With a little more than a month left until its release, Tekken 8 receives its first public demo, allowing patient players to try the highly anticipated fighter. The last time I played Tekken 8 was during a very early closed test during this year's Combo Breaker. Since then, there have been many changes to the core system that have been for the best.
What surprised me the most was how similar everything felt despite how much of a different game Tekken 8 is shaping up to be. There hasn't been a polarizing game in the series that dared to be as bold since Tekken 4. Perhaps four is the magic number and by Tekken 12 we'll have a sandbox-style open-world MMO fighting RPG.
In Tekken 4, every character received an overhaul as expected from a major jump in game engines. What was once impossible during the 32-bit era was made possible and Tekken 4 was Director Katsuhiro Harada's way of exploring what new hardware could do. Every character received a similar overhaul with Tekken 8 running on the newest Unreal Engine 5.
Most characters had reused assets as far back as Tekken 5. In Tekken 8, there are new animations, dialogue, and a complete overhaul for others. If Tekken always flirted with the balance between realistic martial arts and theatrics, Tekken 8 is a Super Sentai-level spectacle. Jin's imbalance of his devil gene is shown through his animated attacks, Lars is somehow even more anime than he was in his debut, and Nina has guns.
Stages that were once simple and barren, with a wall and floor break gimmick sprinkled in, now have debris and other sections of the environment that can be interacted with. Of course, not to the level of Tekken 4, but with enough size and charm to feel like an entire level within itself rather than a mere arena.
The three levels available in the demo are the Sanctum, which remains the only stage to have an interactable stage alteration, Yakushima, the largest stage in the demo by far, and New York City. It's not called New York but the stage takes place in what is literally Times Square. Specifically, the red steps that many influencers and tourists visit. It's also the one stage where it feels the most dynamic, like Tekken 4's Shinjuku level.
While the first chapter of Tekken 8's story mode is available for players to experience, it is the arcade quest mode that is the bulk of the game's demo experience. In the full game, players will be able to customize their avatar, but for the Tekken 8 demo, players get to play a preset character that looks nothing like a high-level Tekken player whatsoever. This story is separate from Tekken 8's conclusion to the Mishima legacy, as Arcade Quest has a separate "meta" story.
Arcade Quest is a mode where players challenge other NPCs in arcades throughout a fictional city. The player character can be customized in the full game to the player's liking but for the Tekken 8 demo, we get someone who bears a resemblance to a pro Tekken player, Fergus. It could also just be pure coincidence. Arcade Quest's story revolves around the Tekken World Tour as the player rises to the ranks with the goal of winning the grand tournament. The reason why I said this story is "meta' is because the Tekken World Tour is a real tournament series that takes place during the year. The finals will take place in New Orleans a few weeks from now in January, for example.
Several topics come up in the dialogue, which includes topics of having a winning mentality and overcoming hurdles during the learning phase of fighting games. The CPU will do its best to play in a specific way that emulates "rookie" play. This includes becoming too predictable with attacks, using unsafe attacks, and other nuances. One NPC used Bryan and he kept repeating the same attack string over and over, which teaches players how to punish predictable unsafe moves. Even the venue is that of a traditional arcade in which players can talk to NPCs and be given advice. If Tekken 8's main story is the conclusion to the Mishima Bloodline, Arcade Quest is the story of the players who play the game.
Upon completing the Arcade Quest mode, players will unlock Super Ghost Battle. Using AI technology, the player can "spar" with the AI as it picks up on the player's habits, while also filling in any gaps as it goes along. The more the ghost is played against the player, the more it takes after them. This also helps in fortifying the player's options. If the ghost seems to struggle with punishment, the player will need to tighten up their missed opportunities. Eventually, the goal is to create a ghost that is a "one-to-one copy" of your habits until you become the "best version" of yourself. Sometimes, players don't have the luxury of training with others offline or with friends online, so having ghost data you can build over time that takes bits and pieces from your overall gameplay is ingenious.
Despite there being only four characters and four stages, Tekken 8's public demo is the best way for all to experience what I can assume to be close to the final build of Tekken 8 before it releases in January. Compared to when I last tried out the game at Combo Breaker, this build felt more put together. I understood the Heat mode a lot more now that everything was simplified. In Tekken 8, everyone starts the round with a full bar of Heat. Heat can be activated in two ways, through a Heat Smash which is an attack that can extend combos or can be used to apply neutral, and through a Heat Engager.
Every character has a unique set of moves that activates Heat mode on hit, giving the player frame advantage, and is the safest way to enter Heat outside of Heat Smash. While in Heat mode, Heat Engagers can be used as combo extenders, yet using them will end the remaining Heat mode time. The objective seems to involve making the most of your character's best traits and then cash out at the right time. With larger stages and more ways to go on the offensive, Tekken 8 is shaping to reward assertive gameplay.
This has been a very lengthy piece of coverage for something that's honestly only an hour or so of preview content at most. There are a lot of things to cover for fans and hardcore Tekken players to enjoy and the fun thing about fighting games is that the content never ends. A four-character demo with local multiplayer is more than enough for players to get hooked on "labbing" the game in advance. I'm looking forward to this new lease on life this longtime series has.
Tekken 8 will release on January 2024 on Steam, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5.