YMMV / Tekken 8

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• Accidental Innuendo:
  • The Heat System invites this, if only due to poor wording. While the name isn't bad in isolation, people quickly discovered that the most succinct way to refer to characters in the state, unfortunately, is that they're "in Heat." Outside of that context, it means something very different.
    Max: Jin is currently in Heat! (Max does an Eye Take at the camera) And running at his father Kazuya. ...Ugh!
    ThatBlastedSalami: The other thing that's a bit of a mystery is this orange glow while blocking moves when the opponent is in Heat. (cut to cat ears and a nose doodled over Jin's render to the sound of a cat yowling) ...And I don't think I'm ever going to get used to saying that.
  • The mechanics tied to the Heat System, the Heat Smash and Heat Dash do very little to help. Especially if you're familiar with the less formal definition of "smash and dash."
  • The first thing Reina says in her debut trailer is very easy to misunderstand out of context:
    “Try your hardest. Push me to my limit!”
  • And then there’s Xiaoyu’s battle intro quotes to Jin, whom she is in love with. Which of course has been interpreted in many ways.
    “Sometimes an exchange of blows can be revealing!”^* In story context, what she actually meant is that she wants to see if Jin has changed throughout the years of them being separated. In which, after they spar Xiaoyu comments that Jin is still the man she knew and loved. (Also, since Jin was told to return to his roots, Xiaoyu hoped that them sparring would help the process along.) However, due the tension between the two, and the fact that the word ‘blow’ which has been associated to something sexual is used, has led many fans to believe that Xiaoyu is referring to something way more than a fight.
• Best Boss Ever: The final boss of the Story Mode is widely considered the best reason to play it. In terms of story, it's a visual spectacle where Jin and Kazuya duke it out in some of the best-looking stages in the game coupled with some memorably-crafted cutscenes. Gameplay-wise, it's actually quite innovative and cinematic, especially as fighting games generally aren't known for having complex boss fights: the first fight's shtick is that you're playing as a special "boss" version of Jin, while Kazuya himself breaks out several brand new attacks and pulls multiple health bars out of his ass to keep the fight going. Meanwhile, the second fight involves Jin constantly changing his fighting style to reflect his Character Development, using his normal moveset, his original moveset from Tekken 3, Jun's moveset, and then all of them combined for the last round.
• Best Level Ever:
  • Urban Square. Basically the Tekken counterpart to Times Square with the sheer abundance of lights and spectacle that it entails. The stage looks especially amazing at night, towards the end of the match.
  • Yakushima is this game's answer to Mystical Forest from 6 and Infinite Azure from 7. Couple the serene backdrop with the amazing soundtrack and you have yourself a worthy training stage. That it's a particularly important location in the game's lore also helps.
  • Celebration on the Seine. Often referred to as Victor's stage, the open yacht shows a beautiful moving background of the city of Paris including the Eiffel Tower. The background also includes a scenic sunset as the city lights up as the rounds get darker. What helps the stage too is the amazing soundtrack, the climax version especially goes hard with the saxophone.
  • Fallen Destiny. An epic, atmospheric Battle in the Rain with a track that hits as hard as a Mishima's Electric and was the very first stage shown in the game's initial reveal trailer. Could you ask for anything more?
  • Into the Stratosphere. Only in Tekken can you fight on top of a meteor hurdling towards the Earth at terminal velocity without the fear of burning up on re-entry or hypoxia. And of course, it's still as awesome as it sounds. Having a unique stage gimmick in the form of the Floor Blast on the second half also helps.
  • Chapter 5 of Story Mode covers the first round of The King of Iron Fist Tournament, where players actually get to choose who to play as for five of the six matches (Steve Fox vs King II, Paul Phoenix vs Kuma II, Shaheen vs Sergei Dragunov, Yoshimitsu vs Bryan Fury, and Lili vs Azucena Ortiz), with the only exception being Jin Kazama vs Leroy Smith, where players have to fight as Jin.
