If you’re an outsider, you might think that massive appeal has to do with the series' deep combat system, breathtaking visuals, or its wild and varied roster. You’d be mostly right, but there’s one element that doesn’t get discussed too much in more casual audiences: Tekken’s lore.

Granted, story modes in fighting games are usually completely ignored or laughed at, and for good reason: they’re often mediocre at best. Big names like Street Fighter and The King of Fighters have rare🐈ly done a great job of telling their unnecessarily convoluted plots, and how you experience them is pathetic — looking at you, Street Fighter 5’s story mode.

There are exceptions, of course - most stories from Mortal Kombat since 2011’s reboot present characters and conflicts in more 𝕴entertaining ways, or Arc System Works’ BlazBlue and Guilty Gear tell tales about humanity, forbidden entities and power,ꦐ and how their roster react to extraordinary events.

Luckily, Tekken is one of these rare exceptions, with the story beats and characters’ developments packed with over-the-top moments and goofy situations. At the end of the first game, Kazuya Mishima defeats his father, Heihachi, and throws him off a cliff to take care of the Mishima Zaibatsu, a powerful organization. Heihachi seems dead, until he makes a comeback in Tekken 2, beats Kayuza, and throws him into a volcano this time. You would think that would be the end of it, but of course, Kazuya makes a comeback at a later entry a🎉nd the throwing people off high places never ends. More characters adopt the tradition, like Kazuya’s son Jin, and the locations change to temples, helicopters, and even outer space.

Thi🔴s is only one story beat in a series that has mythological figures, Devil Genes granting outstanding power to main characters, clones, deadly rivalries between siblings, and the inclusion of animals such as bears and kangaroos created to be fighters by evil geniuses. These beasts know how to pack a punch and have hilarious but also heartwarming stories depending ꧑on the entry.

Not everything you see in Tekken’s story is canon, but that doesn’꧃t remove any of the merits the writers get for crafting such moments.

Tekken 8 brings two story🀅-focused modes to the mix: The Dark Awakens and Character Episodes. The former is a proper story mode full of cutscenes that sh💧ow very normal things like a man throwing a motorbike at a helicopter after climbing a skyscraper, or another one becoming a devil and destroying dozens of satellites in mere seconds by using a very convenient laser beam.

I don’t want to spoil too much more about this mode, but I was smiling like an idiot the whole time as the chapters went by, with some of them reaching u𝕴nexpected new heights very quickly and out of nowhere. The best part? These events impact the gameplay, with great boss fights, QTEs in the middle of battles, and Dragon Ball Z-style sequences to get the blood pumping.

This is not to say that The Dark Awakens ♚doesn’t take its characters seriously or that it doesn&rsqu♉o;t have well-constructed moments for you to feel empathy with some of them. Even the fact that each character speaks their own language (even the animals) and everyone understands each other warms my heart in a peculiar way that I still can’t explain.

Character Episodes is basically the classic arcade mode, with five battles you need to fight with each character. At the beginning, you get a brief animated cutscene giving you some general information about the whereabouts of the character and what they want. When you get to the end, an in-engine cutscene shows that character's destiny, which can be an important event related to the main story or just a silly situation crafted to make you laugh.

If you’re well-versed in the series lore, you𝔉’ll get some surprising beats showing how far some of the characters have come over the decades, with their dedication to their objectives since the original g🍷ame. For others, you’ll see a bear and a panda in space. Floating around. Being in love.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve been following Kayuza’s ꦫjourney since the very beginning or if you’re jumping into Tekken 8 because new challengers Victor, Reina, and Azucena look awesome. As long as their tones suit youꦑr taste, you’ll have a great time with these two modes.