Steve Fox, Nina & Anna Williams | Wasted Plotential 

Tekken Wasted Plotential: Anyone who _isn't_ a Mishima... *Sigh*

I never understood why they dropped the story of the mafia putting a hit on Steve for not throwing a boxing match after 4. Steve never interacting with his aunt Anna is something I noticed too.

Namco is too afraid to move the plot of the characters who are not Mishima's forward. It took them more than 20 years before they could move the plot of Nina being Steve's mother forward just a little bit. The last time was in Tekken 4. Tekken is just too unreliable when it comes to actual story development and it's sad. I guarantee, most people who play Tekken probably don't know that Steve is basically a Super Soldier

The fact that Nina is the female face character of the series makes her doubly wasted in a way, especially since she's basically involved with the Mishima soap opera physically yet has far less reason for taking up space there even as a bodyguard than like a dozen other characters. The fact that she's far more of a failure professionally than I had realized makes the thirst for her even funnier.

The only thing tekken 7 did was try to force us to feel bad for a man who threw his son off a cliff

I gotta say the idea of Anna learning of Steve and using him to get to Nina, but then she grows fond of him and he and Lei finding out wht happened to Nina and Anna's father, causing a truce between the sisters and making them work together to find the killer, would be awesome!!! And after that, they don't have to be best friends or loving to each other, they could just agree not to try and kill each other on sight

Tekken has so many interesting plots for a very good cast of characters. It's just a shame Namco is unable to make any kind of progression for any of them outside of the Mishima plot, turning most of the cast into joke characters by comparison. Like your video says, the reveal that Steve is related to Nina and Anna could have evolved all of their plots, but they just wanted to focused on the tired plot of the two sisters being lousy assassins who rarely ever succeed in pulling off hits, including on each other whom they hate.

I absolutely agree. Nina is my favorite female fighting game character of all time. They always focus on the Mishima's and give everyone else the short end of the stick.

I’ve always said “too many cooks spoil the stew.” Tekken 4 was able to get so deep into character and plot because they didn’t have an abundance of characters, and the characters overlapped. This gave us a part of the story from Lei’s POV, another part from Nina’s POV, and a third from Steve’s POV. 3 characters, 1 plot line, and the truth is a combination of whatever parts of the story you want it to be. They did the same with Jin, Heihachi, and Kazuya. After TTT, Tekken 5 added every character back aside from impossible ones, and even replaced Jun Kazama’s move set with a mysterious cousin. With that many plot lines, and very few characters connected, all of the storylines had to be toned down to make room for competitive gameplay. A sacrifice so the other could prosper I guess. 🤷🏾‍♂️

The way you put it. Anna seems to be nicer than she actually is. Anna joined Tekken 1 to stop Nina. Anna became a bodyguard of Kazuya Mishima knowing well Nina had him as her target. Anna learnt that Nina was caught for the cryosleep project so she joined it too for unknown reasons (jealousy?) then during Tekken 3 she also planted false memories into Nina's head thus why she got bitchslapped in the cemetery as that's when Nina got some of her actual memories back. In Tekken 6 she maybe joined Kazuya again just to be on the opposite side of Nina. Eitherways I love the sisters and tbh I wouldn't mind if they would elaborate more on Anna's relationship with Kazuya and Lee a bit more. I mean other than being an annoyance for Nina, she probably had some other motives in joining him. Lee and Anna's interaction in Tekken 5 was actually so amazing. Also Anna in Marduk's story was out of the blue but I liked it.

So it's been confirmed Anna is kind of nice to people who treat her nicely, her fiancee was someone who helped her when she was wounded, so maybe if Steve were to treat Anna remotely decent i can see her having him around being that one aunt.

As someone who loves fighting games and always looks to see what motivates each character, this has always been my biggest problem. Devs are so unwilling to progress the plot for characters. They have the same goals as the game before even when they tell us that time has passed. Its like they just make the game and go.. oh yeah what story should this revolve around... ah just put the same thing, people just want to learn frame data anyway. No. Some of us are curious to see what the characters are up to, what drives them, why are they here again? You can't tell me their story stops once a tournament ends and they just wait for the next event to try their hand again at doing something that doesn't require that setting. Nina and Anna don't need a tekken tournament to try and get rid of each other, unless they have some batman and joker complex.

I'm happy to see Williams family being discussed I always had an issue with their stories!

