Tekken 8’s Arcade Quest is a heartfelt but flawed nod to the FGC of old

Tekken 8’s Fight Lounge and chibi custom avatars have been a major talking point heading into the game’s January release, but the associated Arcade Quest has remained a mystery. Thanks to a preview, however, I can report that it is a heartfelt yet flawed story about the FGC of old. 

Ever since it was first revealed, Bandai Namco has promoted Arcade Quest as a way to look back at how players used to experience fighting games when arcades were the most prominent way to play. Pair that with a story built around the current Tekken World Tour, and you get a fun side mode with a two key purposes—telling a story and advertising the competitive circuit. And it does both well, to an extent. 

I got to play the opening chapter of Arcade Quest, and a little bit extra, at a recent Tekken 8 preview, and while I enjoyed my time with the mode, it didn’t entirely sell me on its concept and story. Namely, as someone who didn’t grow up in arcades but covers the fighting game community closely and has heard stories about how things ran back then, it seems Bandai kept things a little too PG compared to Tekken 8’s main story. 

Clear outline, poor execution

The intro seemed realistic enough, with a Tekken newbie watching a TWT tournament and getting inspired to compete at a small, local event to get a feel for the game and learn from a few more experienced friends. The tutorial and advice you get from your resident Tekken-buddy Max is simple enough to get you started before you play through a basic tournament against CPU opponents, none of which stand out too much. My issue comes with the basic interactions, characterizations, and portrayals.

I will preface this take with the fact I only played an hour of Arcade Quest and was limited to the first arcade and some Ghost AI battles, so I am only giving an opinion on the surface level of the mode and its story based on my preview and discussions with other players. But with that said, one of the main comments after the play session was how the intro arcade lacked the feel of a classic arcade with an FGC presence. The characters are all one-note, the first arcade felt a bit too modern, and the core story conflict being how you can’t just play Tekken for fun while improving as a player is a bit childish. 

The antagonist, Orochi, is a top player who thinks playing Tekken with friends and having fun with it isn’t a mindset for aspiring pros he wants to face on his way to a TWT title. So, to prove him wrong, you and your new friends are going to try and make it to the TWT finals, which will likely end in Orochi being one of the final opponents and eventually accepting that Tekken can be fun and competitive—or some variant of a Dragon Ball tournament arc plot. But in the opening, at least, there wasn’t any real trash talk or something to make the experience feel heated. 

“Do you mind leaving the game? I would rather play with the AI.”

In Tekken 8’s main story, you will be trying to control Jin’s inner demon and stop Kazuya from changing the fate of humanity with a potential world-ending iteration of the King of Iron Fist Tournament. You will face the concept of death and other brutalities frequently during that journey, but in Arcade Quest, there was barely even dialogue calling your avatar a scrub and insulting their abilities. It was all surface-level talk about approaching the game. 

Because this is a side mode built partly to introduce casual fans to features like the combat trials, Ghost AI, and other training options, I can’t judge it too harshly—especially having only played the first hour. I’m hopeful that the story itself will evolve as you visit different arcades and get deeper into T8’s take on the FGC, but my gut tells me things will stay surface level and remain a general look at the bygone era of arcades through the lens of the TWT and friendship. The Fight Lounge is more of an arcade than the Arcade Quest thus far. 

At the very least, the Tekken team is showing some love to the FGC’s roots in a way we haven’t seen before in a game like this. The passion is there, and the product could be worse, but I was looking forward to some grit and grind.