@@keisaka2878 He started wearing them for his "villain arc" when SFxT was a new thing (I think that was the reason) but I guess he really liked em and never took them off
@@VidhantRana Tekken 4 was the last time they gave a damn, but Harada must think no one wants a story like that because of how much Tekken 4's failure affected him, he left Namco for a year and reflected, came back, and I guess just stopped caring about story and started writing bland comedy endings for characters, who are now like dead wood and have lost their initial motive hooks.
He probably thinks Tekken fans dont want deep stories in their fighting games because of the failure of Tekken 4. He always talks about how Tekken 4 was a complete failure even though they tried very new stuff and brought in a professional story writer. Its a very limited way of thinking.
@@jupiterapollo4985 there're still clowns who scream that story doesn't matter and Harada keeps listening to them, which is why the story mode feels like it's an afterthought. It's such a shame cause Tekken has the most potential out of any fighting game IMHO.
I think it’s how reception goes, people will naturally get pissed of about their characters because they’re invested in about their own favorites over the years, and that same trend goes with anime (think of them as Yam Cha, Picollo and Tien ShinHan) - it’s very common for any anime and comics with a proper usual character growth thus adding more depth into them. And giving them stupid endings over and over, most folks would not have it. But for the 1st time they can slip through just for us to enjoy what the director is portraying us the story. (Tekken 5 to 8, a whopping 4 franchises to offer joke ending’s straight) casual audience do enjoy a nice laugh and then, there’s the butthurt side of the audience the ones who always complains. Tekken was worth studying about like we are invested with MMA Fighters or WWE superstars in real life, because Tekken 5 is where the mainstream joke endings began to surface (though there are present within the past games before 5th) and lets face it, a lot of general folks will never like over the top edgy content (e.g: Shadow the Hedgehog) and something so serious it bores the general audience like you’ll find it in any mainstream ps1 and Nintendo games. And by Tekken 7, there begins a fineline between baffoonery and expected storylines to Harada not giving us proper endings of a character for at least giving us important side characters on which that’s where Harada falls short about. Most of the Tekken endings have always been lackluster to a point of there’s no actual proper follow up, and anything but outside the Mishimas are always been the worst suffering the same fate. And this 8th installment is were that final straw burns, invalidating the send off of Heihachi Mishima at Tekken 7 now it’s coming to the main characters. 7 is almost beautiful in fact just as beautiful as Tekken 5 and Heihachi’s death was properly hype for at least to have the story properly move on but because of Tekken 8’s dlc ending this is where the plot becomes too non-sensical and ruins Kazuya’s resolve despite getting his revenge and there’s no proper excuse with it given Kazuya had to secure and look up for Heihachi’s fall.
@@Cherry91 If that's the case, then Harada should stop adding story mode. If he's going through the trouble of making one, then he might as well do it right.
Because they want to rip off the tomboy and princess and lesbian undertones that Sakura and Karin have. And they've gone way overboard compared to Sakura and Karin.
@@DTownNash Asuka used to have some form of importance at least before Tekken’s 6 to 8, and I mean even Devil Jin had a small interaction with her. And her start had promising premise of being a potential side protagonist character outside the Mishimas so folks invested in her. Tekken 6 had a lot of miss opportunities for the side characters or at least expanding Jinpachi Mishima despite getting defeated or expanding the win-lose stories between Characters who should win and lost. And the list goes on.
After Tekken 5 the writing really took a nose dive. Too many retcons and straight up lies. I'm not going to lie, I thought the main story of Tekken 8 was okay and thought the story would go into a new arc. But yeah, Harada's whole thing about making the story progress since Tekken 7 was bullshit. Heihachi is back, we're back to square one and everything will repeat itself again for many years.
Personally, I don't think the writing for Tekken 5 was ever that good. The story is this: An Old man pops up from a destroyed, with demon energy. threaten to destroy the world. All for Jin to beat him and become the boss of the Zeibatsu. Like, what?
Na Harada will never admit that Tekken's story is bad. If anything, that convoluted statement just confirms that he's the sole writer and no one is in charge of the script and reigning him from writing himself into a bigger and bigger hole. And herein lies the real issue. Since there's no real writer, everything is all over the place. There're some great ideas here and there. But the execution is bad. That's why I'm in favor of a reboot that'll never happen cause they're too attached to that world record. Who even knows where to go from here.
But he indirectly did, didn't he? He asked if considering that manga story matters more than art, would you consider him a good manga artist considering Tekken story. Which was rethorical question with assumed answer being "No, you aren't"
@@Carsu12 no he didn't from my understanding. He asked people what they would think of him as a manga artist, most likely to troll as usual. Even if he knows the story is bad, he's not going to admit it, indirectly or not. That'd be bad publicity. And considering that he said his tweets are being checked before he posts them, you can be sure we'll never get a straight answer from him, only convoluted responses like these.
Harada handles the creative direction all in one place. Anything outside the Mishima Storyline is treated badly, but Heihachi's return in Tekken 8 is totally stupid no doubt. Really wish Tekken 8 before the DLC thing was totally Harada's last fulfillment but then the dlc storyline we had anticipated leave us a sour note of what not to do when doing a follow up storyline.
Finally someone mentioned the CREATOR of Tekken. Harada is just a director of a project. He has NOTHING to do with invention of Tekken. He voiced Law in T1 and that's it.
Yakuza is not a fighting game. I don't know why you''d even bring that up. Also, Yakuza largely tells crime dramas. That's pretty far and away from where Tekken's story is now.
@orangesoda4535 I mean, not gonna lie, They probably could still do a good job though lol. It's not like Yakuza is always realistic or always serious anyway lol. Heck they're literally making a Yakuza Pirate game is we speak 😂
Tekken 4 was the last great story telling it was written by legit writers at that time, Harada is a bad story teller but i hope he doesn't fail developing Reina like he did to Asuka
i think the earlier games had more simplicity in their story which didnt make it as convoluted as later games when they had the chance to shove in everything they could
Graphics and fidelity focus is unironically destroying the industry. With fidelity focus come higher dev costs because you gotta buy the overpriced high end assets and all that. It results in higher prices in an attempt to salvage the budget later, and the game has barely any content because they blow their budget on the high end assets. And yeah, then people wonder why AAA is the way it is.
Games need good art direction in general. Story is a must for some genres, but I don't think that applies to fighting games. It would be great to have at least one fighting game with an amazing story, of course. But they don't need it to sell. Look at DBZ. Worse shonen story by faaaaar, yet it sells like pancakes.
That's actually reality. Even the old Final Fantasy developers said they cannot make games with the same complexity they used to (like FFVII, FFVII, FFVIII, FF IX etc.) due to enhanced graphics - it would always take several parts to develop them and ppl are most likely not going to buy several installments over the course of some years to finish one story. Just look at FFVII Rebirth it's the second game and they are around the end of disc 1(FFVII had 3 discs). Honestly good graphics seem to destroy possibility of good stories
jCDR: "calls dragunov braindead easy" tekken fans: "whaaaaattt??? the PROS are calling tekken 8 garbage????" Harada: "post a drawing, fan ask about if he prefers to do a manga but he says he prefers to write tekken story rather than illustrate" Tekken fans: "whaaattt?? is harada admiting the story is trash and succckssss?????" reading comprehension at its finest
I totally loved the Tekken story till T3. It was awesome and quite unique. After Harada took the lead there was one retcon after retcon. And one of the reasons is that Harada weirdly loves Heihachi and seems to hate/dislike Kazuya. Honestly I don't know why - I really do have the impression that Kazuya somewhat triggers him. Harada has said before that Heihachi is the father nobody wants to have & that Japanese men of his (Haradas) generation (ppl who are in their fifties / Kazuyas age) can see their own fathers in Heihachi - according to Harada these Imperial Japan fathers (like Hei) tortured their male children because they thought that this will make their sons strong. (Harada mentioned that of course Heihachi - in the way he tortured Kaz - is an exaggeration of the norm.) Usually you'd expect that he will rather empathize with Kaz (like what rather most ppl do) than Hei but that is obviously not the case. It's much more like he identifies with Hei - the abuser than with Kaz - the victim back then. Of course also in the original story Kazuya became evil due to his past and that's also not unusual in reality (for e.g. sons of narcisstic fathers often become even more narcisstic - that's one of the common survival strategies of narcisstic abuse) - however since Harada took the lead he ONLY made worse chara development decisions regarding Kazuya till Tekken 8 - a permanent emotional downfall for Kazuya where Kazuya himself consistantly totally loses to the devil (remember the T5 ending). Harada even wanted to destroy Kazuyas "originally-intended" positive relationship with Jun by saying that they were basically (half-)forced to make a child by a mysterious force and that Jun doesn't mean anything to him. Fortunately at least that was backwards retconned in T8! (Honestly I have never seen a person who liked that version). Harada even said before things like there is no Kazuya anymore, only the devil etc. - and regarding Hei he obviously wanted to make him better than he originally was intended to be - while Kazuya had every right to hate Heihachi for what he did to him - Heihachi even happily smiled when he killed Kazuya in T2 though he was the person who permanently abused him. How is that guy human evil and Kazuya devil evil when actually Kazuya was the more relatable character? Even the T7 retcon didn't help. It only makes Heihachis actions less understandable - why the hell he raised Kazuya when it was already obvious that he will have to kill him in the future anyway? Did Heihachi ever feel for Kazuya? It doesn't seem so. I dunno what's wrong with Harada he probably adopted malfunctionous family behaviour from his own father and hates the depiction of 'victim Kazuya' otherwise it's absolutely not understandable why Harada treats the characters the way he treats them. Moreover regarding Jin - Harada said there are no good Mishimas - so he made Jin start WW3. However there is a good Mishima -Lars-. The guy who - of all family members resembles Heihachi in terms of looks the most - he even triggered Kazuya in that PTSD flashback. - one of the greatest issues of the Tekken Story - if not the greatest issue - is that characters/story were inventended by another person. Harada took over and projected his own issues/themes into an established story/characters made by another person which turned everything into a mess. Fortunately Manga are usually only written by one person from start till end (yes editors do sometimes want some changes etc.) but that is nowhere close to what was done to Tekken. Now it's more like an Anime-only story/doujinshi or fanfiction but they can say it's official because they are continuing the work. That's what actually happened to Tekken.
