How do you actually get better at Tekken?
I’ve been interested in Tekken ever since I was a little kid watching my siblings play it on the PS1. I played Tekken 5, 6, and 7 casually, but never really understood the game. I mostly played story mode or mashed buttons with friends who were also just playing casually.
A few months ago, I saw Tekken 8 on sale and bought it with the intention of finally learning the game properly.
At first, I researched beginner-friendly characters, and Alisa was one of the most recommended. I picked her up and mostly learned simple strings without really understanding combos or fundamentals. Somehow, I managed to reach Fujin, but I started feeling like I wasn’t actually learning Tekken — I was just getting wins.
After that, I started watching videos about fundamentals: defense, punishment, sidestepping, movement, etc. Honestly, I feel like I’ve only learned maybe 10% of it so far. Around the same time, I also saw a lot of advice saying you should play a character you genuinely think is cool. Since I didn’t really like Alisa’s design or fighting style, I switched to Reina.
With Reina, I’ve been trying much harder to learn properly. I learned her stances, practiced her moveset, and spent time grinding EWGF consistency on controller. But despite all of that, I feel like I’m not improving at all — neither fundamentally nor with the character itself.
When I try to play “properly” by defending, punishing, and playing patiently, I often fail. I watch replays, look at the recommended punishments, and even do punishment training in practice mode, but once I’m in a real match, I can barely apply any of it.
What frustrates me the most is losing to players who just spam strings and random low mixups. I don’t mind losing when someone clearly outplays me with good defense and punishment, but losing to what feels like unga bunga gameplay honestly tilts me.
And when I get tilted, I end up falling back on cheesy Reina flowcharts like ff2 into stance -> 3+4 low / 3 or 4 mixups or grabs, and the worst part is… it works at my rank. I can win games doing that, but I feel like I’m not actually improving.
So now I’m stuck wondering:
- How do you actually improve at Tekken?
- Do I need to memorize every character’s moves to punish properly?
- Should I stop caring and just use cheesy stuff?
- Should I switch characters again?
- Am I approaching learning the game the wrong way?
- Or am I just bad and overthinking everything?
For reference, my Reina is currently Battle Ruler.
TL;DR:
Played Tekken casually my whole life, bought T8 to finally learn seriously. Started with Alisa and got Fujin, switched to Reina because I like her more. I practice fundamentals and punishment, but can’t apply them in real matches and keep losing to spam/mixups. I can win using cheesy flowcharts, but I don’t feel like I’m actually improving. How do people genuinely get good at Tekken?