Name: Tekken 8
Item: Tekken 8
Rating: 9
Author: robiu013

I guess this will be a shorter and probably one of my more valueless reviews, because I don't really know how to properly review a competitive fighting game.

My history with Tekken? I've been a fan of the series since around 1999 or so., but I probably only played one game during those days. What can I say? It was summer vacation, there was a machine with the original Tekken at the beach we were staying and I couldn't beg my parents for playing credits all the time, cause with the money not being in our local currency of which we had a limited budget of and the payment options for things like that being limited, playing more just wasn't in the stars. But I did enjoy watching the demo battles and studying the fighting styles of the back then just 8 playable characters. First Tekken game I actually played was Tekken 5 on PS2 - my PS2 this time. My takeaway: It was good, but though perhaps just for personal reasons I just saw it as overshadowed by SoulCalibur III, which had a more dynamic gameplay, character creation with a class system and the Chronicles of the Sword game mode, which was great - until it started getting too difficult for my sorry a*s. I also played some Tekken: Dark Resurrection afterwards and I do technically own Tekken 7 for PS4 physically, but bought it because it came as a double feature with SoulCalibur VI.

Now for Tekken 8: It's great. Gameplay feels way more dynamic than back in Tekken 8. The heat mode is a nice compromise of doing cinematic attacks, but still keeping a combo button mashing aspect. Character roster features a total of 30 characters. I guess not all have made the cut. From my memory they cut both capoera specialists, Julia Chang is omitted, there's no kangaroos or dinosaurs or more strongly built men, I guess no Craig Marduk and notably missing is also the original big bad Heihachi Mishima for I assume plot-related reasons I would better understand had I played Tekken 7.

Game-mode-wise the 3 big ones are the main story mode, the character episode story mode and the Arcade Quest.

Main story mode spans about 15 chapters amounting to a total of 3 hours. I guess following Kazuya Mishima's takeover of the Mishima Zaibatsu he decalres war on the world and demands another martial arts tournament, because might is power, meanwhile Jin Kazama his son who wants to stop him and is now not the bad guy anymore (I think that was the thing in Tekken 7) is going through an emo phase, cause he lost his ability to turn Devil Jin following his first chapter defeat by Kazuya. The story mode while Jin focused still opens up the option for some other characters to shine - well, at least a little - and switches things up with some beat 'em up sections. My favorite part was when you had the option to pick your prefered characters in a tournament section. 

Is the actual story any good? It's fine. It's Tekken, I feel at this point people just roll with some of the ridiculous aspects of the series and tbf while the story has the emo fighting shonen story at it's core, it doesn't take itself too serious with some ridiculous subplots added for padding. The story could work very well as a conclusion to the series, as things get pretty insane towards the end, but it's probably safe to say there will still be a Tekken 9 and the introduction of one of the new character pretty much confirms Bandai Namco is already planning for that. And speaking of the character: One of the weaker aspects to the story is how the writers appear to have not predicted players would catch on to the "big" twist at the end as soon as the character in relation to the plot twist got revealed. I spent the whole story waiting to get something more and all I got at the end was the 1 + 1 = 2 I kinda already knew, but no additional +1 to make it a 3. No hate towards the character, it's still one of my more played fighters however, but the utilization in the story was a bit lacking.

If you still haven't gotten your story fill, you can move on to Character episodes, where each playable character gets a bit of his own story - even if the conclusion is pretty much decanonized by the main story But oh well, collecting and seeing those endings is fun regardless. The character episodes basically boil down to 5 pre-determinged battles, then you get a short movie and some goodies for character customization.

I guess most added value can be found in the Arcade Quest, where you create your own avatar, pick your main character and play a bit of an additional story in a world where Tekken is not real, but a game - you know, like in real life, except for the fact that people look more video game-y than the games themselves. It's a bit reminiscent of Street Fighter VI's story mode, but you are limited to exact playable characters which you however can customize. I'd probably have to say more about it, but I only played it for about an hour at this point.

Yeah, overall this game is pretty great. Can it compete with Street Fighter VI and Mortal Kombat 1. I'd say so... but I haven't played MK1, I do however find this more up my alley than SF6.

Tekken 8

Tekken 8

Player Score

robiu013