Tekken 8 review

Tekken 8 Review: When it comes to mainstream fighting games, the first names that come to mind in our country are the Street Fighter – Mortal Kombat and Tekken series. Aside from actions such as playing Tekken 3 in the arcades in the 2000s and trying to beat Eddie, who just spins on the ground, it is quite possible to see pictures of Tekken characters even on a random punching machine you see on the street in Turkey.

Tekken 8 Review: We’re Ready for the Next Fight

Tekken 8, the eighth game of the series, if we do not count the side games (and if we do, there are many), comes to our screens in a more developed and beautiful way. Let’s see what has been improved, what has been added, what features we have lost.

Tekken 8 Review / PC

Family Problems Again

Tekken 8 comes with a quality story mode that compensates for the bad story modes offered in previous games during their release periods. The story, which opens with the fight between Jin and Kazuya using their “Devil” powers in the middle of the city, continues with the announcement of the new King of Iron Fist tournament and the participation of participants from all over the world.

I won’t give too many spoilers about the story itself, it’s short enough that you can finish it in about 4 or 5 hours, it has an enjoyable story mode full of cutscenes and important moments. The cutscenes are enjoyable, the adventures we experience are interesting, and sometimes the standard fighting game story goes beyond the mind with surprise game modes. The issue of the world being tortured because of the problems of the Mishima dynasty continues here as well. Newly added characters, old friends we meet again after a short break, and indispensable characters of the series are all presented in a very enjoyable way.

Tekken 8 Review / PC

Don’t be intimidated by the short story mode, there are also special character stories consisting of 4 – 5 fights that focus on each character’s own story. You have to finish the story to reach Jun and Reina’s stories, but of course there is a logical reason for this. Anyway, both the character stories and the story mode are very enjoyable, I even have to admit that I felt like I was playing Final Fantasy games while playing the story mode, they were so enjoyable to me.

Finally, there is Arcade Quest, which has its own story and is a great training ground for beginners. This is a very fun and rewarding part, with the atmosphere of the arcade halls of the 90s and 2000s. I can say that the story is meh, but as I will mention later, it is a very useful episode.

Tekken 8 Review / PC

Run, There’s a Fight

Tekken 8 stands out from its competitors with its incredible roster of fighters. We have a choice of 32 playable characters. Considering that Street Fighter released 18 characters and Mortal Kombat 1 released 22 characters, it seems difficult for them to catch up with Tekken even with the DLCs they released. Moreover, there are few characters at the “dark blue level of the same” level, even the Kuma and Panda characters have aspects that differ from each other (they are few, but there are some).

One of the most important parts of fighting games is to make the game simple enough for everyone to play, but detailed enough for those who want to step into the professional arena to capture their own style. Tekken 8 has brought the fighting system into a wonderful balance, creating a game that everyone can play with features such as newly added systems, character combos, and “Special Style”, which we can call the assist mode.

Tekken 8 Review / PC

First, let me talk about the added “Heat System” feature. It is a bit similar to the Rage system that has been in the Tekken series for a long time, but you can activate it at any time of the match, rather than when your health is low. When the Heat System is on, your character deals chip damage, can use special combos or perform various moves. We can also perform the Heat Smash attack, which deals high damage and can instantly change the course of the fight. Heat System is a feature that we can activate once per round, so it should be used carefully.

Special Style, another newly added feature to the game, is a truly “casual friendly” feature. You have a new character and you want to see what kind of combos he can make, or you want to fight with someone who has not played the game much, this is the feature you are looking for. With Special Style, which we can think of as the Modern control scheme added to Street Fighter 6, combos and moves are assigned to certain keys and you can perform them without much effort. Don’t get excited and enter Ranked mode with this, they beat you big. But when playing in normal style, tricks such as switching to Special with one button, quickly doing an air combo and closing it again work to a certain level. It’s not perfect, but it’s a really useful feature.

Tekken 8 Review / PC

The training portion of the game takes place in three different areas and has great options to get new players in shape. Arcade Quest teaches you the basics of the game, informs you about how to react to situations, and introduces new and old systems. The Practice section is the area that will allow you to try every move you can do with a character. There is also the Super Ghost Battle part, which we will open a separate paragraph for.

Super Ghost Battle is a special section that unlocks after progressing for a certain period of time in Arcade Quest and pits you against fighters trained in the style of real players. Every opponent you encounter here will be a player, a game maker, or a copy of yourself trained in your style! You can enter more challenging fights with more realistic movements and improve yourself. You also have the chance to fight against your own copy and better see what you’re doing wrong. It’s an area that I recommend you to get into to get better at the game.

