Tekken 8 Media Hands On Experience: Highly aggressive combat that I just can’t get enough

        Earlier this year, Nmia was honoured to be invited by Bandai Namco Entertainment to participate in the Tekken 8 Media Hands On Experience in Singapore!Greeted with great hospitality, we visited the Singapore Branch of Bandai Namco Entertainment Office to participate in the media hands on experience with other game medias from the SEA region.The actual hands on session was only 2 hours long, and was followed by a group interview with the producer Mr. Katsuhiro Harada and Mr. Michael Murray. The details to the interview will be further elaborated -here-,and we’ll only be focusing on the hands on experience here.

Pre-Test Expectations/Speculations: New Systems and Bigger Comeback potential

        Before heading into the hands on experience, let me share with you all my impression and expectations of the game based on the revealed information, before I tried the game out. In Tekken 8, they seemed to have placed a big emphasis on the character’s specialty and perks, which can be seen in the character designs as well, with Paul having a returning alternate hairstyle from the earlier renditions of Tekken. In terms of mechanics, by looking at the recoverable white health system, one can already see that Tekken 8’s desire in presenting a more cinematic battle, seizing and punishing the opponent’s openings or whiffs while adding the bigger possibilities for comebacks in the fights, which invokes a sense of ongoing tension and excitement in all fights.
        And the Heat system seemed to work something like an Awakening form, strengthening the characters and enabling new finisher moves such as Heat Smash, that will spike the opponent to bounce on the floor for more combo potential, or the explosive Heat Dash that closes up to the opponent in a flash, which all of them look real striking, especially when the character is covered in a coat of light blue flame during the Heat mode, it gets the job done by adding extra flashiness and tension to the fight! And the brand new Special Style seems to be a system designed mainly for newcomers to get themselves into the game, and the fact that it is officially made legal to be used in both online and offline fights sounds like its trying to say something about the system, was it the moves being very predictable? Or do they non-optimal moves with more negative frames? Let that all be answered after I share with you all my actual hands-on experience!

Hands-On Experience: Trait emphasizing Heat Buffs,  Impactful Heat System and Flexible Accessibility Special Style 

        During the actual hands on experience, the announced character reveal trailers was only up until Jin Kazama, and I got really excited when I see the amount of characters available in the alpha build itself!(Which included some unannounced characters)And after I’ve picked my character, the 2 hours of hands on experience felt like it was gone in a flash. While I was doing my bread and butter combos, I often get surprised when I engaged myself into Heat mode unintentionally. After some explanation by the crew, my confusion gets clarified when they said that some of the existing moves from Tekken 7 were modified into a new type of move called the Heat Engager, which activates Heat mode for the player after it lands successfully.

        And after playing with the characters for a while, I’ve finally felt the Heat Mode buff that were made to be“catering to the character’s specialty, while emphasizing the character’s unique playstyle”. For example, Kazuya and Jin’s Electric Wind God fist needed just inputs to activate the electric effect, but in Heat mode, all Electric Wind God fist can be triggered with electric without the just inputs. And as another example, King gets a super armour buff during his dashes in Heat mode, ignoring the hitstuns from pokes as he approaches close up for a grab, and removing Jun’s HP consumption for ranged attacks, and her Heat Smash greatly regenerates her white health.During the interview session, we’ve confirmed with the Harada-san that the Heat mode buffs will not come in generic categories, but actually be made uniquely for each of the characters, one by one. The thought of that statement alone got me really excited to see my main getting their unique Heat mode buffs activated at the game’s release!

        After triggering the Heat mode, the player will get 1 or 2 chain shaped resources, with Heat Engager, you’ll get 2 while with Heat Burst, the method of getting into Heat mode manually without hitting the opponent, gets 1. The resource can be spent to cast special moves such as the aforementioned Heat Dash, which consumes 1 of the chains, and Heat Smash that consumes all of them. Using Heat Smash will end the Heat mode, and Heat modes can only be triggered once per match. After getting a grasp of everything mentioned above, in the actual gameplay, I’ve came to realise that the white health system wasn’t as OP as I expected it to be. The health can be regenerated by connecting attacks, regardless of a clean hit or blocked, and it is certainly a system that encourages players to take on the offense. The Heat system usually lasts for approximately 10 seconds, but if the opponent is knocked to the ground, or for the short moments when the attacks connects, the Heat mode gauge will be paused. Thus characters with long attack animations such as the grab oriented King can extend their Heat modes to a certain extent, and I’ve actually gotten a 15 seconds Heat mode in the test play with King.

         As for the Special Style mentioned earlier, It can actually be toggled on or off in the fights anytime, even in the middle of combos. After toggling it on, each of the attack buttons will be changed to signature move,air combos, or power crush(super armor move) etc. The signature moves are basically Heat Engagers, and the air combos uses moves that are less optimal, which throughout my test, were mostly Up+4. For players who are trying out the characters, the Special Style does let the gist of the character known by the players. Players can use the Special Style to learn the ropes for the characters, and toggling it off after they get the idea of the characters, but it can also be  toggled instantly after launching the characters while not knowing the actual air combos, to do air combos the easy way.It is a very flexible system that allows newcomers or intermediate players to learn the playstyle of the character, without actual reliance on the system, it exists as an applicable approach to engage into a fight or chain into combos, less of it being a crutch.
        In terms of other details, I felt that the input tempo and timings were not as strict as it was back in the previous versions, the moves can be done even when the inputs were slightly slower. The overall VFX for attacks got upgraded, such as the tracking moves having solid light lines as compared to light dust particles from Tekken 7. Low parries comes with a gust VFX, and it is not explained if it could be chained into other moves, or just purely visual, this will have to wait for all the pros to figure that out when the game is released later on. The photorealistic approach of the game graphic design can be seen also in the character’s interaction to the environment under Unreal Engine 5, with characters having dirt on them if they were knocked onto a floor of dirt. The Rage Arts were also very visually impactful and appealing, for example Paul’s 宇宙No.1(Number one in the universe) floating text, or Jack-8’s Proton Cannon during Rage Arts lets the player feel the impact across the screen, and the whole idea of making an impact was the main feeling I’ve got throughout my whole play test.
        In conclusion, the Heat system comes with an adaptation period, and after adapting to it, the gameplay certainly did become very fluid. Though the quick and safe Rage Drive got removed, but in my opinion, it was more like they took the system out and expanded upon it, converting it into new mechanics that encourages the attack impulse of players, while becoming a very entertaining and visually impactful system. Lets look forward to the next character announcement, and hop on to the 8th King of Iron Fist Tournament when the game is out!