honestly as much as i like heihachi, they could've also just not added him in the roster like it would've been so bold to have heihachi either skip an installment or straight up never appear again
The worst thing about Heihachi coming back is that Harada will probably continue 7's dumb narrative that he's a sympathetic hero who hates the Devil Gene when he's really an abusive ruthless power hungry bastard. Him apparently hating it contradicts Tekken 4 where he wanted to combine his DNA, the Devil Gene and Ogre's blood and put the Mishima Zaibatsu on the line to lure Kazuya and Jin to him.
@@Xehanort10 agree with this. Keep in mind also that he killed his own father Jinpachi who's also gone largely unmentioned in the last 2 games. Heihachi's sudden sympathetic arc in 7 would work a little better if that plot point didn't exist.
On the flip side, I honestly wish Jin tried to do something more openly altruistic with the power he had as head of the Mishima Zaibatsu BEFORE concluding he should start World War III to materialize Azazel to achieve a double kill between the two of them. Like, that is THE wackiest way of making him a villain with a sympathetic motive that doesn't completely make him evil. He honestly just looked really stupid and his redemption arc feels awkward because of it.
my theory was originally that they wanted to make Heihachi sympathetic before killing him off as a tribute to Daisuke Gori, who had just passed away during the interim of 6 and 7. My understanding is that it is often common practice to retire characters in Japanese media when the actor passes as well, unless absolutely necessary. And they wanted the last perception of him to be positive rather than negative? Or something, idk. Probably a dumb assumption to make. But clearly that's not the case if they're cool with bringing him back not one game later, so I guess Heihachi's just fucked unless they decide to reverse this weird lore change in 8.
@@adriangear No Heihachi and Jin are not similar since Heihachi's backstory in 7 was never so much as hinted at in the 6 previous games and was pulled out of Harada's ass.
He's got the survival skills of The Joker (at least according to you, I don't play Tekken). Unless you literally see him torn apart atom by atom then he's not dead, and even then he might survive it.
@@chocov1233in tekken 5 heihachi gets blown the fuck up, crashes into the ground so hard it buries him and is just stuck there for like a month then rises out of the dirt and just goes back to trying to beat kazuya again
Dang, Heihachi has better life insurance than Xehanort if he can survive the Tekken 7 ending, losing two voice actors, and who knows how long of a lava bath.
@@DoubleBoost23 I just thought of Kingdom Hearts in regards to this topic, and I think they will still keep on reviving the Org. XIII members in one way or another. The most painful thing is that the last time they did it in KH3, they literally added NOTHING to the plot or even their backstories.
Also I could be wrong but I know damn well Sektor was at least mentioned in the story of MK1 and I'm pretty sure Kuai Liang used male pronouns when describing him. If I'm right, add that to the list of NRS contradictions
@@connorharnage6697I think it’s supposed to be implied that the new playable Sektor and Cyrax are from a different timeline or something (god I hate all this timeline shit) I’m pretty sure in the main mk1 timeline they have talked about them both being male and also they are loyal to Bi-Han which the female versions don’t really seem that way.
@@flurmple5587 What makes you think they aren't loyal to Bi Han? Did I miss something? I've only watched the trailer once since it dropped so most likely
Something to point out is the fact that apparently we can see sektor in Bi Han's tower ending in which he is the one building the cyborgs (or robots, still confuse into what they are supposed to be exactly), or at the very least that was the picture I thought they were trying to give in as we know that this Bi Han is not that bad of a leader as he put now frost in the Lin kuei, but still I don't know if that was actually their Sektor's timeline or if this gender swapped Sektor is from the same timeline as well
I feel the issue is when characters die, they should either stay dead or comeback with a redefine purpose. Noob and Hanzo’s death and return is about the arc and the wrath and the downfall of both men. They became worse off after dying, Bi-Han more so. In short of a character comes back from Death it needs to take time and it will require a purpose redefine.
@@vikingfromnorth45 Noob was only a secret character in MK2, he didn't have any role in the actual storyline of the game. It also wasn't revealed he was Bi Han until MK Deception, which came much later.
Bi-Han became far worse off when he died. He got corrupted to the very core when he was Noob, Hanzo at least had all his personality & agency intact & was never corrupted.
That actually why I hate what M1K did with Scorpion. I can't just say that you are now Anakin Skywalker in a reboot of Star Wars, Hanzo Hazashi IS Scorpion, Kuai Liang is NOT Scorpion, he will never in my eyes be Scorpion.
Geese Howard as nightmare Geese is probably the best way to keep a character in a game series. Keeps him playable but not really part of the main story.
I really appreciate how SNK used the parallel timelines of Fatal Fury and King of Fighters when it came to Geese's death. In Fatal Fury, he's dead and gone. His story is over. But in KoF, he's still around, and they use that chance to explore new scenarios with him (primarily his relationship with Rock who was still raised by Terry) without undoing his death in Fatal Fury.