  • Chapter 10 of Story Mode is The War Sequence between Yggdrasil and G Corp, a knock-down drag-out melee where players can fight waves of mooks one after another. Anyone who missed Tekken Force mode from previous games, or enjoyed Scenario Campaign from Tekken 6, will love this.
  • Chapter 15 of Story Mode is the Grand Finale that players have been hyped for since the first teaser: the Final Battle between Jin and Kazuya! Over the course of this bitter fight, Jin cycles through all of the fighting styles he learned throughout his life, from his modern take on karate to revisiting Mishima-style karate from Tekken 3, all the way back to the fundamentals of Kazama-style self-defense that he learned from his mother, shown in this bout by his taking Jun's fighting style from Tekken 2, then combines all of his styles together into a single unified style as "My Last Stand" plays in the background!
• Bonus Feature Failure: The lack of Character Episodes for DLCs like Eddy. Then again, this is a carry over from the previous game as far as DLC characters are concerned. However an upcoming Autumn update has rectified this with a new story mode involving Eddy and hopefully future characters.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: From the moment her reveal trailer came out, nearly everyone immediately deduced Reina was Heihachi's daughter. The story mode still presents it as a shocking reveal.
  • The reveal that she is a Devil isn't handled much better, as the game constantly gives her inner thoughts about how Jin unlocked his Devil, alongside her sudden and suspicious turn into a Death Seeker. By the time her red eyes and later, her full Devil form, are revealed, no one is surprised.
• Catharsis Factor: The game is essentially an "apology tour" of sorts in reaffirming Jin's place as the protagonist of the series, following his ill-received Face–Heel Turn. He's now depicted as an unambiguous hero who wants nothing more than to atone for his sins and those of the Mishima bloodline and undergoes a healthy amount of character development in doing so. This includes his reconciliation with his Devil Gene, now portrayed as a force for good, and the acceptance that he can now trust his allies to help him rather than going at his mission alone. All of this culminates in the final battle against Kazuya, where Jin reaffirms his desire to live after spending multiple games as near-suicidal due to his vengeance towards the Mishimas, and starts utilizing both his Kazama and Mishima fighting styles to ultimately defeat Kazuya.
  • On a lesser extent, having Azazel revert back to being the original progenitor after the frustratingly posthumous Hachijou Clan being out of reach and so many Red Herrings involving the Devil Gene is satisfying, especially when Kazuya defeats and absorbs Azazel, then finally being purified and destroyed once and for all by Angel Jin.
• Character Rerailment:
  • After having been a borderline Villain Protagonist ever since Tekken 6, the change in one of Jin's signature lines marks a turning point for fans of the character who had all but given up on his heroic side ever returning.
    Jin: (pre-Tekken 8) Power is everything!
    (Tekken 8) Strength isn't everything.
  • When Jun returned in Tag 2, most people believed that she had become more aloof, darker, and less pure, and the confirmation that she was one and the same as Unknown — even if only for Tag's particular continuity — did not help combat that interpretation in the slightest. The only flashes of her original personality were shown around Jin, either in their shared win pose or in her pre-match quote against him (where, for a measure of irony, Jun plays the role of Audience Surrogate by calling out her son for seemingly going astray and forsaking her teachings). In 8, she's been dialed back to be the pure-hearted lady that she was in 2 (the kind of mother Jin looked up to) and her new moves are basically light-themed spins on Unknown's attacks.
  • Ever since Kazuya's return in 4, he had been more defined by his cold-blooded evil personality, performing atrocities here and there with glee. This game brought back a few of his traits that were forgotten in favor of making him look more villainous:
    • In Tag 2, he looked like he had abandoned his relations with Jun, remorselessly absorbing Unknown (who is Jun) after defeating her, and laughing maniacally. This game brought back an aspect of Kazuya abandoned since Tekken 2 (and Kazuya's recap of that game in T6's Scenario Campaign): He still holds some form of respect for Jun, being surprised at her survival, without taking away the fact that he's still a cruel-hearted villain. ^note It should also be noted that in Devil's Tag 1 ending, he carried Jun away with a gentle Bridal Carry, which is also another characterization factor often eclipsed ever since Kazuya was portrayed to focus more on his evil side starting with T4. Also, while Kazuya kicks his opponent away after KO'ing with his Rage Art, he does not do so if he beats Jun in the same manner.
