It turns out that it’s really hard to kill a Tekken character, especially with gravity. Despite Tekken series creator Katsuhiro Harada doing his best to convince us that Heihachi Mishima was actually, really, truly 100% dead this time around, lo and behold the third DLC character for Tekken 8 is none other than the King of Iron Fist himself.
The upcoming free story expansion for Tekken 8, titled Unforgotten Echoes, is all about explaining the how and the why of Heihachi’s return, and as part of a preview event, I got to play the entirety of the two-hour-long DLC campaign. My general impression? If you’re able to turn your brain off and just let it take you for a ride, it’s more good (albeit quite silly) ass Tekken story content.
While Unforgotten Echoes is an eight-chapter story of how and why Heihachi survived being tossed into a pool of lava at the end of Tekken 7, it actually begins by catching you up with what Eddy, Yoshimitsu, and Lidia were all doing during Tekken 8’s campaign. Eddy now works under Lidia as a part of a resistance force against G-Corp, alongside Yoshimitsu, who… I’m gonna be honest, largely just feels like window dressing throughout this entire DLC. Sorry Yoshimitsu fans, if you were disappointed at his lack of a presence in the base Tekken 8 story, this DLC still doesn’t really give him much of a chance to shine.
The early fights with Eddy do largely feel like filler, as there isn’t really much story consequence to them, but at least they’ve got some cool moments like Eddy reuniting with Jin for the first time since Tekken 6, and they also do a good job of including snippets of gameplay from old Tekken games as flashbacks, which is a very cool touch.
Eventually, Eddy, Lidia, and Yoshimitsu all get wrapped up in the lives of a group known as the Tekken Monks, which is where Heihachi comes into play. I don’t want to spoil how Heihachi managed to survive, or anything regards to his specific journey through the DLC, but I will say that the DLC does
Fighting
UPS
Extreme
Pool
Show
consequences