Street Fighter X Tekken: Team Namco

Last time on my blog I talked about the Capcom characters on the Street Fighter side of Street Fighter X Tekken. So now I’ll go over the Namco characters on the Tekken side!

I have to say that I’m not as familiar with Tekken characters as I am the Street Fighter cast. You’d think I’d know more about Tekken fighters, since I am a big Namco fan and all. But I can’t play ALL the Namco games out there and know everything about them! Plus, my history with Tekken fighters is full of holes. When Tekken first came out in arcades, the big 3-D brawler at the time was Virtua Fighter. I never really played it because the 2-D fighters at the time were intimidating enough. I couldn’t imagine trying to figure out how to play a 3-D one! To me, Tekken just looked like a fancy Virtua Fighter with better graphics. That’s how it usually goes in arcades, Namco copies Sega, Sega copies them back and so on. The only thing I liked about the original Tekken is some versions of the first arcade game used Pac-Man fruit as stage markers.

I never got into the console Tekken games either, but I did pick up a couple when they went down in price for various reasons. I can’t remember if it was Tekken 4 or Tekken 5, but one of those games had StarBlade as an unlockable game. StarBlade was an old Namco 3-D arcade shooter. So when that Tekken game went way down in price, I got it just for StarBlade. I also got Tekken 6 when it went down in price because it touted having a character creation mode. And since I love the character creation mode in Soul Calibur 4 and 5, I wanted to try it in Tekken 6 as well. Unfortunately, the character creation mode ended up being just a dress-up mode. I still had fun with it, though, making my fighters look like tacky tourists. I also got a Tekken game on PSP real cheap because it had Tekken Bowling, but it was too hard to unlock.

The only other Tekken related thing I know about is that one time on TV over the holidays I watched a live action Tekken movie that was recently made. And it was horrible. Now, keep in mind that I’m pretty tolerable to bad movies. The live action King of Fighters movie was awful but I was entertained by it in a MST3K sort of way. But the Tekken movie was so horrible I couldn’t even get into it at all. And that’s all I know about Tekken!

Team Namco

All right, now we’ll go over the characters on the Tekken side of Street Fighter X Tekken. And a few others, too. Since I don’t know much about Tekken fighters, if you want to fill me in on any info I may have missed about the fighters, please feel free to do so in the comments section. Your input is greatly appreciated.

Pac-Man

Technically Pac-Man isn’t a Tekken character, but he is from Namco. This will be the longest character description on this blog, as I am a HUGE Pac-Man fan. I even have a Pac-Man arcade machine in my garage, and I just ordered and received the Pac-Man cartoon DVD you can now get off the Internet. I’m such a big Pac-Man fan that he’s the only reason why I got Street Fighter X Tekken. Yeah, I’m THAT bad.

One thing I don’t understand is why that had Pac-Man and Bad Box Art Mega Man be DLC characters a week after the game was released (PS3 version only). When I got the game, I was a little annoyed because I wanted to play as Pac-Man NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW!!!! Of course, I can understand why they put other characters you can download for a price: to make money. Now, I don’t AGREE with that, but I do understand it. But why make us wait a week to download two free extra characters?

Anyway, so Pac-Man in this game rides a top of a controllable, mechanical version of Mokujin. Now, Mokujin (I think I spelled that right), is also a Tekken character. He’s a man made out of wood and is mostly used in the training modes. But you can also play as him, too. So really, Pac-Man plays mostly like Mokujin, i.e. pretty slow. But sometimes Pac-Man will hop out of his seat to heatbutt the other fighter. Did you know that Mokujin also made a cameo appearance in one of the Point Blank shooting games?

Pac-Man himself in the game uses the new design Namco has been using since Pac-Man’s 30th Anniversary. Meaning he has pupils in his eyes and his boots are more detailed. It’s also the design of Pac-Man they’ve been using for new games like Pac-Man Party and Pac-Man Tilt, and also what may be what he looks like in the upcoming CG animated cartoon (if they make it). Personally I really don’t like the new design. I prefer the old one they’ve been using since Pac-Man’s 20th Anniversary. I do like how they redesigned the four main ghost monsters though. I kind of wish you could play as the ghost monsters in Street Fighter X Tekken, too.

