Awesome / Tekken 8

Moments subpages are Spoilers Off. You Have Been Warned!

"No longer will I deny my past... No longer will I deny my comrades and our bonds... I will not deny my existence... I... I want to live!"

So remember, no surrender
My defining moment!
I will stand up, overcome my past
This indifference to the end
If it takes forever, no surrender!
Now or never, my last stand!

—"My Last Stand"

Tekken 8 once again redefines the Fighting Game genre in terms of cinematic and gameplay action, coming directly off the heels of its predecessor, coupled with the list of moments made it as one of the best Tekken game in modern history.

Story Mode

If there's one thing that Tekken 8's story has taught us is that the Tekken fighters as a whole are some of the strongest, and most badass collection of fighters. Even characters like Lili and Xiaoyu can take on armies.

• The trailer has Jin and Kazuya squaring off in the same area where Heihachi met his end at the hands of the latter. During the fight Jin taps into the Devil Gene and delivers a powerful blow to Kazuya.
• After 26 long years of ambiguity and mystery, Jun Kazama is revealed to be alive.
  • For a lot of people (even in-universe), Kazuya is definitely Beyond Redemption thanks to the shit ton of atrocities he has done willingly without Jun watching. When they meet, Jun... shows absolutely no signs of disappointment. She's still adamant to finish what she started: save Kazuya's soul. Whether she succeeds or not will be another story, but it takes a pure soul with tons of determination to try and save someone Beyond Redemption that a lot of people has just given up on. That itself is an act and mindset worthy of awe.
  • Even better? Not only did she survive, but her Side Story episode reveals she beat Ogre. Let that sink in. Even though she barely won by the skin of her teeth and had to go into a coma for 7 years, she still beat Ogre. She's not acknowledged as strong by Kazuya for nothing.
• Having successfully anticipated that Zafina would appear before him, Devil Kazuya takes Azazel from her, unseals him, and then goes on to fully defeat the Devil Gene progenitor and absorb him, making him subservient to his will. All of Azazel's powers are now at Kazuya's disposal, transforming him into True Devil Kazuya.
• Chapter 10. It's a Big Badass Battle Sequence where Lars, along with the Yggdrasil, the UN, and several playable characters who were previously taking the backseat for the Mishima conflict, storm the G Corporation army. At that point, the game turns into something similar to the Tekken Force minigame to portray such a war. The combination of all those is just awesome and generates a hell of a lot of hype.
  • After destroying a gun-jack robot with his bare fists, Paul gets attacked by Law, who's furious that Paul forgot to split the prize money with him. Realizing that his friend sold out humanity and joined G Corporation just to get paid, Paul lets him have it physically and verbally.
    Paul: Money has driven you mad!
  • And worth noting is the segment where you play as King II. He's just being himself, a genuinely good-hearted wrestler, but at the same time, he's taking on a bunch of G Corporation soldiers with his wrestling moves. The Yggdrasil and UN soldiers are moved like the audience watching his wrestling bouts, and they start cheering, "KING! KING! KING! KING!". King II certainly knows how to generate audience hype in-universe, even when he's not in the wrestling ring!
• Chapter 11 has True Devil Kazuya hunting down Jin who still hasn't awakened yet. This doesn't stop Lars from pulling a Last Stand against Kazuya, taking everything Kazuya throws at him just to buy more time for Jin. If this fight proves anything, it's that Lars is a Mishima at his core despite not learning the Mishima style. He gives his half-brother such a challenge that it retraumatizes Kazuya back to his fight against Heihachi in Tekken 7. If Kazuya is correlating you with his father, than you know you're bad ass.
• Before Lars arrived, Ling Xiaoyu gets to show her own prowess by taking on dozens of Jacks in order to protect the unconcious Jin. And we’re not talking about regular size Jacks, but the hulking bahemoth Jack 7s. However, Xiaoyu does not backdown. She goes One-Woman Army and charges into battle whilst sending them all flying one by one, fully determined to protect the man she loves whatever it takes. Even after she is bruised all over and getting more exhausted, she still stands her ground keep on fighting.
• Likewise, Reina proves her worth as a Mishima by also facing True Devil Kazuya, who just casually blows away Lars, Hwoarang, Alisa, Victor, and Lee all at once, trapping her in crystals with nowhere to run, and while she's bruised, she treats Kazuya's barrages as no big deal. Later in the Big Badass Battle Sequence, she stands in the way of Kazuya's beam, being eager to take the full brunt of the attack. The Post-Credit Scene reveals she survived, while also managing to awaken her own Devil Gene, after Kazuya and Jin lost them and is ready to continue her father Heihachi's legacy. Notably, all those aren't achieved with fully dumb luck; Reina has done her own research to find out what can trigger her Devil Gene awakening (get into a near-death situation) and just applying what she has learned, proving that she's got brains in addition of brawn.
• Jin's entire character arc in this game is just a love letter to Tekken fans and especially Jin fans. Much like Heihachi and Kazuya's final fight in the previous game, the final fight between him and Kazuya is this from start to finish.
  • For the record, Jin has to win a total of 10 rounds. Not to mention, Kazuya’s will to overcome his son will let him heal.
  • He finally accepts Devil Jin as a part of himself and masters his Devil power, and pulls a Big Damn Heroes on Lars against True Devil Kazuya.
  • In his fight against True Devil Kazuya, Jin wins their Beam-O-War against this time, unlike Chapter 1. He also acknowledges his power as something to protect rather than a curse. Unfortunately, his overall power is not enough to stop True Devil Kazuya at this point.
  • Jun helps Jin to learn how to use his Kazama spiritual powers, combining them with his Devil powers to become Angel Jin and the ensuing fight against True Devil Kazuya on a meteor, which was a piece of rock that was blown out of the ocean into space from an energy blast from Kazuya (meant to destroy the island Yakushima was on) that got deflected by the newly acquired Angel Jin. There's probably no better setting for a final battle between an angel and a devil than up in the heavens.
  • Both of them performing a Punch Parry, not only successfully purging himself and Kazuya of the Devil Gene, but it also propelling the meteor down to earth. And despite having lost their devil genes, both are still able to keep fighting, with Jin being able to throw a punch at Kazuya and through a rock that a hurricane hurled towards them.
  • Kazuya’s reaction to losing a power he spent years harvesting?
    Kazuya: What of it? It is just a means to an end.
  • Jin embracing every single fighting style he's mastered over the years, using his Mishima-style moveset (which he had previously abandoned following Heihachi's betrayal), followed by him doing his pose from the boxart of Tekken 3 and a remix of his theme from the same game playing. Just the feeling of getting to play a modernized version of Classic Tekken 3 Jin is something that needs to be experienced firsthand to be believed. And then he uses his mother's moveset and stance, followed by a mixture of all three fighting styles, with some non-supernatural moves from Devil Jin to boot.
    • It should be noted that it's been over 20 years (for the players) since Jin stopped using the Mishima style, starting from Tekken 4. Jin had even trained vigorously in standard karate for what could've been months to unlearn it. Despite that, he's able to utilize it again effortlessly and just as masterfully as his father, another prodigy of Mishima-ryu. Just goes to show how skilled Jin truly is.
  • Despite being on the receiving end of a savage beatdown by Kazuya, Jin refuses to stay down. Bolstered by the thoughts of everyone who helped him on his journey, he starts fighting back while reaffirming his desire to never deny his past nor forget his bonds. Kazuya gets so pissed at his son's stubborn defiance he enters Rage Mode and uppercuts him several feet in the air.
    Kazuya: Break, damn you!
  • Jin's response? Wordlessly get up, and activate Heat Mode as the Final Round begins.
  • Jin has to summon the willpower in himself but the faith of all the allies he made and wishes to protect. Kazuya's Power Of Hate and his ambitions alone still proved to match him.
  • The final Cross Counter recreating the Bandai Namco logo the two make that determines the victor of the fight. They both remain in that pose for a moment... before one of them falls down. Canonically, Jin wins that fight.
  • Jin winning leads to a scene of him overlooking the ocean from a cliff. He's not throwing anyone off it, he's simply standing there knowing full well that he's won.
  • The entire final bout is a spectacular and beautiful pair and contrast to the final battle in Tekken 7, both visually and thematically. Heihachi and Kazuya's final battle in that volcano, with fire and lava spewing out all around them, was evocative of the hateful rivalry between two monstrous individuals who were only interested in settling the score between them for good (on top of a man's last stand against a devil in a scene that can be analogous to Hell itself just to top it all off). Jin would've been perfectly within his right to want to do the same with his own deadbeat asshole of a father, and their battle at the beginning of the story has shades of this, but in the end Jin decides that he's not interested in settling scores or killing his father, even if Kazuya is enough of a scumbag to warrant it - he just wants to protect the people he cares about and make amends for his crimes, and this is evoked through the Battle in the Rain, a moment of cleansing and rebirth as Jin sheds his Death Seeker mindset and his hatred, instead seeking victory for the sake of living for a better future. Kazuya, on the other hand, hasn't changed at all, and refuses to understand why Jin continues to get back up and fight, canonically allowing his son to triumph.
  • There is also an alternative Despair ending. If Jin loses the last round, Kazuya can defeat Jin, continues the Mishima cliff-tossing treatment to his son, and conquers the world without the Devil Gene.

