Tekken shoutcaster and analyst Aris Bakhtanians has declared Akuma’s appearance in Tekken 7 as the greatest guest character so far in fighting game history.
The topic came to light when he talked about his shoutcasting experiences during such guest character reveals.
While other guest characters like Noctis from Final Fantasy XV and Negan from The Walking Dead felt like lukewarm additions to the Tekken franchise, the analyst believes Akuma’s T7 reveal truly surprised the fighting game community (FGC).
Street Fighter’s Akuma joining Tekken 7 was a historic FGC moment
Akuma was officially revealed during the 2015 Tekken World Tour Finals, and had a fleshed-out role in the main T7 story.
During the reveal, Tekken director Katsuhiro Harada held up teaser posters that foreshadowed the Street Fighter character’s arrival within the canon, sometime before the first iteration of Tekken.
According to his reveal trailer, the demonic fighter had to repay his debts to the late Kazumi Mishima by killing both her husband Heihachi and son Kazuya.
“Man, they really did a good job,” he said. “Everything about him and the way they implemented him was sweet.”
Even though T7 welcomed another fighting game icon in the form of SNK’s Geese Howard, the streamer saw Geese as an “uncommon character” that only diehard FGC enthusiasts would appreciate.
As for Akuma, he instantly stood out as the memorable Street Fighter antagonist that could be the next big boss of Tekken. The shoutcaster went on to say that the developers understood the “bigger picture” of the franchise’s FGC legacy.
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The SF character still doesn’t belong in a Tekken fighting game
Though much praise was given to the Tekken team for bringing in such an iconic guest character, the streamer detests Akuma’s actual gameplay. With the developers perfectly translating his Street Fighter move list, the SF icon was a fighting game terror to the regular Tekken roster.
Equipped with fireballs, a special move cancel, a Focus Attack, a meter, and T7’s own Rage mechanic, he simply dominated all fights once he got his extended combos down.
“Don’t get me wrong, he’s cheap and also does not belong in Tekken,” he commented.
Interestingly enough, Yuta “Chikurin” Take won the 2019 Tekken World Tour Finals with a surprise Akuma pick, proving that the Raging Demon character is every Tekken fan’s worst nightmare.
You can watch the analyst’s full explanation down below:
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