    • Back in the first game, Kazuya was listed to have a hobby of collecting sneakers. This was never brought up again ever since his turn towards villainy in 2, since it became irrelevant in his quest for evil and most likely served its purpose of misleading the players that he could be just a normal cookie-cutter fighting game protagonist. 8 reveals that he's amassed a huge collection of sneakers in a massive room just for occasional style changes, which means that even an evil man like Kazuya can still afford some non-evil hobbies.
  • Yoshimitsu's redesign in 7 was the subject of lots of ridicule for how strange it looked, giving him octopus-like tentacles and nothing resembling the ninja seen in the series up until then. His redesign in 8 calls back much more directly to his past appearances, now resembling his incarnations in 2 and 3 but with a more biomechanical look.
  • Ever since his introduction as a playable character, Devil Jin as a concept has represented who Jin could become if he ever gave in to the Devil Gene. However, he's been portrayed very inconsistently throughout his appearances, ranging from a feral berserker to Jin on a power high. Tekken 8 is the first game where Devil Jin, as a completely separate entity and personality from Jin himself, actually becomes a plot-relevant character. Up to this point canonically, Devil Jin has mostly been a Defence Mechanism Superpower, activating whenever Jin himself is unconscious to keep him alive and out of danger.
  • Most of the characters rendered Out of Focus in 7's story mode, such as Asuka, Lili, Xiaoyu, Paul Phoenix, Marshall Law, Kuma, Leo, Hwoarang, etc. are not only given much more substantial roles in 8's story mode, but are also more than just comic relief the way they were in 7 or even some past games - Xiaoyu in particular ends up shown actual respect from multiple characters and talks about her initial desires to help people after being flanderized for years as solely pining after Jin, Paul's old rivalry with Kazuya is being acknowledged again, Leo ends up assisting the heroes and their archaeologist father without being made a joke of in the previous game with Yoshimitsu, Asuka and Lili get to do more than simply being each other's Sitcom Arch-Nemesis, and pretty much every fighter gets their moment to shine in The War Sequence during Chapter 10, or in the Tournament Arc of Chapter 5.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: The most common characters one will face in the game's online modes are Jin, Reina, Victor, Dragunov, King and Jun. To break down their high usage stats:
  • Jin retains a well-rounded moveset with a lot of buffs to his reach, which was a noted weakness of his in prior games. He also boasts several new moves that make use of the Devil Gene, such as an evasive low claw swipe and a plus on-block dive kick from his Zenshin stance. Combined with a much lower skill floor than his previous versions, such as easy transitions into stance, as well as the ability to cancel that into a wavedash, granting easy access to his Electric Wind Hook Fists (avoiding the just frame timing altogether), players are given yet another beginner-friendly character to work with while veterans still have a deep character to experiment with.
  • Reina's moveset features many useful generic tools that are usable in different situations, with a few of them transitioning to either her Sentai or Heaven's Wrath stances to create highly oppressive offense, alongside standard fare Mishima techniques (wavedashing, Spinning Demon, Thunder God Fist, Wind God Fist, etc.). The generic tools give players something to work with and to ease the otherwise fierce learning curve associated with the Mishima gameplay.
  • Victor has a gimmick where any string that ends in a pistol shot will transition into his Iaido stance, where he can inflict all manner of hard-to-detect pain with its differing follow-ups. More skilled Victor players forego the tendency to abuse these strings, instead making liberal use of his powerful, long-ranged Highs and Mids, including some of the strongest Heat Engagers in the game, to really dish out the hurt. That's not even mentioning the abnormally small escape window on his generic throws (14 frames instead of the universal 20 - later corrected in a post-release patch).