@@thesilentsociety3252 They already confirmed the multiverse in KOF XV. Only way they could do it is for Nakoruru to pluck KOF Geese from that timeline and place him in the Fatal Fury timeline, but there is no lore reason for her to do this. SNK could always introduce another character who can travel the multiverse, though is it worth it? Just for Geese to "return" to Fatal Fury?
kinda noticed that about maximum impact and how like ff it has nightmare geese in that it's basically "what if the fatal fury timeline had the kof characters in it"in a way as i do like that difference snk has to actually go back to give a original game series timeline a conclusion with the other one showing the possibility of if things went differently. since from what i guess in the kof timeline is fatal fury 1-3 just maybe the fight with geese in 3 happens in his tower or he takes the scrolls after the twins are defeated leading to it as while the real bout game's didn't happen yet(really implied somethings similar to it's going to happen with how geese still has the scrolls being why he got involved in recent kof's when in ff he destroyed them/how inevitable it is orochi will return can see geese going after it's power with how he tries to in the gba kof.) it's implied terry found rock after he knocked geese off the tower a 2nd time with rock just getting a huge growth spurt with how rocky development of the series got during the nest saga/everyone being forgotten in ash. just with things switched around to explain the mark of the wolves characters that'd be younger giving interesting perspectives(hokutomaru being with mai when she's only mentioned in motw/has yet to appear in cotw,tizoc becoming a villain heel,ryo being shown with marco.) /in cases like krauser he's dead in the fatal fury timeline but just went back to his kingdom after losing in 96 which if they brought him back like to see him interact with rock maybe being a better person to him than geese or show what it's version of kain is doing since he didn't have to take over for geese.
Tekken 7's story might not have been the best, but I still was heavily invested in the result of the Heihachi vs. Kazuya battle. It felt like Heihachi was slowly realizing that he was fighting a losing battle, but he'd be damned if he was just going to roll over and give up, which really made his death hit me pretty hard. It was the perfect send-off for him, and now Tekken 8 just comes along and makes me feel like I was a fool for caring in the first place.
I was also really looking forward to what Reina had to offer after Tekken 8's ending, both Jin and Kazuya don't have the devil gene anymore, so now they'll have to experience what it's like to be on the receiving end. But I guess now Bandai will push her aside in favor of "How many times do we have to teach you this lesson old man!"
@@burningcole2538 While I agree with Snake that they could have just had Heihachi on the roster with no obligation to justify his place on the roster and dub him canonically dead in the main story, I did see some early speculation before T8 came out that it would be humorous if they just replaced Hei with a Robo-Hachi that has his exact moveset.
What's even funnier is that canonically, Heihachi was absent from Tekken 5 but he was still on the roster. They have done this before yet for some bizarre reason he's back completely making T7's ending pointless. It just feels like cowardice as they couldn't even save him for like season 2 or 3.
You hit the nail on the head. It feels like cowardice for sure. It's ok to let him stay dead for at least 1 game. Just bring him back in Tekken 9, but at least let his death resonate for a bit.
@@TonyMishima92 dunno why they didn't just do that again just say his existence is non canon but u can still have em playable or maybe just have him sit out for 1 game kazuya wasn't even in tekken 3 and it was just fine same with jun she's still kept as missing in action but they made her playable through appearing in a vision heihachi really has no excuse
100% True. It seems Comics and Fighting Games are the only pieces of medias where repeating eternally some events and not evolving the story (unless for shock-value) is acceptable.
Of course it is. The story is an addition to the gameplay, all it has to do is give motivation for characters to throw hands, it's dumb fun and doesn't need to be more. Most people want to see their favourite characters fight, that's it. It's not like a film or a book in that the story isn't the main course, it's an appetizer. If the gameplay is great, there doesn't even have to be a story mode in my book. And if you're coming into a fighting game expecting some expertly written piece of fiction, let's just say you're looking in the wrong place.
@@michakoguciuk497 I’ll never understand this argument. What hooks people up with Mortal Kombat is not that its gameplay (which was always a little rigid) is incredible, or its gore aspect (if this was the case, Kazumi Ninja would have been an incredible hit). The frame of the absurd and fun characters allied with their intriguing power-up, justified by the universe and the story. See how MK fans cried when Scorpion wasn’t here for 1 game to understand that the main interest of game is a character.
@@adonis7626 I was mainly talking about Tekken, though I guess I never mentioned it. MK is a bit of a different story since it caters to the casual crowd a lot more. The last part doesn't even contradict my comment, obviously throwing the front cover guy out of the game isn't the brightest idea.
Yeah even other game franchises don't feel obliged to be the same thing over and over again. Why is it that fighting games aren't treated like single entries, like EVERY OTHER TYPE OF GAME OUT THERE? Why is there supposed to be so much carryover from game to game that they all must have the exact same roster? Whereas other games have each entry treated as a fully separate game.
lol I know it doesn’t matter but it’s still some good lore before they went all MCU on us. MKX and onward they really have been telling some safe ass stories. I hope we get back to the darkness and betrayal of Mks glory days.
@@Timeforceletsgo personally I miss the simplicity of the OG 2D Mortal Kombat. No time travel alternate timeline bullshit. Just a tournament to decide the fate of Earthrealm.
They call this out in T8, the Tekken world is messed up and hardcore so the people who genuinely want to see him succeed and believe in his cause are like literal bears, pandas and assassins and everything in between. It'd be more unrealistic if everybody had a vendetta against him even if he didn't directly affect them with WW3, especially since a lot don't really seem to care other than progressing further as fighters. Ultimately it'd be fine if the rest of the world hated him and he was like always being hunted and that was his weight he had to carry but we don't see that since it's very closely cast focused. Ideas change and people have turn arounds, killers in jail turn to religion n whatnot so I think Jin tapping into his "good" side isn't bad he's just not as edgy but he was a doomer like all of T8 wanting to die so it's there. I won't deny it's poorly done though. It did feel awkward at times for sure.
