Line #114 Headscratchers/Tekken


1	!As this is a Headscratchers page, spoilers ''will'' be left unmarked. Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned!
2	* Why is a guy as strong as Paul Phoenix treated as a complete joke?
3	** The reason is that in the first Tekken game, he was created by the game designers to appeal to Americans, and to compete with VideoGame/StreetFighterII (he is sort of an Expy for Ken with different hair and a beard). When it became clear that this wasn't going to be that type of series, he became a comic relief character who only enters the tournaments because he likes to fight - a mirror for his popularity amongst players.
4	*** I just take small comfort in the fact that he canonically beat Heihachi in ''3''.
5	*** Uh, wasn't it Ogre that he beat? The fact is, Jin beats True Ogre... So I thought Jin beats Heihachi, loses to Paul, and then Paul proceeds to beat Ogre, but left before it transformed, leaving Jin to take care of it.
6	*** Ah, my mistake. I thought Paul beat Heihachi, but didn't stick around long enough for Ogre to show up.
7	*** But then, by the time of Tekken 5 at least, ''everyone'' is fair game for parody, Mishimas included.
8	** I would expect that his use of "Judo-based martial arts" contributes...
9	** I think Paul is meant to be the human embodiment of the saying old martial arts masters always say in fictions: strength alone is not enough. Paul is indeed a very strong and skilled fighter, but he only focuses on winning and proving that he's the strongest man in the world, therefore he only wants to show his power and forgets to use any strategy, causing him to lose or to waste his energy.
10	** Are you kidding? LOOK AT HIS HAIR.
11	** Oddly enough in the manga adaptation for Tekken 6, Paul is treated like a living legend in the Tekken Tournament, his impressive record for the 3rd tournament is public knowledge and he has legions of fans to prove this; also his buddy Marshall who gets the same joke/not-important character treatment in the games, followed suit in the manga as being another widely known and respected fighter.
12	** Paul doesn't have supernatural powers. I think of him as the Tekken equivalent of [[OvershadowedByAwesome Krillin or Yamcha.]] He may be [[BadassNormal hard as]], but the playing field isn't a level one, and he suffers for it.
13	* What is Leo's gender?
14	** It's a guy. See edition on character sheet for how it's known.
15	*** The issue is still open. Supposedly Leo could very well be female.
16	*** [[WordOfGod Harada]] has since said that Leo is female.
17	*** 100% female, as ''[=TTT2=]'' proves.
18	*** ''Tekken 8'' has thrown this question up again as Leo can now be customised with a beard which is a modification exclusive to male characters. It also has to be acknowledged that Harada has been very inconsistent on this topic as in more recent interviews he is quoted as saying that Leo's gender is up to the player and left it at that. My honest opinion is that this is the best answer even if it isn't necessarily the correct answer. Leo isn't a real person. He, she or they can be anything you the player wants them to be which is the beauty of both games and fiction in general. Just have fun, role play Leo as whatever you want them to be, and stop getting so hung up on the details.
19	* [[EasilyForgiven So, why the hell is King friends with the guy who murdered his mentor?]] [[LackOfEmpathy I mean really, has Marduk even shown any remorse for what he did?]] [[YouKilledMyFather At least Armour King seems to be reacting properly to the whole damn thing.]]
20	** Marduk was drunk. Also, King not so much forgived him as much as not lowered himslef to his level (at first).
21	*** Maybe so, but that still doesn't explain why they've apparently become partners in later endings. They seem to get teamed quite often. Not sinking to his level is one thing, but still, teaming up with the guy in matches? Really King?
22	*** King and the rest of the orphans were raised by a Catholic priest. Maybe the original King stressed the importance of forgiveness?
23	*** I cannot for the life of me remember where, but I vaguely recall some info on Marduk suggesting that while he wasn't exactly remorseful over Armor King's death, he was far from proud of it. He just wasn't the kind of person to take being treated like a monster for a mistake lying down and rebelled against it in a jerkass fashion. The way he saw it, he went to jail, did his time, and lost everything he had because of it. He's paid for that mistake in his opinion.
24	*** Regardless, I understand the point the OP brought up. Marduk killed King's father figure and not only showed little remorse, he actually desecrates Armor King's grave by digging it up. Forgiveness is one thing, but befriending his mentor's killer and treating his death like it's water under the bridge is the point where fans call bullshit.