I always empathized with Kaz, that's clearly what the devs wanted to back in the day. If what you say about Harada is true it would explains why i felt weird playing the latests stories of Tekken. Honestly, i lost my interest in the game, and with that DLC they definetelly killed any possibilities for me to come back. Usually with T7 i used to come back and playing every once in a while, now it's 6 months that i'm not even touching T8. It was a good run, but it's over
Zafina possesses the Origin of Devil gene in her hands but gets one shot by Kazuya who was 50% or lower of Devil Gene makes no sense, Claudio being a high tier Exorcist who battled powerful beings like Eliza and survived, but gets one shot by Kazuya makes no sense, Azazel, the Origin of the Devil gene gets obliterated by Kazuya who is still less % Devil gene than him, no help from Eliza or other powerful beings or nothing, just Kazuya, this would have been a great time to put in a team up fight vs Azazel, Kazuya and Ogre or someone strong enough to help Kazuya defeat Azazel in the fashion of a Tekken Tag team gameplay etc. And the love relationship between Lars and Alisa is so ugly but that's a personal thing I guess. It's like Harada doesn't take in consideration past events that happened with certain characters. And Angel Jin?? Seriously ? instead of bring Angel herself back? ok Harada lol.
Azazel can be easily defeated now because in Tekken 6, Jin did not KILL azazel like he thought. he healed him... which is why Devil states that the power of purification does not work on him. if you want to date further back when Devil first got familiar with Purification, it dates back to Tekken 2. Devil went after Jun for that exact reason. Jin is the main villain. Watch and see...hes damn near indestructible
@@Larealmishimatv I'm sure same can be said with Angel Jin, I would had rather see Angel since she was an original character, not some gender swap of her, see what I just did? funny that Master Raven recieved so much hate for being a gender swapped but everyone's pretty much ok with Jin genderswappin Angel lol, truth is what you just said can apply to Raven, his usage rate is still low in Tekken 8. This is not a directed towards you btw, I'm referring to those people who dislike gender swaps btw.
Yeah, T8 story is bad, and here's why: - Everyone is FORCED into the Mishima conflict, making them look like chumps with their 1 minute cameos - Everyone's stories are DROPPED, meaning people like King, Nina, even Yoshimitsu all lost their mini stories - Jin's whole villain turn arc, this was bad since Tekken 6 - Heihachi going back to his old self and having a random "plan" all of a sudden Basically, Tekken 5 started it. Yes, 5, the game that turned Jin into a bad guy at the end. That was the start. It spiraled downhill and into the dumpster starting with 6 where everyone else was slowly starting to get sucked into "World War Jin", then 7 did its own nonsense, and now we are where we are, in the garbage bin. So yeah.
Jin’s whole turning 180 could’ve been great but it wasn’t well thought enough Jun’s lack of role even as a support character and only being a plot device to unlock Jin’s Angel mode was frustrating, she didn’t feel like a character at all. Other characters being part of the Mishima story isn’t necessarily bad in fact it could serve as an incentive to drive their characters forward if not that have both the Mishima and the said character benefit from the interaction which did not happen most of the story so it felt really forced like Leroy’s Speech to Jin. But one of the better positive example is Hwoarang and Jin’s fight which felt natural and does benefit either of them but it does end up benefiting Jin more cause he’s the Focus of the story.
i just want to say that the original tekken creator seishii ichi left bandai namco after tekken 2 and harada came after him if the original creator was there we would probabley indeed up with a tekken 6 without Lars and alisa
The thing is the story of tekken is just a devilman vs buff oldman along with another devilson. it had its moments where the execution was done correctly during T4, T5 and T7(during heihachi and kazuya battle)story but thats just it. So for me i don't really mind it or care
2:50 Blazblue is also another fighting game series that took its story seriously. There are a lot of goofy moments and the timelines make it a little difficult to follow, but the overall narrative has always been engaging and interesting as every character had their story progress from entry to entry in a meaningful way.
Most people don’t pay attention to the story mode they just want to have fun with the game but the story mode is the back bone of the game. So If there’s no story there’s no vision for the game to move forward so there needs to be a balance between the two. They put so much funds towards creating flashy graphics and stages that the story mode just got ignored and yes we can discern their sloppy work. I thought it was sloppy how they threw all the characters into the war scene in T8. They didn’t have a good dispersion of the other popular characters. The story mode could have been better!
Indeed here's the problems: 1. Paul not facing kazuya 2. paul and law still being joke characters 3. not having a moment of asuka going with jin and learning about her powers and defending jin 4.some characters are not used a lot 5. jun not being used more 6.kinda feels more power of friendship instead of learning and accepting, and having responsibility 7. Kazuya should have seen jun 8.NO HEIHACHI, replace with reina, lars, or jinpachi, or better yet jin the learn more mishima style 9. story could have had 30 minutes or an hour to finish more tekken plot 10. give characters more development In my opinion I would do the dead or alive story system where you follow the characters story and how it ends in that game, so we can have other characters development to be made.
I wonder in retrospect how much of the mishaps of Tekken 4 and Project Soul have colored the higher ups' perception and subsequent demands of the Tekken series retroactively . Do correct me if I'm wrong in any part, but if I recall correctly, Tekken 4 was a massive failure competitively and commercially just a bit less so, so I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that among the things that the higher ups saw that contributed to T4's failure was the darker and more subdued story beats and script, because they were immediately dialed back on T5, which brought the series back on track, so they demanded to keep that up. Then we have the whole tempest that was SoulCalibur's development in 5 and the poor sales of 6. SC6 was massively marketed as the reboot of the series, and it just didn't pan out that well either. I'm sure the higher ups at Namco were looking over Project Soul's shoulder the whole time, and turned to the Tekken team and told them not to do any of that shit. At the end of the day, Tekken 6 really dropped the ball story wise, but at the same time, whoever's in charge of the story had ALREADY written themselves into a corner with Tekken 5's also nonsensical story, because come on, Jinpachi is one of the stupidest plot devices in the series, at least in how he was shoehorned to kickstart that tournament, and making Jin the head of the Zaibatsu was the single worst outcome they could've done narratively. Tekken's story has been a headless chicken for decades now.
No. He meant the opposite. Harada is clearly proud of the Tekken story and is absolutely tone deaf as to how bad it's become. He really should quit and do manga.
tekken's story is inherently bad. its very bad right now, but before, it was 'jojo bad', being so nonsensical and funny that it was really entertaining. tekken seems to have lost that though.
The part of the Tekken 8 story that won me over was jin and alisa talking in the hanger, alisa opened her mouth, and I was thinking here it comes she will recap everything that just happened like its some bad anime. But she didn't, and the silly story had good pacing 🥳 Before anyone loses it, bad anime is shorthand for weak manga to anime screenplay adaptation. Or cheaper to tell than show 😂
Looking back on that scene it kinda bugged me the wrong way cause it really didn’t feel like a genuine conversation but it’s not as worse as other characters Jin had convos with later.
Wait, how can Tekken be the longest ongoing story when Street Fighter has never rebooted, started before Tekken and it's newest game came out only around a year ago?
To Tekken's credit, telling a compelling story is already plenty hard but for any fighting game it has two massive disadvantages compared to most other game genres. Telling a compelling narrative via fighting game is expensive and kinda challenging compared to other genres. Then there's telling the same story in the same world for 30+ years and having meaningful changes and developments thorughout but still having to make sure some semblance of the cast is always there to represent characters and playstyles people like. Tekken is somewhat succeeding more than it aught to in some sense. That being said, I whole heartedly agree that the quality and coherency of the story is still woeful and should hopefully improve.
Guilty Gear managed to tell a story and build its world despite having some rough games and the many many re releases of Guilty Gear XX, KOF manages tell a pretty good story like Orochi Saga despite being the finale of that saga being KOF97 rushed on release. Tekken had its world built in Tekken 1-3 and even 4 and yet after that there wasn’t much thought about what to do with those and they just keeps throwing new stuff that doesn’t even fit for a continuation they have no excuse not to write good story when it was done before, and them promising some of the things they said only to back down their word on it and not do it is such a scummy thing to do tbh.
