Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Tekken 8 Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: January 23, 2024

Let's review Tekken 8 with Bless and some special guests. Follow Chris Scullion: https://twitter.com/scully1888 Follow Mitchell Saltzman: https://twitter.com/JurassicRabbit Run of Show - - Start - Housekeeping - Tekken 8 Review - Mitchell Saltzman’s Thoughts - Chris Scullion’s Thoughts - What Makes Tekken 8 Stand Out? - Super Ghost Battles - Current Mains & Who is OP?! - Biggest Criticisms? - Who is this game for? - Final Thoughts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to the kind of funny games cast. Only one smoke machine. We had two this morning. It's going back and forth because we had one yesterday, right? Yeah, man. What's happening? I don't know what's going on out here. Hear up, little guy.

I'm having a tough time. Of course, I am Tim Geddes. Today I am joined by the new face of video games blessing at AOEA Jr. Good afternoon, Tim. Of course, we are reviewing a fighting game today. We're talking about tech and eight. So we have to go back to our very good friend, Mitchell Saltman from IGN. And what's up everyone?

What up? Rounding out the group today for the first time on Kind of Funny, correct? Yes? Yep, absolutely. Chris Scolian from VGC. We've been fans of him forever. We talk about him all the time on Kind of Funny Games Daily. Welcome to the show, Chris.

It's an absolute pleasure to be here. I love Kind of Funny Funny. So I'm delighted to be making my debut. Yeah, you're one of the names that I mentioned the most on Kind of Funny Games Daily. Whenever we have new stories that come out of VGC, it's always you and Jordan Midler are the ones that come up. And then sometimes Andy Robbins. But then, yeah, you guys are Reck of Valentine, but there are names that are always recurring, and I think your name, Chris, is one of the names I say the most.

But also, I want to give you a shout out because I have your book at home, the Nintendo 64 compendium, which is basically like an encyclopedia of every Nintendo 64 game. And for me, as somebody who loves the Nintendo 64, I just pick it up every now and then I just look through. And it's fucking awesome. That's so damn, cool, man. So, yeah, like I was saying, this is the kind of funny games cast. Each and every week we get together to talk about video games, all the things that we love about them. If you love what we do, please support us with the kind of funny membership on Patreon or YouTube to get all of our shows ad free. You can watch us record them live and you get a daily exclusive show.

You can get Gamescast for free with ads and without the exclusive content on YouTube and podcast services around the globe. Thank you to our Patreon producer Delaney Twining. Today we're brought to you by Drafking Sportsbook, but I'll tell you about that later. We got to get into it. The Renaissance of Fighting Games. The Golden Age of Fighting Games? Is that fair to say? Is upon us?

Blessing. It is. We got Street Fighter 6 last year. Yep. We got Mortal Kombat 1 last year. We're starting the year off right, hopefully, with Tekken 8. I want to know, are we started it off right? I want to start with you as the lead reviewer, kind of funny.

What do you give Tech and 8 on the kind of funny scale? On the kind of funny scale, I'm going to give TechN 8 a 5 out of 5, which I believe on a, like, on a day one review for a fighting game is the first time, at least in the last year I've given. a game of five out of five. I think for me, Street Fighter six was one where I let off with a four out of five. And then over the year, I was like, man, okay, I would actually give it a five out of five if I can go back and change my score. And the Moral Combat One, I gave a four out of five. Tech and eight for me, I, so to give context of like where I'm at and how much I played of it, I platinum the game, which for Tekken, like, Tekin typically are easier platyms, right? But that's also just how much I really enjoyed and wanted to dig into every single aspect of the

game. I played about almost 20 hours or so, right? So with all of that, I guess the place for me to start off would be the story. I think the story mode is really, really awesome. They stepped it up this time around with Tekken 7. I had my own critiques of like, okay, man, I don't like what they're doing with some of the narration stuff. Like, it feels like it's almost there in a lot of aspects, but didn't fully live up to what I would have wanted out of tech and story mode. TechNate feels like they've heard all the feedback. They've also looked toward other fighting games.

It feels like they're taking a lot of cues from something like Mortal Kombat and giving you this big cinematic experience with a story. that is doing justice to the characters, but also just feels bombastic and full of energy and really fun to navigate through. One of the things I wanna shout out is the Tekken 8 story being focused in on the conflict between Jin and Kasia and like the Mishima family.

That's like the thing that all Tekken games kind of revolve around. Going into Tekken 8, I was a bit like, oh man, like I wish we can get a bit more of all the characters in here. I wish we could maybe do chapters on like another character, like, you know, have it be more of a,

let's explore other characters as opposed to just the Misha, Mishma family. By the time I got to the end of the story mode, I was like, you know what? I think they actually had a really great job with, you know, having the center of the story be, this Jin versus Kasia conflict, but then looping in other characters to play support in a way that didn't feel like we are all focused in on just these two. I think they do a really good job of incorporating the rest of the cast, let alone, um, having, uh, these mid fight moments that turn Tekken 8's story mode from just a, all right, here's a cutscene, now fight.

Here's another cutscene, now fight. They have mid-fight cinematics and mid-fight slowdowns and camera changes and moments that add to the hype. It is some of those Tim Getty shit I've ever played in my life. I can't wait. Yeah. You sold me in already, and I think I'm about to be sold even more through the duration of this show. Yeah. When I was at the preview event about a month and a half ago, I remember texting you being like, yo, just think, think moral combat.

Like what we get out of those story modes, like Final Fantasy cutscenes. That's kind of the direction here that they're taking. And I think they nail it in so many aspects. but yeah, I really, really dug the story. I dug the story so much that I went back and I watched like recaps of the rest of the tech and game stories just to like refresh myself and re-experienced a lot of stuff,

which they have available in the game. Did you do that before playing or did you do that after playing? I did it after. I kind of wish I did it before because it gave really good context to like how we got here. I like, I knew the tech and story loosely, but going back and in the videos that they have in the game itself. That's so cool.