25	*** If that happened before Armor King II went in and smacked Marduk silly, that would be stupid. At that point, both King and Marduk were utterly shocked that Armor King I could be BackFromTheDead, so Marduk digging Armor King I's grave was a pretty justified move for both him and King, to ensure if Armor King I is still dead or not. As it turns out, if Marduk didn't prove Armor King I dead by digging his grave, both he and King wouldn't be able to fulfill their objective to uncover the identity of the new Armor King. It may be a bit disgracing yes, but you have to also take account that both of them were at shock at the prospect of Armor King coming back, so asking them to just take it like a stride is what would either make me scratch or bang my head.
26	* Anna's fighting style. If she only knows [[WaifFu Aikido, which involves holds, throws, reversals, and joint locks]], how did she learn to do all of these [[SheFu flashy moves]]?
27	** I believe her fighting style is officially a mix of Koppo (which revolves around crushing and breaking bones) and assassination arts rooted in Aikido. It's like how Paul's style incorporates judo and aikido or how Law's is just listed as "martial arts" despite clearly behind based on ([[BruceLeeClone naturally]]) Jeet Kune Do.
28	* Why does anyone bother competing when only Mishima's ever win?
29	** Several if not all characters in the series have their own reasons for joining the tournament, not to mention the big prize money the Mishima Zaibatsu offers and the claim to the title of the WorldsStrongestMan. Sadly, ''anyone'' who is not a Mishima isn't particularly important in the main plot, so, yeah. Being a [[VideoGame/{{Tekken}} King of Iron Fist Tournament contestant]] [[MemeticMutation is suffering]].
30	* So now that it is actually confirmed that Leo is female; is she a transvestite or a transsexual? Both seem to be equally likely.
31	** So we could be probably be looking at the next [[VideoGame/FinalFight Poison]]?
32	** To answer the question, she's {{Bifauxnen}}.
33	* In Tekken Tag Tournament 2, we have Jin and Devil Jin (and to some extent, Ancient Ogre and Ogre/Ogre and True Ogre (Tekken 3).) How is it that whenever Jin/Ancient Ogre tags out, they go through the regular tag-in animation. While it would be safe to say that the transformation takes place outside of the screen, note that in the first game, Kazuya had a special tag-in animation with Devil. Plus, if you initiate Tag Assault, both Jin/A. Ogre AND D. Jin/Ogre appear on screen at the same time! WTF.
34	** GameplayAndStorySegregation. People using Kazuya/Devil in TTT suffered in terms of safe tagging, so using the two of them was actually a disadvantage because he just stood there and transformed, leaving himself wide open. Not sure about Ogre/A. Ogre, but Jin/DJ have the special singular poses before and after the fight, so it's at least acknowledged there. The annoying thing is that the headbutt to arm wrench tag throw they have makes no sense and could have been avoided like in the Great Combo.
35	** Jin ''can'' morph into Devil Jin and vice versa ([[http://www.tekkenzaibatsu.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=4433332#post4433332 see here for more details]]), but it's an alternative way of tagging out (so, unlike Kazuya/Devil in ''TTT'', you don't leave yourself open to combos/miss out on combo opportunities due to the transformation time). As for why (Ancient) Ogre/(True) Ogre can't do the same, beats me. There have been theories that perhaps Ancient Ogre isn't the Ogre that transformed into True Ogre back in ''3'', but is just one of many other Ogres (perhaps given credence by A. Ogre's ending), so make of that as you will.
36	*** I think the fact that normal Ogre is called ''Ancient Ogre'' is a great clue that he isn't the ''Canon Ogre.'' Not to mention that this version of True Ogre has multiple snakes for an arm whereas the original Tekken 3 version had only one really large snake. Even if that isn't the case is there any proof that Ogre could ever transform at will? because the only two times we canonically see him transform is in the 3 opening sequence where he is released and again at the end of the tournament where he steals Heihachi's energy. It could feasibly be a result of the whole ''soul stealing'' process.
37	*** Well, Ogre and True Ogre (in ''3'') share the same ending, and that depicts Ogre morphing into True Ogre. That doesn't necessarily ''mean'' anything, though, and a lot of this could simply be chalked up to "this is a non-canon game, let's spice things up a bit", as could be the case with True Ogre's visual update.
38	* In the Tekken Tag 2 [[FanService swimwear]] PreOrderBonus, why do almost all of the men have loincloths as their swimsuits?