I’ve been looking forward to a video like this, especially after the disappointing reveal that Bison was coming back to street fighter and a similar thing happened to Tekken, you never disappoint Snake.
Liu kang was gone from deadly alliance since he died in the opening. He was gone which drew people in to see what happened. Then was in Deception's rooster but not in konquest mode. Then came back in the opening of Armageddon and it was hype.
i honestly refuse to believe that enough people want heihachi back to justify the devs for once "listening to the fans", i think harada just likes the sound of "the fans wanted him back" more than the sound of "i personally wanted him back"
@@JunKazamaFan you bring up a very good point. i also see way more people asking for like...christy...than heihachi LOL like who is this for i dont understand
@@fs0598 I've seen far more requests for the likes of Anna, Armor King, Julia, Miguel, and Bruce than Heihachi, personally, but we'll be lucky if we even get two of those five back, probably.
@@shawklan27 Oh yeah, people ask and hope for Bruce all the time! His detractors might say he has no personality, but that can't be completely true if he's won over such a large amount of fans.
That and those who demand characters keep returning over and over. Even if they can be added without being canon to the story, I honestly feel doing so potentially reduces from what more content can be made.
The non-canon route should just be the norm. Pleases the fans who just want to play their favourite characters again, and those who want the story to build off of the previous instead or just reinventing the wheel.
4:28 For more context: one of the playable characters from the first Guilty Gear, Kliff, has been dead since the 1st game. He was made a playable character in Accent Core, but all his story bits are flashbacks. So he canonically has only been present in one game. Justice is another character who also canonically hasn't been playable since GG1 (she is still relevant in the story due to another character tied to her, but is technically dead).
@@earthquake7024 Yeah, like being named after the Symbiote, Eddie, during the run of X2~AC. To finally return as Zato-1 with Eddie's VA, Takehito Koyasu.
Bedman as well. Romeo died in xrd so the bed is now protecting his sister instead hens it's new name being "bedman?" and as much as I love to hear his redditor "umm actually 🤓" ahh rants, his death was meaningful and I wanna keep it this way
I genuinely thought heihachi would stay dead cause his voice actor also passed away. I also thought that most heihachi mains would just switch to other characters.
@@ErgenizSeemingly no. Her designer seemed to think she'd not be all that popular in fact. It seems the idea was that she'd be a mysterious character who'd shock people with her devil gene reveal
@@barriehannon6857 For whom tho? Let games be unique. Either just dont include the character or make creative workarounds (Like Jins moveset from Tekken 3 being Kazuya style but then a new one in Tekken 4, AMAZING story+gameplay combination)
@@jetsto5612 Some people would be angry about it as well, since they don't like idea of "characters as functions". I can agree with it and we have seen how "popular" new MK characters from 3D era were, which used legacy movesets. Hint: they were not popular at all.
What i hate about Bison's case, we've been waiting for any news on Gill's faction and the effects of the events from sf3. This is the first game to take place after that timeline, and with Bison back i feel we will get little further development on other villains.
I'll give you that. That's the one downside to Bison's resurrection: No Illuminati screentime when they haven't really done anything major, and we still don't know what's up with Q and if there's any connection between him and G, two similarly named characters with similar movesets.
@@espurrseyes42 I don't hate returning villains, but sometimes you want more variety in the enemies the heroes have to face. Frieza is a great villain for Goku, but Frieza is just one of many. Bison does not need to be the constant villain of every game. Lol
@@thetoondevil THIS is exactly what my problem is with Street Fighter and its Post-SF3 problem. They do not have a good rogues gallery other than Bison and Gill (and even then they never gave us more lore on the illuminati and other characters tied to that storyline: Alex,Ibuki,Necro,Urien,Dudley,etc.) They are so afraid to develop and move on. After 3rd Strikr, we got 4 with Seth which was good but was a prequel. Then 5, which was ANOTHER prequel, but with an even worse villain(Necalli) and Bison. SF3 really was the peak story wise, and there isnt really a decent "rogues gallery"
It's like the Akuma tax. You'd expect such a popular character to be in the base roster, but nah, gotta make them DLC so people will fork over even more money than they already are.
Not saying that company's greed is good. But I think having old characters as dlc and new in the base game is the lesser evil. Base roster is likely to have the biggest story role, and will also be exposed to new players trying the game at launch. When old characters are then added, we can see how they interact with the new stuff. Also, people already know them, so they will buy them... after giving their chance to the new faces. Plus, dlcs tend (not always) to get more sophisticated gameplays. It is the occasion to make these veterants more unique and fresh. Not a perfect opinion of mine of course. But since fighting games work with lots of dlcs and nostalgia now, we have to make the best of this unperfect situation.
Of course, storywise it does not change the argument made by Snake and so many other: stop revive dead guys and bring back obscurer or invent new things plz. SF2, Tekken 5 and MKtrilogy are not the only games in their respective franchises.
