Tekken 8 Makes a Great First Impression

ign.com:

Growing up as a child of 90s and early 2000s arcades, I’ve been a casual enjoyer of the Tekken series pretty much all throughout its lifespan, with its cabinets being a regular spot where I would dump a few quarters, mash some buttons, and walk away with a smile on my face. I’ve put some time into just about all of them, but I’ve never really attempted to learn the deeper complexities of its mechanics or really sat down to try and become good with a character. That’s going to change with Tekken 8, because after spending about four hours with it, I’m all in.

While I am a self-admitted casual fan of the Tekken series, I have at least dabbled enough into Tekken 7 to be able to talk about the most defining differences between it and Tekken 8. Chief among those changes is the new Heat System, which is all about enforcing one of Tekken 8’s biggest design goals: Rewarding aggression.

With the press of a button, a character can use a Heat Burst to enter Heat Mode. The effects of it differ from character-to-character, but in general you can view it as a limited time state where you’re basically better at everything. Certain moves have new properties; others recover faster, making them more advantageous on block; and you gain access to new moves that aren’t available outside of Heat Mode.

One of the key elements of Heat Mode is that while it is time-limited, with a meter that slowly depletes once activated, you can actually stop that meter from going down by landing attacks. This is just one of the ways that Tekken 8 looks to encourage its players to be more aggressive, because if you’re able to push the pace and land hits while in Heat Mode, you can keep the state going throughout most, if not all of the round.

And if you decide