39	** [[BaraGenre Bara Fanservice]]? I dunno, but it would have been nice if they were given a bit more variety. Sure, we can understand if the fundashis were worn by characters such as Heihachi or Ganryu, but Marduk and Ogre? ''Ogre?!''
40	** Speaking of swimwear, anyone find it odd that Angel is the only character to not have a bikini when two androids (who, unlike Alisa, are ''easily'' recognizable as robots), a bear, a kangaroo, a dinosaur, a panda, and ''a person carved out of wood'' all get swimsuits? Even Combot has floatation tubes. And if they wanted to not defile Angel's "pure and divine" status, they could easily give her a pareo like the ones Jun and Alisa received. Honestly, it can't be ''that'' much racier than the customization options already present for her.
41	*** A good joke is that Angel is after True Ogre in the console [=TTT2=] intro because he stole her swimwear. (In this game, True Ogre has 3 customization items that happen to be bikinis hanging off his horns; the bikinis come in 3 colors just like the swimwear for all characters that do have one).
42	* Is [[MeaningfulName Unknown]] evil? She's treated as such but she doesn't seem to do anything that would be considered wrong.
43	** It's because she is non-canon (and the fact she is Jun for that matter) and as such she doesn't get any development beyond the fact that she is the Tekken Tag BigBad.
44	** Angel can appear as the FinalBoss with certain characters in Tekken 2. I think that would make her the BigGood instead of the BigBad. With that said, Unknown. Jun's Unknown. Jun's DarkerAndEdgier. Is Unknown actually bad? DarkIsNotEvil?
45	** The first ''Tag'' game made her appear either BrainwashedAndCrazy or [[DemonicPossession possessed]] by the werewolf demon that accompanies her (in her ending she destroys this demon from within). The second game removed the werewolf demon and made her AmbiguouslyEvil instead; there's no mention of her actions nor motivations as she has no given backstory and her ending is basically her [[DyingAsYourself dying as Jun]], but there are hints that she is actually insane (her PsychoticSmirk and the "Continue?" screen you get after losing to her in Arcade Mode are rather creepy). Then there's the fact that, in the arcade version of the ''Tag 2'' intro, when Lili spies on Jun with her "scouter" and Jun [[DeathGlare looks back at Lili with rather murderous intent]] right before she telekinetically shatters Lili's glasses, it's implied that some of Unknown's personality has pervaded Jun's and this is why Jun now acts aloof.
46	* I get that Lee and Violet speak English in ''4''. But in ''Tag 2'', Lee speaks Japanese and Violet speaks English, even though they're basically the same character. What gives?
47	** A put on? Lee masquaded as Violet so perhaps the different languages were so that people think he is two different people.
48	** But then, Violet speaks Japanese for most of the fight lab...
49	** Didn't Lee train under Paul and Law in America for a time? He's most likely bilingual. Lee most likely stuck with English after he was exiled by Heihachi to keep appearances (notice that Violet speaks in fluent English in both ''4'' and during certain parts of ''[=TTT2=]'', his intro quotes and [Fight Lab] ending in particular). Once the ruse was discovered and Lee's identity revealed, he probably thought to himself, "Screw it. No need to keep this up" and decided to go back to speaking Japanese for the most part.
50	* Jaycee's name comes from Julia Chang's initials, right? But Jaycee's ending reveals that she's filling in for a wrestler friend of hers. So does her friend go under the name "Jaycee" when she's wrestling too or a completely different ring name? If she goes by "Jaycee", why? And if not, why doesn't Julia use her friend's ring name?
51	** Perhaps the thing with Julia/Jaycee isn't imitating her friend's personna completely, but fighting to get whatever prize money/{{Macguffin}} aforementioned friend wanted to gain in the Tekken Tag Tournament.
52	*** That, or [[HisNameReallyIsBarkeep Her friend's name really IS Jaycee]]!
53	* Jun's tag ending animations. You'd think she'd get along with Asuka, nieceaunt and according to the [[http://www.fightersgeneration.com/screens/ttt2-allegiance.htm FAQ]] I read that should be the case. But no, they act like they hate each other, I get the same with NinaAnna. Asuka with Leo on the other hand get along much better, Jun's like that with everyone. As I doing something wrong?
54	** No, it's just that, for some reason or another, a lot of the character relationships in ''Tag 2'' seem counter-intuitive to what canon would suggest. Additionally, Jun might have never met or even known of Asuka's existence due to raising Jin in what appears to be total seclusion. Nina and Anna not being a cohesive unit (outside of tag throws and the like), however, [[TheGloriousWarOfSisterlyRivalry is completely understandable]] (it's been like that for 99.9% of the time, anyway).