As i saw this video in my suggestion I immediately asked myself "Does Anna know Steve is her nephew?"

You know the funny thing is Steve actually makes Paul less of a joke; we know Paul lost to kuma in 4, but Steve’s 5 prologue shows him fighting Paul, meaning Steve had to have lost to Paul and considering Steve himself has never had a joke ending (though he’s been in joke endings) it does soften the blow for Paul, and explains why they’re kinda friends.

It's odd Nina and Anna haven't interacted with any of the original cast besides the Mishimas. What does Paul, Law, Michelle, and Beak think of their rivalry? Are there any who take sides or do they just stay out of it?

Thank you for this video! I love all three characters and am disappointed with how Namco has done virtually nothing for their storylines since their inception. Your spin on their development sounds so refreshing. I'm on board with the idea that Anna would genuinely start caring for Steve as her neglect from her father and Nina, coupled with the fact that she failed to save her sister from going back into the assassin life, she could see this as an opportunity to make things right again for her family.

YES! Your ideas would work so well!!! I feel like Steve could either be the thing that patches up Nina & Anna's relationship, or the bargaining chip for Anna to use against Nina for revenge. Hell, you could even say that Anna had no idea her fiance was in the Mafia, and Nina killing him could have been a weird way of keeping her sister safe? XD

I can imagine an interaction between Anna and Steve. That would be interesting.

That's a rather generous plug you gave me there. Thank you so much.

I hope in Tekken 8's story they incorporate all the characters in the story, and not just rehashing arcade endings, because I really want to see side stories like Steve, Nina, and Anna, or Miguel and Jin, or Paul, Law, and Steve, or Steve, Hwoarang and Jin. There are so many side stories that can be told in Tekken.

Because You might consider to also tackle the Yoshimitsu vs Bryan wasted potetntial i will drop one piece of info i once had. Before Tekken 6 release on one forum ( it don't exist anymore) some user made a theory that: - Bryan's tekken 5 ending will be canon - Raven will replace Yoshimitsu as a ninja character - Yoshimitsu will be a Soulcalibur only character Of course everything was proved wrong.

I don't think Nina was a "failure" assassin. She failed killing Kazuya,Jin and Heihachi due to plot armor that mishimas have. And in Tekken 7, Alisa needed help from Lars and Lee to defeat Nina.

This focus shift to Tekken timed perfectly with the trailer of the new Netflix show. I know you’ve been frustrated with not being able to move away from MK. This might be it!

Anna SHOULD love Steve just because Nina probably treats him like her dad dad treated her .

These really are your best videos. Valid criticism and valid alternatives that actually make sense. One day we will get top tier writing in our fighting games

It's never explicitly stated that Nina killed Anna's fiance' but that's how it looked from Anna's perspective. When you look at both stories it might be a case of collateral damage but who knows, Harada might just go with the straight up murder senario.

I just realized that Steve is the Liquid Snake of Tekken. He even looks like him!

AwpWilliams did a similar video years back that covered this as well. Look, the fact of the matter is that the story hasn't been great since T5. And I could care less what they tried to pull with Nina's story intro in Tekken 5 about her feeling nothing when tasked with killing Steve. She tried carry it out, but she couldn't do it because she felt something, the end. Her ending in T4 is her best one by far; it's an idiot move to try to erase the potential of showing her different dimensions.

Always love your WP vids. The writers are either too scared or too lazy to do anything new with Nina and Anna. Hopefully with Steve's T7 episode ending they take a different direction with Ninas character

You know one thing that I always questioned is that. Why Hwoarang never interacted with Paul. Yeah that may sound silly. But both are bikers, unknown rivals to Mishima’s (Jin/Kazuya) and both of theme are normal humans who dare to fight with demons. I just think it would been interesting to see how this two would’ve interacted.

Nice video, Steve, Nina, and Anna deserve better like almost every character in Tekken. I’m excited for Tekken Bloodline in Netflix.

It's funny how you recommended Gizou Gitai's channel in your 100k video, and while watching his Tekken analysis series it brought me back here, to your channel.

My friend, you can have a field day with the wasted stories in this series. Hope to see more!

Tekken's story would benefit greatly from non canon characters and DLC. This way they can kill characters off while still including them in future games. Put them in dream sequences and flashbacks if you want. It sucks when the story is held back because writer's can't write off a character.

