Tekken 8 review: The full-spectrum fighting game that doubles down on franchise’s strengths

Tekken 8 continues the story of the Mishima family feud, focusing on Jin Kazama's struggle against his father, Kazuya Mishima, and the dark destiny that haunts their bloodline. The game's plot unfolds as Jin confronts his fate, seeking to end Kazuya's reign of terror.

This edition of the game sees the return of Jin’s mother Jun, and also introduces new characters, each with their own motives and fighting styles, against the backdrop of a world embroiled in conflict due to the Mishima Zaibatsu and G Corporation's power struggle.

If none of that made any sense, here’s actor Brian Cox explaining it all — as well as how we got here — in a bit more detail:

All caught up? Good, because the story isn’t a topic on which I’m going to spend too long. Suffice to say that Tekken 8 includes a cinematic (in terms of direction, sound design and score), completely voiced and full-fledged story mode titled ‘The Dark Awakens’ and a set of ‘Character Episodes’ (mini-stories lasting five bouts about each character).

What makes a Tekken game

The Street Fighter series is frequently extolled for its seminal role in establishing the fighting game genre and its focus on strategic two-dimensional combat mechanics.

Mortal Kombat is renowned for its visceral finishing moves, the dark and mystical narrative themes and elements, and its penchant for cinematic storytelling.

(Screengrab taken on PS5)

The Tekken games, on the other hand, are regarded highly by genre aficionados for their deep rosters, character story arcs, quality of presentation and most fundamentally, their attention to detail when it comes to the combat system. Tekken titles feature an extremely responsive 3D combat system that adds a layer of depth and strategy not found in the 2D planes of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. This includes side-stepping, spatial awareness, and a more nuanced approach to positioning.

Cognisant and respectful of the iterations that have preceded it, Tekken 8 leans heavily into its deep and nuanced combat system to serve up a fighting masterclass for veterans and noobs alike. For starters (and like Street Fighter 6), this game provides the option of navigating its sea of combos with regular controls or with ‘Special Style’, a format that sees combos mapped to single buttons.

And then there’s the training suite. Whether you just want to learn the game mechanics or perfect the art of dismantling an opposing fighter, Tekken 8 offers a comprehensive suite of tutorials and practice scenarios.

The Training Mode provides a detailed move list for each character and allows players to adjust specific properties to simulate different in-game scenarios.

(Screengrab taken on PS5)

For instance, Punishment Training allows players to practice blocking and punishing specific moves. The casual player will most likely overlook a lot of the specific tweaks and customisation on offer, but for the more hardcore players and esports athletes, they will, in all likelihood, be a godsend.

As will the veritable trove of data and statistics on offer to accurately map out your playstyle and work towards altering it, maximising its potential or whatever else you want to do.

The ‘My Replay and Tips’ feature provides tips and suggestions on how to improve your performance based on replays. Players can save specific situations in practice mode to immediately retry them. What’s more, you can jump in at any point and take control of your character to work through any errors you’ve been making.

Now, as interesting as all of these modes are, Tekken 8’s pièce de résistance is the Super Ghost Battle that lets you fight against a ghost — an AI-created fighter based on your own playing habits and styles. This isn’t a new concept per se, but it became clear to me how well the game nails it when I saw first-hand how weak my own defence was, and thrashed my ghost. I’ll bet that’s not something you read every day.

(Screengrab taken on PS5)

Finally, if it’s a tiny bit of narrative you require in order to motivate you to get through a tutorial, there’s Arcade Quest — a perfect mode for beginners that lets you and your little avatar battle your way through arcades to win the biggest prize. This journey, incidentally, takes you via copious tutorials that further underline Tekken 8’s attention to microscopic details.

A full-spectrum fighting game

It isn’t as though this is the first time we’ve seen a fighting game that puts such an emphasis on learning how to play and eventually mastering it. However, it’s when you consider the depths to which Tekken 8 takes this and still manages to make the game entertaining and packed with all sorts of features, that you realise you’re onto a winner.

While Street Fighter 6 and Mortal Kombat 1 represented series reboots in different ways — the former embraced a semi-open world approach, and the latter went for a narrative reboot – the latest entry in the Tekken series doubles down on what it knows will work.

(Screengrab taken on PS5)

Further, this game demonstrates a refreshing readiness to showcase its lighter side amid all the serious stuff like extensive practice customisations, tutorial options and reams of data. This is most visible in Tekken Ball — a mode that sees fighters trade in kicks and punches for a volleyball that they proceed to smack at each other. This is the icing on the cake of a game that makes combat its centrepiece and curates all its content around it, rather than the other way around.

The bottom line is that Tekken characters will never be as famous as Ken, Ryu, E Honda and the rest of the Street Fighter crew and its depictions of brutal violence will pale in comparison to Mortal Kombat’s Sub-Zero separating an opponent from their spinal cord. However, when it comes to the pure agony, ecstasy and thrill of combat, neither of those two franchises comes close.

And with Tekken 8, developers Bandai Namco Studios and Arika have raised the bar for fighting games.