  • Much like his previous incarnations, Dragunov possesses brutal frame advantage across the board to create utterly oppressive offense. His signature 'while running' 2—the Russian Hook Special—in particular now rewards veterans' pixel perfect timing with a 'blue spark' variant that's more damaging on hit or block. Among the additions to his toolkit are many more transitions to his 'Sneak' crouch dash, a potent new attack from said crouch dash in his Ignition Switch axe kick, and some of the most devastating wall ender damage in the game thanks to his new Snap Knee Assault wall throw (while running 4).
  • King benefits greatly from the system changes to throws, namely Counter Throws with their reduced escape windows, Punish Throws, which are guaranteed when done against a Power Crushing attack or to punish Rage Arts, and the homing property on throws, which prevents them from being sidestepped. This makes his already potent throw game that much scarier. Also worth a mention is his brand new Jaguar Dash, which gives him his own plethora of options, one being a Heat Engager throw—the RKO, which cannot be broken and must be evaded; opponents who anticipate this by ducking can be beaten out by the two safe mid options - one of which becomes a launcher during Heat. Speaking of Heat, forget about trying to interrupt King out of this stance when done during Heat, as he now gains Armored status during the animation. It's because of these reasons that King is popular to play as, on top of his general Ensemble Dark Horse status.
  • Jun returns with a modified iteration of her Tag 2 style, but now with a gimmick that takes advantage of the game's recoverable health mechanic. At the cost of a sliver of her heatlh, she can utilize various long-range, hard-hitting attacks, or amplify her existing ones to make them safer or hit harder. The health loss is a rather negligible price to pay, especially since it is still recoverable after each successful hit. Heat removes the health loss altogether, which synergizes well with the recoverable health regeneration from landing a Heat Engager.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • In this game, Kazuya gains a new move out of his crouch dash where he delivers a powerful straight punch that can pierce a hole in the opponent's chest. The move's name? Patricide Fist. That's the Mishima bloodline for you.
  • Just the fact that Kazuya calls out Jin on starting the war, while Kazuya himself is still continuing it. The sheer audacity of it is worth a chuckle.
  • Azucena siding with G Corp (i.e., the company led by a literal demon that's set on destroying the world)? Surprising. Shocking, even. Siding with them because they'll make great marketing for her family's coffee business? Hysterical.
  • One of the alternate designs for the ball in Tekken Ball is Azazel's core, the very same one that contains the power of the series' Greater-Scope Villain (and the one Zafina uses during her intros). Can't say Tekken doesn't know how to have fun with itself, at least.
• Evil Is Cool: Reina ended up becoming by far the most popular newcomer come release, and one of the most popular characters in general going by official polls, despite and perhaps because of her being a hot-blooded Dark Action Girl who serves as a successor to both her father Heihachi in personality, fighting style, and ambitions as well as Kazuya as the next Devil, with many considering her an adept way of filling in the void Heihachi left in the aftermath of Tekken 7. It's to the point that even Harada himself was surprised by her popularity.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Kuma's "Fresh Wind Bear Fist" is also referred to as "Electric Wind Bear Fist" and treated like the other Mishima "electric" even though the input is entirely different and doesn't even need "just-frame" execution.
  • "Mad Bryan: Fury Road" for Bryan Fury's ending, especially with Bryan commandeering a military convoy into the desert, featuring Paul, Marshall, and Hwoarang for good measure.
• Friendly Fandoms: The kinship between Tekken fans and Like a Dragon fans was lit yet again by virtue of this game and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth launching on the very same day.
• Genius Bonus: Eddy's intro and victory animations has him playing the berimbau, a traditional Angolan musical bow commonly used in Brazil, the berimbau is commonly associated with capoeira as it was almost used exclusively within the black community, and the use of the berimbau gained popularity after the popularization of capoeira.
