As a long time Tekken fan, it'd be a matter of time until I purchased Tekken 8.
I bought Tekken 7 on Xbox and Steam back in the day and had lots of fun for at least hundreds of hours, suffering on online and laughing out loud with my friends in versus multiplayer.
So, after a long wait, and after pondering wether I should pay R$350 on the PS5 or R$130 on PC (I paid R$130 on PC), I finally purchased the game!
And let me tell you, it's a noted improvement over Tekken 7, in every way imaginable.
Tekken 8 has lots of single-player content, notably more than 7 and a story that's just incredible. I haven't quite gotten to the end yet but the dynamic of how the story plays out and its battles is just fun.
It legit looks like a movie, and plays much more like a inter-connected series of scenes rather than scene-battle-scene-battle formula of Tekken 7.
There's even a part that reminds me of older modes from Tekken 5 and 3 where you get to walk freely and fight tons of enemies, it's awesome!
The new characters on the roster consist of:
Azucena: The peruvian coffee queen that's a lot more of a comic relief character than anyone too serious on the grand scheme of things. She gets a little... annoying, but her dynamic with Lili of the coffee vs tea debate is kinda funny. She plays really well too.
Reina: The mysterious girl who fights using Mishima style martial arts, she's a harder character to get a hold of but is insanely fun once you grasp her mechanics. She also plays a vital role in the story and she's absolute waifu material.
Victor Chevalier: The guy from the Union of Nations (the United Nations in the Tekken universe) who's been observing what the Mishima family has been doing for a long while. He's fun to play and also plays a role in the story.
Familiar faces
Tekken 8 isn't a reset of the franchise. On the base roster you're missing long time character Heihachi, but he's on the DLCs, same goes for Eddy, Lidia and others. (Even if Lidia is a game old).
I'm just happy my main, Lili, is here. She's cuter than ever and plays like a beast. Her rivalry with Asuka is maintained and I like how they focus more on her on the main story.
Me and my friend always pick Lili vs Asuka to start off our tournaments, it's fun.
I'm not one to be staring at men's abs, but the graphics have gotten a HUGE upgrade. All the characters are way more detailed and the scenarios where you fight in are just... beautiful.
The cutscenes are also way more well done and a joy to look at.
Lots of people doubted if they could keep up what they showed on the trailer, but they definitely did. If you're playing this game at max settings, you're in for quite a spectacular show.
I run it at medium settings with FSR at quality and get 60FPS on my aging slow GTX 1660 Super, but it still looks preem.
The gameplay was changed around a little, with the addition of the heat system, where you can now once per round activate a heat burst either by pressing RB/R1 or using a heat engager, which is an attack that can trigger heat. When your character is in heat mode they can deal chip damage, are way more powerful and can lead to some nasty combos.
Rage arts are still here and can be easily triggered with a command or RT/R2.
Overall, this is a natural and great evolution to the Tekken formula, and I can't wait to git gud on online play. One of my goals this year in gaming is getting to a level where I can genuinely call myself good at Tekken 8, to bring over all the skills I lost from the year or so that I spent not playing 7.
Thanks for reading, and go buy Tekken 8 on sale! Maybe we can play together.
Also good to point out that this is the first Tekken with crossplay, so my Playstation or Xbox friends - you're invited!
