Tekken 8

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Prowler

Speaking of T7 it was a fine game and all but the single player content was rather poor. Once you were done with the story mode, that was it.

How is that much different than almost any other fighting game? Generally there is some kind of "story mode" which is the way Mortal Kombat and Tekken have been doing lately which has a beginning, middle and ending, and then some kind of arcade mode or solo mode that also has a more abbreviated ending specific to the character you choose. But you generally don't get much more than that out of fighting games.

Arcade mode was so bare bones. I understand fighting games must prioritize the competitive scene but I only play Street Fighter competitively, so I need solid single player content in Tekken to keep me interested. Mortal Kombat does the single player content thing the right way with its tower challenges.

I'm not sure how MK's tower challenges are any different from "Arcade Mode" in Tekken. Minus the tower.

Speaking of single-player, yesterday I finally sat down and played through the whole story mode of Tekken 8. Tekken's story has gotten sooooo convoluted and ludicrous (the entire world has been taken over by Mishima Zaibatsu now? the King of Iron Fist Tournament 8 is now to determine which countries WON'T be destroyed? like, if you fight for Colombia and win, Colombia doesn't get zapped) but it works well enough. It's all Jin's story, really, and how he can get his devil mojo back. The last chapter is super annoying in that it makes you (as Jin) fight Kazuya about 7 or 8 times back to back. And annoyingly many of those times when you win, it'll cut to cinematics where Jin is getting beat up by Kazuya. I found myself yelling at the screen: "Whaaat the F******?!? How many times do I need to beat this guy?!!?" You actually fight in outer space! I do really hope they're done with the Jin-Kazuya-Heihachi-Devil stuff after this.

Also, starting with I believe Tekken 7 Namco stopped dubbing all the characters. So it's pretty ridiculous (also annoying) that everyone in the story mode just talks in their own native language and pretends like they can understand everyone else. Which is fine when it's just a couple of Japanese characters talking amongst themselves... but there's whole scenes where there's a French guy speaking French, a German speaking German, a Japanese guy speaking Japanese, an American speaking English, and a Chinese woman speaking Chinese, and they're all understanding each other perfectly.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

How is that much different than almost any other fighting game? Generally there is some kind of "story mode" which is the way Mortal Kombat and Tekken have been doing lately which has a beginning, middle and ending, and then some kind of arcade mode or solo mode that also has a more abbreviated ending specific to the character you choose. But you generally don't get much more than that out of fighting games.



I'm not sure how MK's tower challenges are any different from "Arcade Mode" in Tekken. Minus the tower.

Speaking of single-player, yesterday I finally sat down and played through the whole story mode of Tekken 8. Tekken's story has gotten sooooo convoluted and ludicrous (the entire world has been taken over by Mishima Zaibatsu now? the King of Iron Fist Tournament 8 is now to determine which countries WON'T be destroyed? like, if you fight for Colombia and win, Colombia doesn't get zapped) but it works well enough. It's all Jin's story, really, and how he can get his devil mojo back. The last chapter is super annoying in that it makes you (as Jin) fight Kazuya about 7 or 8 times back to back. And annoyingly many of those times when you win, it'll cut to cinematics where Jin is getting beat up by Kazuya. I found myself yelling at the screen: "Whaaat the F******?!? How many times do I need to beat this guy?!!?" You actually fight in outer space! I do really hope they're done with the Jin-Kazuya-Heihachi-Devil stuff after this.

Also, starting with I believe Tekken 7 Namco stopped dubbing all the characters. So it's pretty ridiculous (also annoying) that everyone in the story mode just talks in their own native language and pretends like they can understand everyone else. Which is fine when it's just a couple of Japanese characters talking amongst themselves... but there's whole scenes where there's a French guy speaking French, a German speaking German, a Japanese guy speaking Japanese, an American speaking English, and a Chinese woman speaking Chinese, and they're all understanding each other perfectly.

Tekken 7 lacks team battle mode and the arcade mode is REALLY short. It has the shortest arcade mode of any Tekken game I've played, really. Also, remember the game had some budget cuts and it shows. Tekken 5 is quite older and offered a Devil Jin side game, a very long arcade mode that was separate from the story mode for each character that let you rank up as you faced tougher CPU enemies. And you also had the arcade versions of the first 3 Tekken games included in case you wanted to go for a nostalgia spin.

The language aspect is a running joke in Tekken. You're not meant to take it seriously, really. How do human characters understand Kuma's and Panda's growls? Why does King, a human being, seems unable to talk and only growls as if he was a puma or whatever feline that mask is? Shouldn't he speak Spanish or something?

And it was worse when they didn't have voice actors for every single language, which made the whole thing more inconsistent. Christie and Eddy were still speaking English in Tekken 5 instead of Brazilian Portuguese, for example. At least make the absurdity of it consistent lol

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Prowler

Tekken 7 lacks team battle mode and the arcade mode is REALLY short.

For sure, very bite sized. But Tekken 7 has a HUGE cast of characters.

Tekken 5 is quite older and offered a Devil Jin side game, a very long arcade mode that was separate from the story mode for each character that let you rank up as you faced tougher CPU enemies. And you also had the arcade versions of the first 3 Tekken games included in case you wanted to go for a nostalgia spin.

DEFINITELY there was awesome minigames in Tekkens prior to 7. Tekken Force and all that stuff. It's really weird they wouldn't want those games still playable today as that was all pretty involved.

[Andrew NDB]

Update: I've been continuing my deep dive into Tekken 8 and I just realized something AWFUL. They COMPLETELY ruined Eddy! None of his moves are actually there anymore! In all previous games you could handstand helicopter kick around the screen capoeira-style but all of that is gone! Replaced with just a bunch of quick double kicks. I thought they just changed the way you execute the moves or I was somehow really rusty with him, but upon a Google search, nope... Namco nerfed him utterly.

Unbelievable! This coupled with Lei Wulong not even being there... they've stripped literally all the things I enjoyed in Tekken for years now.

Also at further examination, they've REALLY dumbed down Tekken in 8. These one button "Heat" moves you can do, with 2 pre-loaded each fight are for new players to get cheap hits in, and the one button Fury move you can devastate your opponent with only rewards the loser by losing enough health to GET a Fury move.

Very maddening. This game is a huge step back. I'm going back to playing Tekken 7.