One of the best fighting game launches ever, up there with Street Fighter 6. Game balance is really impressive. Sure, you'll have some characters at the top, but what else is new.
Heat mode is the new addition to the Tekken formula this time around and I think it's brilliant. Bye bye Rage Drives. We will not miss you. Making Heat a universal tool that everyone gets and functions pretty much the same way between the roster results in playing multiple characters way easier.
In the previous game, Tekken 7, you had to memorize what each character's specific rage drive inputs were and when to use them. They only came into play when health was low and many of them were useless.
Now, you have access to heat at any time, every round, at the press of a button. Heat activation mid combo can give you a second to assess your situation ("where is the nearest wall? how much health does my opponent have?") and convert off some really weird air juggles. This results in a game with way more combos happening on screen, more often, even at lower skill levels. Really nice change.
Another big change is the lack of infinite stages. Every stage has walls now. Some stages are so massive- good luck reaching the walls in a real match. Still, a really bold decision that I agree with completely. Loading times are also a massive improvement, with instant rematch being an absolute BLESSING. Getting right back into the action is addictive. Best addition by far.
This game is a looker. Unfortunately, this only shows how broke the FGC is. A lot (i mean a LOT) of players struggle to run this game at a stable 60FPS. Playing ranked will have you encounter a lot of slow motion or heavy frame dips during stage transitions. The game even has a Green/Red symbol during matches telling you who's setup is struggling.
I know it's unfair to game developers to keep handicapping their games to accommodate people with gaming laptops behind the times- But for a fighting game specifically... I think bandai should've put in the effort to let more players run the game consistently, without making the game a blurry mess via resolution scaling.
Modes:
Story mode this time around is the best Tekken has ever had! This is a story about Jin, taking about 1 to 4 game sessions to complete. I really like the final few chapters most. Really cool music set pieces and visuals. "Hard mode" is a bit of a disappointment. The hardest parts were the "Tekken Force" segments where you battle hoards of enemies on a war-torn battlefield with a zoomed out view. Controls are a tad clunky and the forced button assignment for "switch target" happened to overlap my throw button, making things a tad awkward to play. (Every time I went to change targets, i would whiff a throw, for example.)
Character stories were hit/miss for me. Getting fully animated CG endings is a nice treat! However, the audio mix seemed really quiet and some characters don't really get to do anything interesting. Thus leading to a "well... that just happened!" conclusion.
Arcade Quest is ... both really slow and over too fast. You can complete the "story" in 1 sitting. It's the tale of "someone going to locals but dreams of EVO." The characters are whatever, I found myself mashing through the dialog to keep things moving. I'd read just enough to get what the character archetype is going for and move on. Max, your guide through the game, will give tutorials and missions to do in each arcade. This was my favorite part of the mode. Having a cheat sheet onscreen telling me "suggested moves" and some quests like "perform a 70 damage combo" really motivated me to learn more! I quickly turned off the in-game commentary though. I get it, Max, you're proud of me. Thank you Max.
This mode is also where "offline rank" is integrated. This is a huge stepdown from previous Tekken titles imo. Grinding to "Tekken God of Destruction" rank in this game amounts to grinding the same ghost over and over and over again. I could back out and re-load in against a lower rank ghost, but why do that? That only slows me down and is less challenging! Treasure battle from Tekken 7, how I miss you so.
Ghosts. It's a CPU that learns player habits and levels up in skill the more you fight them. You can download ANYONE'S AI Ghost off the leaderboards. The concept is really cool on paper. "I get to play against my favorite streamer/friend even when they're offline!"
Unfortunately, bots will be bots. You can cheese the AI just the same. The only difference here compared to arcade quest opponents, for example, are the moves used in neutral and combos they go for.
I don't really understand the "point" past novelty. Even fighting against my own ghost in a mirror match didn't really teach ME anything other than what moves I go for too often, I suppose. Then again, I'm going to play different against a bot than a real player. So it still loops back around to being questionable at best.
Tekken ball IS BACK. I wish they just let us swap over to tekken ball while in a private room, instead of having to walk around the chibi lobby beach for matches- but that's a minor complaint all things considered. This mode is JANKY. Rage works as an AOE, grabs are hard to land but help shift momentum back in your favor. There are some tactics/characters that have full screen projectiles that can make this mode a headache but that's part of the goofy fun of it all. There's several balls to pick from, with some being unlockable. Cute mode. Better than last installment's bowling.