Yeah, which is really cool, watching each of them in order. and kind of being like, all right, yeah, we started here, then you had a hiachi, and you had this happen, and kind of getting the full context of where we're at with Tekken and then looking at the story. I think they did a really good job of taking the story seriously and then just continuing it and having it be a feature-looking thing. You know, that's one of the things with Moral Kombat that I kind of go both ways on of, you know, Mortal Kombat one was this, we're going to go back in time, and we're going to re-contextualize all these things you know and do the fan service and, like, you know,

give you Scorpion and give you some zero, but now they're in different roles and all that stuff. Tekken 8 is very much like, hey, we're continuing the story, and we're taking it seriously, and like, we're hopefully going to get you invested in this story that's already ongoing, and where they land with it. I'm like, yeah, I can't wait for where they go with the next game. Real quick, then. So obviously, I've played Tekkins before, like, loosely, like, just for fun. Like, the story is something I do not know at all.

You're selling me on this. I'm very excited to jump in specifically for the story mode. If they have all of the previous story stuff available in the game, is that, like, accessible from the jump? and how long is all of that? It's not that long. Basically, if you go into the game's gallery mode, they have just all the stuff like selectable,

just movies you can watch, you know, get the recap. I don't remember if it was accessible from the start. I'll be surprised if it's not. Like, that seems like stuff you would have accessible from the start. I don't know if, um, uh, Chris or Mitchell, uh, remember.

But yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. Okay. So there you go. Yeah. Uh, and it's not that long. Like,

it's probably a full, maybe 15 minutes if you watch all of them. It's also not that deep. Like it doesn't go through like the entire nitty gritty of Tekken story. Like some games, it very quickly moves through because not that much happens within them. Just know, know that the Mishimas are a family. They like dropping each other into volcanoes. And, you know, stuff happens.

Basically like at some point in the Tekken story, each of the Mishima's win. Like that's like basically the thing. But yeah, like the story I thought was really, really cool. But then moving on from that, I want to give a big shout out to the, arcade quest mode, which is essentially this mode where you have these, they look like the Xbox avatars, but like these Xbox avatar versions of yourself that you make, that you then go into an arcade and you are basically working your way up the ranks where you start off at the local arcade and you go to other arcades and you fight other people and then you're leveling up until

you get to like the Tekken World Tour and then you win the whole thing, right? It's like a very, it's a short mode that I think is really cool as a tutorialization. They do a really good job of teaching the mechanics of this game. And let me tell you, the mechanics of this game, what they do on top of, to level up where they were at with the previous tech and stuff, I really like it. And I'm really curious to hear what Chris and Mitch

I have to say about it, because they've added in a new system called the Heat System, which is an additional meter that basically opens up a lot of your moves set, where it is there are certain moves that you can do to activate heat. And so, like, for me, I played a lot of this character, Victor. And I press forward square and triangle at the same time with Victor, he'll like bust out a sword, and it is like this big

kind of hit, and it activates my heat mode where that meter starts to run out, and during that time, I believe I do more damage, but then also I have like more moves available to me, like my moves set changes just a little bit. But also in that time, right, like if I press R1, like the heat activation button, I have like a special combo that I can do, and a lot of these moves take up parts of that meter as well. And so it just changes a lot of the strategy, let alone like also when your heat is activated, you do chip damage when people are blocking, which usually isn't the case in Tekken. But you do chip damage and then like parts of your opponent's health bar is like kind of

it's like transparent and so they can work that health back. It's another additional layer to the strategy of what's going on that in my opinion makes things a lot more complex than they were in Tekken 7, but also just a lot more over the top and like a lot more like cinematic and cool. There's so many things that are happening when you're watching a fight in this game that just feel big and just feel like, oh, snap, like you are going for flare. You're going for hype here. And I think they nail it in so much of that stuff. But I've been having such a blast with Tekken.

I'm going to be a Tekken sicko probably for the next year or so. I'm going to keep playing. But yeah, I want to hear what the other folks have to say. Yeah, Mitchell, did you review this for IGN? I did not review it. So Ronnie Barrier is taking this review. At IGN, we have a rule where if you can beat me. me in a fighting game. You get to review that fighting game. Ronnie can beat me in Tekken 8. So he took,

no, I'm just kidding. That's not true. But he is, he is probably better than me at Tekken. So I think he's, he's well equipped for, for this review. What did he give it? I believe he's giving it a nine. If he's not, then something happened in the editing process and he either knocked it down or knocked it up. What would you give it on the IGN scale? I would also probably give it a nine. I think Blessing really really hit all the, sorry, this hand, Blessing really hit all the main points. The way I like to describe it is if you think of the Mortal Kombat story mode as like a AAA blockbuster kind of take on fighting game story, this is like the AAA anime blockbuster take on fighting game.

It's just like crazy, crazy power-ups, mid-match transformation. to take you into like a new phase of the fight that you know there's certain moves that you can hit and when you hit them like the camera will like shift and you'll hear like a little special quote that you wouldn't you wouldn't hear if you didn't use that move just a lot of really really cool touches in the story mode and I think it it actually you know it is very much like the the nether realm's nether realm style but it's kind of a different twist on it and some of the twists that they do I think are actually for the better Centering the story around Jin makes it a more, like, comprehensive, I think, story as opposed to like, okay, now we're on the Sub Zero chapter. Now we're on the Lukaang chapter. Now we're on the reptile chapter. It's really nice to have that central character that you can focus on. And, you know, you kind of, you miss that element of getting to play as a lot of the other characters early on, but it makes up for it later. I don't want to spoil it, but there's a really cool moment where you get to play as like all the other characters. in like, you know, in a way that you would expect.