55	** I got that. It was funny that Asuka and Leo like each other for example, maybe because they both oppose Jin? Who knows. I tried it with Jin, Kuma, Alex and Roger as well. It seems she doesn't like anyone. That's...strange. Maybe some of this didn't carry over to the XBOX version. Whatever the case might be it's motivated me to fool around with her tropes a bit.
56	** Jun does act aloof towards EVERYONE in ''Tag 2''. It's not known why (she was much nicer in ''Tekken 2'') but it could be that Unknown's crazier personality has pervaded into Jun's mind somehow. In the arcade intro of ''Tag 2'' Lili spies on Jun with "scouter glasses" and Jun gives Lili a DeathGlare before shattering her glasses.
57	* With each new ''Tekken'' game, more and more characters are speaking the languages of their respective nations, instead of just English or Japanese (as seen in ''Tekken 4''). In the case of Alisa, she's a Russian RobotGirl that speaks Japanese, because she was created to serve Jin Kazama, who is Japanese... so, I have to ask; what's the reason behind Lars speaking Japanese instead of Swedish? Wasn't he born and raised in Sweden?
58	** Lars works in Japan for a Japanese company. That explains the Japanese, but not the Swedish.
59	** Look, in the Tekkenverse everybody is so multilingual it's not even close to funny. Even if we just count the rival battles it seems everybody at least understands English, Japanese and Chinese. At least two of them can understand bear perfectly well and I think some of them can understand raptor and kangaroo. Perhaps the TARDIS is just off screen.
60	* Why wasn't King I, Armour King I, Kuma I, Jack, Jack-2, Gun Jack, Jack-5, Roger, Tetsujin and Gon playable in Tag 2?
61	** Gon ''is not'' owned by Namco - he is the titular character of a manga. Without permission they have no legal right to include him. As for all the other characters I ask you to expand your question with one simple sentence: Why what would be the point? each and every one of them have at least one character with an identical, if updated, move set. Frankly Tekken Tag 2 already suffers from too many indistinguishable characters to warrant any more.
62	* I have always wondered two things about Paul:
63	** 1. Why was it in the original Tekken, that he was the only one of the original eight characters not to have a clone, and yet Jack had three of them?
64	** 2. Paul's fighting style is usually described as a hybrid of different martial arts with Judo being his primary style, but to me, he seems to be mostly a Karateka. I mean, he wears a Karate gi and gloves/shinguards, his strikes are based off Karate, and he was originally the Ken to Kazuya's Ryu, also a blonde, American karate fighter. True, he does use Judo in his throws, but so does others, and Michelle uses pro wrestling moves for her throws and she isn't listed a wrestler, so what's up?
65	*** Paul does have somewhat similar moves to Kazuya and Heihachi, and likely was modified so he wouldn't be seen as a clone character. He would eventually get a clone of sorts in Bryan, whose moves are a combination of Bruce's and Paul's. The Jack robots and Roger/Alex would also get an unblockable punch called "Windmill Punch". which functions in a similar way to Paul's "Burning Fist".
66	*** Lee and Wang were the nearest things to Paul clones in the original Tekken. Lee was a broken Law, that had a couple of Paul's kicks I believe (which doesn't really show, because Paul isn't exactly known as a kicking character). Wang had a variation of Paul's death fist, but overall he's probably the least 'cloney' boss character in the game.
67	* So... can Eliza fly? She seems to have one move where she can hover off the ground and dash for a few seconds, and while she lacks any kind of wings, it wouldn't surprise me if a Centuries old Vampire could fly somehow. I'm just not really sure if she can or not.
68	** Don't take this for confirmed but she can probably hover over ground level, at least for a limited time. Her Moon Glide stance is basically her low-level flying.
69	* Two thoughts on Alisa; one of them being questionable: (1) Can she feel pain? I mean, it wouldn't make much sense for her to be able to feel pain, when there are probably ways for a machine like herself to monitor physical condition, and (2) According to the main page for this section, all females except for Xiaoyu, Jun and I guess Leo fall under FanServicePack, havely impressive busts, but I never thought she was that big....or has my years of anime females with bowling ball breasts [[ArmourPiercingQuestion simply left me with a questionable opinion of size?]]
