and will need to be completed by all nine characters if you want to unlock the secret character. The next mode, VS Battle, pits you against a real-life friend or enemy. They will need to also have the game and a GBA, otherwise this mode will be useless to you. If you can find someone to fight against, it’s an enormous amount of fun. Next up, Time Attack. The name itself should explain enough, but if you couldn’t figure it out, the goal is to beat the game in as little time as possible. It’s the exact same as arcade mode, except time will be kept. Once you finish off the last guy, a table of High Scores comes up, with your name hopefully now on it. At times, this next mode called Survival can get tough. Your job is to keep on fighting opponents as long as you can, without ever getting beaten. You’ll also carry your damage from each round to the next, but after winning a round about 1/10 of your available damage on the meter will be taken off. So don’t get to devastated if one round you lose half your health, just string together a few “perfect” rounds and you’ll be back to full health in no time. This mode can go on forever, so don’t think you can beat Survivor. At the end, once you lose around, your name will be placed on a ranking list. My personal favourite mode, titled Tag Battle, lets you choose three characters you want to use. You’ll also be facing tag teams, and as levels progress so does the difficulty level. With the simple press of a button, you can take out one of your characters and sub another in with no penalty. As characters take damage, a black area is left in conjunction with the normal red area, but I’ll go more in depth with this later. There’s something about having multiple guys fighting for you, all under your control that gives this mode its charm. The last real mode, VS Tag Battle, is the exact same as Tag Battle except you face a real-life person on another GBA. The very last mode is called Practice, although it’s pretty much useless. You just face an opponent of your choice and perform moves on them, but they can’t fight back. The many different modes in this game should keep you playing for a while.

As for the health system, a green bar located at the top of the screen shows health for you and another bar for your opponent. Every time you take a hit, part of the bar becomes red. Once the bar is filled red, then the round is over and you lose. On the other hand, if you fill your opponent’s bar red, then you will have won the round. When playing in Tag Battle mode, a slight change is made. After administering a hit or receiving one, the traditional red area appears. But half of the area will now be black, so whenever you take another hit more red area will appear, and the black will also advance. So from left to right, you’ll have black area, red, and then green representing your health. Now what the black area represents is unhealable health. Whenever a character is injured during Tag Battle, and you are using another character to fight with, that character will regain the health in the red area slowly. The black remains permanently damaged. That’s not too confusing, right?

When fighting, the battle can really heat up. You become absorbed in the fight, not realizing what is happening in your real-life surroundings. There’s the feeling you MUST beat him/her, you can’t let a computer beat you. You can go through the rounds very quickly, but it doesn’t affect the gameplay. After trying to beat the game in Tag Battle mode, in a matter of minutes your palms get sweaty. I never anticipated a button mashing fighting game could be so intense. The sound also really adds to the experience, adds to the engaging feeling.

If you really listen hard, you’ll notice all the characters really say is about three different groaning sounds when attacking. I was surprised I never noticed this when playing, because they should be repetitive, but they aren’t. An announcer guy will say, “Round 1”, and “You lose” every now and then. Of course, this isn’t a hockey game so there isn’t any colour commentary. Other then that, there isn’t much sound to listen for. It’s still great fun to listen to the sound, so when playing, don’t forget to turn up the sound. If you don’t, you won’t know what you’ll be missing.

A neat little feature is a ranking list called character usage. You can see whom you have used the most, on average percentages. This is carried from each mode, and will continuously be updated. It’s a great idea that can show you who you should spend some more time working on.

Tekken Advance really opened my eyes to fighting games. They do have depth, more then just the button mashing. They can be fun and addicting, hooking you like an RPG, for a shorter period of time. The sound can pull you in, even after hearing punch after punch making the same noise. With the small learning curve in this game, newbies and veterans alike can enjoy this game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/01/02, Updated 04/01/02