And you can choose which character you want to play. It's just really, really cool. They mix things up really, really, really well in this mode. And then the arcade quest is like, what if Pokemon but Tekken? It's like, it's the entire world is all about Tekken. So you go from like, what if Pokemon to arcade? The Poked? No, not really.

I guess it's already been done. But it's more like the. Pokemon story arc. It's like you start off not knowing anything. You have like a friend who gets you into Decken. He ends up kind of becoming your rival. And then you go from like arcade to arcade, basically challenging like the gym leader of that arcade. That's a good way to describe it actually. I didn't even think about that. Y'all are selling me on this so hard. I can't wait for you to get to it. They have like two really, really good story modes and most fighting games don't have one. Yeah. And I get to the tutorialization of it. Like I think they just do a really good job of

like spoon feeding you like these combos and these techniques that even for me as somebody who I played a lot of Tekken 7 right like a Tekken 7 I also platinum but I played like I don't know like 80 hours at least of Tekken 7 and it took me a while to like get to a level of comfortability where I'm understanding

how everything works and all that I think because there's a bit more a little bit more complexity in Tekken 8 compared to some of the previous stuff they do a great thing where every chapter of arcade quest they're like all right now here like what we're looking at right now right here's heatburst and here's how this works all right here's launching and here's a combo that you can launch into and i am already in teckin eight doing way more advanced combos i think i ever did in teckin seven because arcade quest does such a

great job of making it easy to understand how to do it dang yeah that's very cool mitchell yeah i was just gonna say uh the only reason why i feel like i'm at nine is because i just there are elements of Tekin's core gameplay that just don't resonate that well with me. I'm always going to be more of a Street Fighter fan. I'm always going to be more of a 2D fan. But if I felt the same way about Tekken as I do about Street Fighter, this would probably be a 10 for me. Just because of like all the different ways that it really elevates the fighting game kind of genre,

which is stuff that we haven't even gotten into yet. And I'm sure we'll get into later. All right, Chris, let's get you off the bench here. VGC has a five-star scale. Are you reviewing it for VGC? I am indeed, yes. Why are you giving it? On the VGC scale, I will be giving it a five.

I think it is fantastic. I love fighting games, but I wouldn't call myself like an expert. I'm not like a member of the fighting game community or anything, but I've been around long enough, like I was 12, 13 when the first Tekin came out and loved the PlayStation 1 Tekins. I kind of dropped, as it got more serious, I kind of dropped off. a bit, but this has absolutely pulled me straight back in again.

The story mode is nonsense in the best possible way. And again, as someone who hasn't been keeping track in the last couple of games, it was very easy to get into the story of the new game without having I didn't watch the videos beforehand,

but it was quite easy to get a grip of what was going on and get engaged in the new storyline, so I wouldn't be concerned about that. Some of the the stuff and story. But my wife was sitting next to me on the PC while I was playing on the TV and she kept

turning around saying, what is going on? Because you could just hear absolute nonsense going on in the background. And it's amazing. Some of the of the fact that Tekin takes itself so seriously but it's so ridiculous at the same time. There's moments where like King

who, for those who don't know, is just a guy with a big tiger mask on his head, just stops at one point and everyone talks their own language which I thought was quite interesting. Everyone is like multilingual. So someone who could be speaking in French to someone speaking in German and they both completely understand what they're saying. But at one point, King will go, rah, rah, rah, rah. And subtitles will say something pretty serious.

And everyone will say, yeah, that's right, King. I love what they did that for Panda too. And I was fucking dying. We're like, Panda says something in their subtitles. And I'm like, what the fuck is going on here? That's awesome. And everyone understands him like R2D too. They're like, yeah, that's right.

But yeah, so that's The story mode's amazing The thing is there's actually three story modes Which I love so you've got the story mode You've got the arcade quest mode And then every character has their own kind of five match story mode Which is the thing I love the most Because as far as I can remember

The recent Tekans have taken that out And the thing I loved about the original Tekins One, two and three Particularly was that every character had their own ridiculous ending Kind of CG ending And some of them were just nonsense And that's come back here in a big way, like Laws ending

without spawning is insane. So all 32 characters have their own short kind of five-match arcade mode essentially where they have their own CG ending and some of them are just magnificent so that adds another 160 kind of single-player

matches that you also have to play through to see everything. So as as a mainly single-player gamer I'm not great at multiplayer because I don't know if you guys have the same issue when you play so many different games and so many genres. You get really good at a lot of games, but never master any.

Oh, yeah. So yeah, I can't play stuff like tech in online a lot because I'll just get destroyed. So I'm very much a single player fighting game fan. And much like Mortal Kombat 1, as opposed to Street Fighter 6, there's so much single player stuff in here that I'm just absolutely delighted with it. The three of you just

like, boom, boom, boom, boom, sold me on this so much. Like, Chris, especially what you just said, that's how I feel. Like, I am such a single player fighting game guy like I am not good at all but I love him I love the idea and I love the story modes and all that and like this really sounds special like are you surprised blessed at how this all came together are you like oh no this is the natural progression of tecan I think it's the natural progression but it's also the thing of there are so many places where you could mess up or you could fuck it up

and like I think because texan seven was so good and like there are so many things where okay if they didn't nail it they almost nailed it here it's like oh we know it exactly what we need to do and it feels like it's such a slam dunk in every element. Like you talk about, you know, being a, being somebody who's a single player, the fighting game person or not being somebody who can like play Tekken for hundreds and hundreds of hours, right? So you're having like a limited skill ceiling. They're speaking to those people as well because like they have the, so we know when

Street Fighter Six when that came out had the modern controls and that was a big thing. That was a big piece of marketing that they had. Tekken has the same thing where they have a thing called special style that you can turn on and off with just the press of a button, which is cool. Like mid-match, you press 0-1. You switch to special style, and they put up, like, this little box that has controls, where it is, I believe Square is there a special move, triangle. If you keep hitting triangle, we'll do an air combo.