Character Episode

• Raven's ending has him and Victor sparring, only for him to be given a letter that reads "Raven is dead" and has the kanji for "mentor" grafted on his left shoulder. It turns out that Victor is promoting him and re-christens Raven as Great Raven, passing his sword and leadership of the Raven Unit over to him. Raven solemnly accepts Victor's sword as he takes his leave.
• Shaheen's ending has him protecting Lili from a sniper's bullet after winning the tournament, using his scimitar as a boomerang to dispatch the sniper. Shaheen's heroics were awesome in and of itself that both Lili and Asuka begin fangirling for him.
• Feng's ending has him Rider Kicking a thundercloud before declaring he has conquered the heavens. That is until Leroy's pet dog, Sugar ruined the moment. But, still...
• Both Claudio and Zafina's endings have them both taking down Azazel, giving the idea what if the main story could have ended there. For Claudio, he manages to bind Azazel with chains imbued with Sirius magic before turning the Rectifier into dust with his holy arrow, singlehandedly vanquishing Azazel on his own. Meanwhile, Zafina needed the help of Claudio after she absorbs the Devil Genes out of Kazuya and Jin into her black orb before sealing Azazel inside, allowing Claudio to finish the job.
• Yoshimitsu's ending is a grand spectacle to behold. In another fight between him and Bryan, it seems Bryan is about to kill him as he tires Yoshimitsu, stuns him with a grenade and launches him off a cliff via a steel beam. Just as he goes in for one more blow, the ninja's cursed blade awakens and helps its owner finish off Bryan with a couple of imbued slashes. Then Yoshimitsu quietly walks away, with his cursed sword still active...

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