The thing about fighting games that the character DLC is the better way to do it, because before that you had to buy a new rerelease to get new characters and that's like double the price of the packs, is kinda wishful to ask for akuma in base game when development is already an expensive drag.
Yes a "possibly" possed bed going beserk with a intense desire to protect Delilah. Hell he plays slightly different from xrd what with the Bedfram malfuntioning every now and then.
You know what's worse about Bison in SF6? That's not even a clone, the team confirmed that is the same SFV body, so Ryu dissolving his body with denjin meant nothing
How can they be so dumb...? They literally show his body getting _desintegrated_ with nothing of the man left behind for him to magically pop out of nowhere on a random alley in Metro City. It's like they're explicitly telling to the fandom they don't care about story by not even coming with an actual excuse to justify his return.
@@javiervasquez625It's even worse, really, since despite us seeing Bison's body get bodied, we literally also see his smiling ghost too before _SFV_ story mode ends. So it's not like Capcom pretended he was even gone for good like Namco did with Heihachi, with it being presented instead as Bison just having another setback. No idea who thought saying that this amnesiac body was the same body that got utterly disintergrated was a good idea given how regularly Bison has changed bodies anyway.
@@MusicoftheDamnedso the story mode in sf6 kinda implies that bison left the body but during sf6 the empty bison body woke up and he even killed Nightmare bison ie the og bison who was voiced by the original bison va . So if they go with this bison being basically a nobody from kh it could be interesting but yea
Ironically, NRS did something like that somewhat cleverly with joker from injustice 2. He's canon in the sense he's a nightmare gas but non canon that he's still dead and doesn't influence the narrative too strong
Lowkey makes it more powerful as it shows just how strong of an influence and impression he had while alive Its kinda why I liked Jin getting scared AF when he realised Reina was using Heihachi style
What makes this truly bizarre is that Tekken already did this properly, at least twice. In T7 Kazumi is playable but its made clear she's like a spectre/memory. In T5, Heihaichi played no role in the plot but he was still playable. And then there's TTT1/2 and how T7 lazily added a bunch of DLC characters that have no story mode or ending movies. So why didn't they just do that???
Heihachi's return also undermines the climactic battle between Jin and Kazuya. Even though Jin's victory was a forgone conclusion, Kazuya still felt like a genuine threat because of him killing off the seemingly unkillable Heihachi in 7. Heihachi making a canon comeback in the next game kind of lowers the stakes of the final battle and skews the power dynamic between the two participants.
It pretty much undone Tekken 7. I still think he should have been replaced by a character that fights identically to him maybe a relative or something.
@@77wolfblade I thought that was the whole purpose of Reina, to fill the void Heihachi left. Poor girl got replaced by the character she was meant to replace in the exact same game, a la Gigas and Marduk in 7.
@@77wolfblade… and with that, Tekken 7’s “plot” is now a complete and utter waste of time for both the eternally underdeveloped, one-note gag side cast and the major players. Nobody wins except for the gameplay itself.
Hiehachi, Jin and Kazuya, are the tekken characters, so no reason to kill them, and Tekken history should not be take seriously never have been, is not like Mortal Kombat
Guilty Gear Strive does Bedman's death pretty well, featuring his bed haunted by his soul and his sister Delilah as the actual speaking character There are quite a few characters who talk about his death and give it way more of an impact and i really like that direction, it does the best of both worlds by keeping Bedman dead and have said death be meaningful while still having him playable on the roster
To this day I find baffling that the one fighting game that manage to tell its story from beginning to end without any sort bullshit was Blazblue of all things. Like it wasnt exactly perfect but from the ingenious experiment that was the Calamity Trigger story mode to the actual fitting conclution that was Central Fiction its just so funny to me that it is the game about time loops, paralel universes and metaphysics the one that manage deliver an actual complete narrative.
Was it though? Mori didn't want Nu or Lambda or Hazama to come back but due to what he called "the nature of fighting games" they had to be in the later entries. It seems then the story was being written as the games were being made to include those dead characters.
@@KarmaSpaz12 first, Lambda and Nu are the only playable characters that actually died (Hazama/Terumi only got wounded), second, the context of Blazblue makes the whole point kinda weird as most character have died in at least a time loop, most endings in Calamity trigger are that, my point was less Mori didnt bring characters back and more, Mori with all his flaws as a storyteller managed to tell the story he wanted. The ending of Central Fiction has merit because is an actual closure not; this character is popular lets bring him back, even Nu and Lambda had the decency to wait a full game before coming back.
@@diegorojas8959 I guess my point was that the story got rewritten. Nu was supposed to stay dead after CT, Lambda after CS and Hazama after CP. Interviews with Mori really do read as if he wanted them to not come back at all. And there's large amounts of story involving Relius which got cut, which would amount to almost another third of CF. Again, there's an interview with this info.