Circle will do a low attack slash grab, and then X will do like a power crush. And it becomes such a simplified move set. And the other day I was playing against Jordan Midler from Video Games Chronicle. And he was playing using special style. And I'm fighting against him. And I'm like, for him, it's great because it's like, cool. I don't know this character. So I'm going to use special style and be able to play competently.

And for me, it was great because I'm like, cool. If, because he's playing well, I am having fun as somebody who is using like the regular style. And I'm, you know, I'm looking for a fight. I'm looking for a match. And so it was really, I think it's great for all parties involved in that way. And I especially love it because one of my, one of my small complaints for the Mortal Kombat One story mode is that whenever you switch to a new character, it's always this awkward thing of, let me press start. Let me look at the controls. Let me start to understand how this character goes.

And then like two matches later on the next one, it's like, all right, let me. me press start let me look at the buttons all right this is how this character does it in um the story mode for teckin i am i'm not a gin player like j i have not really somebody who enjoys the way jinn plays in tecun eight i am way more into victor i am into alissa who i've been into like past tecans as well um but like there's a roster of characters there around i'm like oh i like this person this person this person jinn i'm like ah jinn's a little bit basic for me uh but uh as i'm playing the story mode because the special style is there where it's like all right i'm playing the way i usually play Oh man, all right, like I have more of a more complex opponent here.

Let me switch on special style and just have fun. That works so well and made me appreciate it and love story mode. I think even way more than if it was just, hey, play using the regular controls. I think on top of that too, right? Like I think this game has such a very approachable level to it. Where tech and I think has always been this game where if you mash buttons well enough, you can do combos, you can pull stuff off, right? That's me.

Circle. Eddie Gordo. Yeah. God, don't even start on Eddie Gordo. I love them. And I love their doing DLC with them. But yeah, I think Tekken is fun that way, and I think they maintain the fun that way. But yeah, special style, adding that has raised that even more.

And then also having the heat system where it is, you press R1 to activate it. And then you press R1 again, you do a cool combo automatically. And then there's the rage system where if you'd get low enough on your health, you press R2, you do an ultimate move. Like, there are so many things that you can do as a regular player in Tekken 8 that is just easy to comprehend. and ease it to get into and you feel like you're putting in a dent. You feel like you're actually having fun with this thing. But then

the skill ceiling super high. Like I am very impressed by how deep this thing can go when you are getting your wrapping your mind around the heat system and going okay, I got, I knocked this guy up. I have, you got knocked this guy up into the air.

And then like he's floating and it's like okay, I can go for this combo, this combo. I only have like a limited number of moves in every character plays like a different video game like it is so deep and so complex and yeah no I'm absolutely having a blast with like just how far

they go with making it easier for new newcomers but then also make it advanced for returning players so Eddie is coming as DLC is Christie in the main roster? No they don't have a caper of fighter in the main roster so far yeah okay Mitchell you I know you love fighting games

I know you know them very well I know you are a street fighter guy what would you say from a fighting gameplay perspective what differentiates Tekken 8 from Street Fighter 6 and Mortal Kombat 1? Like where do you think the three of them kind of fall in terms of the fighting game community? So, I mean, the big difference is that Tekken 8 is, or tech in general, is a 3D fighter. On a 2D plane, but you can still move into the background. You can move towards the foreground.

And that changes a lot of things. I think the big thing that I had to wrap my head around when it came to Tekken because I'm not really a big 3D fighting game player. I mostly stick to 2D is that to block, like you block low in 2D fighting games, you almost always block low. Like the only thing that can beat a low block is an overhead pretty much. In Tekken, blocking low is like something you don't want to do very often because then you get blown up by mid attacks.

And mid attacks are like the really strong attacks that lead to big combo damage. So there's a kind of like a wire that you have to like disconnect from your head and then put it in somewhere somewhere else in order to like really understand like how to play this game and not get blown up every time you try to make a move. And then just, you know, it's it's a matter of like understanding how to do like launchers, how to continue a launcher into a tornado, how to like pick up an enemy that's on the floor and like bring him back up into the air. when your combo is over and also just like knowing what is safe and what's not. And that's the big challenge in Tekken because the move lists, there's hundreds of moves for every character. And it's just, it's overwhelming. That's one I think, you know, Tekin is an easy game to get into on a ground level,

especially with the special style. You can just press a button and then, you know, mass triangle to do, to do a cool air combo. but if someone blocks that air combo, you're dead. Like you're just straight up dead. So it's very easy to get into on the ground floor, but I think probably more so than many other fighting games, it's hard to really establish yourself like at a very solid fundamental level

beyond that, you know, fair basic kind of ground level. Chris, you being more of the single player, like story fighting game type of guy, the story seems to be you're playing as one character, or like or so whatever for the majority of it at least it sounds like yeah for the majority of it it is focused in on gin so you playing as gin did you find yourself after that when you're playing through the other modes excited to play as other characters and when you were doing that did you find yourself being like oh but i want to go back to gin though because i'm familiar with that

not so much going back to gin but yeah certainly the the story mode kind of made me interested in some of the characters and then going through the character the separate character stories after that was a great way especially like as blesses with with special style on, to get a good sense of every other character's move set, at least on a basic level. And so it's a good way to kind of get you, essentially, eventually play through all 32 characters and go, well, that guy was awesome. She was pretty cool. Not too keen on this guy. But it's a really, it's a fantastic way. And because each character's story is only five matches, you can get through them quite quickly. so within maybe five to ten hours you can get through a decent chunk of the roster

and get a good idea in your head as to which kind of fighting style suit you best I've clicked with it in a way that I haven't clicked with a fighting game for a long time Mortal Kombat 1 except it excluded because I used to be a massive Mortal Kombat fan back in the day and again lapsed and got kind of brought back

with MK1 so yeah like bless I think this is going to be a game I'm going to be playing for quite a while. I'm going to be all in the season passes and the new characters and stuff I'm sold. That is awesome. I want to take a real quick break to take a word from our