Not to refute your points but KOF brought back all their dead characters with one maguffin boss fight didn't they? Guilty Gear I can't say anything either way but I just don't know if fighting game stories can really do what they need to and manage a compelling story.
@@HolyHadou for the mcguffin boss that happened because a character did a time paradox by erasing himself and their ancestor out of existence however that doesn’t affect the Orochi Saga because it already wrapped up unlike Tekken, and the main character Kyo has already outgrown his past self and will most likely whoop most of the bosses he canonically fought in the past. As for guilty gear I suggest you check that out on your own, the word compelling is fitting for it’s lore and story.
@@nugget3327 Sorry but even by KOF's own logic it doesn't sound any better than the weird logical loops that Tekken did. Just a lot of extra steps and Kingdom Hearts metaphysics. I'm tempering my expectations on Guilty Gear but cest la vie.
@@HolyHadou at least it didn’t drag on the story from each entry until it wasn’t going anywhere, when orochi saga wrapped so did the important characters, the villains from that saga did not appear the next one, it was NESTS and all about them that it didn’t even involve any of the villains in the past, the next one was also about the villains of that saga instead of the previous ones, it was only in the 4th saga where the villains in the past got revived and again it didn’t affect the previous sagas cause those stories have already ended.
Tekken's story has never been good BUT Heihachi's "actual death" in 7 at least got my attention. Like "Wow Tekken with no Heihachi? Where do we go from here?" But...JK! We have no balls, nothing changes, nothing matters. This plot is never going anywhere, it can't go anywhere. We need the status quo to remain because of the roster, specially now in the e-sports era, so just pretend stuff is happening or will happen but don't you EVER dare compromise
Absolutely this. And while being a Robot, his voice should have been the last voice actor that voiced him, except that his voice would come out robotised and would malfunction every now and again.
The thing with the stories in fighting games is that the developers don't really care as much as some fans seem to do. Harada's comment was probably semi-ironic, in the sense that he knows that story isn't great and that people make fun of it. To them, the story doesn't matter all that much in the end. Gameplay and cool-looking characters do. Story modes themselves were created for console players to have something to do besides arcade mode. They started paying a bit more attention to this after Mortal Kombat's story mode came out, but even MK's story is too convoluted and had multiple reboots already. Also, I keep seeing people complaining characters such as Asuka not getting a proper back story, but I don't see that changing. Some characters are just too secondary.
At least MK somewhat of a plan. Like, 9 goes into X, and X goes into 11, 11 goes into 1. They don’t follow up well, but they do have some kinda plan: I don’t think Tekken has a plan. Ever since 5 and 6, these characters have had the same rivalries with no difference
It might’ve taken everyone else a long time to take FG stories seriously because SNK if anything deserves that recognition with Fatal Fury & Art of Fighting back in 91’ & 92’
SNK did it first, but MK also put story and character in front alongside the gore. Though; it wasn’t until Deadly Alliance where they started to really push the story as a selling point
@@TherealKazuya Mortal kombat story is current better than Tekkens even with that dum timeline stuff how sad is that. but still no ! tekken doesn't need no rebot no timelines.
Tekken 8’s story mode and dlc chapter has made me not care about the story altogether. Retcons kills investment. Why engage with it now when they’ll just retcon every change and death? It’s a waste of time that doesn’t respect your time and investment.
Heihachi's and Kazuya's last battle on T7 is fu**kin pointless rn smh 🤦 theres SOOOO manny characters literally havent returned since T6 😭 yup we gotta have to admit that gaming will NEVER be the same as it was b4 😴why bring baack someone who's heart STOPPED BEATING AND DIED 🤬?! It ROESNT MAKE ANY SCENCE
I admit that Tekken story right now is not really good, but I can still swallow it compare to the multiverse "MCU" bs that Mortal Kombat being doing right now.
harada always talks about the lore, at this point he should write a novel, where he can go into every little detail of every character.. story was never important in fighting games its always been nonsense and players didnt mind. i never cared about the story in tekken. for people who are interested about this sort of thing, there are books and movies. i think i would buy tekken book, where they can do the story justice, unlike in the game.
I heard rumours of a Asuka Kazama and Jin anime adaptation of tekken series written by of Show runners who worked on Loki and The punisher and My dress up Darling People working on it and including a better Animation.
I'd also worth mentioning, on the Yoshimitsu part, Yoshimitsu is also a character connect to Japanese History. The Yoshimitsu of Tekken draws major influence with the Yoshimitsu of Japanese History, who was a Samurai dedicated to serving the poor. There is a Golden Pagoda near Kyoto that is connected to him, and in, the first floor is the only one that is not ordained in Gold, like the rest of the building, this was done at the requestion of Yoshimitsu
@@hurricane7727 Yoshimitsu appeared in Tekken, first. Then was introduced in Soul Calibur at a distant ancestor. But I'm saying both come from the Yoshimitsu of Japanese history, around at some point during the Kurakama period. There's a ton they have in common, mainly the fact that Like the real Yoshi, Yoshi in the games are Robin Hood-like character who believe in defending the poor and have a strong sense of justice
Story lines for video games, movies and TV work best with a definitive beginning, middle, and ending that brings closure. Otherwise you get stuck with useless sequels, reboots, and remakes of the same garbage. All good things end eventually because nostalgia is poison. Always create new ideas for new series to keep entertainment fresh without mindless repetition.
I am still baffled on the Tekken 7 DLC characters not having a character story or how tf they are in the game. Atleast Tekken 8 gives the latest DLC characters a DLC episode on what are they doing in the main game's storyline but we still need to know why Fahkumram, Lei Wulong or Anna on Tekken 7 and absent on Tekken 8 or better yet, WHERE IS CHRISTIE!?
Also, fighting games are typically gonna have mid-to-bad plots. FG players don't like a bunch of unskippable cutscenes and dialogue trees outside of maybe a side mode *committed* to that kind of thing. We want minimal loading times and fighting. They're CORRECT to minimize the plot to intros and outros, and an overall outcome from one title to the next, to be determined entirely by the new game's plot direction.
7:39 bruh you wanna know something ironic? This scenario did end up in Tekken 8 but it’s in Devil Jin’s character episode intro so it’s not even in the main story and just another what if that went nowhere.
Some idiot told me Tekken doesn’t need a good story. I’m like “my guy, Tekken always has a good story around the Mishimas” but Forgotten Echoes’ story make me believe that idiot.
Tekken story needs to focus more on mysteries and go back to it's character story roots, now everyone is connected somehow, which is fine, just let them have some moments with each other then, so their relationship can develop and why there is like 0 connection between characters who supposed to know each other? Asuka, Jin? Ling, Hwo?
I have always been a big fan of the story in the Tekken series. It started going downhill from Tekken 6, Tekken 7 I thought had good moments with Akuma hunting down Kazuya and Heihachi, finally learning about Kasumi and the Hachijo, and then finalising the Mishima saga at the end. And now, Tekken 8 has literally destroyed any interest I have had with the story in Tekken. It's beyond a joke making all the Tekken characters appear like the Avengers in the storyline, everyone immediately forgiving Jin for WW3, the Tekken 8 story becoming a Shounen Manga, and last but not least forcing Heihachi back into the storyline all alive and well after everything that happened in Tekken 7.
@@nugget3327 Same, all the power to everyone that loved the story for Tekken 8, but I really didn’t understand the hype, as well as for the DLC story. In my opinion Tekken 8’s story is one of the worst in the series after Tekken 6’s for me.
Although the story right now is kind of shit, primarily because of the disappointment that comes from Heihachi fumbling his last chance to be a better man and let go of the evil within him, it can be rectified if they decide to use Heihachi’s doubling down on being a monster to make us the audience hate him and to make Kazuya’s retribution that much sweeter.
Being a fan of character and story for Tekken seems rough. I have spotty history with this series. Most games seemed to be about Mishmas and I don't like any of them so I've never really cared about what seemed to be the main focus. Then they decided at some point one of my favs entire character was "simping for Jin." -_-
based on how dirty the devs do with the tekken story so far, this is what I think the devs will add in the future: make lars or lee a devil (or even both) resurrecting kazumi or jinpachi kuma gets possessed by the same demon jinpachi went through “kazuya mishima is completely ded” jin forgiving heihachi (like bro what🔥💀) jun destroying heihachi give lee the same azazel arm as zafina claudio becomes a demon reina doing literally nothing at all jin forgiving ogre for taking away his mother💀💀💀 lee betrays everyone and becomes a villain (ngl i want lee as a villain) kazuya being a good guy (no pls💀💀) heihachi gets the devil gene xiaoyu and jin get married😭🔥🔥🔥 involving kazuma kiryu in the story💀💀💀 bringing back akuma as a dlc💀💀💀 bringing back noctis💀💀💀 xiaoyu starts ww4 (bro what💀💀💀) lars and alisa get married💀💀💀 asuka gets kicked out of the kazama clan💀💀💀
Outside of the Mishima (main story) which I will admit has some head scratchers, the individual character ones, I can def see why he said that as they range from way out there, to downright, comedic factor or the worst one, what ifs. (Hwoarang losing an eye to DJ)
Tekken 4 was the last time where the story was interesting. But then again most games and Movies/series lack a good story so I cant really put that against tekken.