It's always "we spent so much time on the story!" but never "we spent so much time writing the story". I'm sure it took a long time to make, but it clearly didn't take long to write
While people say "Of course Dictator comes back, he has before" but what's particularly infuriating about Street Fighter's fixation on always using the character is that they have a lot of REALLY cool story ideas that never get utilized because they keep going back to Shadaloo and Dictator whose only real plan is "become powerful" which makes for a rather uninteresting story direction even if they give it a decent amount of attention. Gill and G both had really interesting potential stories that could be used in SF6, and with the game making a point of saying it takes place after SF3 it only seems natural that the ambiguous ending of SF3 where the Illuminati was not necessarily defeated. One major thing about SF6 is "why is it important that this game's canon is after SF3?" and the answer you'd think would be, "To do something new, take it in a different direction, show how these characters have changed over a generation," but with the way SF6 has gone, why DOES it need to have a specific timeline placement as being "after 3"? None of the character developments are built on necessary elements from 3 other than Ryu's new outfit reflecting a little bit of Oro's visual motifs (though it also matches Gouken so that's a bit of a moot point), the story has nothing to do with SF3 elements and none of the SF3 characters outside of Elena (who, while she's certainly likeable, has the least that can be really done to show her character changing as a result of the timeline placement out of probably the entire SF3 roster) are even set to return. If you were to ask me, "What do you think would be the natural course of action for SF after 3, storyline-wise?" I'd point to Gill's arcade ending it's implied he has brainwashed the fighters and takes them to his island utopia that it would have made perfect sense for THAT to be a setup of SF6's story mode.
The thing about "taking place after SF3" is that it doesn't actually matter - None of the characters in SF6 concretely knew Gill existed. Since barely any of them were in SF3. The fact they even make SF4 take place before SF3 was in of itself pointless
Man preach. Finally moving forward in the timeline in 6 was such a big deal at first but all it served to do was just change up some character designs in the end. Nothing is done with this game finally being (fully) after 3, and World Tour sucks as a story mode cause it's just a pointless f*ck all Create a character adventure for the main plot nobody asked for with only sidequests and the actual playable characters making callbacks and Easter eggs being the only source of appeal. 25 years for just a big nothing burger. Not to mention leaving a lot of things hanging from 5 as well, if this game goes by without addressing G, Rose's vision, etc that's just hack writing. Even the new characters, while nice designs and likeable, the only one that seems to have an actually interesting plotline being set up is Lily and (and kinda Aki but it's just more shadaloo busywork end of the day). Not that every character in a fg roster needs to have extreme plot importance or even a super serious, high stakes self contained one. But only 1 and a half characters out of i think the largest starting cast of newcomers in the series, at least in a while, with an actual plotline to follow is definitely odd. Like i think Luke is involved with Ken's story stuff but that's comic only for some reason. Jamie has nothing going on outside of occasionally calling back to Yun and Yang. Kim has beef with JP but so far there doesn't seem to be much to it and JP himself is getting kinda cucked in his status as big bad this early anyway. Manon is cool but doesn't really have a story besides idk, her mom not being around or something. The only thing keeping Marisa from being joke character tier is that she's a competent fighter, but mostly just comic relief. Lily and Aki are the only ones with intrigue being built i feel.
@@MagillanicaLouM Although World tour was fun and full of fan service, I agree that plotwise it doesn't do much. And yeah, new commers are cool but don't do enough. I hope some story content (not paid DLC plz...) will give everyone some things to do. Perhaps they are waiting for more characters to show up to do just that ? But then, guest characters are going to slow everything down, unless they are made part of the narrative even just a little (like Akuma in Tekken). I love Street Fighter and its characters, but admitting the flaws of its story can only contribute to make it better.
I had a theory that Heihachi isn’t coming back for real and instead Reina is trying to trick people in universe that he’s returned. The big reason is that before we see what looks like him coming out of the volcano in what looks like in universe footage he’s wearing a mask. The masked man might be an imposter possibly one of his 7 other illegitimate children emulating him. I like this idea a lot since it can serve as an exploration of Reina’s relationship with heihachi which the main story has yet to explain. Shes kinda an anomaly because she’s the only child of Heihachi that doesn’t despise him so what’s the deal. Plus his return is set up to be a story twist but his trailer ends with him. Edit: another point is Heihachis DLC portrait he’s not wearing the mask hat or Gi the masked man is wearing. Second Edit: Fuck
One reason why I was absolutly sure why Heihachi wasn't gonna come back because Heihachi in the past had two late seiyuus. You had his first voice actor Daisuke Goro who voiced Heihachi up until Tekken 6 where he died sometime after, which afterwards he was recasted by his second longest running seiyuu; Unsho Ishizuka. Ironically and sadly; the guy passed away after Tekken 7 came out, the same game where Heihachi died, so it's like as if it was fated that when the character dies; the actor dies with them and I thought after that they were NEVER gonna bring him back and retire him for good. Because in Japan; voice actors are treated with much more respect with certain roles, so at times for a LOOONG while; a character who had that Japanese voice wouldn't get recasted in future games or anything unless so much time has passed. After Ishizka's death which happened sometime after Heihachi's death in Tekken 7; that felt like a time to lay him down for good and move on, no need to bring him back when they lost TWO VAs, especially since the second one died after Heihachi's death in the last game. But no they had to bring him back...because why not? Also unless it is confirmed otherwise...I don't think the Cyrax and Sektor are in MK1 are meant to be female versions of the male versions we knew in the older timelines. Cyrax and Sektor are in the end; code names, not their REAL names (if they were...their parents must had robot fetishes lol) so these two could just be female members of the Lin Kuei who just so happen to have those codenames. The biggest question to ask Liu Kang on why he did certain things in my opinion was "Why did Liu Kang decide Takeda and Kenshi should be cousins rather than father and son?" like isn't that...creepy? I swear some of the re-imaginings from the developers were only brainstormed for the sake of change but didn't put much thought on "Umm wait why would Liu Kang change THIS about the character"? (Like I get half of the fanbase didn't like the Kombat Kids but what made Liu Kang decide "Lol im not gonna have Johnny and Sonya meet up and have Cassie, so she's not in this timeline!"). My bigggest concern however is ...who the hell will be Sub-Zero in the next MK game if Bi-Han is Noob while Kuai Liang is stuck as Scorpion?