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Kind of Funny is a dream come true. We wouldn't have it without you. We hope if you've ever enjoyed the content, you can support us for at least the month as we prepare for our biggest year ever. Until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you. I want to shout out this thing that they've added for this game called Super Ghost Battles, which is a very interesting new feature. in fighting games past they've had a thing or then like video games patch I'd say there's been like the thing of like having ghosts

right where you're playing a racing game and you do a thing and like the people race like race like you was like the drivatars and the forts and stuff and fighting games have had it where it's like oh yeah like the CPU

will kind of understand the way you fight and like you know over a long time a long period of time will emulate that and have people fight it Tekken 8 has implemented

this in a way where it's like very impressive and basically the way it works is they're called Super Ghost Battles where in real time, they'll have CPUs doing like real time learning of your fight style. That way now you go online and you find other people's ghosts and you play against them.

So like, for example, I'm like in the super ghost battle mode and I look up ghosts and like Harada is at the top of the list. It's like you can fight Harada's ghost. And the idea of it is that that character will fight the way Herodda fights. And what was really cool is when I went to the online lobby, I was just like walking around and have like an arcade area. someone with what Street Fighter does with their online. And I come across Mitchell and Mitchell was just like sitting. He's away from keyboard and I'm like, oh man, I want to fight Mitchell. And I like, I click on his character and it's like, do you want to fight his ghost?

And I'm like, yes, I'm going to do a ghost battle against Mitchell's ghost. And so I'm playing against his main Azucina and I'm fighting against it. And like she's doing, she like, she's doing this move where like she goes to the ground and does like a leg grab. And I'm like, oh man, all right. Like Mitchell fights like that. Oh, damn. And then like the next day I fought Mitchell and Mitchell was doing that exact same move.

That's so cool. And I was like, oh snap, like this thing actually works. And like they introduced it in the arcade quest mode where you start off and you're fighting your own ghost. And it is like in the middle of the match. They'll start fighting the way you do. And it seems really cool. I want to see how it works over time, right?

Like I want to see once everybody gets their hands on this game and everybody's playing with each other the level it goes because if it, if this like works as intended like to the fullest extent, I think this has the potential to be really cool. Like the idea of watching Evo or like having friends that you want. want to play against or train even training against right because like back in the day i used to play fighting games with my friends they'll beat my ass if i can go go home play against their ghost a bunch and then be like all right let's fight and now i know them and now that's cool i think that could be really cool you brought up uh mains do you guys have mains right now and if so who are they and like

why are they your main what is it you like about them play style Chris uh as much oh mitchell go for it go for Mitch uh okay uh as wellings said i was using uh asa senna um and she's like she's like she's one of the new characters. She's like a Peruvian coffee fiend, but who also trains in MMA. So yeah, I thought her character design was really, really, really cool. She's got a really cool fighting style involving different stances that she can use. So she has like a forward-leaning stance that she has a couple of unique moves from. And if you try to hit her with a low or a high, she'll just automatically like get out of the way of it and she can, you know, punish you for it. and then she's got another cool, like, backstance that she can do a really hard, low-hitting attack.

She's just, she's got some really, really cool moves. She's fun to learn, and I think she's going to be actually really good in the game. So, sorry, I didn't mean to jump the line. No, no, no, that's great. Chris, what about you? Do you have someone you're leading towards? I do. Like, I'm awful with the names because there's so many of them.

Is it Lily? Oh, yeah, Lily. Yeah, yeah. So I've kind of, like, like, stabbled with her a bit. and you can heavily customize each character so for some reason I decided to put her in a Celtic football shirt so I'm basically that's usually what I wear when I'm playing the game so I think it's quite appropriate

but something about her fighting style it kind of clicks with me and also occasionally you'll see her having a little drink of tea which I think is quite sophisticated so I appreciate that I appreciate giving someone a beat down and then also giving them a lesson in manners at the same time I quite like that But yeah, in terms of that,

like, yeah, Lily's the one I've been main in, but like I say, I've been dabbling with quite a lot of them. So there's nobody that I've kind of tied my flag to right now and said, this is my one, this is my characters. But at the moment, Lily's leading. I do love a lot of the relationships between the different characters because Azusena and Lily have a fun, like, back and forth. Because Azicenna all about coffee.

And Lily is all about tea. And so like... Oh, I love it. Yeah. like when they intro each other, it is like, oh, like, what do you like to drink? I like tea. I like coffee. It is like a fun little rivalry.

And they bring, again, they bring a lot of stuff into the character episodes. And all the character episodes have like some sort of back and forth that is specific to certain characters. Sorry, character episodes. What's that again? So that's what Chris was talking about earlier. It's essentially like an arcade mode where it's the five matches and then you get story about that character.

