My opinion has shifted on Tekken 8 since it made a splash back in January. What started as a global event and a celebration of Tekken and the FGC as a whole has turned into perhaps the most tilting, dishonest fighting games ever created. I’m not writing this all pissed-off after a lackluster night on ranked. I’ve stopped playing for a few days and I feel no reason to go back.

Tekken 8 is miserable.

The first obvious issue is the heat system. It’s horrible. With a press of a button you get an attack that is fully tracking, plus on block, fast, armored, and launches if opponent is airborne. Once in heat, many characters get insanely powerful moves that do everything. Launch, plus on block, infinite range, you name it. Not only are these moves incredibly unbalanced and braindead, but they rip much on the integrity of Tekken straight out. Tekken has always been a knowledge check type of fighting game. There has always been bullshit moves that you need to lab. However, that’s not the case with these heat attacks. There’s absolutely nothing you can do. There shouldn’t be moves in fighting games with no counter play. They feel cheap to go up against and they feel dirty to use. It’s so disingenuous and braindead.

Heat is not the only problem however. Everything is just so over-tuned. Defense is a guessing game. It seams like every attack clips you if you try to sidestep, even with plus frames.
So many strings jail on block so you can’t duck and punish. Neutral is gutted by insanely powerful WR moves that are nearly homing and grant plus 7 if not more. Low parry was nerfed significantly making defense much worse. Many of the best characters in the game have heat smashes that fully track and grant plus frames, leaving you a sitting duck in neutral.

Defense has been gutted. Neutral has been gutted. Offense has been simplified with braindead moves. Pluggers are still a problem. Rank boosters quit after one lose. Feng still isn’t nerfed. Dragunov is still doing 70% on one launch. Devil Jin still has his heat smash. Xiayou still has a mid-mid-mid string that’s plus and a non-launch punishable unseeable snake edge. Counter-hit and homing throws are still a problem.

With all these factors, I find myself wondering: “is this even better than Tekken 7?” I hold out hope that with some balance patches and some key nerfs that Tekken 8 can still be the greatest Tekken. But as of now? It’s probably the worst Tekken of my lifetime.

Was this game worth the wait? Absolutely.
Is this game the masterpiece many will claim it is? No.

Rebirth is much improved on Remake in so many areas, the combat is quite a bit better, the music is great as usual, visually even in the “performance” mode this game looks amazing besides some textures along the lines of “the door” from Remake.

But,
And a HUGE but:
The story outside of what was in the original fucking STINKS. None of it makes sense in the slightest and I’m not sure even Max Dood is going to be able to make sense of this one. The only positive to this is that we got a Yakuza 5-tier final boss sequence at the end (in both gameplay and story).

I’m probably also just mad that Vincent is here for a decent chunk and is not even used how Red XIII was in Remake. For what it’s worth I did like what they did with Cid to make up for him not being playable.

Still, a great game that was fun and extremely good for the majority besides certain story sections, and I hope now we get a Vincent game in the vein of Intermission to tide us over til the next game.

There’s no way they don’t call that one Final Fantasy VII Reunion, right?

In one of the most confusing sequels to one of the most confusing games I've ever played, my main question still ends up being, who the fuck is Glenn?

Kind of rushed to the final few chapters to avoid increasing spoilers across the internet, but it never diminished from what I played. The story definitely gets wacky and I wouldn't expect anything else, especially after the 1st part in this trilogy went out of its way to make itself different. In a way I like to think I understand what's going on, but at the very least it gives something to talk about for the next few years.

Several hours prior.

From the very beginning I knew I was going to like this game more than Remake, but didn't expect to like it more than the original FF7. Featuring vast open areas, improvements to near every system, a multitude of minigames both old and new. There's always something to do and it was some of the best 70 hours I've spent in gaming. Lately games have rarely gotten me to do side content, as there is so much to play and catch up on I would rather play the main story and move on to the next title, however something just clicked in Rebirth and I ended up doing most everything asides from the final piece in most major side plotlines. Putting double the time in this game compared to what I had in remake, giving this world another real chance and it really paid off.

With half the original game left + new content sure to be included, to a sprawling and continuously growing cast of antagonists, and whatever they plan on doing with Wutai. There's still so much left to cover in the 3rd and final part, that I fail to see how they do it. However if they maintain the surprise this game brought, then I believe they can do it again. Even if it's the most insane nonsensical thing in the world, I will be there.

There's still a few problems like Vincent being disappointing, and a few moments from the original I was hoping to see being skipped over completely. There's no real justifications for either, and I hope square enix finds a way to include a lot from the latter in new ways for part 3.