Character Customization is both REALLY COOL and super duper limited. Picking a color that looks right is way more annoying than it needs to be. Rotating props to look right requires putting up more of a fight than any game of ranked I've endured. You cannot rotate objects freely. The "rotate left/right" bar maxes out too early and it makes zero sense. I wanted to make a cross on a character's forehead- You want to rotate a horizontal bamboo stick to point straight down? too bad. it can only go about 70 degrees left or right. Not a full 90. Are you kidding me?? WHY!
Don't get me started on the available hairstyles either. Your choices range from bald, Drake, or bob cut. Clothing looks terrible unless they are the full piece outfits made for each character. Common outfit attire is missing. No hoodies or jackets, closest you get is a plastic biker jacket. great. guess i'll put on a T-shirt and some jeans. Want a bandana or hat? Gotta switch to the default hairstyle!
Online:
Netcode good.
I think they kinda fumbled the cross-play implementation making online tournaments needlessly slow and cumbersome. I've seen some players prefer walking around in the Chibi arcade lobby and meeting up via matchmaking cabinets. They avoid making private rooms because room search is a total crapshoot.
Replay mode has never been better. Both the counterplay tips and replay takeover make this the most impressive learning tool officially implemented by a major fighting game developer ever. A few bugs here and there, like the game telling you "oh, you'll want to do this move to punish this." but the move that happened in the replay was buffed by heat mode, thus making the suggestion null- the move was safe and could not be punished the same way. Even hiccups like that don't hinder the experience too much though, as you are able to take over any 10 second segment you like and experiment in real time.
Having replays save automatically with 0 manual prompt after each match is a blessing. Being able to filter through large lists of replays is nice too! I can check out what my friends are doing and download their Ghosts effortlessly.
The "TEKKEN SHOP" is way more respectable than the battlepass thing SF6 is doing. Way more affordable. Will that change? Will they do cross-over promotions that jack up the price? Will they be limited to lobby avatars?? Time will tell.
Heat mode is the new addition to the Tekken formula this time around and I think it's brilliant. Bye bye Rage Drives. We will not miss you. Making Heat a universal tool that everyone gets and functions pretty much the same way between the roster results in playing multiple characters way easier.
In the previous game, Tekken 7, you had to memorize what each character's specific rage drive inputs were and when to use them. They only came into play when health was low and many of them were useless.
Now, you have access to heat at any time, every round, at the press of a button. Heat activation mid combo can give you a second to assess your situation ("where is the nearest wall? how much health does my opponent have?") and convert off some really weird air juggles. This results in a game with way more combos happening on screen, more often, even at lower skill levels. Really nice change.
Another big change is the lack of infinite stages. Every stage has walls now. Some stages are so massive- good luck reaching the walls in a real match. Still, a really bold decision that I agree with completely. Loading times are also a massive improvement, with instant rematch being an absolute BLESSING. Getting right back into the action is addictive. Best addition by far.
This game is a looker. Unfortunately, this only shows how broke the FGC is. A lot (i mean a LOT) of players struggle to run this game at a stable 60FPS. Playing ranked will have you encounter a lot of slow motion or heavy frame dips during stage transitions. The game even has a Green/Red symbol during matches telling you who's setup is struggling.
I know it's unfair to game developers to keep handicapping their games to accommodate people with gaming laptops behind the times- But for a fighting game specifically... I think bandai should've put in the effort to let more players run the game consistently, without making the game a blurry mess via resolution scaling.
Modes:
Story mode this time around is the best Tekken has ever had! This is a story about Jin, taking about 1 to 4 game sessions to complete. I really like the final few chapters most. Really cool music set pieces and visuals. "Hard mode" is a bit of a disappointment. The hardest parts were the "Tekken Force" segments where you battle hoards of enemies on a war-torn battlefield with a zoomed out view. Controls are a tad clunky and the forced button assignment for "switch target" happened to overlap my throw button, making things a tad awkward to play. (Every time I went to change targets, i would whiff a throw, for example.)