And it's funny because they also do have like a classic arcade mode to you, which just eight fights. but like they took all the endings like all the ending ideas of what you see in Class of Tekins and now they put all that stuff in the character episodes and you have like a bit more I think like story and set up there for each of them but yeah like in all the character episodes

you have like back and forth between yeah Lily and Azacena and like others that I really like my main has been Victor who is another new character for this game he is basically I don't know if you know the character Raven Raven is like he's been introduced

in like the last few games. But he's like a special agent. He does like ninjutsu, but he also has like a teleport maneuver like using technology or whatever. Victor is his, I think boss essentially. Yeah,

and like Barrett's brought up the visual. These are both of them. And again, this is the character intros, which again, shout out to the character intros because some of them are really sick. Victor has the teleportation stuff,

but he also has a sword and he has a fucking gun. It doesn't seem fair. Yeah. And it's sick as fuck. And so, like, he's teleporting all over the place. He's getting big hits with his sword. He is shooting people from across the stage with his gun.

And, like, I'm so curious to see what the conversation is around this character when the game comes out. And they're, like, if people consider him O.P. Or, like, what is his weaknesses? Because so far, I feel fucking strong as his character. And his combos are sick, too. Like, he has a stance where, like, he just busts out, like, a bunch of different moves from that stance. And it totally changed. Like, this is essentially the stance he was doing.

Yeah. Where like you press down triangle all of a sudden like he's fucking exploding the ground and shit But yeah, I love this character a lot Dang that's one about my big worries always when I'm reviewing a fighting game is Obviously waiting until it gets to the actual fighting game community because they're on a totally different level of discourse From us normal people like so like I could be given this game fives and and and nines and say yeah, this is excellent But as soon as he gets to the community all it takes is one to go the way a minute this is fucking broken And then suddenly you're like, oh, sorry.

Yeah, so jumping. Go for it. They spot some kind of tiny kind of flaw in one character that completely breaks the whole game for them that we wouldn't realize. So it's like I always get wary of giving a fighting game a high score because I'm just waiting for some expert who plays it 15 hours a day to call me a prick

for loving a game that he hates. So jumping off of that, we're very glowing about this. Like everyone's very, very high on TechNate. Are there things? you're not so hot on, especially I think given the context of being in the fighting game renaissance, Street Fighter Six, World Combat 1, I'd say

Street Fighter 6, excellent multiplayer, okay single player. Mortal Kombat 1, it seems a single player a lot of people loved, but when it came to the actual, the core fighting game online, people are like, it's fine, but maybe not the height of the franchise. Where are we at with Tekin in terms of the

cons and where it lies there? That's a very good question. Mitchell, you want to go first? Bizarrely, me and Blessing kind of found this out yesterday. When you do a room match, you're not able to observe, like, spectate the match that's currently happening. I don't know if that's like an oversight

or if it's something that hopefully we'll get added later in a patch, but it's just, it's so weird because the functionality is there in the lounge. Like there's a, we haven't even really talked about the fighting game lounge yet, but there's like a huge, almost like, Street Fire Six-esque battle hub

where you can roam around in arcade, you can pull up on a cabinet, it and go play Tekkenball, which is like a volleyball mini-game. Oh yeah, we didn't talk about Tek and ball. It's really, really cool. You can customize your avatar. Everyone looks really cool. There's a bunch of emotes.

And you can spectate people in that lounge, but you cannot do it in the room match, which is kind of wild because if you want to play, you know, with a lobby of eight people, you know, it seems like either the eight people have to just sit there and wait for their turn or they have to start up a different match in one of the different channels basically in the room. Yeah, it's bizarre because it is like, I think so far the biggest oversight that I've seen where, yeah, like Mitchell,

Mitchell nails it. Like, if you're playing a fighting game with the group, like the dream scenario is, yeah, like everybody come through, we'll all spectate the matches and then once it's your turn, all right, you're up, let's come through. The fact that yesterday we were doing a room,

and there was four of us, and yeah, I invite Mitchell to come through, and I forget who the fourth person was. It might have been on. Chaz. It was Chas, yeah. Chas came through. And I'm expecting them to just like hop in and just watch his play until it's

Mitchell's turn. And then I saw them in the Discord talking like, yeah, we can't spectate. All right, I guess we'll go over here and fight over here. So that's such a weird thing that I feel like they have to patch. They're going to fix it. That has to be fixed because the functionality for spectating is there in a different mode. And so, yeah, I think that's something that's going to get fixed. But overall to your question, Tim, of like, yeah, and like the fighting game pantheon

that's been set in the last year between. Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat 1 and like sneak in Grand Blue Fantasy versus Rising in there. Like Tekken 8 I think does so much right that I'm actually like I for me I might put it

at the top for me. I think it's gonna go it's gonna be very much person my person like obviously Mitchell talks about how Mitchell's more of a street fighter person right so Street Fighter is probably going to be it for Mitchell and Street Fighter I at this point still I guess kind of is it for me I just got to get 60 hours into Tekken before I'm able to be like, yo. But. And that's coming from someone that Street Fighter used to be your bottom.

Yeah. Street Fighter was not my thing. Like, I think, you know, my thing was Moral Combat. My thing was Tekken, right? And Soul Calibor and stuff. But with that, I think Tekken 8, first blush is doing everything right. Multiple single player modes. We talk about three different single player modes that are all great. The fighting, the combat seems great. Like, I think the only thing that could hold it back is when it comes out if people start to find multiple things that are broken. Whereas, oh, yeah, this character's LP. Oh yeah, this character has a move that you can abuse.

Oh, yeah, this, like, once that starts happening, that I think becomes a bigger conversation of, okay, what's going on here?

But as of now, where it is, yeah, like, I've played quite a bit. I've played quite a bit, I've played quite a bit of online against Mitchell and a few other people.

It seems really solid across the board, the spectacle, the level of presentation to it. That's another thing that I think Tech and 8 just nails. Again, the cinematics look gorgeous. And yeah, like,

There's not much I can knock on it. That is that obvious. So I want to go around to everyone. Who is this game for and who is this game not for? Who wants to start? Go for it, Chris. This game is for fans of Tekken 3 who may be lapsed fans of the series and are looking for a way back in.

