This is not Tekken
Guess 50-50 or die
EasyMode for new players

Balance aside, the game launched and then an updated added an in game store revealing why we were missing cosmetics from Tekken 7. Then the battle pass came, and now whenever you login you get 20 notifications saying you got x item or check out the battle pass.

It feels very scummy and they didnt allow season pass owners to get a stage with Heihachi. They are just trying to suck the money out of the playerbase.

This series is going in the wrong direction, both in terms of gameplay and extreme monetization, and at this time I cannot recommend it if you're new to the series. Anyone previously into Tekken would've already bought this anyway.

Having such strong additional mechanics such as heat pushes the gameplay away from what made Tekken fun for me. Each character's moveset is already complex enough (3D fighters in general have this problem/feature), that it just doesn't make sense to add all these 2D-style mechanics on top of the base game. Maybe it would be suitable if you were to halve each character's moveset, but then you'd be taking even more of the Tekken identity away. All the heat stuff devolves into too many +frames and too much guessing, and it's a critical part of every round.

Monetization in this game is just too much - season pass (with the most lackluster characters they could have imagined, so far all recycled from Tekken 7 - I say this as an Eddy fan), separate monthly pass, in-game shop with in-game currency that you can't 1:1 buy a costume with (common predatory tactic), the separate stage DLC drama, etc. It's gotten ridiculous.

And despite the game being in such a rough state gameplay-wise with ridiculous heat mechanics and certain characters being far too strong, instead of focusing on fixing the gameplay, we get collabs with sunglasses companies and chipotle and other nonsense.

On top of all this, the game's review score is being artificially manipulated to remove recent negative reviews as 'off-topic.' Criticism of DLC practices for a live-service game are absolutely on-topic and must be taken in consideration with the product as a whole.