They put a lot of effort in Tekken 7 too. Experimenting both with tech, gameplay and character design isn't easy as easy as it sounds, especially if you think about the reception Tekken 4 had and how they fall back to the roots with Tekken 5 and stopped moving too much from this. Now that the experiments are done, they can concentrate about what to do with the series and just develop it.
I'm sorry man, I don't see it. Where is this experimentation of character design? Every design in Tekken 7 except Kazuya, Lars, and Jin is recycled from the previous games INCLUDING the putrid customs of TTT2. When it comes to gameplay, it still fundamentally plays the same as Tekken Revolution with just tweaks to frame data like when you can block after sidestepping/walking. Picking any character from TTT2 or TR and jumping into T7 you already pretty much know 90% of the character already in the game. I don't see where they experimented to induce some kind of discovery that one expects when diving into a new game.
And again the Tekken 4 argument comes into play, a game that didn't get a re-release with a BR/DR version like Tekken 5/6/Tag2 got, so it's not a fair comparison. But regardless, Tekken 4 is fondly looked upon right now because we're all just
desperate for a new feeling in the series again. The last thing was the experimentation of the tech which I assume something had to be done to convert everything into Unreal Engine 4... but I guess that's where their entire budget got squandered to. There isn't a single brand new hit animation developed for this iteration of the game. The new screw-attack is just DJin's WS+2 hit animation recycled; the new bound animation is just Law's DSS,2 recycled; The new twirl animation from moves like T7 Kazuya's d/f+1,4 is just the beginning frames of Law's WS+1,2 hit animation recycled; That toe grab animation that's new in T7 is completely ripped off of Soul Calibur; and I can go on. Where is the experimentation on new content? And not just that The game actually looks worse tech wise in a lot of the character models compared to Tekken 6 which was released 8 years ago.
T6:
T7:
T6:
T7:
In the end, we just want something new again... that's all. We have TTT2 to play for this style of gameplay. When I hear the word experimentation I can see that for every other game like SFV, MKX, Xrd, but I really don't see it for Tekken 7. I love the series and in my opinion gameplay wise it is the best among all the FG's. I'll still end up buying and playing Tekken 7 but this current effort is not what I expect from a sequel.