You sold me even more. I'm not sure who it's not for, I think. as was being said earlier it's a kind of game that's easy to kind of learn but then you hit a wall pretty early on if you want to become a pro it's not like something like dead or alive where you can look pretty shit hot at that game

regardless of your skill level because there's so few moves in it relatively speaking compared to the others I've really struggled to think of anyone really though who would bounce off of taking eight and really hate it you'll get people who think well I like it

but I prefer streetfighter or Mortal Kombat and you'll get people who love it and think it's the best. But I think you'll struggle to find a lot of people who play Tekkeny and say, this is dog shit. It's such a high level with everything. I think it might be the best-looking fighting game between that and Mortal Kombat 1, like visually. The blemishes just in the skin when you see close-ups

during story mode, but also during actual fights when you get close-ups between matches. The amount of detail is ridiculous, this, especially I played a bit of Tekken 7 before jumping onto it, and it's chalk and cheese, the difference is crazy. It's just, I would struggle

to find someone who hates it. The base level, I think, is this is decent? It's chalk and cheese. Is that what you said? Sorry, is that a British? That's for sure, but sorry. That is awesome, though.

We get it, we get it, but damn, that is, we got to add that. We got to add that. Oh, my God. I'm going to say that to Greg. He's going to look me crazy. Yeah, it'd be, I think the, to the who's it not for,

like, I think the thing that comes in mind is Mortal Kombat and how Mortal Kombat does such a good job of getting people in who otherwise would never touch a fighting game, right? Like, Barrett, you played the Mortal Kombat One story, right? I did. Yeah, and like, you enjoyed it. You had a great time. I had a great time. Yeah, and that's because, like,

Mortal Kombat One has this story that is, again, like, does great with the cinematic stuff, but then also, is goofy and fun, it is, like, it's a blockbuster. It's like watching a Marvel movie. It's like watching, like, you know, this fun. action flick that it feels like anybody can get into. I don't know if Tekken 8 quite has that. Like, I don't know. Like, part of me

would want to recommend it to Barrett because no, Bennett Barrett likes anime, Barrett likes it. Yeah, I'm a huge fucking dork, so. Yeah, you're a huge fucking dork. But also, I think the side of you that liked Moral Combat story, I don't know if that's the same side that would like Tech and Game story. Mortal Kombat one definitely felt like dumb popcorn summer blockbuster

thing, but if like you're talking about like if Tekken 8 is anime as hell, like that's a, that's a different part of my brain. So that's a good point to bring up of like if people don't have that goblin mode uh anime part of their brain. The goblin gene. Yeah. They might not have that. They might not, they might not be as into it. Yeah. And so that's the thing is yeah, I think for the nerds and webs like us out there, um, you know, I think for sure there, there's an avenue for you to get into the story. Uh, but yeah, it is missing that like pulp act. And missing is the wrong word,

because I don't think it needs it. But for Pete, for if you're somebody who really like moral combat story, I don't know if that means you're going to like Tekken story. I think that's the only you think that I would say for people who might not be as into it. Other than that, like, if you like fighting games, if you like tech in, if you like action games, if you look at this and you're like, oh, this looks cool, I think it's for you. Like I would recommend it to anybody. I think, yeah, like Chris said, I think the, the worst you're going to come out of this game with is like, oh yeah, that's fine.

That's a cool time. But like, I think you'll still be like, yeah, it looked really cool. The cutscenes were fun. And yeah, like, it's a fun, you know, a little bit emotional, a little bit dumb story that is fun to play through. And let me ask you then, time-wise, how long is the campaign? So the story mode, probably like, four or five hours? Yeah, four or five hours feels about right.

I've not finished all the character episodes, but yeah, Chris was mentioning, like, what, there's, yeah, 30-something characters? That's not, 32, yeah. 32 characters, and yeah, it's five fights each, so do the math. And then Arcade Quest, probably another four, five hours. Not the same. Yeah. Yeah.

What, the platinum. I love, I also love how earnest arcade quest is, even though you're literally just going through arcades. There's like one guy in, just like a few fights and says, I can't believe when we first met,

we were just, I was just looking for a guy to play tech him with. And now look at this journey, but I'm like, I've played like six matches. He's like, we're not that far into this thing. I was shocked when I was wrapping up.

Because I was like, it feels like there should be like a lot more story to this, but they were like, yeah, now you're in the tech and world tour. And I'm like, oh, fuck. All right, cool. I guess we're wrapping up here. I'm curious to see what the kind of fighting game community reaction will be to that mode

because a lot of the kind of underlying messaging seems to be don't take this game so serious. Yeah, that's the other thing. It's like the fun arcade culture of back in the day versus like the hardcore fighting game, go to evo culture. And they are like, yeah, like you have like the evil people come through and they're like, yeah, we're fucking badasses. And it's like, yeah, the kind of lesson of the game is like, no, man, have fun.

Like, that's the whole vibe of it. And it's, it's great. It's awesome. Wow, it's the Smash Brothers brawl of the tech. Whoa, I don't think of that. But, yeah. I think you're going to ask about, like, platinum. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, the platinum.

Like, uh, what, without getting into the nitty-gritty, like, it sounds like it was an easy fun platinum? Yeah, it's an easy fun platinum. The previous teching games have also had, like, pretty straightforward platinums. But it's the kind of platinum where it is, try everything. Okay. And so go in, do five character episodes. Or I think, yeah, I think it's five and then ten maybe.

But you finish the story mode, get a certain amount of big hits in Tekkenball. Like it's very much geared toward, like try everything. You don't need to complete every single thing. And yeah, I think you'll probably run the average person. If you're going directly for it, which I did, maybe 16 hours. Cool. Yeah, yeah, pretty straightforward. One thing I do want to add to, which is really cool.