Character stories were hit/miss for me. Getting fully animated CG endings is a nice treat! However, the audio mix seemed really quiet and some characters don't really get to do anything interesting. Thus leading to a "well... that just happened!" conclusion.
Arcade Quest is ... both really slow and over too fast. You can complete the "story" in 1 sitting. It's the tale of "someone going to locals but dreams of EVO." The characters are whatever, I found myself mashing through the dialog to keep things moving. I'd read just enough to get what the character archetype is going for and move on. Max, your guide through the game, will give tutorials and missions to do in each arcade. This was my favorite part of the mode. Having a cheat sheet onscreen telling me "suggested moves" and some quests like "perform a 70 damage combo" really motivated me to learn more! I quickly turned off the in-game commentary though. I get it, Max, you're proud of me. Thank you Max.
This mode is also where "offline rank" is integrated. This is a huge stepdown from previous Tekken titles imo. Grinding to "Tekken God of Destruction" rank in this game amounts to grinding the same ghost over and over and over again. I could back out and re-load in against a lower rank ghost, but why do that? That only slows me down and is less challenging! Treasure battle from Tekken 7, how I miss you so.
Ghosts. It's a CPU that learns player habits and levels up in skill the more you fight them. You can download ANYONE'S AI Ghost off the leaderboards. The concept is really cool on paper. "I get to play against my favorite streamer/friend even when they're offline!"
Unfortunately, bots will be bots. You can cheese the AI just the same. The only difference here compared to arcade quest opponents, for example, are the moves used in neutral and combos they go for.
I don't really understand the "point" past novelty. Even fighting against my own ghost in a mirror match didn't really teach ME anything other than what moves I go for too often, I suppose. Then again, I'm going to play different against a bot than a real player. So it still loops back around to being questionable at best.
Tekken ball IS BACK. I wish they just let us swap over to tekken ball while in a private room, instead of having to walk around the chibi lobby beach for matches- but that's a minor complaint all things considered. This mode is JANKY. Rage works as an AOE, grabs are hard to land but help shift momentum back in your favor. There are some tactics/characters that have full screen projectiles that can make this mode a headache but that's part of the goofy fun of it all. There's several balls to pick from, with some being unlockable. Cute mode. Better than last installment's bowling.
Character Customization is both REALLY COOL and super duper limited. Picking a color that looks right is way more annoying than it needs to be. Rotating props to look right requires putting up more of a fight than any game of ranked I've endured. You cannot rotate objects freely. The "rotate left/right" bar maxes out too early and it makes zero sense. I wanted to make a cross on a character's forehead- You want to rotate a horizontal bamboo stick to point straight down? too bad. it can only go about 70 degrees left or right. Not a full 90. Are you kidding me?? WHY!
Don't get me started on the available hairstyles either. Your choices range from bald, Drake, or bob cut. Clothing looks terrible unless they are the full piece outfits made for each character. Common outfit attire is missing. No hoodies or jackets, closest you get is a plastic biker jacket. great. guess i'll put on a T-shirt and some jeans. Want a bandana or hat? Gotta switch to the default hairstyle!
Online:
Netcode good.
I think they kinda fumbled the cross-play implementation making online tournaments needlessly slow and cumbersome. I've seen some players prefer walking around in the Chibi arcade lobby and meeting up via matchmaking cabinets. They avoid making private rooms because room search is a total crapshoot.
Replay mode has never been better. Both the counterplay tips and replay takeover make this the most impressive learning tool officially implemented by a major fighting game developer ever. A few bugs here and there, like the game telling you "oh, you'll want to do this move to punish this." but the move that happened in the replay was buffed by heat mode, thus making the suggestion null- the move was safe and could not be punished the same way. Even hiccups like that don't hinder the experience too much though, as you are able to take over any 10 second segment you like and experiment in real time.
Having replays save automatically with 0 manual prompt after each match is a blessing. Being able to filter through large lists of replays is nice too! I can check out what my friends are doing and download their Ghosts effortlessly.
The "TEKKEN SHOP" is way more respectable than the battlepass thing SF6 is doing. Way more affordable. Will that change? Will they do cross-over promotions that jack up the price? Will they be limited to lobby avatars?? Time will tell.