It's not even a question or theory that Tekken's story is ass. It's damn obvious it is. The consistency issues are glaring. The retcon of Heihachi was in your face. And the flow of the story is one-dimensional as hell. Also notice how only the Mishimas were somewhat passing when it comes to writing since they're the only ones who had any form of development while most of the other cast were just side characters and nothing more than "tools" to move the plot forward.
Ironically, what happened with T7 story is very similar to Soul Calibur 5. The story in that game was originally planned to be much longer and with full cinematics, but then the story was cut short both in cinematics quantity and overall duration. And the story turned to be horrible. In any case, neither game can get that as an excuse. SC6 Soul Chronicle story mode also had several issues but it was amazing compared to both SC5 and T7 (Libra of souls had the writing going for it but the presentation wad GOD-AWFUL, even worse than T7. but Soul Chronicle was very enjoyable because at least it had the voice acting in addition to the writing), and of course none of these can compete with NRS/WB games stories, or Midway MK stories, which were the ones who pushed the stories in fighting games to insane level alongside SC, and sadly it's only NRS/WB games now. Regardless what Harada wanted to say, Tekken story has no meaning anymore. Tekken 5 was the last game with great story, ever since Tekken 6 started to retcon some of the events from Tekken 5 and of course starting the WW3 crap, that's when the story went down hill and it only got worse since then. It's a shame that SC has no sequel coming anytime soon, because that's really the only Japanese fighting series that still has a story that is worth a damn, even with SC5 story being horrible, both of SC6 story modes managed to save the lore of SC, at least in terms of writing, and despite the lack of cinematics in both of them. And no, that record of Tekken has no value anymore. At this point they need to erase everything that happened after Tekken 5 and make Tekken 9 the real sequel of it. Yes it's another retcon, but that would be a good retcon for a change, just like MK9 retconning MK Armageddon's ending so they can start the second timeline with MK9.
@@gv82089 Nope, T5 story is WAY BETTER than T8 story. T5 actually made sense and didn't had any bad retcons or BS, unlike T8, and that all started only after T5.
I hate the fact that it's become an over the top Shounen Manga now. Tekken 8 went way too far with it. Tekken's stories use to be simple and the Character's looked and felt more real.
Im still surprised how Tekken 8 Main Story was one of the BEST ever in all of the fighting Game series. Yes, the writing itself is kinda generic (anime Hero with demon trope who has to beat his father) but they way they presented it, and the final fight against kazuya with the amazing OST's from Tekken 3 jins theme to Tekken 2 Kaminano as well as jin using mishima and kazama style. And then we get the heihachi retcon...
I used to think it was the best story we got for Tekken in years until I went back and realized it had a lot areas it could’ve improved, in fact some moments dragged down the final chapter to mediocrity.
I am probably the one 1% here. Maybe I'm not reading the same way, but why does this imply he's admitting the story is bad. Isn't he just saying that the story is more important than the art, meaning his story of tekken
No, the story is missing the exaggerated slapstick hyperviolence source understanding that inspired it. Y'all should really read or watch Ranma 1/2 or Urusei Yatsura/The Return of Lum sometime and bear in mind, that THIS is Harada's childhood influence. You see Ranma and Genma Saotome and *instantly* you'll understand Heihachi and Kazuya. And for that matter, also Kuma and Panda, and their relevance.
I mean i cant recall correctly but i believe tk4 was harada first time being in charge and ppl didn't jive with and it really affected him you can tell, cuz it was a slow burn that got a lot if negative flak and now he doesn't gaf 😂 screw the story and focus on flashy gameplay, and it still works for that reason (personally I liked the gritty nature of tk4 they felt human and believable...to an extent AND NOT CARICATURES)
What are the qualifications for that 2nd record? Seems to me that something like monster hunter, resident evil, dynasty warriors, or king of fighters ought to take that cake.
Honestly, I enjoyed the story mode in Tekken 8. I had a lot of fun with it and I think that’s what they were going for. A story doesn’t need to be cohesive in order to be fun. However, I think the dlc story was pushing it in terms of how dumb it can be. Say what you want about the main story, but at least it didn’t make the story of the previous game worthless, unlike the dlc.
here is something maybe new players don't understand about Tekken lore/world build up and story it never meant to be as serious as it's today, like if we go back and just watched the charterers design and stories as a whole, The game have a pinch of comedy to it like animals, robots, monsters, and casual personalities thrown around and mixed up but the game kinda drift away from this path with the latest Tekkens like there shouldn't be deep lore for Tekken it just "hop on and have some fun" type of games with silliness around with the moves and stories and sometimes game mods. like it's a game for fun at it's core.
I look at tekken lore as meant to be cheesy/campy more for entertainment than for than to be like the last of us or something like that. What I think tekken does really well with the cheesiness is that within the universe the story is presented very seriously for how over the top it is which I love. Tbh t8’s story has been pretty enjoyable for me even the new one, the more disappointing part of the story is the fact that they make you play the fights in baby mode, but the story side I was compelled to finish it in one sitting.
what harada is saying is that writing isint a skill he believes he does well. the story is bad but harada didn't admit anything, he just said "the story is as important if not more than the art and im better at art than story writing"
… it bothers me as a long time fan = The story is really dumb, it’s been 20 years and they managed to stretch the story out longer than One Piece AND they afraid to kill off main characters. Meanwhile, side characters after T6 just become convoluted and lacklustre.
I was fine with the first story mode of T8 being mid. It didn't ruin anything, and it didn't have incredibly stupid parts. The second story mode ruined the goodwill they started with because there were some incredibly stupid parts. And the stupidest was the main part, the resurrection of Heihachi! My god it was bad.
...I mean let's be real here, nobody needed Harada to come out and admit it. It's fine though, the story doesn't really matter that much in gameplay-focused games. I totally expect Claudio and Zafina to come back in Tekken 9, even though they both died like a couple of jobbers.
The problem with Tekken's story is that there is no vision.
Exactly. It's just random BS with bad writing.
@@Pynappuru harada doesnt seem to ever take those shades off either way
@@keisaka2878 He started wearing them for his "villain arc" when SFxT was a new thing (I think that was the reason) but I guess he really liked em and never took them off
There is Vision, but no execution.
@@VidhantRana Tekken 4 was the last time they gave a damn, but Harada must think no one wants a story like that because of how much Tekken 4's failure affected him, he left Namco for a year and reflected, came back, and I guess just stopped caring about story and started writing bland comedy endings for characters, who are now like dead wood and have lost their initial motive hooks.
They dont care about character story outside of a backstory that explain their design.
He probably thinks Tekken fans dont want deep stories in their fighting games because of the failure of Tekken 4. He always talks about how Tekken 4 was a complete failure even though they tried very new stuff and brought in a professional story writer. Its a very limited way of thinking.
@@jupiterapollo4985 there're still clowns who scream that story doesn't matter and Harada keeps listening to them, which is why the story mode feels like it's an afterthought. It's such a shame cause Tekken has the most potential out of any fighting game IMHO.
I think it’s how reception goes, people will naturally get pissed of about their characters because they’re invested in about their own favorites over the years, and that same trend goes with anime (think of them as Yam Cha, Picollo and Tien ShinHan) - it’s very common for any anime and comics with a proper usual character growth thus adding more depth into them. And giving them stupid endings over and over, most folks would not have it. But for the 1st time they can slip through just for us to enjoy what the director is portraying us the story. (Tekken 5 to 8, a whopping 4 franchises to offer joke ending’s straight) casual audience do enjoy a nice laugh and then, there’s the butthurt side of the audience the ones who always complains.
Tekken was worth studying about like we are invested with MMA Fighters or WWE superstars in real life, because Tekken 5 is where the mainstream joke endings began to surface (though there are present within the past games before 5th) and lets face it, a lot of general folks will never like over the top edgy content (e.g: Shadow the Hedgehog) and something so serious it bores the general audience like you’ll find it in any mainstream ps1 and Nintendo games.
And by Tekken 7, there begins a fineline between baffoonery and expected storylines to Harada not giving us proper endings of a character for at least giving us important side characters on which that’s where Harada falls short about.
Most of the Tekken endings have always been lackluster to a point of there’s no actual proper follow up, and anything but outside the Mishimas are always been the worst suffering the same fate. And this 8th installment is were that final straw burns, invalidating the send off of Heihachi Mishima at Tekken 7 now it’s coming to the main characters. 7 is almost beautiful in fact just as beautiful as Tekken 5 and Heihachi’s death was properly hype for at least to have the story properly move on but because of Tekken 8’s dlc ending this is where the plot becomes too non-sensical and ruins Kazuya’s resolve despite getting his revenge and there’s no proper excuse with it given Kazuya had to secure and look up for Heihachi’s fall.
@@Cherry91 If that's the case, then Harada should stop adding story mode. If he's going through the trouble of making one, then he might as well do it right.
@Cherry91 potential definitely is wasted, just look at how wasted characters like asuka are
It's definitely bad. Asuka's related to Jin and Jun and she's interacting with Lili instead. Enough said.
They setup a scene just to confirm they are aware of her being kazama and that they don’t want nothing to do with her lol.
Asuka is a comic character anyway. Why would you want more screen time for a character like Asuka
Because they want to rip off the tomboy and princess and lesbian undertones that Sakura and Karin have. And they've gone way overboard compared to Sakura and Karin.