As much as I love these two (being an Anna Main for the longest), I know they were developed just for the Sisters Catfight Fetish Trope and nothing beyond that. Writers/Devs/Producers tend to seem pretty uninterested in their Rivalry beyond two sexy women who happen to be related duking it out and then calling it a day, with the "real" focus being on the popular Dynasty-figure fighters (apparently, VG Devs absolutely love to create pseudo-empires to portray to their theatrical end) instead. Sadly, it's why I could never take them seriously beyond catfights, but I wish they would get some kind of respect beyond plot devices and eye candy.

I’d love for Steve to bring the sisters together just in time for a new Tekken tag to where they band up to avenge their loved ones

I'm happy to see this video made. Tekken is a family that's constantly at war and trying to kill each other and it was kinda funny when I realized the William sisters are the secondary example and and I always thought this was some sort of parallel the Mishima's in this aspect. Except with Jin wanting to end his bloodline, Nina and Anna had the potential to bury the hatchet. Though in some instances, Anna,was at least trying to move on and have an actual relationship with her sister, but Nina would re-instigate. And don't get me started with Steve. Tekken 7 has passed and yet Anna and Steve STILL don't know they're related to each other (at the very least I hope these two will finally be introduced to each other in the next installment).

I can just imagine that Anna will just act up as Dante, and treat Steve as Nero. I mean, Nina is just as cold Vergil.. so..

It's so weird how many characters Steve ended up interracting with in just a few games due to his plotlines jumping all over the place. It's very unusual by Tekken standards. One other thing I've never seen discussed are the weird similarities between Steve and Shin Kamiya from Blood Vengeance. Both got experimented on by the Mishima Zaibatsu, ending up with marks on one of their arm and gaining some kind of power boost from it. I know Harada didn't get too involved with the scenario, but I wonder if the film's writter took inspiration from Steve's backstory, or even considered having Steve fill Shin's role at some point in production.

I like this idea a lot. It's pretty much on par with Scorp and Sub getting over their rivalry in MK, which is fantastic. Now I wonder how Lei and Leo would factor into this story, and what exactly the experiments that gave Steve his arm scar do. EDIT: oh also, what are your thoughts on the newly announced Netflix Tekken show? The fact that they might actually reveal what made Jun fuck Kazuya makes me think that there's a chance they'll actually be revealing some big plot reveals.

BIG Steve is what we all really wanted anyway

They could also revisit Death by Degrees to give the Williams sisters some different conflicts. Alan / Edgar apparently makes it out of the game alive, and Lana Lei could easily be brought back, as well.

I’m so glad to see you making more of these for Tekken!! There’s so much wasted plotential in that game I s2g 😩

Yes, yes a thousand times yes!!! I have been saying this for YEARS. So tired of the Mishima character plots yet leveling stuff like this unfinished.

Best idea yet spectacular as always

Man I love Tekken but the fact that Nina, Anna and even Steve never really developed passed their initial arcs is sad. And that includes Anna and Nina's rivalry because even after Anna finally found someone that makes her happy, all it takes is Nina popping up and the status quo is revived and they are now back to Square one. Meanwhile, Steve has little nothing to do with his mom and aunt, which is fine except it is not done well at all. In the end, Tekken has some soild characters, but Namco seriously needs to stop decreasing character development, limiting who is and isn't important and finally flesh out existing characters like Nina. I mean come on she can't be an ice queen forever.

I don't think Anna would do that to Steve, she's not a bad person at heart.

as of tekken 8, the conflict between steve and nina is completely ignored once again in favor of more steve shinenigans with Law and Paul, and Nina continuing to be a Charlie's Angels parody, i swear to god it feels like Harada sees his characters as nothing more than "COOL ASS COMBOS, WOAH!!!" for him to barely change a thing about them FOR 20 YEARS! (except for Xiaoyu, who became a much better character in both bloodlines and 8)

Yeah Anna and Steve are unaware of each other existence or know their aunt and nephew will Nina and Anna rivalry end they have a complicated story Anna the one who wants to bury the hatchet with Nina but Nina keeps going after Anna I guess for the fun of it.

Honestly this is especially true even with Tekken 8 out. Like Steve and Nina fighting on the battlefield could've actually been a crazy thing, but no instead Steve fights a few Gcorp guys and it's rEiNA instead.

I think the best fighting game rivalry is Ken&Ryu, Because unless some outside mind altering force interferes the two will never try to kill each other. All they want to do is push each other and themselves keeping the rivalry civil and friendly.

