Tekken 8’s newest character reveal focuses on Kuma, a bear as soon as raised and educated by sequence antagonist Heihachi Mishima. However there’s extra to this furry former bodyguard than meets the attention.
In a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it second close to the top of the gameplay demo, Kuma is seen unleashing assaults that maintain particular significance to Tekken followers. Whereas the uppercuts proven on the 1:29 mark within the video under could seem like regular preventing recreation strikes, what Kuma is performing is definitely the Wind God Fist, a martial artwork ubiquitous to the Tekken sequence identified solely to a choose few fighters.
The Wind God Fist (initially “rising uppercut”) debuted within the first Tekken as a transfer unique to Heihachi and his son Kazuya (each regular and Satan Kazuya), practitioners of the in-universe Mishima-style Combating Karate. (Armor King’s transfer checklist additionally included an equivalent rising uppercut earlier than being retconned later within the sequence.) Consider it just like the Shoryuken in Road Fighter, a transfer that additionally defines the franchise to which it belongs however can solely be carried out by a handful of characters.
Because the sequence continued, extra members of the Mishima clan would acquire entry to the Wind God Fist in addition to a extra highly effective model of the assault dubbed the Electrical Wind God Fist (colloquially “EWGF” or “electrics”), which finally supplanted the bottom transfer because the defining trait of the franchise’s Mishima-style fighters. It’s so iconic, in actual fact, that real-life Tekken opponents who can string collectively a number of electrics in a single combo are sometimes celebrated for his or her high-level execution.
So, going again to the Road Fighter comparability, Kuma studying the Wind God Fist is like Blanka all of a sudden with the ability to do Shoryukens, although with a novel historical past to make the event extra significant lore-wise.
Kuma isn’t any stranger to Mishima martial arts due to his coaching as Heihachi’s beloved pet and bodyguard. In earlier video games, the bear integrated each Heihachi’s Demon Uppercut and Stonehead headbutt in his personal Kuma Shinken preventing fashion. Kuma’s legacy, mixed with Heihachi’s strained father-son relationship with Kazuya and the potential for Tekken 8 newcomer Reina being another illegitimate Mishima offspring as a result of her use of a EWGF-like assault in her own trailer, has led many excited Tekken followers to proclaim he’s Heihachi’s true inheritor following this reveal.
Spectacular implications for a pair seconds of gameplay, huh?