@@DTownNash Asuka used to have some form of importance at least before Tekken’s 6 to 8, and I mean even Devil Jin had a small interaction with her. And her start had promising premise of being a potential side protagonist character outside the Mishimas so folks invested in her.
Tekken 6 had a lot of miss opportunities for the side characters or at least expanding Jinpachi Mishima despite getting defeated or expanding the win-lose stories between Characters who should win and lost. And the list goes on.
@@SubliminaIMessages she was never meant to replace Jun. Her T5 endings is also comic and you know that damn well
After Tekken 5 the writing really took a nose dive. Too many retcons and straight up lies. I'm not going to lie, I thought the main story of Tekken 8 was okay and thought the story would go into a new arc. But yeah, Harada's whole thing about making the story progress since Tekken 7 was bullshit. Heihachi is back, we're back to square one and everything will repeat itself again for many years.
Personally, I don't think the writing for Tekken 5 was ever that good. The story is this: An Old man pops up from a destroyed, with demon energy. threaten to destroy the world. All for Jin to beat him and become the boss of the Zeibatsu. Like, what?
Na Harada will never admit that Tekken's story is bad. If anything, that convoluted statement just confirms that he's the sole writer and no one is in charge of the script and reigning him from writing himself into a bigger and bigger hole. And herein lies the real issue. Since there's no real writer, everything is all over the place. There're some great ideas here and there. But the execution is bad. That's why I'm in favor of a reboot that'll never happen cause they're too attached to that world record. Who even knows where to go from here.
But he indirectly did, didn't he? He asked if considering that manga story matters more than art, would you consider him a good manga artist considering Tekken story. Which was rethorical question with assumed answer being "No, you aren't"
@@Carsu12 no he didn't from my understanding. He asked people what they would think of him as a manga artist, most likely to troll as usual. Even if he knows the story is bad, he's not going to admit it, indirectly or not. That'd be bad publicity. And considering that he said his tweets are being checked before he posts them, you can be sure we'll never get a straight answer from him, only convoluted responses like these.
its best to do a Tekken reboot and keep the story similar but have some good changes to the story
Harada handles the creative direction all in one place. Anything outside the Mishima Storyline is treated badly, but Heihachi's return in Tekken 8 is totally stupid no doubt. Really wish Tekken 8 before the DLC thing was totally Harada's last fulfillment but then the dlc storyline we had anticipated leave us a sour note of what not to do when doing a follow up storyline.
@@GaidenDS10 should the dead or alive 5 and 6 story line system where you follow the characters story and see there development
the original tekken creator seichii ishi would have wrote a very good story if he was still working in bandai namco
Man, why you are writing with double spaces?
@@РоманСмородов-л2в hes a sociopath
@@РоманСмородов-л2в it's a habit that i had that's all
@@РоманСмородов-л2вit doesn't matter. Be kind
Finally someone mentioned the CREATOR of Tekken. Harada is just a director of a project. He has NOTHING to do with invention of Tekken. He voiced Law in T1 and that's it.
Why don't they hire writers of the Yakuza franchise? They know perfect fighting game stories.
@@drishavg harada is allergic to writers, iirc the last tekken that had a writer was like 4 or 5
Yakuza is not a fighting game. I don't know why you''d even bring that up. Also, Yakuza largely tells crime dramas. That's pretty far and away from where Tekken's story is now.
@@orangesoda4535 I mean, It combat heavy. Plus, I was just spit balling.
@orangesoda4535 I mean, not gonna lie, They probably could still do a good job though lol. It's not like Yakuza is always realistic or always serious anyway lol. Heck they're literally making a Yakuza Pirate game is we speak 😂
@@jwoodsjr123sgameroom5 Ikr.
Tekken 4 was the last great story telling it was written by legit writers at that time, Harada is a bad story teller but i hope he doesn't fail developing Reina like he did to Asuka
"Last" more like the ONLY one😂
@@a.eb.a1507 1-3 had good storylines 5 was still good but many failed miserably on developing Asuka's character
Tekken 4's writing wasn't really that good either, it just had good presentation.
i think the earlier games had more simplicity in their story which didnt make it as convoluted as later games when they had the chance to shove in everything they could
Oh yes!
That’s right!
Asuka is a big disappointment…
Some say that games don't need good quality graphics, they need better stories
Graphics and fidelity focus is unironically destroying the industry. With fidelity focus come higher dev costs because you gotta buy the overpriced high end assets and all that. It results in higher prices in an attempt to salvage the budget later, and the game has barely any content because they blow their budget on the high end assets. And yeah, then people wonder why AAA is the way it is.
Games need good art direction in general. Story is a must for some genres, but I don't think that applies to fighting games. It would be great to have at least one fighting game with an amazing story, of course. But they don't need it to sell. Look at DBZ. Worse shonen story by faaaaar, yet it sells like pancakes.
They do need better stories. I thought T8 was kind of sloppy. It took them 8 years to make T8 and that’s all they can put in it? 😶
Fighting game stories have great potential but get treated like an afterthought or played way too safe.
That's actually reality. Even the old Final Fantasy developers said they cannot make games with the same complexity they used to (like FFVII, FFVII, FFVIII, FF IX etc.) due to enhanced graphics - it would always take several parts to develop them and ppl are most likely not going to buy several installments over the course of some years to finish one story. Just look at FFVII Rebirth it's the second game and they are around the end of disc 1(FFVII had 3 discs). Honestly good graphics seem to destroy possibility of good stories
jCDR: "calls dragunov braindead easy"
tekken fans: "whaaaaattt??? the PROS are calling tekken 8 garbage????"
Harada: "post a drawing, fan ask about if he prefers to do a manga but he says he prefers to write tekken story rather than illustrate"
Tekken fans: "whaaattt?? is harada admiting the story is trash and succckssss?????"
reading comprehension at its finest
I was thinking the same thing lol
I totally loved the Tekken story till T3. It was awesome and quite unique. After Harada took the lead there was one retcon after retcon. And one of the reasons is that Harada weirdly loves Heihachi and seems to hate/dislike Kazuya. Honestly I don't know why - I really do have the impression that Kazuya somewhat triggers him. Harada has said before that Heihachi is the father nobody wants to have & that Japanese men of his (Haradas) generation (ppl who are in their fifties / Kazuyas age) can see their own fathers in Heihachi - according to Harada these Imperial Japan fathers (like Hei) tortured their male children because they thought that this will make their sons strong. (Harada mentioned that of course Heihachi - in the way he tortured Kaz - is an exaggeration of the norm.) Usually you'd expect that he will rather empathize with Kaz (like what rather most ppl do) than Hei but that is obviously not the case. It's much more like he identifies with Hei - the abuser than with Kaz - the victim back then. Of course also in the original story Kazuya became evil due to his past and that's also not unusual in reality (for e.g. sons of narcisstic fathers often become even more narcisstic - that's one of the common survival strategies of narcisstic abuse) - however since Harada took the lead he ONLY made worse chara development decisions regarding Kazuya till Tekken 8 - a permanent emotional downfall for Kazuya where Kazuya himself consistantly totally loses to the devil (remember the T5 ending). Harada even wanted to destroy Kazuyas "originally-intended" positive relationship with Jun by saying that they were basically (half-)forced to make a child by a mysterious force and that Jun doesn't mean anything to him. Fortunately at least that was backwards retconned in T8! (Honestly I have never seen a person who liked that version). Harada even said before things like there is no Kazuya anymore, only the devil etc. - and regarding Hei he obviously wanted to make him better than he originally was intended to be - while Kazuya had every right to hate Heihachi for what he did to him - Heihachi even happily smiled when he killed Kazuya in T2 though he was the person who permanently abused him. How is that guy human evil and Kazuya devil evil when actually Kazuya was the more relatable character? Even the T7 retcon didn't help. It only makes Heihachis actions less understandable - why the hell he raised Kazuya when it was already obvious that he will have to kill him in the future anyway? Did Heihachi ever feel for Kazuya? It doesn't seem so. I dunno what's wrong with Harada he probably adopted malfunctionous family behaviour from his own father and hates the depiction of 'victim Kazuya' otherwise it's absolutely not understandable why Harada treats the characters the way he treats them. Moreover regarding Jin - Harada said there are no good Mishimas - so he made Jin start WW3. However there is a good Mishima -Lars-. The guy who - of all family members resembles Heihachi in terms of looks the most - he even triggered Kazuya in that PTSD flashback.
- one of the greatest issues of the Tekken Story - if not the greatest issue - is that characters/story were inventended by another person. Harada took over and projected his own issues/themes into an established story/characters made by another person which turned everything into a mess.
Fortunately Manga are usually only written by one person from start till end (yes editors do sometimes want some changes etc.) but that is nowhere close to what was done to Tekken. Now it's more like an Anime-only story/doujinshi or fanfiction but they can say it's official because they are continuing the work. That's what actually happened to Tekken.
I always empathized with Kaz, that's clearly what the devs wanted to back in the day.
If what you say about Harada is true it would explains why i felt weird playing the latests stories of Tekken. Honestly, i lost my interest in the game, and with that DLC they definetelly killed any possibilities for me to come back.
