Tekken 7 was a very special game to me, despite briefly playing Tekken 6 as a kid I never had much interest in the series or fighting games as a whole but T7 changed all of that. Something about the game was just incredibly addicting to me, despite the lack of content I still loved the game and poured in around 1200 hours into it between season 1 and 3, but the pay to win DLCs, questionable balancing decisions and the lack of offline tourneys during Covid ended up killing my interest in it. I still came back to play the game on occasion and I watched the big tournaments, but I just wanted Tekken 8 to come out already.
Now that Tekken 8 is here and I've spent 300 hours on it so far, I can say that the game is polarizing. I do enjoy a good chunk of what's here though. The story is....good? In terms of the quality of writing it's absolute dogshit, it all feels way too rushed so none of the emotional beats end up hitting and Jin's whole arc boils down to him accepting and overcoming his guilt over starting a FUCKING WORLD WAR, and that just isn't something that can be done believably in a 3 hour long storymode. But the story is still hype and is packed with fan service from Azazel coming back, Lars reminding Kazuya of Heihachi to the entirety of the final battle. The story is fun, and that's really all I could want out of a Tekken plot. Other areas of the game that are worthy of praise to me are the stages, there's not a lot of them compared to 7 but that's because they went for quality over quantity and they're all so unique with the variety of old and new stage gimmicks that are added. They also look great, as does the game as a whole, I don't think I can ever play T7 again based on how dated T8 makes it feel with its visuals. What makes these stages even better is that Jukebox is back and I had a blast going through old Tekken OSTs and mixing and matching what themes go best with what stages, though I was tempted to just put Arisa on every stage because it's just that good. In terms of offline content the game is solid, character episodes are enjoyable and much better than whatever T7 had but I do wish there were more serious ones, for me the endings lean too much on comedy for me whereas past games achieved a better balance, but they're still good, especially Steve's ending. Arcade Quest is a fun little mode that I enjoyed going through once but I'm also never playing it again. Replays and tips though, has to be the best feature in this game, it makes the previously daunting task of labbing very specific situations so much more manageable and if you use it enough, you could level up your gameplay really quickly, it really feels like a Godsend for anyone trying to improve at the game. There's also Tekken Ball, Tekken Ball is peak.
So the package as a whole is great, but how is the actual fighting? I loved what I played of the CNT and CBT and I enjoyed the game on launch too, but as time goes on I like it less and less and now that I'm 3 months in and am playing this game everyday, I'm starting to think it's actually shit. Ok so, prior to the games release, the dev team kept pushing this narrative how this would be an "aggressive" game, I was initially skeptical, but I warmed up to this approach over time since too much of Tekken 7s gameplay boiled down to backdashing away, whiff punishing and playing keepout with the plethora of CH launchers that every character had. This was most evident at the highest level with almost every grand final at the end of the game's lifespan just being 2 top tiers using safe pokes with minimal risk, so clearly something had to be done...I just wish they didn't take this approach to such an extreme. Before I dive into the negatives, I just want to say the things I do like. To begin with, sidestepping is better here and backdashes are nerfed, I like this, it's a 3D game, so lateral movement should take precedence and it feels good here to sidestep moves here when I barely ever did it in 7 because it just didn't feel as necessary in that game. I also like the removal of CH launchers for the vast majority of the roster since to me, it's a good way of encouraging offensive gameplay.
What isn't a good way of encouraging offense is everything else this game adds/changes. Chip damage is dumb, I should not be punished for the simple act of blocking a move and my opponent shouldn't be rewarded for not even landing his attack. Recoverable health is an equally stupid addition to me for similar reasons. Low Parries, a defensive option is also heavily nerfed here since you get no tornado spin after them in this game so they do much less damage here. It's one thing to faciliate aggressive play, but when you go the extra mile and punish a player for playing defensively, you create a game where offense is often the best option, in other words, you get Mashing. Mashen 8, that's what this game feels like, you can't land a move in this game without getting hit by a Jin uf2, or a Victor/Azucena powercrush, or a dickjab and it becomes this annoying game of who can lockdown the other player with plus frames first or who can steal their turn back quicker. Then there's throws which are grossly overtuned, CH throws are a thing now which make the break window much tighter which I'm fine with, since in prior games once you got good at throw breaking, throws barely played a role in matches, especially in tourneys where it'd be a surprise anytime a throw was successful, but for whatever reason throws are also homing now? Why remove the counterplay? It makes characters like King an absolute nightmare to fight and it's just too much.