Pac-Man’s intro when you fight him plays a little bit of the Pac-Man beginning song from the arcade. Like I said, most of Pac-Man’s fighting moves involved Mokujin, but one of the projectile attacks has Pac-Man tossing a slow-moving Pac-Dot at enemies. Pac-Man doesn’t really have a voice, so his win quotes at the end of each fight just have Pac-Man symbols like ghosts, dots, eyes, fruit, etc. In the game, however, he does utter a few things, like “Ya!” and “Whoa!” as he punches and kicks, and when you win he gives a thumbs up and says “Alrighty!” in a cartoony voice. Other players’ win quotes usually refer to seeing Pac-Man before somewhere, but they can’t remember where. When Pac-Man taunts, he’ll make Mokujin’s arm extend as Pac gets out of his seat and walks down the arm. As he walks, they play the dot eating sound effect from the arcade game.

One neat thing about Pac-Man is they gave him his own storyline in arcade mode! When you start, it shows Pac-Man walking in the desert and the narrator says that nobody knows where Pac-Man came from, but he was headed towards Pandora’s Box. After you beat the last boss, it shows Pac-Man approaching the box as it opens, and then Pac-Man eats what was inside! Then Pac-Man grows really big. Next scene shows a giant Pac-Man walking through a city, Godzilla style, and eating rows of trees on a city road. Then the camera pans out overhead and shows the city roads and buildings as a huge Pac-Man maze! After the credits, the prologue text says that as Pac-Man left the first city, the citizens breathed a sigh of relief and nobody saw Pac-Man again. Until he reached the next city! One last thing: Bad Box Art Mega Man is considered to be Pac-Man’s rival, and Mega Man is totally afraid of him!

Toru

Technically, the next three characters aren’t from Tekken either, but I had to put them somewhere. I bet Toru and the next fighter would be considered joke characters. Toru is a little cartoony cat-like character who is all white and reminds me of the white cat you can draw a face on in Animal Crossing games. I’ve seen Toru in lots of other places, too. Most of them are related to Sony somehow and I’ve seen lots of plush toys of him you can import. But that’s really all I know about this guy. In the game, Toru wears little red boxing gloves and a little red headband with the Sony gamepad button symbols on it.

Kuro

He looks a lot like Toru but is all black and his eyes are more catlike. I imagine he comes from the same license or property as Toru.

Cole MacGrath

This is the main character from Infamous, which is a popular PS3 game series about a guy who has electrical powers. Kind of reminds me of a gritty superhero game. I saw brother Jeff play these games once, but they didn’t catch my interest too much. If I’m not mistaken, Infamous was made by the same folks who did the Sly Cooper series. One bad thing about this guy as well as Toru and Kuro is that they don’t have a storyline in arcade mode! You can’t even pick them there!

Kazuya

All right, now we’re finally getting to the REAL Tekken cast, and you’ll all see how clueless I am about these guys. Kazuya is a guy with red gloves that have spikes on them. And I think he was on one of the Tekken game boxes. And that’s all I know about him!

Nina

She’s one of the main characters, too, and has been in all the Tekken games. She’s kind of cool, even if she is a little mean sometimes. Some of her outfits look really uncomfortable, though. Nina actually starred in her own game on the PS2 called Death by Degrees. Two neat things about that game were you used both dual analog sticks to fight, and there were some detective elements to the game, too. Unfortunately, the rest of the game wasn’t good at all.

Asuka

I guess if I had to pick a favorite HUMAN Tekken character, Asuka would be it because she reminds me of the Ridge Racer lady after eating a can of spinach. Unfortunately, she also falls into the annoying teenage schoolgirl stereotype which I’m a bit tired of. But they do hide it better with Asuka.

Lili

Ugh! Now SHE’S annoying! Lili is a spoiled rich girl and Asuka’s rival. So basically she’s like Sakura’s Karin.

Heiachi

He’s one of the main Tekken characters, too. He’s an old guy with weird spiky gray hair. Reminds me of Dr. Wily after eating a can of spinach. He looked totally ridiculous in the live action Tekken movie, too.

Kuma

One thing I like about Tekken games is they put a few silly animal characters in there, like Kuma the bear (and a panda bear that’s just a palette swap), a kangaroo, and Mokujin can fall in this category, too. So I’m glad they put Kuma in Street Fighter X Tekken. I think Kuma actually means “bear” in Japanese, but I’m not totally sure about that. Kuma fights how you would expect a bear to fight, but he does do a silly dance when you win, and he does a funny flex pose when you switch out characters. His win quotes are pretty funny, too. Since he can’t talk, the quotes are in parentheses like he is thinking. My favorite is his win quote against Cammy, as he says, “(Sure you can pet me, but just remember, I’m a bear. Not a giant cat.)”

Paul

He has a huge yellow flattop hairdo. I think he and Guile go to the same hair salon.

Law

He has a moustache and talks about money a lot.