• High-Tier Scrappy: Dragunov has quickly cemented himself as the most versatile and well-rounded character of the game's first season. Armed with an arsenal of brand-new devastating lows beyond just his dreaded d+2, high damage output, powerful strike-throw mixup game, and one of the most absurdly advantageous Heat Smashes of the cast on both block and hit, many consider this version to be the strongest he has ever been in any Tekken game, even eclipsing his powerful Season 1 incarnation from Tekken 7.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: When Reina was first revealed, people were naturally quick to speculate that she was Heihachi's daughter, but they also joked that she would inherit his trademark pointy hairstyle. Come The Stinger of the story, not only is Reina indeed Heihachi's daughter, her awakened Devil form sports said pointy hairstyle.
• I Knew It!:
  • Quite a few people figured that Jun would appear in 8 due to the end of 7 setting up the conflict between Kazuya and Jin, with Jun being a major character with connections to both of them.
  • Leroy Smith's appearance in Bloodline in 2022, despite it taking place during the events of 3, made everyone correctly guess that he would be brought back in 8 despite being a DLC character in 7.
  • Many fans expected Lili, Hwoarang, and Bryan to be announced at France's The MIXUP 2023, South Korea's PlayX4 2023, and USA's Combo Breaker 2023 respectively due to the game's closed alpha tests taking place during those events while also sharing those countries' spoken languages.
  • After Reina's reveal, many were quick to guess that she was one of Heihachi's illegitimate children, since Harada had confirmed that Lars was far from the only one he had. This was later confirmed as correct.
• Improved Second Attempt: Bandai Namco really had rough patches in delivering the Tekken story as of late, as 6 and 7 proved to be divisive as heck. But by 8, they are able to take note of where it went wrong back then and deliver a game that is not only mechanically good but also provides an impressive story. For starters, the Mishima conflict is back on full force, Jin is the main character again and undergoes Character Rerailment, the side characters have things to do within the conflict, and the reviled nameless reporter are nowhere to be seen.
• Iron Woobie:
  • Jin. Failing miserably fighting Kazuya even in his Devil form at the beginning, Jin never stops trying to atone for his crimes and purge his father and himself of the Devil gene. After defeating Kazuya, Jin comes to realize that he does have people who care about him and his well-being, eventually realizing what a fool he'd been for trying to reject and throw them away and coming to the decision that even if the world may be cruel, it's one that's worth living in and fighting for if it means his friends and loved ones will be by his side until the end.
  • His mother Jun also qualifies. Fresh out of a seven-year-long coma,, she works as hard as she can to stop her son and husband from killing each other, insistent that she can save both of them. Even as Kazuya insists that he's Beyond Redemption, she keeps trying. The only time her composure slips is when she has a beautiful dream of watching Kazuya and Jin spar together, not as devils at each other's throats, but as a loving father and son. But even after coming back to the cold, cruel reality, she rededicates herself to her cause, no matter how impossible it seems.
• Magnificent Bastard: Reina is the youngest child of Heihachi Mishima and seeks to avenge his death by Kazuya. Reina is the child to take the most from Heihachi and is a conniving schemer who worms her way into the 8th King of Iron Fist Tournament. Reina plays as a ditz in order to get close to Jin and discover how to activate the powers of the devil gene. Discovering from Jin that the powers activate in Mishima descendants through near-death experiences, Reina infiltrates his group and later puts herself into the path of Kazuya's attack to be reborn as the newest Devil.
• Memetic Mutation: Has its own page here.
• Narm Charm: Tekken has always been known for embracing itself as being so ridiculously silly that it becomes charming, but this particular installment is widely considered the peak of it all.
  • On one hand, the Big Badass Battle Sequence having UN and G-Corp forces rushing at each other to engage near-entirely in Good Old Fisticuffs is absolutely absurd, especially after games like 6 went out of their way to emphasize actual tactical combat between soldiers here or there. On the other hand, it's Tekken, where Charles Atlas Superpower and the ability to deal with guns like they're toys is practically standard affair, so the excess of barehanded battle is entirely in-character for this crazy universe.
  • Between how Jin's conversation with the Devil within looks like an anime scene of someone accepting their Superpowered Evil Side, Angel Jin looking like something out of Saint Seiya, and the battle between (Angel/Devil) Jin and Devil Kazuya looking like massive energy balls or beams throwing and taking place in the skies and eventually in the space which is not too out of place in Dragon Ball... The game is considered to be the point where the game goes 'full anime'—so absurd and yet such a great spectacle to behold while also embracing what makes Tekken... Tekken itself. Bandai Namco has allowed its Bandai side to influence Tekken in a good way.
