It’s been almost 30 years since the original Tekken burst into arcades to face off against Sega’s Virtua Fighter and kickstart a decade-long battle for fighting supremacy. Arriving on PlayStation, the game’s smooth, detailed 3D visuals, arresting characters and accessible control system brought a new generation of fans to the fighting game genre, and subsequent instalments have built on those solid credentials, although not always with the same impact. While Tekken 7 was subtle step forward rewarding committed players, Tekken 8 feels like the first iteration in a long while to truly up its ambitions and entice newcomers. The result is a thrillingly vibrant video game.
For the uninitiated, Tekken 8 is the latest in a series of fighting games by arcade legend Namco, in which a group of gloriously ostentatious warriors compete to win the King of Iron Fist tournament in one-on-one battles in an enclosed arena. Players fight against successively tougher computer-controlled opponents in Arcade and Story modes or against each other in local or online Versus bouts.
Unlike 2D fighting games such as Street Fighter, characters can circle each other rather than just moving on a 2D plane, adding a sense of depth. The combat system is very different too. Tekken uses four buttons, each controlling a different limb, so the basic move set is two kicks and two punches, while pressing two together accesses throws. Button presses can be chained into sequences to access more powerful combinations (combos), with both short and long direction presses on the analogue stick or D-pad adding extra force. Tactics range from prodding at opponents with quick jabs and kicks to wear defences down to getting them into the air and juggling them like a demented circus performer.
Each fighter has their own style, combining genuine martial arts with quasi-magical attacks. There is a ridiculous backstory about the warring Mishima family who are sort of like the Roys in Succession, but with a lot more wrestling and throwing each other into volcanoes. One of the characters in the game is a giant panda. That’s pretty much everything you need to know.
If it sounds like a relic from a bygone era, it both is and isn’t. Tekken 8 is a graphical and technological marvel, its 32 characters lustrously detailed, intricately animated and crammed with personality and swagger. There are veteran combatants such as rogue American street fighter Paul Phoenix and psychic wildlife protection officer Jun Kazama (returning after a long absence), as well as three newcomers Victor, Reina and jittery coffee fiend Azucena. All look and feel incredible: Nina Williams in her tasselled violet dress, Sergei Dragunov with his high-heeled biker boots, monstrous cyborg Jack-8 sporting those pulverising extendable fists.
With such a large roster, characters can feel samey, but there’s real diversity here, so you could be scorching through the air as jet-powered bishōjo android Alisa Bosconovitch, or doing Zafina’s creepy tarantula crawl. Combos get spectacular light shows of flames, and pulsating energy waves. The sound effects are a delight too with bone-crunching thuds or whiplash snaps accompanying every move. The sheer nuclear force of a King Suplex or a Lee Chaolan kick to the jaw reverberate from the speakers like some insane Shaw Brothers fight scene on max volume.
Vital to the success of Tekken 8 are two brand new features: Heat and Arcade Quest. Accessed via the right shoulder button the Heat system supercharges your fighter for a short period, giving them devastating Smash moves while also ensuring regular attacks do damage even when the opponent is blocking. Heat can only be accessed once in a bout however, so it’s all about timing: do you trigger it early for a dominant start, or save it as a sort of “get out of fail” card for when you’re being pummelled?
In the latter situation, Tekken 8 also uses a new take on the Rage system introduced in Tekken 6, which adds extra power to your moves when your health falls below a certain point. In this game, you also get to use your character’s Rage Art, a spectacular super special move that devastates your opponent. My favourite so far is Bryan Fury’s absolutely pulverising flurry of mega punches culminating in a laser-guided haymaker that could thwack the moon out of orbit. While Rage is not quite the Mario Kart Blue Shell of fighting sims, it still imbues you with a never-say-die attitude that can see bouts being thrillingly flipped in the dying seconds.
Then there’s Arcade Quest, a sort of narrative role-playing tutorial mode. You create an avatar then travel around coin-op palaces battling non-player characters who give you hints and encouragement, training you in key moves and combos as you go. Winning bouts and beating specific challenges unlocks new items and rewards, making this a really fun, highly effective way to learn.
It’s also a nice preview of the online multiplayer mode which lets you take your avatar into a vibrant hub world known as the Fight Lounge (which sounds like a lot of clubs I’ve been to), meeting other players and challenging them to duels. There’s a chat system, and there are places to customise your character or indulge in lighthearted games of Tekken Ball, the game’s answer to volleyball. I love the attempt to recall the feel of arcades during the 1980s and 1990s, with a strong emphasis on friendly competition and companionship. Indeed, Tekken 8 producer Michael Murray has called it “a love letter to arcade culture”.
As someone who has played Tekken since 1995, who once smashed a PlayStation controller to pieces trying to beat Kazuya Mishima in Tekken 2 and who, as a young games journalist, often found himself in the Official PlayStation Magazine games room taking countless screenshots of Yoshimitsu’s Helicopter Stomp, Tekken 8 is an orgiastic pleasure. It is both familiar and new, eccentric and intuitive, and it does what all great fighting games do: it makes you feel incredible when you pull off an elusive series of moves to almost balletic effect. Tekken used to be dismissed as a showy poser by Street Fighter and Virtua Fighter veterans, its combos seen as over-automated and inexpressive. But later Tekken titles have added subtle layers of complexity, and now Tekken 8 wants everyone to see how that works.
The King of Iron Fist tournament is calling. It is time, once again, to answer.
• Tekken 8 is out now
