Tekken 8

Do you see your past sins in Kazuya Mishima? Now answer me... Who are you? —Leroy Smith, talking to Jin Kazama

The eight instalment of the Tekken series, Tekken 8 is a game where a son and a father fight over the fate of Earth.

Six months after the events of Tekken 7, Yggdrasil executes Operation Lightning, with the objective of killing Kazuya Mashima using his son Jin Kazama as assassin. The plan horribly fails, with Kazuya shrugging off Jin's attempts and gunning down random people on the streets for no good reason except satisfy his own sadism. Fully revealing himself as devil, Kazuya announces a new King of Iron Fist tournament in order of applying his philosophy that "the strong must rule": the countries of the winners, will be rewarded; of the losers, destroyed.

After being rescued by Yggdrasil, Jin struggles to access his devil powers again, but his allies nonetheless remain hopeful somehow he can still defeat Kazuya. And to confront his father, Kazama enters the tournament. . .

Like its predecessors in the series, Tekken 8 is a three-dimensional fighting game. The game has both an traditional arcade mode called Character Episode, where the player can select a character and progress through said tournament, and a story mode, "The Dark Awakens", that follows a different, more complex storyline. And of course, there's online playing, where there is no story but you can meet other players and fight them.

Developed by Bandai Namco Studios and Arika. Directed by Kohei Ikeda and Yasuki Nakabayashi. Published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. Released in January 2024 on PC / Steam, XBox and Playstation 5.

Tropes used in Tekken 8 include:

• Aborted Arc: Justified and enforced. The King of Iron Fist Tournament 8 never reaches an end since Kazuya absorbs Azazel, that was his real objective all along, and every remaining participant instead fights to protect Jin from him or help Kazuya in killing Jin.
• Action Girlfriend: Xiaoyu is not quite Jin's girlfriend yet, but she gets to be this to him in the Story Mode when he has an out-of-body experience next to the mystical cedar tree in Yakushima, and Xiaoyu must protect his unconscious self from a horde of Jack-7's on her own before Lars arrives to help her.
• Ascended Extra: Though Xiaoyu certainly tried to help the Mishimas in previous games, she mostly remained a supporting character, no more important than let's say King or Bryan. Here, she is Jin's most important ally, with Jin being shockingly happy around her and she being on the last line of defence against Kazuya and the G-Corporation. And the game heavily implies that Jin is finally able to reciprocate her feelings, as the last person who flashes through Jin's mind as he defeats Kazuya is of her, and at the very end she appears in her own motorcycle to join Jin's trip back home..
• Advertised Extra: Jun was heavily advertised in the trailers and on the opening. She has certainly a big role in story mode, but only in flashbacks and messages she leaves for her son; when she finally appears on-screen, it is on the tail-end of the story mode and you only see her shoes.
• Ambiguously Evil: Reina keeps a cheery personality on the outside and a more serious one on the inside, but it isn't shown to be outright planning to turn against the goods guys; instead, the story emphasises she wants revenge over Kazuya over her father's death. Her ending shows her dreaming of beating Kazuya up with her remaining family members (and Kuma) working for her, so she doesn't seem to hold a grudge (or even know) that Jin, Lee, and Lars also wanted Heihachi dead.
• Beta Couple: Lars and Alisa, to Jin and Xiaoyu.
  • Maybe, just maybe, Jun and Kazuya
• Bonus Boss: True Devil Kazuya and Angel Jin can be fought in arcade mode, but only after story mode is completed and certain conditions are achieved.
• Bloodier and Gorier: For a finger, but it was enough to bump the series' CERO rating to D from the usual C: Kazuya's blood spills out of his shoulder after he is hit by Claudio's special magical arrow.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Up until now, Jin Kazama and Ling Xiaoyu were a Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl duo. But as the Story Mode goes on, they fit much more in this.
  • Kazuya and Jun turn out to be quite the Ur Example. Especially at the VERY end of the Story Mode's Hope Ending: after Jin defeats Kazuya without killing him and leaves him there, Jun appears next to a wounded and unconscious Kazuya and promises that she will save him...
• Cain and Abel: Kazuya and Lars are firmly put on this position on this game, as Lars takes on more of Heihachi's traits. The only thing stopped Kazuya of outright killing his younger half-brother was Jin's timely arrival.
• Cool Uncle: Lars and Jin behave much more like family in this instalment, making Lars one for Jin. Their special intro is a fist bump.
• Downer Beginning: Kazuya decisively beats Jin in his son's devil form with his own and announces a new King of Iron Fist tournament that will result in the destruction of the countries of the losers. The latter part is toned down as Kazuya laster settles for simply imposing severe sanctions to said countries, but still
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Jin, in the Hope Ending.
• Emergency Transformation: Reina finally manages to acquire her devil form by being mortally blasted by one of Kazuya's lasers.
• Face Heel Turn: Law joins Kazuya's side, though for monetary reasons. He however shows no reluctance in fighting people to the death for it, so he is no Punch Clock Villain.
• Five-Bad Band: The G-Corporation:
  • Big Bad: Kazuya Mishima, who seeks to sink the world into chaos to eliminate weaknesses he believes to exist on mankind.
  • The Dragon: Nina Williams, the Irish mercenary who leads Kazuya's forces into the battlefield.
  • The Evil Genius: Jane, the lead engineer of the Jack line of robots.
  • The Brute: Jack-8, the most recent and powerful Jack.
  • The Dark Chick: Law and Azucena fits it to an T. In a organisation of villains lacking basic morals either by choice or programming and that absolutely do not need to fight against the heroes, Law is a dude motivated solely by survival that wants to be paid to solve his debt problems, even against his own best friend Paul. From her part, Azucena is a very colorful Genki Girl motivated solely by her need to advice her coffee businesses and who doesn't seem to be actively cruel otherwise.
• Five-Man Band: Jin and his allies form a clear one as of this game.
  • The Hero: Jin of course, as the one who leads the fight against Kazuya.
  • The Lancer: Xiaoyu, whose cheery happy personality contrasts Jin's stoicism and cynical attitude.
  • The Big Guy: Lars, who plays a more physical role on the fighting against G-Corporation.
  • The Smart Guy: Lee Chaolan, who takes care of all the technology the good guys use, and uses his fortune to provide them with financial backing.
  • The Chick: Alisa, who provides mostly moral support and also serves as Mission Control to the battle between Yggdrasil and the G-Corporation in Japan.
  • The Sixth Ranger: The named characters who join Yggdrasil after Kazuya absorbs Azazel: Lili, Asuka, Leroy and Paul.
• Fusion Dance: Midway through the game's story mode, Kazuya takes Azazel out of Zafina's arm, beats up the abomination, and absorbs it inside his body.
• His Name Is: Nina is interrupted by an explosion just as she is about to say what is the relation between Reina and Heihachi.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: Though you will certainly get a game over if you lose, beating Kazuya in Chapter 1 is impossible: every time you reduce his health to or past a minimum, the next phase of his boss fight is triggered, with him never really being defeated.
• Hot Mom: Jun aged pretty well for a woman with an twenty-two year old son. According to her Character Episode, it's because after barely defeating Ogre next to a sort-of World Tree located in Yakushima, she reached a holy place inside the tree itself and remained there for the last years, more or less comatose as she recovered from her grievous wounds. It's entirely possible, then, that her aging was partially or completely halted by the very slow healing process.
• Lap Pillow: After Kazuya forcibly takes Azazel out of Zafina's body, the victim collapses and Xiaoyu holds them on her lap.
• Karma Houdini: Azucena, in the Hope/Good Ending. Likely because, like already said, she supported G-Corporation but did not seem to be actively malicious.
• Multiple Endings: The Story Mode has two possible ones: the Hope Ending (if the player-controlled Jin wins) and the Despair Ending (if the CPU-controlled Kazuya prevails).
• Only In It For The Money: Not surprisingly, Kazuya seems to have no named playable characters who are really loyal to him aside of the Jacks, who are robots anyway. Law, Azucena, Nina, all of them are on his side to get money.
• Properly Paranoid: In the story mode, Jin never completely trusts one of his allies: Reina. He's ultimately proved right.
• Skewed Priorities: Leo is astonished Azucena allied with Kazuya because the G-Corporation will advertise her family's coffee business, when Kazuya is conquering the world with an iron fist.
• Take Over the World: In Kazuya's ending, he refuses to discuss the topic. It is his actual objective in story mode, revealed after he absorbs Azazel. In the special bad ending where he defeats Jin in the final battle, he accomplishes it.
• True Final Boss: In the hardest difficulty, the final boss isn't Kazuya, but Azazel, if you get one perfect KO. Reina's ending indicates that is canon, as she will still fight Kazuya at the end of it.
• Walking Spoiler: Angel Jin is a character that only appears on the final act of the game and plays a fundamental role in the final battle, so it's impossible to talk about him without discussing spoilers.
• World Tree: A massive cedar tree located in Yakushima turns out to be this and becomes VERY important in the Story Mode...
• You Can't Thwart Stage One: The heroes don't even figure out Kazuya wants Azazel until Zafina already got too close to him.