They have this thing where you can go and watch. your replays, but you can, um, in the middle of it, get tips on what you could have done better in that fight and even pause. You can pause the replay and take control of a character and keep playing the fight in the, from the replay. It's fucking sick. Like I, like, I, like, things that I didn't know were possible, honestly. I'm like, oh yeah, I'm like in the middle of watching a replay and they're like, yeah, do you want to pick it up? I'm like, yes. And I start playing. And yeah, the, the other player, quote unquote, other player is. playing like doing the same moves and stuff but it is just a way for me to to go all right what's the

lesson i need to learn here how do i respond to this move that they're doing okay this is the thing that would have worked in this scenario and yeah it's really cool that's that's really cool mitchell who is this for who's it not for so i wanted to touch upon what blessings said because i think that's really important i think that you know obviously everything that we said so far is who is who it's for it's not for i think a unique person who would also be into this game is someone who has tried getting into Tekken in the past and then got frustrated at like not being able to overcome like a plateau that they they hit. Like if you do did not know how to improve in Tekken, Tekken 8's got you.

Like the training and the improvement tools that this game adds are honestly like genre advancing. Every, every game in an ideal world, every fighting game in the future will have a super ghost mode will have a training mode where do you get hit by something they will tell you hey you know you could have blocked this and punished it uh and then you could you know press a button and then they'll put you in a training mode where you practice ducking it and punishing it um you know it will tell you if the combo that you use is you could have gotten more damage with a different combo so like if you hit a launcher it'll be like hey you know you could have gotten more damage if

you did this combo and then press the button and you could practice that combo. It's insane. So I think if you are a person like me actually who tried to get into Tekken before you know went online, got your butt kicked for like hours and then you know put the game down because you got frustrated.

Try Tekkenate and I think you'll probably be able to find a way to improve. Very very good. And have more fun with it. All right. Final words here. Chris, where are you at? Yeah. I can see myself continuing to play this for some time, which I don't often do with games or review,

because you know what it's like. You play a game, and then as soon as you finish with it, the next one appears, and the next one appears, and it's just an ongoing thing. But Taken 8 is one of those kind of rare ones that I'm going to kind of put aside

and keep coming back to because it's kind of, it's sunk its claws in. And also, I would also like to point out that for those still confused by chalk and cheese, I think apples and oranges would be inappropriate. Oh, thank you. because I was confused. I love it.

I love it. Mitchell, final words? I think Tekkenade is just a phenomenal game. I think it, like Streetfire 6, is moving fighting games forward. And the downside of being in this fighting game renaissance is that now there's too many fighting games to play. And I just don't know how I'm going to find the time to keep up with Guilty Gear Drive, Street Fighter 6, Grand Blue Fantasy versus Rise,

and Tekkenade and also Undernight InBird 2 comes out this month, which is just, it's just crazy. There's too much stuff to play at you guys. It's great. It's great. Bless, pulls us out here. Based on what Mitchell's saying, right? Like if somehow Project L makes it in before the end of the year, the game of the year, the best fighting game nomination is going to be the best of all time, right?

Because then you're talking about Gran Blue. You're talking about Tech Inn. You're talking about probably Undernight, and then you're talking about probably Project L, which is such a solid lineup for a year and coming off of like another bangor year for fighting games when you look at last year. One thing I'm happy about, because I had no idea where Mitchell actually stood on TekkenA. Because Mitchell, I know Mitchell from playing

guilty of strive with him and playing Street Fighter and playing these 2D fighters where Mitchell beats my ass. And I remember hearing before, we probably talked about it where Mitchell's like, yeah, I'm more of a 2D fighting game person, like, Tech and I'm not as strong at. And so hearing Mitchell talk about it and hearing Mitchell be like, oh yeah, no,

I fucking love it. And like hearing the glowing thing about it makes me happy because I'm like, oh, let's fucking go. You guys traded. Yeah, we traded. Yeah, I'm like, dude, I'm in a street fighter now, Mitchell's super into Tekken. And yeah, like, I'm hoping that that is the signifier that Tekken might be able to take over the world and more people get into it. And so, yeah, I love this game. For me, this review, for this game. For me, this game, for me, for me this game. For me, for this game, for me, for me this game to get out into people's hands. So I can play more ranked and fucking, like, just have a blast with it and learn more characters. And so my, my, my, uh, uh, Biggest desire is that like the DLC characters are bangers. That's the thing that I can't wait to see. I hope we, you know,

I hope Eddie controls great, but also like, yeah, I hope whoever they decide to follow up with next is, are exciting because there's so many different people you can choose from for, for a tech in. And so, yeah,

we'll see. Mitchell. Question for blessing. Are you going to compete at Evo for it? Am I going to compete at Evo? Oh, I plan to go to Evo. Do it.

Mark me down as a strong maybe. Oh, I'll take a big. I'll take a baby. You know what? Fuck it. Yeah, let's do it.

Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Mitchell, where can people find you? You can find me on Twitter at Jurassic Rabbit and on IGN.com.

I am currently working on a bunch of guides. A lot of stuff I can't talk about. I'm also doing a Dragon Song with two IGN first right now. So make sure to check out that content if you haven't already. I cut you off a little there. Are you competing in Evo?

I usually do. But, uh, we'll see. I'm definitely going to try to compete in Street Fighter. Maybe Guilty Gear. And if Blessing does Tekken, I will join him in Tech. Oh, then I'm doing Tekken.

Then I'm doing Tekken. Chris, where can people find you? If people can find me on Twitter at Scully 1888 or on VGC Video Games Chronicle. Or if they go on Amazon and search by name, they'll find far too many books about video games. Yeah, go there, support everybody. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you for hanging out and watching us. And until next time, been a pleasure to serve you.