Gamescom 2017: Hands and feet on with Namco Bandai's new mobile brawler Tekken

The only way to make a deep fighter like Tekken work on mobile is to streamline it. Touchscreen controls aren't the most intuitive when it comes to kicking people's faces in. But there's something about Namco Bandai's latest attempt that feels pretty special.

And perhaps most interestingly, at Gamescom 2017 it showed off a new mode. One that lets you connect two devices together to fight against a friend. It's exactly the sort of multiplayer that the fighting genre needs on mobile.

The controls here are pretty simple. You're tapping on the screen to attack, releasing to block, and swiping on the screen to dash about.

The real fun kicks in with the deck of cards you take into every fight. These are your special moves, and get rid of the need to remember complex combinations of taps and presses.

But you only get a set number in each round, and once you've used them all up you're left with just your bare-bones punching and kicking. Your opponent can see when your cards are depleted though, and use that information to counter-attack.

You also get a super move when you've taken enough of a beating. This deals out some huge damage, and can turn certain defeat into a glorious victory if you use it at the right time.

This is all fun in single player, but in multiplayer it's spectacular. I only managed to get a handful of scraps in, but they're frantic and wonderfully balanced. They ebb and flow just perfectly, and every victory feels worthy of a fist-clench.

Obviously this is a demo version, and how the free to play mechanics of the game will work, but the fighting itself, that beating heart of any Tekken game, feels pretty darn special.