Tekken 8 Review

thesixthaxis.com:

While I’ve been a fan of fighting games since I was ten years old, Tekken is a series that has always taken a back seat for me. That’s not because I thought Tekken was bad, but it didn’t interest me as much as Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat. Tekken 8 has completely changed that.

Street Fighter 6 certainly raised the bar for the fighting game genre last year, and Tekken 8 is trying its damned hardest to rise to that level. This game is a touch more friendlier to newcomers, and includes a whole host of things for you to do straight out the gate.

Tekken 8 still runs off its classic combat system, with the four face buttons of the D-Pad mapped to the fighters’ limbs, adding a directional input here and there to perform special moves. It’s a pretty simple system that caters for players that are happy to dip their toes in with some simple combos, or dive in with some of the harder stuff. However, previous Tekken games could still feel a little overwhelming, especially when you look at the huge moves list of attacks you could learn.

Similar to SF6’s Modern Mode, Tekken 8 has a new Special Style to offer a similar release valve for newer players to get accustomed to fighting games. This can be turned on and off in real time at the press of a button, but when enabled gives a list of available moves in the bottom left corner of the screen and access to one button special moves, or combo starters that easily flow as you press different buttons. There’s also single button power crush attacks and other low attacks.

All of this is intended to help newcomers focus more on timing and spacing than memorising moves, and in practice it works well. I can see this being a good jumping on point for people that have always looked at Tekken but find fighting games too intimidating to give it a go.

Naturally there’s a few new ideas and revised mechanics in Tekken 8, most notably the Heat system. This is a once-per-round mechanic that enhances certain aspects of your character’s kit. Firstly all