The same case could be applied to Helena Douglas from Dead or Alive

I just hope after Tekken 8 the Williams will have more involvement through Steve's experiment. They could get involve more on how after Tekken 8 Jin thought he got rid of the the devil gene only to find out that Steve's experiment was not a failure after all.

Man, you and Gizou Gitai needs to be the consultants for the Story Mode of Tekken 8 to avoid every single character turned into jokes and flat

"Aunt Anna" sounds right in my head.

thank u for covering my favorite boxer and his families "wasted potential"

I think Nina low key has a soft spot for Steve. She’s just cold hearted because she’s an assassin.

Lee: hi steve fox form tekken. Steve: hi Rock lee from naruto

Wouldn’t hurt so much if it wasn’t for the fact Tekken mainline games take forever to come out and we only advance that way. Hurts more by the fact the story in 7 was lacking.

Next is Lee Chaolan and KAZUYA their rivalry is so interesting but shut down!

The ultimate soap opera Fighting Games Story will take you 2 decades before you get a resolution kinda...

Awesome video, how about Lee Chaolan? He was suppose to be Kazuya’s rival but is now just helping Lars and Alisa against the Zaibatsu. Maybe a storyline could be about him manipulating Lars into attacking a facility, thinking it is where Heihachi is only to found out it is Kazuya.

I kinda have to disagree on Nina warming up to Steve, like you said she didn’t make him or want him. So why should she force herself to live a life she was forced into. At least where she is now she live her life by her choice I think that’s more the take away.

Anna's soft spot on yearning for family makes plenty of sense due to family being the common ground between Nina and Anna, as evident from their Tekken 2 ending. Anna tries to be the more reasonable, yet petty, one throughout the series, while Nina is always the aloof, uptight one.

It makes me upset that a youtuber can come up with a better storyline than the writers themselves

The only other family conflict in Tekken almost just as interesting as the Mishima's love this episode 4th Snake hope you do more

All I got out of the sisters is that while they're constantly trying to one up which of them is the bigger bitch, I still like Anna more. Her trying to help Nina when she lost her memory was nice and the fact that her groom was murdered by Nina makes me sympathize with her more.

I've been waiting for this video!

After playing through Tekken 4, 5 and 6 recently, this video came out at a perfect time to back up why the stories for these 3 felt so underwhelming. Like a magic answer key or something, lol. Another great WP as always!

The Story between king, armor king and marduk is super interesting, I hope we can see what happens next on tekken 8, otherwise it will become wasted potential

Every side story outside the Mishima storyline is wasted potential. King and Armored King's mystery, Paul becoming a joke character with Law, Asuka possibly entering the main story if she wasn't stuck as a tomboy waifu bait along with her average teen rivalry with Lili, and many more. Edit: Nina is such an iconic character but Anna is definitely the better William sister in terms of character-being. Also about Leo possibly teaming up with Steve but ends up having an almost anime tentacle h moment with Yoshimitsu who also became a joke character.

Wow! Bless you for making this. Lol. This is obnoxiously over complicated. Now I'm kinda glad I stopped playing Tekken games after Tekken 4. I didn't pick it up again until Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (which I enjoyed) then immediately put it back down. ☺. Thanks again. I know this video was a huge effort and the amount of detail show it. Fantastic work!

Her being in a wedding dress for T7 was just so stupid and gimicky. She wouldn’t begin the tournament running away in a bridal gown. Who would masquerade as a bride? That makes no sense.

I don't wanna see them fight over and over again it's really pathetic

could you make a video about lili? I watched your video about asuka, and I agree with what you’re saying but as a lili fan myself I think there’s a way lili & asuka can still be involved with one another while still pushing forward for further development, especially because lili clearly doesn’t dislike her & has issues with the zaibatsu as well. I have a rough idea that I think would be fun to discuss with you if you were interested!

Well family dinner is going to get awkward, chances are Nina will do background checks on any woman he would date and Ann would try to spoil him and set him up on dates with rich girls

More Tekken videos would be hugely welcomed .. Used to be a huge fan of the series when I was younger …

been waiting for this one

I want to see a Kazuya and Anna relationship similar to Bonnie and Clyde

They never finish any of the storylines in Tekken (ex. Ling & Jin, Jin & Asuka, King & Marduk, Eddy, JUN! etc.) I stopped caring a long time ago

I wish that someday, nina and anna will stop fighting.