• Older Than They Think:
  • While the Heat System takes cues from various other Comeback Mechanics in 2D fighters (notably V-Triggers and MAX Mode), a prototype of this mechanic existed in original arcade version of 7 with Claudio's Starburst mechanic. Like the Heat System, if Claudio connects certain moves on hit (Heat Engagers; sans the forward run), he'll gain a temporary buff to one of his next moves until they connect on the opponent, altering their properties in the process. On top of that, Claudio's Rage Drive would be the precursor to 8's Heat Dash mechanic; by holding forward after the second hit, Claudio dashes forward either to press his offense or to start/extend combos depending on how the move is used.
  • Kazuya's Arcade ending reveals his massive sneaker collection, which a lot of modern fans thought was out of character for him. Kazuya's collection of sneakers goes way back to Tekken 1 when it was stated as one of his hobbies.
  • Chip damage has existed in Tekken since all the way back in the franchise's Play Station days, functioning exactly the same as its counterparts from 2D fighting games. The key difference is that this was an optional setting that could be toggled on and off in the console versions' options menus, as opposed to the current built-in iteration that is tied with the recoverable health mechanic.
• Rooting for the Empire: Some players who were unhappy with Jin's actions in Tekken 6 were actively rooting for Kazuya to come out as the victor in their duel, claiming he's much less of a menace than his son since his atrocities did not cause millions to die. Making harsh but true points about who started the war and having what these fans felt was a better Freudian Excuse helps with their claims, though this argument also fell into accusations of Draco in Leather Pants from the other side considering the things Kazuya himself has done through the game, of his own volition, no less. This group likely would ignore Jin's Character Rerailment and Redemption Quest (which is basically the point of this game's story), either thinking that he doesn't deserve it or that whatever good or atonement he does will never be enough to cleanse his sins of initiating World War III. Of course, there's a third camp under the impression that, save for outliers like Jun, Asuka, Lars, and Lee, the entire Mishima blood feud has been a horridly bleak affair wherein none of its key players look good, feeling that the world would be better off if neither Kazuya nor Jin survived the game's events.
  • The two endings even reflect on this with whosoever wins the climatic final fight. If the player succeeds in getting Jin to defeat Kazuya, Jin is rewarded with hope for a place in the world he tried to destroy and may have started a romantic relationship with Ling Xiaoyu. If the player gets Jin to lose to Kazuya, the latter throws the former off a cliff to kill him as neither have their Devil powers anymore and decides to simply Take Over the World without them. In short, one can be tempted to let Kazuya win as he's more honest with how he simply intends to be a brutal dictator as opposed to how there doesn't seem to be a punishment prepared for Jin as he started World War III should he win.
• Self-Fanservice: Although Reina wears a jacket that covers most of her body except for her legs, a lot of fan artists have a tendency to have her jacket opened to reveal either a large bust or toned body underneath. With the release of the full game which has an unlockable outfit where her jacket is removed, it turns out they were correct.
• Spiritual Successor: The game giving players the option to customize playable characters into characters from other works is a vast improvement from Soulcalibur VI's "Create-A-Soul". When VI was at its peak, many players show off their CAS in both online battles and character creation guides. Tekken 8 took a step further, by using any of the mainline roster as template as opposed to a "create your own fighter" from scratch.
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • The game's initial trailer theme almost sounds like a remix of the Hidden Characters theme (which became Julia's theme in the console version) from Tekken 3. The theme carried over into the game proper as the Fallen Destiny official stage music.
  • In July of 2021, Youtuber BotanicSage created a mash-up called "Rules of Tekken", featuring Tekken 7's "Heat Haze Shadow" as the instrumental and "Rules of Nature" from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance as the primary vocal sample. Cut to almost three years later, and the theme song for Tekken 8, "My Last Stand", features both an instrumental similar to "Heat Haze Shadow", as well as vocals extremely similar to those found in Metal Gear Rising.