70	** 1) Alisa seems a RidiculouslyHumanRobot [[RobotGirl girl]], so she probably can actually feel pain (aside from her body weapons, specifically her exploding head). Maybe good ol' Bosconovitch gave her the ability to feel pain and deliberately designed her to be as "human" as possible as part of making her a replacement for his deceased daughter. In ''Tekken 6'' she does develop curiosity for human emotions and in ''7'' she does cry actual tears of joy upon being reunited with Lars, so perhaps the human feeling of pain is somehow programmed within her (which is why she does make pain grunts and yells when being hit in-game), as well. 2): There are a few females whose bust is not actually "impressive", namely Lili and Alisa (Angel as well if you include her). Theirs are more modest.
71	* So why is Bryan Fury apparently the only character in the series with BallsOfSteel (being unaffected by Nina's [[GroinAttack low blow kick]], when the Jack series bots and Alisa shouldn't even have the requisite parts to be affected by such attacks. Alisa being made to mimic humans closely makes sense in a GoneHorriblyRight sort of way, but why would anyone design the Jack bots with the ability to feel pain in a body part they really shouldn't even have?
72	** That is a very good question; I've never really thought about it before. Your answer about Alisa is almost certainly correct as, despite the removable arms and explosives, she seems to have been made to be almost completely human. It may even be that she ''doesn't'' even feel pain but rather is designed to mimic it. As for Jack it would appear to be nothing but plain old bad game design as the early Jack's appear to have been modelled after the T-800 model Terminator and the later ones are just hulking great lumps of steel; so there genuinely is no reason why there would be anything down there even if you went to the logical extremes of saying that he has some kind of power core or off-switch between his legs. After all it even works against the likes of Yoshimitsu who is wearing power armour or Mokujin who is made out of wood. Some continuity would have been nice.
73	*** [[CharlesAtlasSuperpower There's also the possibility that Nina just kicks that hard.]] [[RidiculouslyHumanRobot Now that I think about it, beyond the Weapons, Doctor Bosconovitch may have designed Alisa to mimic pain as part of making her as much like his daughter as possible.]] But as you pointed out, that still doesn't really explain the Jack Robots, [[WeaksauceWeakness unless they were designed with most unlikely weak spot ever.]]
74	*** To go with the "Nina just kicks that hard" theory, I would assume it DOES cause pain to Bryan... the problem is that, since Bryan is an up to eleven CombatSadomasochist [[{{Squick}} he's too busy GETTING OFF on that pain that he doesn't care about being hurt!]]
75	* Why the hell did Heihachi protect Kazuya from Devil's laser in Kazuya's ending? It's the one and (as far as I'm aware) ONLY moment Heihachi has shown anything but hate to him. It came out of nowhere
76	** Heihachi's actions in that ending seems more a TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou moment. But, yeah, TakingTheBullet (or laser beam for that matter) probably wasn't the best way to show it. That ending wasn't canon, anyway.
77	* Okay, so they clearly had the budget to hire a multilingual voice cast for ''Tag 2'' and ''7'', but the already existing grunts weren't dubbed over? Surely if they could be bothered to give Heihachi, Xiaoyu and Paul new grunts to reflect their changes in voice actors...why couldn't they do that for anyone else?
78	** To save on money, I guess?
79	* How the characters understand each other? Lili and Asuka for example, are from different countries and speaking their own languages yet they still communicate and understand each other well.
80	* Did something happened that is related to the franchise's events that made it so, [[InSpiteOfANail even without some]] [[Franchise/TheWalkingDead zombie apocalypse]] happening, [[GuestFighter Negan]] still managed to found and lead a community of survivors in the US?
81	* In ''8'', during the final battle, Jin re-uses the Mishima style. While that's fine and dandy, one of the stances he takes during the shuffling is... Heihachi's stance. The same Heihachi who shot him in the face, triggering his Devil Gene awakening, plunged him into his bout of angst, and captured him to extract his Devil Gene, all in all leading him to do the atrocities that he has to atone for. Just... why? He could have taken his own ''Tekken 3'' stance to represent his Mishima style. Did he just [[EasilyForgiven easily forgive Heihachi]] enough to make a tribute out of him? Or is he just taking tips from Lars to provoke Kazuya by imitating Heihachi? That requires him to know how Lars did it, but at that time, Jin was unconscious. So, why Heihachi's stance?
82	** because he learned to accept all parts of himself flaws and all and love it or hate it learning the Heihachi stands is part of him

Context Headscratchers / Tekken