Honestly, I feel like Bi-Han will revert back from Noob by the end of the DLC story. He isn't dead, just corrupted by Havik. It would be weird to throw away all the story build up with Bi-Han right now in a DLC story. Plus, the fact that the Sub Zero mantle is far more iconic/important to MK than Noob Saibot is, so it's hard to believe they'll leave Sub Zero unrepresented.
@@julianezequielpdg7347 Dude, it took 2 decades before we even heard a thing about Jun's status. I think Heihachi could've sat a game or two out seeing as he'll always be popular no matter what.
It's really ironic that when Tekken's marketings are focused to story mods, putting high budget in story mods, even the poster is related to the story but we get this meaningless looping stories.
Oh yes, my eternal pain as a comic book reader. That's why Post-Crisis DC was so good, a real golden period where the world moved forward until Geoff Johns and Didio brought Hal Jordan back to life in 2004, after 10 years of Kyle Rayner being the Green Lantern, soon to be followed by undoing the even longer death of Barry Allen and then Green Arrow and etc, and now we cant have any consequences for anything, and we just pretend to replace them sometimes for a marketing boost and then quickly revert back to status quo
Leading to the incredibly bloated rosters because we keep accumulating more Legacy characters but we never retire the old ones. It's ridiculous and laughable how many human Green Lanterns there are now at the same time
It's weird how Tekken has gone from, "Each character has a unique arcade mode ending and you won't find out which one was canon until the next game." To, "Here's an elaborate story mode." And yet it's the earlier non-committal approach that was more narratively interesting and consistent.
I really think it would have been better for Heihachi to live on through Reina, she is suppose to be his successor, or at least she has most of his moveset.
It's funny that so far the longest fighting game characters who stayed dead are Geese Howard in Fatal Fury (does get revived in KoF but technically, it's a different continuity) who dies in Real Bout, the appearances in the next game being non-canon and Kliff Undersn from Guilty Gear who dies in the first game but is in all of GGX re-releases with his story taking place in the past
What’s funny is that before the reveal, some buds and I were joking that it was gonna be a Combot with Heihachi’s gi on that copied his moveset exactly, and that in universe it’d have been Heihachi’s soul possessing it for himself. And that idea in of itself isn’t nearly as farfetched as one knight think with how batshit insane Tekken lore is.
It's weird cause they put in more work by returning these characters to the story and it's more of a detriment than a boon, since it generates some hype I guess with the big story trailers and such but overall does more harm by hurting the overall story that they put a lot of work into when it's easier and better for the story to just let them playable without reviving them in canon.
You know I was joking about the whole "MKCU" thing but between the multiverse stuff, trying to jump the gun on building up to the epic climax (a problem with later MCU things) and Cyrax and Sektor basically being two Ironhearts now I think I might've been onto something Also I still think we're on world record for the Bi-Han character arc speedrun, it depends on how quickly he starts jobbing though
Heihachi could have been a fight npc in story mode. We could have had Reina train with him or watch him to learn the Mishima style, or have flashbacks of Kazuya and Jin fighting him (which would also give us a chance for classic stages and costumes)
I don't really get the narrative that they chose to bring Heihachi back because fans missed him, when DLC is almost always decided before a games announcement. I'm not going to pretend I have any investment in Tekkens story but even I know the devs are being cowards and were purposefully misleading fans even if they say they didn't mean to otherwise. Maybe Heihachi was a late decision given the move set and design is pretty much unchanged but then wouldn't that imply that either a character would be inclusion got snuffed or season 1 would've been only 3 characters
The games bleeding players after all the shitty changes like Tekken Shop and Battle Pass, thus Namco forced Harada to bring the mf back cause hurr durr money player engagment
IIRC, even Kazuya didn't survive being dropped into a volcano (even with his Devil powers) and had to be resurrected by G-Corp. Apparently, Heihachi is a different beast entirely, just able to climb out of lava like it's nothing. I'm really hoping a lot of what we've seen about his return is a bunch of red herrings.
@@Takejiro24 i hope so too because i like Heihachi don't get me wrong mostly because he's a great villain for the tekken series and world, but part of me was hoping for well Reina to be the new main villain mostly because she does have connection to Heihachi yes but could also carve her own path as his successor which could be really cool in my opinion.
Technically Tekken has done this before with Heihachi already, he showed up in 5, despite canonically not being there. They could very well be doing a similar thing here or a what if. But yeag more than likely he's back for the sake of it, I am happy that his style is back, but yeah with his voice actors passing away and the mad history behind this great character, it is also sad that he's not being left alone.