  • The climax version of Midnight Siege's theme has a direct callback to Tekken 1's Kyoto theme. Fitting as it's composed by Shinji Hosoe, one of the original PSX era composers who made several iconic tracks for games including the Street Fighter EX series.
• Tainted by the Preview:
  • The Heat System and Harada's insistence on the game's increased focus on aggression raised some concerns. Namely, Harada raised the argument that two players at a high level not opening each other up would be boring for spectators to watch, which, as a few people pointed out, is false. If anything, the inverse is considered to be boring because fights get repetitive if all there is to watch is close-range poking and forced 50/50 mix-ups (which the Heat system seems to enforce). That goes against what makes Tekken special — especially to longtime fans — in the first place: movement and defense.
  • Tangentially related to the above, while many characters received various Anti-Frustration Features regarding their movesets, a fair bit of that came at the expense of execution, which in itself is a rather hot-button topic among Tekken players (and the FGC in general). Most notably, Law's Dragon Sign Stance (DSS for short) stance cancels were simplified from a back to double forward (e.g., 4,3~b,f,f in Tekken notation) to just holding forward (i.e., 4,3~F), causing no shortage of uproar among veteran Law players. On top of that, while he still retains his classic Slide input^note while crouching df,d,DF+3, the move can now be done at a comparable speed to older instant slide inputs by going into DSS manually (d+1+2) and simply pressing df+3 immediately after, removing the need to practice doing the input instantly. For some on the opposite end, it's not so much a matter of execution, but rather when to use these moves and transitions (not unlike fellow 3D fighter Virtua Fighter), since they argue that's just as important (if not more so) than locking such an essential part of Law's gameplan behind an execution barrier.
  • Some players felt that the visuals shown in the Game Awards trailer were downgraded from the initial State of Play trailer. The thing is, however, the latter had a completely different lighting situation compared to the footage shown in the former (which Maximilian goes into more detail about here). Never mind that Harada stated that all character models were redone from the ground up, which is readily apparent when you compare Law's appearance from 8 to 7.
• That One Boss: Chapter 6 brings back a nasty blast from the past: Azazel. He's been nerfed slightly since Tekken 6, but he can still lock you into all of his extremely punishing attacks and even has a new rage art that will decimate most of your health if you don't block in time. Thankfully you get to take control of a supped up Kazuya for this fight that has many final boss tier moves, so it's a more even fight than it looks. (Also, in a curious first, Azazel can be wall-splatted, which wasn't doable before since his Tekken 6 stage was infinite.) The Arcade Mode variant on the other hand has no such benefit, and will be much more akin to fighting him in his debut.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Many fans feel this way about Yoshimitsu and Bryan Fury in the story mode, with the two's presence in the story being limited to their fight with each other during the first round of the tournament in Chapter 5, making them the only characters in the entire base roster to not get involved with the game's main plot. This is especially egregious considering that the game's intro shows both of them actively participating in the war sequence. The Season 1 new story rectifies this by featuring Yoshimitsu as at least a supporting character for Eddy, which hopefully explains his absence in the main story aside from the tournament.
  • Despite Asuka being more relevant to the story than in the past two games, her relation with Jin isn't further explored, despite her seeing her family tree and finding out she's part of a branch line.
  • Leo and Steve are allied with Yggdrasil during the war, yet they don't bring up their relationship with Emma Kleisen, which would have been a Commonality Connection between the two of them. For that matter, Steve has no story-based interaction with his mother Nina despite both characters being on opposite sides during the war, with Reina being the one to fight Nina during the final battle instead, while all Steve gets to do is fight G-Corp soldiers and Jack-7s to distract Dragunov so that Victor can get the drop on him.