Tekken 7 leaned heavily on defense but you could still play the game offensively without feeling too held back, in this game, if you try playing it defensively you're playing it wrong and poking/turtle style characters like Asuka or Leroy are unanimously considered to be low tier because of it. When almost every character starts feeling like the same rushdown/50/50 archetype, you lose a lot of what makes these characters stand out. No better example of this exists in the game than Eddy, my Tekken 7 main, he was based around poking and spacing in that game with his incredible backdash, but he also had the worst sidestep in the game, for Tekken 8 they couldn't keep the poking style he had in T7 without making him suck, so they completely reworked him into a rushdown character that can sidestep normally and has an average backdash just like everyone else and there's really not much that makes him feel unique here other than the fact that he's got cheesy one button strings and he occasionally crushes a move when in negativa.
So I generally dislike the changes to the gameplay and the direction the game is heading towards and the same goes for this game's main addition, heat. You enter heat in one of two ways, either landing a heat engager which rewards you by giving you back recoverable health or doing it manually via heat burst. Heat Engagers I'm fine with, they reward you for landing a move, it makes sense, and my only gripe with them is some are way too easy to just throw out, safe armoured heat engagers are the obvious example of this. Heat Burst though, should be removed entirely. You press a button, do a move that's armoured, unsteppable and almost impossible to whiff, and you are now in heat, whether it lands or is blocked, or is even interrupted with a low or throw. There's no risk involved in doing it and you get huge reward for throwing it out depending on how good your characters heat mode is. Some heat modes are also straight up busted. When Kuma is in heat for example you might aswell hold back and do nothing else because of his electric having no counterplay. A lot of heat modes also give a character multiple free mixups so you're forced to guess like with Lars' f3+4 or Eddy 3+4 and it just isn't fun, it isn't skill based to lose a round just because you guessed wrong, there's a reason high level players say this game is a Casino. There's also heat smashes and they're terribly designed too, you can't powercrush them, can't low parry them, heaven forbid you could do something other than block in a game that discourages blocking. Most of them are mid and + on block so your only counter is to step them, but a lot of them have the character run so far away that you can't get any meaningful punish, it sucks, I avoid Alisa's or Eddy's heat smash just to get nothing in return. There's also DJin's heat smash, which is probably the most blatant example of a move having nothing you can do against it.
I didn't even mention the scummy way microtransactions were implemented, the battlepass, the limited customization, the pluggers, or the other ways in which this game's balancing feels like a joke at points. I do think this game will get much better with time since unlike other Tekkens, this one had no arcade run that could've been used as a form of ironing out the flaws for the full release. I'm keeping my score as a 9 just because that's what I would have given the game in my first month of playing but it'll probably drop down since playing this game in its current state is hazardous to your health.
Now that Tekken 8 is here and I've spent 300 hours on it so far, I can say that the game is polarizing. I do enjoy a good chunk of what's here though. The story is....good? In terms of the quality of writing it's absolute dogshit, it all feels way too rushed so none of the emotional beats end up hitting and Jin's whole arc boils down to him accepting and overcoming his guilt over starting a FUCKING WORLD WAR, and that just isn't something that can be done believably in a 3 hour long storymode. But the story is still hype and is packed with fan service from Azazel coming back, Lars reminding Kazuya of Heihachi to the entirety of the final battle. The story is fun, and that's really all I could want out of a Tekken plot. Other areas of the game that are worthy of praise to me are the stages, there's not a lot of them compared to 7 but that's because they went for quality over quantity and they're all so unique with the variety of old and new stage gimmicks that are added. They also look great, as does the game as a whole, I don't think I can ever play T7 again based on how dated T8 makes it feel with its visuals. What makes these stages even better is that Jukebox is back and I had a blast going through old Tekken OSTs and mixing and matching what themes go best with what stages, though I was tempted to just put Arisa on every stage because it's just that good. In terms of offline content the game is solid, character episodes are enjoyable and much better than whatever T7 had but I do wish there were more serious ones, for me the endings lean too much on comedy for me whereas past games achieved a better balance, but they're still good, especially Steve's ending. Arcade Quest is a fun little mode that I enjoyed going through once but I'm also never playing it again. Replays and tips though, has to be the best feature in this game, it makes the previously daunting task of labbing very specific situations so much more manageable and if you use it enough, you could level up your gameplay really quickly, it really feels like a Godsend for anyone trying to improve at the game. There's also Tekken Ball, Tekken Ball is peak.