Usually with T7 i used to come back and playing every once in a while, now it's 6 months that i'm not even touching T8.
It was a good run, but it's over
"Why give yourself yet another disadvantage?"
Kenshi 2023
Zafina possesses the Origin of Devil gene in her hands but gets one shot by Kazuya who was 50% or lower of Devil Gene makes no sense, Claudio being a high tier Exorcist who battled powerful beings like Eliza and survived, but gets one shot by Kazuya makes no sense, Azazel, the Origin of the Devil gene gets obliterated by Kazuya who is still less % Devil gene than him, no help from Eliza or other powerful beings or nothing, just Kazuya, this would have been a great time to put in a team up fight vs Azazel, Kazuya and Ogre or someone strong enough to help Kazuya defeat Azazel in the fashion of a Tekken Tag team gameplay etc.
And the love relationship between Lars and Alisa is so ugly but that's a personal thing I guess.
It's like Harada doesn't take in consideration past events that happened with certain characters.
And Angel Jin?? Seriously ? instead of bring Angel herself back? ok Harada lol.
Azazel can be easily defeated now because in Tekken 6, Jin did not KILL azazel like he thought.
he healed him...
which is why Devil states that the power of purification does not work on him.
if you want to date further back when Devil first got familiar with Purification, it dates back to Tekken 2.
Devil went after Jun for that exact reason.
Jin is the main villain. Watch and see...hes damn near indestructible
I think nobody care about Angel tbh. She was just a "one time" thing
@@Larealmishimatv I'm sure same can be said with Angel Jin, I would had rather see Angel since she was an original character, not some gender swap of her, see what I just did? funny that Master Raven recieved so much hate for being a gender swapped but everyone's pretty much ok with Jin genderswappin Angel lol, truth is what you just said can apply to Raven, his usage rate is still low in Tekken 8. This is not a directed towards you btw, I'm referring to those people who dislike gender swaps btw.
@@BCannonThaMc Jin is Plot induced stupidity, it would make no sense for him to be indestructible, this just points to the horrible writing.
@@Larealmishimatv nah, people cared about angel. so much infact that they got heated when she was buns in ttt2
Yeah, T8 story is bad, and here's why:
- Everyone is FORCED into the Mishima conflict, making them look like chumps with their 1 minute cameos
- Everyone's stories are DROPPED, meaning people like King, Nina, even Yoshimitsu all lost their mini stories
- Jin's whole villain turn arc, this was bad since Tekken 6
- Heihachi going back to his old self and having a random "plan" all of a sudden
Basically, Tekken 5 started it. Yes, 5, the game that turned Jin into a bad guy at the end. That was the start. It spiraled downhill and into the dumpster starting with 6 where everyone else was slowly starting to get sucked into "World War Jin", then 7 did its own nonsense, and now we are where we are, in the garbage bin. So yeah.
Jun disappointing return in the story was also why it was bad. And Claudio's + Zafina deaths were underwhelming too
I'm gonna mention Heihachi not staying dead, and being non canon playable.
Jin’s whole turning 180 could’ve been great but it wasn’t well thought enough
Jun’s lack of role even as a support character and only being a plot device to unlock Jin’s Angel mode was frustrating, she didn’t feel like a character at all.
Other characters being part of the Mishima story isn’t necessarily bad in fact it could serve as an incentive to drive their characters forward if not that have both the Mishima and the said character benefit from the interaction which did not happen most of the story so it felt really forced like Leroy’s Speech to Jin. But one of the better positive example is Hwoarang and Jin’s fight which felt natural and does benefit either of them but it does end up benefiting Jin more cause he’s the Focus of the story.
At this point give us a reboot, Mishima drama tossing each other in volcana and fighting in outer space is not Tekken
i just want to say that the original tekken creator seishii ichi left bandai namco after tekken 2 and harada came after him if the original creator was there we would probabley indeed up with a tekken 6 without Lars and alisa
The thing is the story of tekken is just a devilman vs buff oldman along with another devilson. it had its moments where the execution was done correctly during T4, T5 and T7(during heihachi and kazuya battle)story but thats just it. So for me i don't really mind it or care
@@moxdegiourno7984 T5? That one was probably one of the worst offenders in terms of story lol
2:50 Blazblue is also another fighting game series that took its story seriously. There are a lot of goofy moments and the timelines make it a little difficult to follow, but the overall narrative has always been engaging and interesting as every character had their story progress from entry to entry in a meaningful way.
Yep, at least both Guilty Gear and Blazblue are consistent with the story.
Yeah, they just brought him back because people demanded him. If they cared at all about the story he would've died in the volcano.
Tekken's writing is so cringe.
Most people don’t pay attention to the story mode they just want to have fun with the game but the story mode is the back bone of the game. So If there’s no story there’s no vision for the game to move forward so there needs to be a balance between the two. They put so much funds towards creating flashy graphics and stages that the story mode just got ignored and yes we can discern their sloppy work. I thought it was sloppy how they threw all the characters into the war scene in T8. They didn’t have a good dispersion of the other popular characters. The story mode could have been better!
Indeed here's the problems:
1. Paul not facing kazuya
2. paul and law still being joke characters
3. not having a moment of asuka going with jin and learning about her powers and defending jin
4.some characters are not used a lot
5. jun not being used more
6.kinda feels more power of friendship instead of learning and accepting, and having responsibility
7. Kazuya should have seen jun
8.NO HEIHACHI, replace with reina, lars, or jinpachi, or better yet jin the learn more mishima style
9. story could have had 30 minutes or an hour to finish more tekken plot
10. give characters more development
In my opinion I would do the dead or alive story system where you follow the characters story and how it ends in that game, so we can have other characters development to be made.
I wonder in retrospect how much of the mishaps of Tekken 4 and Project Soul have colored the higher ups' perception and subsequent demands of the Tekken series retroactively . Do correct me if I'm wrong in any part, but if I recall correctly, Tekken 4 was a massive failure competitively and commercially just a bit less so, so I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that among the things that the higher ups saw that contributed to T4's failure was the darker and more subdued story beats and script, because they were immediately dialed back on T5, which brought the series back on track, so they demanded to keep that up.
Then we have the whole tempest that was SoulCalibur's development in 5 and the poor sales of 6. SC6 was massively marketed as the reboot of the series, and it just didn't pan out that well either. I'm sure the higher ups at Namco were looking over Project Soul's shoulder the whole time, and turned to the Tekken team and told them not to do any of that shit.
At the end of the day, Tekken 6 really dropped the ball story wise, but at the same time, whoever's in charge of the story had ALREADY written themselves into a corner with Tekken 5's also nonsensical story, because come on, Jinpachi is one of the stupidest plot devices in the series, at least in how he was shoehorned to kickstart that tournament, and making Jin the head of the Zaibatsu was the single worst outcome they could've done narratively. Tekken's story has been a headless chicken for decades now.
Jinpachi was also meant to appear in Tekken 4 but was scrapped so there’s that.
No. He meant the opposite. Harada is clearly proud of the Tekken story and is absolutely tone deaf as to how bad it's become. He really should quit and do manga.
He indeed admitted he was bad at writing the story 😂
tekken's story is inherently bad. its very bad right now, but before, it was 'jojo bad', being so nonsensical and funny that it was really entertaining. tekken seems to have lost that though.
Especially with the DLC story, there’s nothing to take on it.
The part of the Tekken 8 story that won me over was jin and alisa talking in the hanger, alisa opened her mouth, and I was thinking here it comes she will recap everything that just happened like its some bad anime. But she didn't, and the silly story had good pacing 🥳
Before anyone loses it, bad anime is shorthand for weak manga to anime screenplay adaptation.
Or cheaper to tell than show 😂
Looking back on that scene it kinda bugged me the wrong way cause it really didn’t feel like a genuine conversation but it’s not as worse as other characters Jin had convos with later.
Wait, how can Tekken be the longest ongoing story when Street Fighter has never rebooted, started before Tekken and it's newest game came out only around a year ago?
To Tekken's credit, telling a compelling story is already plenty hard but for any fighting game it has two massive disadvantages compared to most other game genres. Telling a compelling narrative via fighting game is expensive and kinda challenging compared to other genres. Then there's telling the same story in the same world for 30+ years and having meaningful changes and developments thorughout but still having to make sure some semblance of the cast is always there to represent characters and playstyles people like. Tekken is somewhat succeeding more than it aught to in some sense. That being said, I whole heartedly agree that the quality and coherency of the story is still woeful and should hopefully improve.
Guilty Gear managed to tell a story and build its world despite having some rough games and the many many re releases of Guilty Gear XX, KOF manages tell a pretty good story like Orochi Saga despite being the finale of that saga being KOF97 rushed on release. Tekken had its world built in Tekken 1-3 and even 4 and yet after that there wasn’t much thought about what to do with those and they just keeps throwing new stuff that doesn’t even fit for a continuation they have no excuse not to write good story when it was done before, and them promising some of the things they said only to back down their word on it and not do it is such a scummy thing to do tbh.
Not to refute your points but KOF brought back all their dead characters with one maguffin boss fight didn't they? Guilty Gear I can't say anything either way but I just don't know if fighting game stories can really do what they need to and manage a compelling story.
