Tekken is the big fish in a small pond. Not only was it the one 3D fighting game that endured through three decades, it is the only fighting game franchise that continued production through the years since the franchise launched in 1994.
Even casual fans of the series know that the franchise hit its sales and mainstream popularity peak in Tekken 3, a groundbreaking title for the genre, and one that proved to be one of the PlayStation’s biggest sellers ever. Some gamers, even hardcore fans, believed that the franchise could never reach those heights again, but with Tekken 8, it just might.
Tekken 8 has now received a MetaCritic score of 90 on PlayStation 5, alongside an 87 on Xbox Series X|S and an impressive 94 on PC. That already makes it exceed Tekken 7’s critical rating, but also puts it in an unusually high position in franchise history.
In order of release from latest game to oldest, here’s a look at the MetaCritic scores of Tekken games. We will focus on PlayStation here, as the series has been a PlayStation exclusive for most of its existence:
Tekken 8 – 90, PlayStation 5
Tekken 7 – 82, PlayStation 4
Tekken Tag Tournament 2 – 82, PlayStation 3
Tekken 6 – 79, PlayStation 3
Tekken 5 – 88, PlayStation 2
Tekken 4 – 79, PlayStation 2
Tekken Tag Tournament – 85, PlayStation 2
Tekken 3 – 96, PlayStation
As you can see from a quick review, Tekken has certainly has its ups and downs, but Tekken 3 really stands out as a high point for the series. While Tekken 8 isn’t quite as high up as Tekken 3, it’s clearly closer to it than everything else on the franchise.
On OpenCritic, Tekken 8 has a Mighty Rating, with an average critic score of 90, and 99 % of reviewers recommending the game.
So what’s all the hype about? First off, Tekken 8’s core combat design has been definitely improved with the Heat and Rage systems. These systems allow players to stage comebacks, or can be used to take early advantage. There is also a Special Style control scheme, that maps special moves to specific buttons. These systems are fine tuned to make it easier for beginners, and useful to high level players.
The game has an eight hour story mode called The Dark Awakens (no spoilers), which definitively ties together the longest running storyline in video games so far. Players need to finish it to get to then play each character and get their ending. Tekken can’t escape being a fundamentally broken story, but the team does a decent job weaving a narrative that will satisfy old fans with deep cuts, and casuals looking for cheap thrills.
Tekken 8 has blatantly aped Street Fighter 6 with its Arcade Quest, but it’s also a major improvement over Capcom’s original idea. In its metanarrative, your avatar enters an arcade to be trained by a top player of the just released Tekken 8. This pretext allows Namco to teach you the intricacies of the game’s systems, with a properly scaling difficulty with each new skill. A traditional practice mode remains, but new players will actually want to start on Arcade Quest.
And then there’s the AI. Super Ghost Battles allows players to fight AI that quickly learns your combat patterns, smarter than any AI in any previous Tekken game. You can create your own ghost to share with other players online, and Tekken’s system also allows you to download ghosts from top players. This gives players a large set of options to teach themselves, something that is once again useful for both beginners and high level players.
And we can’t forget Tekken Ball, but with all of this, and 32 playable characters at launch, this is clearly a gigantic package for Tekken 8 to launch with. With the relatively recent release of Mortal Kombat 1 and Street Fighter 6, it’s also a great time to be a fighting game fan.