  • Zafina and Claudio are both set up to be the most proactive members of the Yggdrasil team alongside Jin and Xiaoyu to take down Kazuya, but are both quickly taken out of the story early on without so much as a fight between them and their enemy. Zafina gets it worse as she is immediately taken captive by Devil Kazuya as soon as the two enter the colosseum, and is quickly disposed of right after he takes her powers. Claudio fares slightly better as he manages to use his exorcism powers to attack Devil Kazuya, which, while managing to cause Kazuya to retreat, leaves Claudio incapacitated for the rest of the story.
  • Once again, the DLC characters. Even if they didn't appear in the main story, it would've been nice to have their own Character Episodes and see their own closures even if they're not canon.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Of all the characters who appear in the Story & Gameplay Teaser Trailer, Jun Kazama finally reappears in the mainline series after her fate had been left in question 25 years earlier in Tekken 3. ^note Discounting her return in Tekken: Bloodline, a loose adaptation of 3, her last playable appearance was in Tekken Tag Tournament 2, which was released in 2012. Even those who recalled Harada once stating that it'd be unlikely for Jun to return in a canonical installment unless it was to provide closure to Jin's character arc weren't expecting him and the dev team to actually follow up on it.
  • Raven (not his superior Master Raven, who took his place in the last game) coming back was a surprise for many to be sure. For those who saw Master Raven as an inferior replacement to the original, it's an especially welcome one.
  • In the story mode, Azazel, the Greater-Scope Villain and main target of Jin in 6 briefly returns, a surprise given his role in the story was apparently over and not particularly well received.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Tekken 8 is a massive jump in quality over the previous game. From the delicate details like each droplet of rain gently falling down Kazuya's face to the debris below Jin after he gets knocked down, this game does feel like a fighting game made for the Ninth Generation of consoles. As Maximilian Dood put it:
  Max: Tekken doesn't look like a 10-year-old game anymore, what—what the *bleep*?!?
• WTH, Costuming Department?:
  • While most of the characters' new appearances were received well, the one that caught some flak was Asuka's new outfit. To many, her baggy school outfit and cap make her look even more childish than before, even compared to the Sailor Fuku she wore in previous games. After Asuka's reveal, Harada would confirm that her past costumes would also be included in-game, alleviating some of the concern about her default outfit.
  • Paul's new look was also met with derision, mostly for trading out his Polnareff-style hightop for a new style that resembles a stereotypical middle-aged woman's hairstyle (aka a "Karen"). The rest of his outfit isn't much better, with far too many accessories such as kneepads over his jeans, a bandana hanging from his neck, and a random rope hanging from his arm. Some fans immediately began to draw comparisons with Ken's redesign in Street Fighter 6, with many people coming to the conclusion that Paul was going to be even more washed-out than he was in some past titles. Some even questioned why they didn't follow the fourth game's lead and simply have Paul wear his hair down without any alterations. Notably, the same costume showcase that revealed Asuka's classic costumes also confirmed a remastered version of Paul's hightop is available with his alternate presets.
  • Lee’s outfit for 8 has largely been criticized for removing his Sharp-Dressed Man tendencies in favor of an overly designed combat outfit. With the huge goggles he’s wearing makes Lee look like he spent too much money on snowboarding gear rather than the playboy martial artist he is.
  • An ongoing criticism of the game in general is the customization system's sparseness, with characters having only a single costume from Tekken 7 (or 2 or 6 for Jun and Raven, respectively) alongside their Tekken 8 costumes, and some of the more iconic costumes from their past appearances are missing entirely, the implied return of Costume Swap only applies to a few characters, and any and all character outfits are now full body costumes.
  • The above got even more polarizing when they announced the Tekken Shop, with highly sought costumes like Jun's Tag 2 costume being sold at a premium, alongside other character avatars. The majority of the fanbase were furious that the developers sold the game at a premium and were now effectively selling content they should have included as part of the price.
  • While Eddy Gordo being the first DLC character was a very much welcomed addition after being left out in the initial roster, there were quite a few fans who were against his new hairstyle, nicknamed the Killmonger Hair, named after the villain who sported such one. The main reason was because many dark-skinned male characters afterwards in various media started having the hairstyle, to the point that fans started to become sick of it.