@@HolyHadou for the mcguffin boss that happened because a character did a time paradox by erasing himself and their ancestor out of existence however that doesn’t affect the Orochi Saga because it already wrapped up unlike Tekken, and the main character Kyo has already outgrown his past self and will most likely whoop most of the bosses he canonically fought in the past.
As for guilty gear I suggest you check that out on your own, the word compelling is fitting for it’s lore and story.
@@nugget3327 Sorry but even by KOF's own logic it doesn't sound any better than the weird logical loops that Tekken did. Just a lot of extra steps and Kingdom Hearts metaphysics. I'm tempering my expectations on Guilty Gear but cest la vie.
@@HolyHadou at least it didn’t drag on the story from each entry until it wasn’t going anywhere, when orochi saga wrapped so did the important characters, the villains from that saga did not appear the next one, it was NESTS and all about them that it didn’t even involve any of the villains in the past, the next one was also about the villains of that saga instead of the previous ones, it was only in the 4th saga where the villains in the past got revived and again it didn’t affect the previous sagas cause those stories have already ended.
Tekken's story has never been good BUT Heihachi's "actual death" in 7 at least got my attention. Like "Wow Tekken with no Heihachi? Where do we go from here?" But...JK! We have no balls, nothing changes, nothing matters. This plot is never going anywhere, it can't go anywhere. We need the status quo to remain because of the roster, specially now in the e-sports era, so just pretend stuff is happening or will happen but don't you EVER dare compromise
At this point just remove any story in future Tekken games cause there’s no point at all.
The fact they didn't use the mecha-heihachi idea clearly shows how lost they are with the storytelling part.
Absolutely this. And while being a Robot, his voice should have been the last voice actor that voiced him, except that his voice would come out robotised and would malfunction every now and again.
Nah that was a stupid idea
@@Dexterty-kk5px But.... But Heihachi coming back into the story was also a stupid idea....
The thing with the stories in fighting games is that the developers don't really care as much as some fans seem to do. Harada's comment was probably semi-ironic, in the sense that he knows that story isn't great and that people make fun of it. To them, the story doesn't matter all that much in the end. Gameplay and cool-looking characters do. Story modes themselves were created for console players to have something to do besides arcade mode. They started paying a bit more attention to this after Mortal Kombat's story mode came out, but even MK's story is too convoluted and had multiple reboots already. Also, I keep seeing people complaining characters such as Asuka not getting a proper back story, but I don't see that changing. Some characters are just too secondary.
At least MK somewhat of a plan. Like, 9 goes into X, and X goes into 11, 11 goes into 1. They don’t follow up well, but they do have some kinda plan: I don’t think Tekken has a plan. Ever since 5 and 6, these characters have had the same rivalries with no difference
KOF at least the Orochi Saga despite the wacky translations had a pretty decent story.
Long story =/= good story
Tekken is the longest running stroy
Sf : Am I Joke to you?
Moonsault....Why you Ki charge and left the match after your first win in the set 5:27 ? Hmmm
Strangely, the director of Tekken 8's story was the director of SoulCalibur VI.
Look at Tekken 4’s story…then look at Tekken 8’s story. They’ve been dropping the ball ever since after Tekken 5.
It might’ve taken everyone else a long time to take FG stories seriously because SNK if anything deserves that recognition with Fatal Fury & Art of Fighting back in 91’ & 92’
SNK did it first, but MK also put story and character in front alongside the gore. Though; it wasn’t until Deadly Alliance where they started to really push the story as a selling point
lol they been knew that, they been stopped caring about it
Tekken story is bad the only way to save it is they make a Tekken game that pretty much restarts the whole story
To become like mortal kombat nahhh
Yep
So like Soul calibur and Mortal Kombat
absolutely not dawg 😭😭😭 the reboot shenanigans have caused more of a mess in most franchises nowadays
@@TherealKazuya Mortal kombat story is current better than Tekkens even with that dum timeline stuff how sad is that. but still no ! tekken doesn't need no rebot no timelines.
2:06 They won't lose the title until a new game with a similar narrative style drops a new installment 30 or so years after its first.
Tekken 8’s story mode and dlc chapter has made me not care about the story altogether. Retcons kills investment. Why engage with it now when they’ll just retcon every change and death? It’s a waste of time that doesn’t respect your time and investment.
Wtf is this background gameplay of chodeshimitsu ki charging after one game and runiing away lmao
But why you gotta Ki charge into no rematch Viktor ? 🤣
😂
Heihachi's and Kazuya's last battle on T7 is fu**kin pointless rn smh 🤦 theres SOOOO manny characters literally havent returned since T6 😭 yup we gotta have to admit that gaming will NEVER be the same as it was b4 😴why bring baack someone who's heart STOPPED BEATING AND DIED 🤬?! It ROESNT MAKE ANY SCENCE
I admit that Tekken story right now is not really good, but I can still swallow it compare to the multiverse "MCU" bs that Mortal Kombat being doing right now.
harada always talks about the lore, at this point he should write a novel, where he can go into every little detail of every character.. story was never important in fighting games its always been nonsense and players didnt mind. i never cared about the story in tekken. for people who are interested about this sort of thing, there are books and movies. i think i would buy tekken book, where they can do the story justice, unlike in the game.
I heard rumours of a Asuka Kazama and Jin anime adaptation of tekken series written by of Show runners who worked on Loki and The punisher and My dress up Darling People working on it and including a better Animation.
The intro lady yelling had me dying, a mad Pittsburgher 😂😂😂
They need to hire me lol
I'm sorry but in general, the story is garbage.
That is a lie! Yoshimitsu was in Tekken 1, 2 and 3 before Soul Caliber. He would have had lore regardless.
Guilty gear had a good story before strive
I'd also worth mentioning, on the Yoshimitsu part, Yoshimitsu is also a character connect to Japanese History. The Yoshimitsu of Tekken draws major influence with the Yoshimitsu of Japanese History, who was a Samurai dedicated to serving the poor. There is a Golden Pagoda near Kyoto that is connected to him, and in, the first floor is the only one that is not ordained in Gold, like the rest of the building, this was done at the requestion of Yoshimitsu
Yoshimitsu is also in Soul Calibur Games
@@hurricane7727 Yoshimitsu appeared in Tekken, first. Then was introduced in Soul Calibur at a distant ancestor. But I'm saying both come from the Yoshimitsu of Japanese history, around at some point during the Kurakama period. There's a ton they have in common, mainly the fact that Like the real Yoshi, Yoshi in the games are Robin Hood-like character who believe in defending the poor and have a strong sense of justice
Story lines for video games, movies and TV work best with a definitive beginning, middle, and ending that brings closure. Otherwise you get stuck with useless sequels, reboots, and remakes of the same garbage. All good things end eventually because nostalgia is poison. Always create new ideas for new series to keep entertainment fresh without mindless repetition.
Is that paul phoenix at the end?
I am still baffled on the Tekken 7 DLC characters not having a character story or how tf they are in the game. Atleast Tekken 8 gives the latest DLC characters a DLC episode on what are they doing in the main game's storyline but we still need to know why Fahkumram, Lei Wulong or Anna on Tekken 7 and absent on Tekken 8 or better yet, WHERE IS CHRISTIE!?
They should have stuck with the way they wrote Tekken 4's story. It was gritty, relatable, and had more soul imo.
Also, fighting games are typically gonna have mid-to-bad plots. FG players don't like a bunch of unskippable cutscenes and dialogue trees outside of maybe a side mode *committed* to that kind of thing. We want minimal loading times and fighting. They're CORRECT to minimize the plot to intros and outros, and an overall outcome from one title to the next, to be determined entirely by the new game's plot direction.
7:39 bruh you wanna know something ironic? This scenario did end up in Tekken 8 but it’s in Devil Jin’s character episode intro so it’s not even in the main story and just another what if that went nowhere.
The story of Tekken 8 was very good. I really liked it. It's a big cinematic anime thing. The DLC was also good.
Some idiot told me Tekken doesn’t need a good story. I’m like “my guy, Tekken always has a good story around the Mishimas” but Forgotten Echoes’ story make me believe that idiot.
That dlc had a worse story than Tekken 6
Tekken story needs to focus more on mysteries and go back to it's character story roots, now everyone is connected somehow, which is fine, just let them have some moments with each other then, so their relationship can develop and why there is like 0 connection between characters who supposed to know each other? Asuka, Jin? Ling, Hwo?
I have always been a big fan of the story in the Tekken series. It started going downhill from Tekken 6, Tekken 7 I thought had good moments with Akuma hunting down Kazuya and Heihachi, finally learning about Kasumi and the Hachijo, and then finalising the Mishima saga at the end. And now, Tekken 8 has literally destroyed any interest I have had with the story in Tekken. It's beyond a joke making all the Tekken characters appear like the Avengers in the storyline, everyone immediately forgiving Jin for WW3, the Tekken 8 story becoming a Shounen Manga, and last but not least forcing Heihachi back into the storyline all alive and well after everything that happened in Tekken 7.
I was very disappointed with the Dark Awakens story mode and the DLC one just convinced me not expect any more.
@@nugget3327 Same, all the power to everyone that loved the story for Tekken 8, but I really didn’t understand the hype, as well as for the DLC story. In my opinion Tekken 8’s story is one of the worst in the series after Tekken 6’s for me.