If Capcom really wanted to bring back Bison from a story perspective they should've just given him a different body with a different playstyle, it has been set-up since Alpha that he just goes to different bodies as time goes along but we've not seen him do it once in a game. Otherwise not include him in the story as you mention, it's easy.
what I don't get is them still insisting the JP is the main villain of the game. but that's more of a problem with the way they've been presenting the story in 6 (INCREDIBLY slowly). I was hoping that at the start on S2 we'd get a big expansion of World Tour, or at least a story chapter. but no, just the usual couple of quests, with the story being completely frozen in place except for "Bison returned, with amnesia". well, okay. but what is JP after? what does Ed have to do with that? NOTHING. and the next 2 characters are from SNK, we're sure as hell not getting story progression with their release. baffling.
I remember the good ol' days when SF3 had just come out and people were hyping Q to be a resurrected M. Bison after his unseen death prior to the events of the game. How disappointing that instead of taking that opportunity to reinvent Bison as a character they just rehashed the same thing by bringing him back without any change or meaning whatsoever.
@@JahlisMan My guess is they're teasing some partnership of some kind between the two only for JP to go his own way of "wathever" it is he's planning with Bison been forged to team up with other characters to defeat a common enemy (ugh).
"different playstyle" IDK he was pretty different in 5 (and had a cooler moveset imo) and even with him being the same character so many Bison players whined because he wasn't the same as he always had been
Speaking of street fighter 3 and the post-Bison era, I take this opportunity to repeat my request. i want, please a Wasted potential video for the Street Fighter 3 story, because I really feel like Capcom wants to completely drop the whole Gill story and I think it's a real shame.
If they really wanted to bring him back how about have him be like a recurring thought in Kazuyas mind like Kazuyas thinks he's still alive only to soon realize he's still dead
Or make so he is possessed with the devil gene kind of like Jinpachi and now Kazuya and Jin now have to finally put him down once more in order to give him peace
Has anyone else noticed that Jin still has the devil gene mark on his arm in cutscenes after he "purified" himself and Kazuya. Not to mention Kazuya isn't even labeled as dead......And Heihachi coming back just renders Reina's story pointless.... Technically Jun Kazama is in the story, apparently confirmed to be the one standing over Kazuya after the fight.
You're right even the shallow excuse of money can't justify it. They could have their cake and eat it too via non-canon or illusionary returns. I'd suggest that it costs so much to create characters that they feel compelled to do something with them but...that doesn't explain a one note, coffee obsessed, character like Azucena Ortiz. They're just hack writers. Sadly that might be all there is to it.
As someone who hasnt played a fighting game seriously since DOA4, I don't understand why they can't just have these characters as unockables or fanservice, non-canon, DLC.
Tekken 2, 3, and 4 were the only games that pushed the story forward and tried new things. Why is a character like Wang Jinrey, who was in his 80's in Tekken 2 around in 5 and 6 which take place 21 years later? Baek, Jun, King I were all attacked by Ogre and as of Tekken 3 and 4 believed to be dead. Only King remained so and his successor wasn't really a different character other than being under Armor King's tutelage. Hell, even Armor King got the twin treatment in a cheap excuse to bring him back in 5 DR. People want to say story doesn't matter in fighting games, but it does. It affects sales when they see favorites return or mysterious new characters. When people saw Devil Jin and Jinpachi for the first time in early location test footage of T5, everyone in the Tekken Zaibatsu community went crazy for it. The Mishima story being marketed as ending in Tekken 7 made people more excited for 8 and now it continues apparently.
Devil Jin in T5 was a dream come true, since everybody expected devil Jin because of the devil gene, so harada makes us wait eternity for that character.
Heihachi also withstood the Raging Demon in Tekken 7 even though the basis of the attack is said to be linked to karmic forces drawn from the influence of the Satsui no Hado, channeling an infernal punishment in which the weight of sins and evil the victim has committed attacks their soul. How the old fucker was able to survive this is beyond me. 🤷🏾
@@ShatteredPedestal7 Gen has an excuse, he got hit by the move but knew the technique to nullify it. Basically became nothingness. Ryu did the same. And Gill can resurrect himself. Bison and Heihaichi have no excuse though.
Gouki sucks at killing people - all people who he had "killed" ended up being alive (asspulled into live) for one reason or the other. I am surprised it is not a bigger meme in SF community.
You already mentioned this in the video. The solution to this is so fucking easy. Just have dead characters be playable in the roster without them intruding on the story. That way both sides are happy.
It’s really sad how Devs pull so many ass pulls to justify bringing back fan favorites, even though making their inclusion non canon would be the simplest solution as Snake mentioned. Akums razor
Literally all the guest fighters fit into this category of "Don't matter in the story". Why is this such a hard concept for fighting games to do? -You pointed out Goro, Older Liu Kang, Older Kung Lao in MKX, and Mileena, and Rain in MK11 as five prime examples of doing this. Honestly a gathering of games where this happened would be quite interesting.
@xkmuffinzx3915 MK11 aside, I felt there was more that could have been done with Sindel before she died. Maybe a reconciliation arc between her and Li Mei. Learning more of the truth about how Jerrod really died and who killed him. Etc.