Thanks for rewriting the story for us.

orrr "auntie anna" becomes close with steve and she shows him how much of a villian her mom actually is. nice reversal of archetypes (which was already there, your just highlighting it) plus connecting two unrelated / opposing characters in a good twist that feels more natural. Anna finds herself becoming more of a mother then steves "biological"(?) one. or hell, if you wanted to get *really* weird, anna and steve could be a romantic pair over time

they really need to end that rivalry and have them come together and have adventures as a pair cause it's obviously they can't live without the other.

This is another great episode. You should be writing for Tekken & Mortal Kombat. I would love to see a wasted potential episode for Xiaoyu & Hwoarang.

in Tekken 8 Steve and Leo is in the same group and he is also in the opposing group with Nina but there are no interaction at all

Is a Tekken 7 Kritique in the pipeline? I remember you say in another kritique video a few years ago (I want to say Injustice 2) that "its time is coming". Especially now that the game is pretty much done releasing more content.

where was that scene from where the sisters are sword fighting? 7:50

Namco doesn't care about any characters who aren't Mishimas.

seriously, Harada. this is not how the story plotline works. he really need to step his game up if he ever make tekken 8 when it comes out so this entire saga and arc needs to end.

The video was almost perfect but you had to remind me of the whole "The tekken games are an comentarry on terror thing"

Why did Nina do Steve like that😔 he just wanted to know who his mom was

Anna is best girl😁

Would have much preferred to see a Tekken movie or series focus on Anna Williams

I totally get why Nina doesn't want anything to do with Steve and I honestly like that. Loike imagine you being asleep for 15 years. Some old man just used to, without any consent and decided to make you have a baby. Then you wake up and realize, not only did you have a non concentual baby. But they're also just 7 years younger than you. (I know time moved during cryosleep, but lets be real. If you're AFK from like for 20 years. You have not lived those 20 years. You have not mentally aged) It makes perfect sense that she has this "fuck off" and "You better stay away from me" attitude. She doesn't wanna be reminded of that shit. I agree with the moving on with their life part. And Tekken has done that before. Look at Julia! Julia finished what she set out to do, and she never returned to the main story again. The only times she returned was as DLC where they completely retconned her into a twitch streamer, cuz she has no real reason to fight anymore.

This just makes me curious what thinks of Tekken 8's story

Anna and Steve both want a sense of family I think since Nina has no interest in having a loving relationship with her sister or son. They should have Anna and Steve meet and spend time together like a family getting what they both want.

Maybe IMHO, as Nina was used to be a boxer who looks like Helena Douglas - wearing French/Dutch/Luxembourgish/Czechoslovak/Romanian/Yugoslav/British flag colours - during the development of Tekken 1 - as seen on the pages of the Japan market-exclusive "Tekken Chronicle" book - then I think during the early days of the PS2's debut and ascendancy in North America, the whole of Europe - plus Russia and Turkey - and the Antipodes (Australia and NZ) probably Briton Steve Fox would've been canned by Namco guys just as when you discover Tekken 4's sound files means he had a lot of names that used to be his such as "Dean Earwicker" and "Sugar McGregor" - which may suggest why Japan's rules on English narrations are were more limited to American and Canadian perspectives than those of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. (Hence many of the long-standing English voice actors who dub/bed/ Japanese OVAs are were from U.S. and Canada.) In addition, I also remember that it was probably due to Japan's machismo - as well as layman - nature that they are were unable to literate and illustrate somebody as a female - like when Namco (before and after Bandai) did with Steve Fox during the PS2 era due to such improvement in graphics - for sure the reason for TK4 (Tekken 4) only having two starting females (like in Tekken 1 and Tekken 3) while the rest (TK4 like with Julia and Nina) are were under time release is was the reason why Namco guys didn't even either illustrate Nina/Anna having daughters (over sons) or having a bunch of European characters being in Tekken games just as making a spin-off like it did with DBD - perhaps TBH it is was sad that a guest in TK7 wasn't Helena, Rose (SF) or any woman just because BN (Bandai Namco) instead placed Negan (TWD) in... (Jodie Comer already looks like Nina and Helena as Maisie Williams reminds me of Anna just as Arya Stark's actress share the same surname as Nina and Anna...)

If Anna or Nina raise Steve, he wouldn't become a boxer instead his fighting style would be similar to his mom and aunt.