This game is easily the Fighting Game I've liked the least in my journey playing all of them. I've always heard about how Tekken is a hard game to learn but rewards being smart and avoiding moves and being a game more focused on punishment.

It's those things, to a degree, moreso just the fact that it's hard, why it's hard is why I don't like the game overall. Now, for those who are diehard fans that swear by this game, good for you, I'm glad you enjoy it but the point of reviews is to have multiple opinions.

To me, Tekken 8 was going to be a game that focuses on neutral and patience and proper spacing. The game does not do this at a low level, In ranked I have gotten two characters to Battle Ruler and only find WR spam and sidesteps that don't punish said WR spam. I thought that if I could dodge the move entirely I'd get big punishes, this is rarely the case as a lot of WR moves zoom past the entire screen thus having almost no consequences. I thought patience would also be key in this game but it isn't, at least in the lower ranks it isn't, I find myself winning more when I decide to just swing for no reason and those swings lead to actual combos which killed my opponent which seems to be what this iteration of Tekken wants you to do. Misguided I played patiently before and all it got me was getting hit by really plus moves that I can't side step or maybe it felt that way. Tekken is very bad at teaching you anything, in your replays it does display recommended punishes or what way to tech a throw which in my opinion are a great thing but what I find is more important is when can you sidestep because most of the time when you get hit by something it's because you blocked something really plus that could have avoided.

I think a lot of times when I find myself frustrated playing this game, I have no idea what to apply or what to do better and there's nobody I can ask so it's super easy to loop frustration and continue to learn nothing. Nobody blocks low because lows are really bad in this game so I have no idea what counts as a mix up in this game. Often times when I side step it feels like characters autocorrect if they autopilot a string and that feels bad when you just avoided the first part and the characters almost 180 just to hit you anyway (I'm not talking about homing moves I just mean literally pressing 1 then 2 or whatever string a character has). WR moves feels terrible to deal with because again even if you side step them you're not guaranteed a punish and if you do manage to hit them, the combos tend to not be very damaging and I feel strongly that you should lose more health for doing something so dumb and avoidable. Everyone plays the same 5 characters in ranked and I find them very cheesy to deal with. Pressure in Tekken feels bad though idk if it's just supposed to but I really can't stand how easy it is to just mash heat in strings and there goes my turn ig. What really made it feel worse was that this is a viable strategy even in high level play, there are so many mashed rage arts and heat but it works because the game was designed for you to be swinging.

I find that Tekken 8 isn't a game about baiting or neutral, it's more about just swinging sometimes because idk it might hit and that leads to bigger damage than playing it safe forever and the heat system and rage arts are a clear tell that this is what the game wants you to do which I am personally not a fan of. For me, it's not a game that clicks and can say that I wouldn't recommend the game to anybody unless they like swinging and pressing buttons for no reason.

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Have the Ultimate Edition, and i must say;
110€ game with an ingame Shop and Battlepass, items in the Shop are 4€ value of points, but you have to buy a 5€ points-pack and Battlepass is 6€ value of points but you have to buy a points-pack for 10€, trying to milk as much as they can.
after Year 1 Pass there will follow more which you have to buy, if you want all Fighters and you want them, even the old ones which were in the previous Tekken base game,
so at the end you invested more than 110€.
This is how games should be sold, be greedy.

Game itself is fun, especially against friends. :)