It now appears that the PSP versions of Tekken and Soul Calibur are coming to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.
As reported by Gematsu, the Taiwan Digital Game Rating Committee has published ratings for Tekken 6 and Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny, both the PlayStation Portable versions of those games, to be rereleased on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.
The ratings do not indicate that either game is getting an HD remaster, such as what was done for Tekken Tag Tournament on the PlayStation 3, Or Soul Calibur II HD Online, for both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. So, one can guess by inference that these games are arriving to Sony’s Classics Catalog, that will be available to PlayStation Plus Premium subscribers.
While Tekken 6 originally released to the arcades in 2007, and saw ports to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, it would be ported to the PlayStation Portable much later in 2009. This version of the game, of course, has extremely cut down graphics, and doesn’t have the sprawling campaign of the home console versions.
Ironically, it received praise for having much faster loading times compared to those home console ports. In lieu of a story campaign, each character received text biographies that fleshed out the lore of the franchise even further. This game was also preceded by another Tekken PSP game, Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection. That game received another rerelease on the PlayStation 3 via PSN, but this is the first time the PSP version of Tekken 6 is seeing a digital release of any kind.
Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny is something of an odd release for its own franchise. This 2008 release is sandwiched in between Soul Calibur IV, the one with the Star Wars guest characters, and Soul Calibur V, the one that suffered a rushed development and a poorly received timeskip storyline, and put the series on the backburner for years.
Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny doesn’t have a story mode to add to the lore of the franchise. What it does have is guest character Kratos from God of War, the only time the character has appeared in the game thus far, and introducing Dampierre, who can’t possibly be anyone’s favorite character.
Both of these games still have quite the novelty as portable games, but perhaps aren’t quite as impressive stretched out into HD, especially with newer games in the franchises also playable now.
If we were honest, it also doesn’t help that these games are now very, very easy to emulate, even on your personal smartphone, if you knew where to get the right files, and used your own backups of course.
For the sake of preservation, fans will likely welcome these rereleases, and see if Namco and Sony have done right by them by making this rerelease as high quality as possible.