Tekken 8 Review / PC

Speaking of seeing the mistakes, I want to talk about the best training part of the game. Thanks to the Battle Replay feature, you can watch the replays of your fights, but that is not all, the game stops at the parts where you make mistakes in the replay and a box opens telling you where you made a mistake and how you can get rid of it. Not only that, you can take the replay control and make the right move to correct the error shown in this section. For example, this is how I managed to learn how to defend against Devil Jin combos.

In addition to story modes and arcade fights, Tekken Ball mode, which we remember from Tekken 3 and Tekken Tag games, also returns in Tekken 8. Tekken Ball is beach volleyball, but it takes place in Tekken style. You kick the ball on your side and cause it to hit the opponent and cause damage. Tekken 3 was a mode that we played like crazy without realizing the time, but it has returned as a fun part with its own online mode and ranking.

Tekken 8 Review / PC

Performance

The minimum system requirements for Tekken 8 are a computer with an Intel Core i5-6600K/AMD Ryzen 5 1600 processor, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050Ti/AMD Radeon R9 380X graphics card, and 8GB RAM. You also need 100GB of free space. The game says that you can get 60fps at its recommended settings even at the lowest system requirements. The recommended system requirements of the game are also quite good for our time. It is a computer with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070/AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics card and an i7-7700K/AMD Ryzen 5 2600 processor and 16GB of RAM.

I played the game smoothly and comfortably at 4K resolution on a PC above the recommended requirements. I even had the chance to try it on a PC between minimum and recommended, and I was able to play matches without any problems with the graphics settings recommended by the game. In this respect, the optimization is successful. When you play via HDD, the character selection screen may take a while, but you do not experience any problems other than the loading times of the game.

Tekken 8 Review / PC

The most important part of the game is the online fights and the netcode situation, after all, there are many players who will want to buy this game and enter the online side, they need to know what problems they will have against their opponents. I played a lot of matches in the online lobby of the game, and sometimes I played matches in different regions so that I could give detailed information about the general situation. The game has rollback support and you can play very comfortably even against remote players. There is almost no input lag, it feels like playing at home. The real problem is for players playing via Wi-Fi, you do not experience any delays, but there are freezes during the match. I don’t know what to say since this is not the game’s fault but the wi-fi users’ fault. I think the other game I played so easily before was Guilty Gear Strive. I found Tekken 8 to be better than both previous Tekken games and many other games when it comes to online.

I won’t leave without touching on the subject of music. With the addition of the Jukebox mode, which was previously exclusive to the platform, you now have the opportunity to listen to the wonderful soundtrack of the game and the music of old games. Some licensed music is missing, but all official music up to the first Tekken game is available. I liked the Tekken 8 OST album very much, the stage music is great, the use of music in the story is very good. A very good job has been done in the voice acting, too. It amuses me that everyone in the Tekken universe speaks their own language and yet can understand each other.

Tekken 8 Review / PC

Conclusion

Tekken 8 might be the best breakout fighting game I’ve played in many years. There is a lot of variety of fighters, a lot of content, and if you want to learn the game, it has sections that will allow you to learn every possibility. It is very diverse in terms of character customization and looks like a paradise compared to Street Fighter 6’s costume fiascos, but there seems to be less customization compared to previous games. Also, I can’t understand why we couldn’t dye the socks, why did they separate the socks while everything else was being dyed?

You may say that this game has no bad points or shortcomings, but there are. The game’s accessibility options are very limited, the only added feature is a setting for colorblind players. It’s not an option I need myself, but I know that players with vision limitations who play Mortal Kombat 1 and Street Fighter 6 cannot play Tekken 8. This is annoying and I wish there were these options so more people could play. Additionally, some lags while trying out items on the customization screen annoy me, but this is not a big minus.

Tekken 8 Review / PC

I present Tekken 8 with peace of mind as the most content-rich, enjoyable and player-friendly fighting game released in a long time. We have a game that is too good to say to the player who paid his money, “Buy these and enjoy the game.” Moreover, since it offers cross-play support as soon as it is released, you can buy it on PC and compete with your friends on the console.

Tekken 8 (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1778820/TEKKEN_8/), which is normally sold on Steam with a price tag of 70 dollars, is sold for around 45 dollars in our region. It is much cheaper than Steam’s price tag when it was in TL, which makes it one of the rare games where we gained a price advantage after the last dollar transition. An enjoyable fighting game that will give you full value for your money.

Tekken 8 Review / PC

Tekken 8 Review / PC

Tekken 8 Review / PC

Tekken 8 Review / PC

Tekken 8 Review / PC

Tekken 8 Review / PC

Tekken 8 Review / PC

Tekken 8 Review / PC

Tekken 8 Review / PC

Tekken 8 Review / PC

Tekken 8 Review / PC