Thank YOU!!! Love how people say TK's story is "irrelevant" yet they don't realize the marketing In these games become dishonest to seasoned story fans, who try to care about this stuff & get alienated in the process. If not that, then also realize that the team's intentions become more of a cliche than a genuine interest to evolve fictional characters. I didn't have faith in Reina's future story application since it was likely that she'd: Rebuild & dominate the Mishima Zaibatsu with Nina as her bodyguard Run tournaments & do evil global deeds like Hei or Kaz in some fashion Ultimately, want to avenge Hei & kill Kazuya. Might've killed Jun just to piss him off & get Jin in the story to fight with Kazuya Fight him and maybe Jin They beat her, but they can't kill her & cause she needs to live for more conflicts (& you don't play as the core villain in TK6-8's narratives to sell you on the threat level)
"Even if it's one of those clones from Devil Within, it still invalidates Heihachi's death in the same way that Bison's new clone thing in Street Fighter 6 does. It's hard to feel like the villain was toppled when someone who looks, sounds, and fights exactly like him is still running around." Just wanted to say that I absolutely love this part. Very well-said.
Jun Kazama is canonically alive (she never died) according to Tekken 8. Her character gallery explains where she's been all this time since the Orge fight.
After watching Thorgi's retrospective on King of Fighters, i'm surprised they just don't save these characters to be used as marketing for a massive Dream Match game
Tekken had those, but TTT2 was a commercial failure which nearly killed the series for good, so its unlikely we'll get a new Tekken dream match, soon or ever again.
KOFXV's boss revivals are actually canon so it's funny seeing footage of that here while referring to Dream Matches. Also Jun's actually alive, but Jun's fate was dubious to begin with and was not as recurring of a character as Heihachi so her being brought back makes sense than Heihachi being revived. Bison's revival was done in an interesting way cuz I feel SF is setting up for a big melting pot that pits every villain against one another. The new story mode really needs to sell me on Heihachi coming back cuz he easily could've returned without being revived.
I agree with you on that but reddit is reddit sadly, they don't understand the impact of character deaths it seems. I don't get why'd you get backlash for that opinion of yours lmao
You really didn't deserve that. The story needed to move on from Bison and Shadaloo. If Capcom wanted to appease those who wanted him back, they could've created a non-canon entry in the series in which to bring dead and retired characters back, so that the canon games don't have to include Bison and he stays dead therein. Hell, with that, maybe, most of the World Warriors can stay retired, also. Street Fighter 6 takes place after Street Fighter III. They should've been excluded from 6 and, at least, most of III's roster included from the get-go. (Elena has been announced as Season 2 DLC, though, which is good.)
Another banger. Very good Snake. Reina is a shame because they essentially cucked most of her moveset to give to Lidia and Heihachi. Even KUMA suffers from this. They set up Kuma and Reina as Heihachi adjacents only to make you pay money for the full movesets.
Tekken and Street Fighter fans when they favourite character died: oh no, anyway Fist Of The North Star fans when they favourite character died knowing very well they died permanently and will never come back: 😭
Because KOF itself decided to kinda undermine its dream match concept with XIV's ending(Verse dying revives many characters who have died since '94(this is why Yashiro, Shermie and Chris, who died in '97, are back in XV)and for some weird reason time displaced at least one other character(Ash, who had wiped himself from history in XIII(that is, Saiki(who showed up from the past)is his direct ancestor and with Saiki dead, Ash ceased to exist), is also back in XV)).
@@Ticketman99 Still though, at least SNK showed they could hold off on making them canon and keep their story somewhat decent. SF could only do so for a single game (which came out decades before Bison's passing is even shown to us) and Tekken and MK couldn't help themselves.
Making a yearly-release arcade game back then and making a fully-featured home release game that has to compete with all the other ones now are completely different things.
@@ifeobasa5459 SF3 was supposed to be a spin-off, which is why it is such an outlier. Capcom accidentally stepped into a good solution and undid it later.
Exactly what I've been saying for years! I'm a Tekken fan and I was so happy with Heihachi passing and we could all finally move on but nope. Namco and all these video games companies could not let their cash cows die. I swear only Kuma 1, King 1 and Armor King 1 are the only NORMAL people to actually stay dead in the main Tekken timeline (not counting people like Jinpachi who has imprisoned, died, resurrected, then died again and not counting supernatural gods like Ogre/True Ogre) who were playable.
Thank you for this rant. I know I'm not the only one feeling pissed that they're giving Heihachi story relevance again. But when I see all these players go "only gameplay matters", I feel lonely. So thanks for expressing my frustration.
@@raymondwalker3020 the difference is that is a movie where the story and writing matter a fighting game is game play first so no they should not remove heihachi for the sake of "story"
@@barriehannon6857 Your right however BandaiNamco clearly put some effort in the story otherwise why not just remove the story mode? I'm also replying to Cherry comment cause he had a problem i could sympathize with. Just keep him dead in the story not the game entirely simple answer so both audience can be happy.
that’s literally not even a good return. he appears for ONE fight in a stage we only see ONCE. his death is the reason the injustice universe even exists and it actually gives us a reason to have LESS joker in a world filled with Joker media and related content since 2015
I think Noob could be fun if they go for a Nightmare-Siegfried vibe Having Noob as a villainous shadow for Bi-Han who he has to face as the series continues
No clue who those other characters in the thumbnail are, but YES! Please let Heihachi die already. Tekken 7 was the perfect way for him to go, but they just had to run it🙄