Although the story right now is kind of shit, primarily because of the disappointment that comes from Heihachi fumbling his last chance to be a better man and let go of the evil within him, it can be rectified if they decide to use Heihachi’s doubling down on being a monster to make us the audience hate him and to make Kazuya’s retribution that much sweeter.
It goes to show that Soul Calibur deserved better, Tekken too, but bruh, it's what led to Tekken's story becoming a lil' more serious.
I’ve been playing since the beginning and the story has never been a reason I purchased. Graphics and gameplay will take you far.
Being a fan of character and story for Tekken seems rough. I have spotty history with this series. Most games seemed to be about Mishmas and I don't like any of them so I've never really cared about what seemed to be the main focus. Then they decided at some point one of my favs entire character was "simping for Jin." -_-
I’ve been saying this a while now but it’s time to delete the roster and completely rebuild it. Everyone brand new. No returning characters.
based on how dirty the devs do with the tekken story so far, this is what I think the devs will add in the future:
make lars or lee a devil (or even both)
resurrecting kazumi or jinpachi
kuma gets possessed by the same demon jinpachi went through
“kazuya mishima is completely ded”
jin forgiving heihachi (like bro what🔥💀)
jun destroying heihachi
give lee the same azazel arm as zafina
claudio becomes a demon
reina doing literally nothing at all
jin forgiving ogre for taking away his mother💀💀💀
lee betrays everyone and becomes a villain (ngl i want lee as a villain)
kazuya being a good guy (no pls💀💀)
heihachi gets the devil gene
xiaoyu and jin get married😭🔥🔥🔥
involving kazuma kiryu in the story💀💀💀
bringing back akuma as a dlc💀💀💀
bringing back noctis💀💀💀
xiaoyu starts ww4 (bro what💀💀💀)
lars and alisa get married💀💀💀
asuka gets kicked out of the kazama clan💀💀💀
Outside of the Mishima (main story) which I will admit has some head scratchers, the individual character ones, I can def see why he said that as they range from way out there, to downright, comedic factor or the worst one, what ifs. (Hwoarang losing an eye to DJ)
Tekken 4 was the last time where the story was interesting.
But then again most games and Movies/series lack a good story so I cant really put that against tekken.
Tekken story died in 4th instalment
It's not even a question or theory that Tekken's story is ass. It's damn obvious it is.
The consistency issues are glaring. The retcon of Heihachi was in your face. And the flow of the story is one-dimensional as hell. Also notice how only the Mishimas were somewhat passing when it comes to writing since they're the only ones who had any form of development while most of the other cast were just side characters and nothing more than "tools" to move the plot forward.
7:08 I guess you could say Victor took Raven’s role however that also made Victor a bland character.
Ironically, what happened with T7 story is very similar to Soul Calibur 5. The story in that game was originally planned to be much longer and with full cinematics, but then the story was cut short both in cinematics quantity and overall duration. And the story turned to be horrible.
In any case, neither game can get that as an excuse. SC6 Soul Chronicle story mode also had several issues but it was amazing compared to both SC5 and T7 (Libra of souls had the writing going for it but the presentation wad GOD-AWFUL, even worse than T7. but Soul Chronicle was very enjoyable because at least it had the voice acting in addition to the writing), and of course none of these can compete with NRS/WB games stories, or Midway MK stories, which were the ones who pushed the stories in fighting games to insane level alongside SC, and sadly it's only NRS/WB games now.
Regardless what Harada wanted to say, Tekken story has no meaning anymore. Tekken 5 was the last game with great story, ever since Tekken 6 started to retcon some of the events from Tekken 5 and of course starting the WW3 crap, that's when the story went down hill and it only got worse since then. It's a shame that SC has no sequel coming anytime soon, because that's really the only Japanese fighting series that still has a story that is worth a damn, even with SC5 story being horrible, both of SC6 story modes managed to save the lore of SC, at least in terms of writing, and despite the lack of cinematics in both of them.
And no, that record of Tekken has no value anymore. At this point they need to erase everything that happened after Tekken 5 and make Tekken 9 the real sequel of it. Yes it's another retcon, but that would be a good retcon for a change, just like MK9 retconning MK Armageddon's ending so they can start the second timeline with MK9.
The story in t5 is also bad.
Base game T8 story > T5 story imo
@@gv82089 Nope, T5 story is WAY BETTER than T8 story. T5 actually made sense and didn't had any bad retcons or BS, unlike T8, and that all started only after T5.
I love Tekken's story. It's like a telenovela and an over the top shounen manga at the same time.
I hate the fact that it's become an over the top Shounen Manga now. Tekken 8 went way too far with it. Tekken's stories use to be simple and the Character's looked and felt more real.
Bro shonen manga is better than this there is alot of shonen with good worldbuilding, Tekken is full of random BS with bad writing
Im still surprised how Tekken 8 Main Story was one of the BEST ever in all of the fighting Game series. Yes, the writing itself is kinda generic (anime Hero with demon trope who has to beat his father) but they way they presented it, and the final fight against kazuya with the amazing OST's from Tekken 3 jins theme to Tekken 2 Kaminano as well as jin using mishima and kazama style. And then we get the heihachi retcon...
I used to think it was the best story we got for Tekken in years until I went back and realized it had a lot areas it could’ve improved, in fact some moments dragged down the final chapter to mediocrity.
I am probably the one 1% here. Maybe I'm not reading the same way, but why does this imply he's admitting the story is bad. Isn't he just saying that the story is more important than the art, meaning his story of tekken
No, the story is missing the exaggerated slapstick hyperviolence source understanding that inspired it.
Y'all should really read or watch Ranma 1/2 or Urusei Yatsura/The Return of Lum sometime and bear in mind, that THIS is Harada's childhood influence.
You see Ranma and Genma Saotome and *instantly* you'll understand Heihachi and Kazuya. And for that matter, also Kuma and Panda, and their relevance.
I mean i cant recall correctly but i believe tk4 was harada first time being in charge and ppl didn't jive with and it really affected him you can tell, cuz it was a slow burn that got a lot if negative flak and now he doesn't gaf 😂 screw the story and focus on flashy gameplay, and it still works for that reason (personally I liked the gritty nature of tk4 they felt human and believable...to an extent AND NOT CARICATURES)
What did Tekken Tag Tournament 2 do to the franchise?!
Tekken story was always stupid and I love it.
I think there's a difference between stupid, bizarre and just so bad that it starts hurting.
I wish I never got invested on Tekken’s story and because I am, it hurts.
What are the qualifications for that 2nd record? Seems to me that something like monster hunter, resident evil, dynasty warriors, or king of fighters ought to take that cake.
Honestly, I enjoyed the story mode in Tekken 8. I had a lot of fun with it and I think that’s what they were going for. A story doesn’t need to be cohesive in order to be fun. However, I think the dlc story was pushing it in terms of how dumb it can be. Say what you want about the main story, but at least it didn’t make the story of the previous game worthless, unlike the dlc.
here is something maybe new players don't understand about Tekken lore/world build up and story it never meant to be as serious as it's today, like if we go back and just watched the charterers design and stories as a whole, The game have a pinch of comedy to it like animals, robots, monsters, and casual personalities thrown around and mixed up but the game kinda drift away from this path with the latest Tekkens like there shouldn't be deep lore for Tekken it just "hop on and have some fun" type of games with silliness around with the moves and stories and sometimes game mods. like it's a game for fun at it's core.
I look at tekken lore as meant to be cheesy/campy more for entertainment than for than to be like the last of us or something like that. What I think tekken does really well with the cheesiness is that within the universe the story is presented very seriously for how over the top it is which I love. Tbh t8’s story has been pretty enjoyable for me even the new one, the more disappointing part of the story is the fact that they make you play the fights in baby mode, but the story side I was compelled to finish it in one sitting.
Angel Jin.
Enough said.
And Jun is almost non existent in a game that was meant to be about her
Yea I agree she played no significant role but being a plot device and she didn’t even feel like a character at all.
That’s an understatement.
Tekken 4 best story telling.
Do you really need a Harada's confirmation of tekken's story being shit?!
Jump scare at the end
Atp Tekken's story is ina condition where it can't be fixed
what harada is saying is that writing isint a skill he believes he does well. the story is bad but harada didn't admit anything, he just said "the story is as important if not more than the art and im better at art than story writing"
… it bothers me as a long time fan = The story is really dumb, it’s been 20 years and they managed to stretch the story out longer than One Piece AND they afraid to kill off main characters.
Meanwhile, side characters after T6 just become convoluted and lacklustre.
Gameplay Beats the histori on this escenario
Imagine if tekken had a story😂
I was fine with the first story mode of T8 being mid. It didn't ruin anything, and it didn't have incredibly stupid parts. The second story mode ruined the goodwill they started with because there were some incredibly stupid parts. And the stupidest was the main part, the resurrection of Heihachi! My god it was bad.
Whats with that video ending
...I mean let's be real here, nobody needed Harada to come out and admit it. It's fine though, the story doesn't really matter that much in gameplay-focused games. I totally expect Claudio and Zafina to come back in Tekken 9, even though they both died like a couple of jobbers.
After revival of Haha...chi Tekken is a parody