Summary
Tekkenis one of the biggest fighting game franchises out there, and is also home to one of the most bitter rivalries in gaming history. Heihachi Mishima and his son Kazuya are two of the biggest haters out there, with the two engaging in regular bouts of throwing each other off of cliffs. However, the latter punching the former in the chest and stopping his heart entirely at the end of Tekken 7 - and then going on to throw him into an active volcano - convinced some that Heihachi was dead for good inTekken 8.
Unfortunately for Kazuya, Heihachi didn’t kick the bucket after all, asit was announced during this year’s EVO tournament that the character will be added to Tekken 8 as DLCat some point this Autumn. It was a bit of a surprise, considering director and series creator Katsuhiro Harada has maintained for a while that he was super dead this time, but it was a hype moment that made the entire stadium at EVO erupt in joy.
However, it doesn’t seem like everyone in the Tekken and FCG community isn’t thrilled about his return, and fans seem pretty split down the middle about whether he should have been brought back from the brink of death yet again.Twitter user AsukaSuzuki360 is one such individual, who’s tweet about disliking the return of classic villains like Heihachi andM.Bison in Street Fighter 6has gone semi-viral.
Tekken 8 Fans Are Split On Heihachi’s Return As A DLC Character
One of the main arguments against the return of Heihachi is his inevitable effect on Tekken’s story. AsukaSuzuki argues that Heihachi’s return means that Bandai Namco thinks Reina - who is pretty much seen as his successor - can’t “stand on her own” and that the series should be concentrating on the new villains and story that it’s already established.
Another quite common sentiment is that Heihachi’s return has diminished the ending of Tekken 7. At the time, it hit quite hard thinking that Kazuya had actually killed Heihachi, though it’s going to mean less now we know that he’s no worse for wear despite having his heart stopped and been thrown into a volcano. Others are also concerned that this meansTekken’s plot is now going to go nowhere new and retread old ground again.
Of course, you also just have regular fighting game fans who are pretty stoked their previous main is coming back, and argue that Tekken’s story (and fighting game stories in general) have always been secondary and goofy. He is coming back though, there’s no stopping it, and everyone who’s upset about it will have to go and join Kazuya in the the Heihachi hater corner once again.
