Fighting Games Friday: Tekken 8 Needed More New Characters

Any further character-related surprises that Bandai Namco and producer Katsuhiro Harada had in store for Tekken 8 were long ruined, a now-typical occurrence for fighting game pre-release promotional cycles. The entire cast was leaked months ago, including the remaining returning characters who’d yet to be confirmed at that time and two more brand-new characters. Harada denied it, but it was bound to be true considering how often this happens with fighting games.

The development team has attempted to damage control this by making previews for the returning characters not as special by revealing a bunch of them at once, and making those for the new characters very special. This strategy worked splendidly with the reveal of Vincent, which generated plenty of buzz among the fanbase, especially given his French celebrity voice actor (semi-bad politics aside). But this worked extremely well with the reveal of Reina.

Reina fills a spot that was sorely lacking in Tekken: The bad girl spot. She has a clear snarky and sadistic side, evinced through her attitude, as she seeks to fight certain characters to prove herself. Her full motives, of course, are currently shrouded in secrecy. In continuing the trend of rumors being accurate, it didn’t take long for the trailer to confirm that her move set takes a lot of cues from Heihachi Mishima’s. Word on the street is that she’s Heihachi’s secret daughter, and I don’t know why anyone would doubt that after seeing her in action through the trailer. The streets speak truths.

A plurality of Tekken fans might have taken word about Reina being Heihachi’s daughter too literally; her move set doesn’t resemble his as much as some predicted. She does have some of his key moves, including the ever-trusty Mishima family favorite Electric Wind God Fist, which likely has the same difficult output for the quicker version. The others are variations of Heihachi’s moves that have a fun little twist to make Reina distinguishable from her likely father, including her larger uppercut that can be followed up with an instant air kick to start or continue combos.

To sum it up: Her move set resembles Heihachi’s as much as Asuka Kazama’s set resembles her aunt Jun Kazama’s. Asuka and Jun have several similarities, but their differences were enough that Jun was guaranteed a spot in her mainline return to the Tekken roster in Tekken 8, and not as a clone of her nephew. Just the same, Reina’s move set contains elements of Heihachi’s mixed with her own style, which suggests that he could find his way back into the game. It’s alone remarkable that he’s missing the initial roster of a new Tekken game for the first time, a decision perhaps influenced by the events of Tekken 7 and his second voice actor passing away in 2018. But never say never regarding the character’s revival. Death in fighting games means as much as it does in comics.

It sure is good that no one in particular planned a post about Reina’s move set being definitive proof of Heihachi Mishima being truly dead, and had to discard the idea upon seeing the notable differences in her techniques. Harada claimed during the newest Tekken stream that Heihachi is fully dead, but this wouldn’t be the first time he fibbed. The man likes to troll.

It would be even better if those fan theories about Reina being a reincarnated Heihachi pan out. Don’t put it past a franchise that made Street Fighter’s Akuma part of the Tekken lore to introduce something that wild.

There are solid reasons for why the three new characters have created plenty of buzz upon their reveals. Reina, Vincent, and Ms. Coffee Queen Azucena all have move sets that look spectacular in action, and feel that way considering options about Azucena from the last closed beta. The development team put plenty of effort into this game’s new faces. They look so good that the game could have used more of them. Tekken 8 is launching with half the new characters that Tekken 7’s home version included; in fairness, a few of Tekken 7’s new characters were introduced while it was still in arcades, the kind of release schedule no longer tenable these days.

It might have been too difficult for the development team to create so many new characters, understandable considering how high development costs and sales expectations are for video games these days. In that case, a nice compromise would have entailed bringing Tekken 7’s brand-new post-release characters back.

The biggest missing face here is Lidia Sobieska, the karate-using Prime Minister of Poland (at 29 years old, the oldest they’re willing to go for a lady) who was the very last character released for the game. This was a Luke Sullivan-level spot, considering his status as a Street Fighter 6 preview character in Street Fighter V’s final season. This fact and her unique move set should have guaranteed her a spot in Tekken 8’s roster, and it’s unfortunate that she’s not here. This also applies to Fahkumram and the new Kunimitsu to a lesser extent. Perhaps they can be among the first downloadable content characters for this game.

I’m sure plenty more gameplay demonstrations will be provided for Tekken 8 in the next two months leading up to the January 26th release date. Perhaps they’ll hold another beta with all the playable characters before that, because the netplay could use another stress test considering impressions from the prior session.

In the meantime, I will keep my fingers crossed that Reina will re-elevate Asuka’s importance in the story, and will become a rival for her considering they’re both counterparts. The friendly rivalry with Lili is nice enough, a cool nod to Sakura and Karin’s feud in Street Fighter. Now that Asuka and Lili are on friendlier terms, they could use alternative rivals again.