(Pre-Eddy review)
Tekken 8 is the long awaited sequel to the 2015 title Tekken 7, and puts on an incredibly fresh coat of paint to a franchise that's been left to rust for almost a decade- welcoming players who are eager to learn their first fighting game as well as returning veterans who yearn to make their name known through tenacity and grit in the battlegrounds of Ranked. Tekken 8 makes the leap from Tekken 6 to Tekken 7 look like a complete joke. A truly impressive and unique gameplay experience that has never been seen before in any iteration of the game.
... so why did I give it three stars?
Tekken has always been notorious for being an incredibly complex and difficult game to learn, with most characters averaging at around 100+ moves for you to utilize. This challenge alone is enticing enough for people to play the games for decades on end, adapting and creating entirely new fighting styles that you typically wouldn't see in some 2D fighters. This alone is why Tekken 8 falls a little flat, as it promotes playstyles that no longer rely on timing and spacing, but instead how efficiently you can exploit a character moveset or some of the newly tuned mechanics, especially for something as simple as throwing.
Unrelenting aggression and pressure is the motto of the new generation, as we've seen in recent big name titles like Street Fighter 6, Mortal Kombat 1, and even Guilty Gear Strive. Every single one of these games has one bona fide thing in common- defense is no longer a priority in the new age of fighting games. Tekken 8 has systems in place that reward you more for attacking rather than blocking the attack, namely the new Heat system. Think of Heat as what V-Trigger was in Street Fighter V, except you're able to utilize it at any point during a round instead of near KO, which gives some characters like Jun or Devil Jin an easy set robbery simply because they pressed 2+4 before you did.
That being said, defensiveness is still entirely possible within the game, but compared to it's predecessors like Tekken 6 or TTT2, you're better off forcing your opponent to constantly guess 50/50s rather than learning a matchup in full. The developers are acutely aware of this change, seeing as how some characters have reworked moves to account for the aggressive nature of the game, like Kazuya for example, giving him access to his Mist Step (crouch dash) after inputting 3,1.
"But, hasn't Kazuya always been a 50/50 vortex monster?" Yes. Oh, absolutely yes. But even with his strong 50/50 tools, you were still able to contest players without utilizing a more gimmicky hellsweep-filled playstyle, and instead played around his strong punish game with moves like Demon God Fist, Abolishing Fist, or his famous EWGF (or PEWGF if you're skilled enough :3).
I think I rambled. Anyway, my point is that the game strays away from the more defensive and strategic gameplay that the franchise has been known for. While it does feel fresh and unique, it opens up a lot of more obnoxious, nearly braindead playstyles that get abused on the daily, which makes veteran Tekken fans having to adapt to game feel that contradicts the legacy the franchise has had set.
It's still a fun game though. Just wish the exploitative rushdown mentality was more of an outlier than the staple way to play.
Plus the story mode was a letdown in most areas. UNFORTUNATE! I'll update my review once Eddy comes out, there'll probably be a couple balance changes once that happens.
I don't like Asuka players.
Tekken 8 is the long awaited sequel to the 2015 title Tekken 7, and puts on an incredibly fresh coat of paint to a franchise that's been left to rust for almost a decade- welcoming players who are eager to learn their first fighting game as well as returning veterans who yearn to make their name known through tenacity and grit in the battlegrounds of Ranked. Tekken 8 makes the leap from Tekken 6 to Tekken 7 look like a complete joke. A truly impressive and unique gameplay experience that has never been seen before in any iteration of the game.
... so why did I give it three stars?
Tekken has always been notorious for being an incredibly complex and difficult game to learn, with most characters averaging at around 100+ moves for you to utilize. This challenge alone is enticing enough for people to play the games for decades on end, adapting and creating entirely new fighting styles that you typically wouldn't see in some 2D fighters. This alone is why Tekken 8 falls a little flat, as it promotes playstyles that no longer rely on timing and spacing, but instead how efficiently you can exploit a character moveset or some of the newly tuned mechanics, especially for something as simple as throwing.
Unrelenting aggression and pressure is the motto of the new generation, as we've seen in recent big name titles like Street Fighter 6, Mortal Kombat 1, and even Guilty Gear Strive. Every single one of these games has one bona fide thing in common- defense is no longer a priority in the new age of fighting games. Tekken 8 has systems in place that reward you more for attacking rather than blocking the attack, namely the new Heat system. Think of Heat as what V-Trigger was in Street Fighter V, except you're able to utilize it at any point during a round instead of near KO, which gives some characters like Jun or Devil Jin an easy set robbery simply because they pressed 2+4 before you did.
That being said, defensiveness is still entirely possible within the game, but compared to it's predecessors like Tekken 6 or TTT2, you're better off forcing your opponent to constantly guess 50/50s rather than learning a matchup in full. The developers are acutely aware of this change, seeing as how some characters have reworked moves to account for the aggressive nature of the game, like Kazuya for example, giving him access to his Mist Step (crouch dash) after inputting 3,1.
"But, hasn't Kazuya always been a 50/50 vortex monster?" Yes. Oh, absolutely yes. But even with his strong 50/50 tools, you were still able to contest players without utilizing a more gimmicky hellsweep-filled playstyle, and instead played around his strong punish game with moves like Demon God Fist, Abolishing Fist, or his famous EWGF (or PEWGF if you're skilled enough :3).
I think I rambled. Anyway, my point is that the game strays away from the more defensive and strategic gameplay that the franchise has been known for. While it does feel fresh and unique, it opens up a lot of more obnoxious, nearly braindead playstyles that get abused on the daily, which makes veteran Tekken fans having to adapt to game feel that contradicts the legacy the franchise has had set.
It's still a fun game though. Just wish the exploitative rushdown mentality was more of an outlier than the staple way to play.
Plus the story mode was a letdown in most areas. UNFORTUNATE! I'll update my review once Eddy comes out, there'll probably be a couple balance changes once that happens.
I don't like Asuka players.