King

He’s a wrestler guy with a leopard mask on. In Namco X Capcom, he was teamed up with Felicia and she thought he was a real leopard man. She would always say stuff like, “Hey King, use your big nose to sniff out some clues.” And King’s response would always be, “It’s just a mask.”

Marduk

This guy looks like Zangief with a shaved head.

Hwoarang

I could never pronounce this guy’s name, but I do like his goggle glasses things he wears on his head.

Steve

The guy from Blue’s Clues is in the game? Awesome! Nah, it’s just a boxer dude.

Bob

I like Bob. Most other Tekken guys are super buff and muscular, and the Tekken ladies are all sexy. But Bob is big and fat and cracks me up.

Julia

She’s kind of neat, too. Julia is pretty and I like her cowboy boots. I think she’s supposed to be Native American and she’s always trying to save the environment. Since she likes saving the environment so much, I asked her if she’d like to see the new Lorax movie with me. She said no, but then I saw her the next day at the Lorax movie with Rufus! OK now I’m just being SILLY! Did you know that IHOP is serving a Lorax breakfast now called Green Eggs and Ham? Except the ham’s not green and the scrambled eggs just have canned spinach mixed in them. That part of this paragraph is NOT made up! Boy, my character description of Julia went all over the place, didn’t it?

Yoshimitsu

I’m more familiar with Yoshimitsu from the Soul Calibur games. In the Tekken series, Yoshimitsu is more robotic and has a light saber. And he’s not as funny as he is in the Soul Calibur games.

Raven

He’s just a black guy with sunglasses and reminds me of a secret service agent.

Jin

Another main character from Tekken. Looks like a normal fighter guy to me, but in Soul Calibur V’s character creation mode, you can use “Devil Jin’s” fighting style for your creations. But in Street Fighter X Tekken I think he’s just regular Jin.

Xiaoyu

Oh please don’t ask me to pronounce her name. She looks like a regular Chinese girl fighter to me. One weird thing is that before you fight the last boss in arcade mode, you have to battle a couple of people consumed by Pandora’a power. If you fight Jin this way, she’ll come out behind him and say, “Yeah, Pandora’s Box is Jin’s. And Jin is mine!” And then she’ll get all evil and weird, too! So I guess she likes Jin.

Ogre

Yeah, the last boss in the game is Shrek. Actually he looks more like The Jolly Green Giant. I’m not sure if “Ogre” is from Tekken or not, but you fight him last in arcade mode if you don’t battle Akuma instead.

DLC Characters

The controversy with the DLC characters is that they are already on the disc, and you just unlock them by buying them when they are available. While I don’t think this is right, I’m not going to get all in a tizzy about it. I guess the only way I can really voice my opinion is just to not buy them. Which is a shame because some of them look really cool. But oh well. I guess it’s still bad that I bought the game in the first place. But you know what? I don’t buy games to support a company or principle. I buy games to have fun with them. And I thought playing as some of the characters in Street Fighter X Tekken would be fun. And I also thought it would be fun to write about the game, too! I guess that makes me a horrible video game martyr. So if you have a problem with me because of that, sorry! Anyway, here are the six characters on the Tekken side that will be DLC later.

Lars

He’s a new guy from Tekken 6. I liked one of the cutscenes in that game that showed Lars punching MISSILES out of his way. Wow! Lars must’ve eaten his Wheaties that morning.

Alisa

Aw man! I’m kind of sad that she’s a DLC character. I liked her in Tekken 6. She was a robot lady with pink hair. Only bad thing about her is she was a final boss in the ‘adventure’ mode and was WAY too hard. She would take off her head and hand it to you and it would explode like a bomb. And there was no way to block it. I couldn’t beat the game because of her. I pulled a “rage quit” as the Internet folks say.

Bryan

I had to do a search for some of the DLC characters because I didn’t remember them. Bryan just looks like a fighter guy with short gray hair.

Jack-X

Hey, isn’t that a PS2 game? Ha ha! No, this guy’s just a buff fighter with a Mohawk. I think I kind of remember him being robotic, too.

Christie

I’m sad that she’s also a DLC character because she is pretty and funny. Except she’s always moving around, even in her normal fighting stance, and I just want to say, “STAY STILL!”

Lei

That’s those flower necklaces you get in Hawaii. Lei is just another fighter guy. You know, some of the Tekken cast just isn’t very interesting to me.

Namco Conclusions

And that’s all I feel like talking about the Tekken side of Street Fighter X Tekken. Hope you enjoyed my blogs! In the comments section, let me know YOUR favorite Tekken characters! I don’t really have a favorite Tekken character, so you can pick out one for me in the comments section, too, if you like.

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