So the package as a whole is great, but how is the actual fighting? I loved what I played of the CNT and CBT and I enjoyed the game on launch too, but as time goes on I like it less and less and now that I'm 3 months in and am playing this game everyday, I'm starting to think it's actually shit. Ok so, prior to the games release, the dev team kept pushing this narrative how this would be an "aggressive" game, I was initially skeptical, but I warmed up to this approach over time since too much of Tekken 7s gameplay boiled down to backdashing away, whiff punishing and playing keepout with the plethora of CH launchers that every character had. This was most evident at the highest level with almost every grand final at the end of the game's lifespan just being 2 top tiers using safe pokes with minimal risk, so clearly something had to be done...I just wish they didn't take this approach to such an extreme. Before I dive into the negatives, I just want to say the things I do like. To begin with, sidestepping is better here and backdashes are nerfed, I like this, it's a 3D game, so lateral movement should take precedence and it feels good here to sidestep moves here when I barely ever did it in 7 because it just didn't feel as necessary in that game. I also like the removal of CH launchers for the vast majority of the roster since to me, it's a good way of encouraging offensive gameplay.
What isn't a good way of encouraging offense is everything else this game adds/changes. Chip damage is dumb, I should not be punished for the simple act of blocking a move and my opponent shouldn't be rewarded for not even landing his attack. Recoverable health is an equally stupid addition to me for similar reasons. Low Parries, a defensive option is also heavily nerfed here since you get no tornado spin after them in this game so they do much less damage here. It's one thing to faciliate aggressive play, but when you go the extra mile and punish a player for playing defensively, you create a game where offense is often the best option, in other words, you get Mashing. Mashen 8, that's what this game feels like, you can't land a move in this game without getting hit by a Jin uf2, or a Victor/Azucena powercrush, or a dickjab and it becomes this annoying game of who can lockdown the other player with plus frames first or who can steal their turn back quicker. Then there's throws which are grossly overtuned, CH throws are a thing now which make the break window much tighter which I'm fine with, since in prior games once you got good at throw breaking, throws barely played a role in matches, especially in tourneys where it'd be a surprise anytime a throw was successful, but for whatever reason throws are also homing now? Why remove the counterplay? It makes characters like King an absolute nightmare to fight and it's just too much.
Tekken 7 leaned heavily on defense but you could still play the game offensively without feeling too held back, in this game, if you try playing it defensively you're playing it wrong and poking/turtle style characters like Asuka or Leroy are unanimously considered to be low tier because of it. When almost every character starts feeling like the same rushdown/50/50 archetype, you lose a lot of what makes these characters stand out. No better example of this exists in the game than Eddy, my Tekken 7 main, he was based around poking and spacing in that game with his incredible backdash, but he also had the worst sidestep in the game, for Tekken 8 they couldn't keep the poking style he had in T7 without making him suck, so they completely reworked him into a rushdown character that can sidestep normally and has an average backdash just like everyone else and there's really not much that makes him feel unique here other than the fact that he's got cheesy one button strings and he occasionally crushes a move when in negativa.
So I generally dislike the changes to the gameplay and the direction the game is heading towards and the same goes for this game's main addition, heat. You enter heat in one of two ways, either landing a heat engager which rewards you by giving you back recoverable health or doing it manually via heat burst. Heat Engagers I'm fine with, they reward you for landing a move, it makes sense, and my only gripe with them is some are way too easy to just throw out, safe armoured heat engagers are the obvious example of this. Heat Burst though, should be removed entirely. You press a button, do a move that's armoured, unsteppable and almost impossible to whiff, and you are now in heat, whether it lands or is blocked, or is even interrupted with a low or throw. There's no risk involved in doing it and you get huge reward for throwing it out depending on how good your characters heat mode is. Some heat modes are also straight up busted. When Kuma is in heat for example you might aswell hold back and do nothing else because of his electric having no counterplay. A lot of heat modes also give a character multiple free mixups so you're forced to guess like with Lars' f3+4 or Eddy 3+4 and it just isn't fun, it isn't skill based to lose a round just because you guessed wrong, there's a reason high level players say this game is a Casino. There's also heat smashes and they're terribly designed too, you can't powercrush them, can't low parry them, heaven forbid you could do something other than block in a game that discourages blocking. Most of them are mid and + on block so your only counter is to step them, but a lot of them have the character run so far away that you can't get any meaningful punish, it sucks, I avoid Alisa's or Eddy's heat smash just to get nothing in return. There's also DJin's heat smash, which is probably the most blatant example of a move having nothing you can do against it.
I didn't even mention the scummy way microtransactions were implemented, the battlepass, the limited customization, the pluggers, or the other ways in which this game's balancing feels like a joke at points. I do think this game will get much better with time since unlike other Tekkens, this one had no arcade run that could've been used as a form of ironing out the flaws for the full release. I'm keeping my score as a 9 just because that's what I would have given the game in my first month of playing but it'll probably drop down since playing this game in its current state is hazardous to your health.