Somehow, Heihachi Mishima has returned. No veteran to throwing members of the Mishima family into volcanoes, Bandai Namco and Katsuhiro Harada have made a big show about Heihachi having finally died after being thrown into one himself following a staggering loss to his son Kazuya. Much like the stock price of NVIDIA this week, he just can’t stay down for long. We recently got a sneak peek at the fighter’s new story chapters and got to take the Mishima family head for our spin ourselves with a recent hands-on with Tekken 8.
In a candid chat with Michael Murray between rounds, he confirmed that Heihachi will not receive a Character Episode, as the Unforgotten Echoes story content serves the purpose of giving Heihachi a narrative all his own. Those who may have wanted a more light-hearted take on the Tekken Zaibatsu’s former head will sadly have to make do with a bit of creative dress-up and some fun in the sun with Tekken Ball.
Bandai Namco permitted us to see through the entire narrative of Unforgotten Echoes but limited what we could showcase and talk about to the first five chapters of the narrative. The narrative largely jumps around between a few key players of the Tekken Force, namely Jin Kazama and the current Prime Minister of Poland in the Tekken universe, Lidia Sobieska. Suppose you didn’t have the opportunity to purchase the additional character DLC that added Eddy Gordo and Lidia to the roster already, this will allow players to try these characters out for free as part of the story DLC. At only a couple of hours' run time, it's more of a brief appetizer to bringing Tekken's big bad into the center stage again while leaving Yoshimitsu on the sidelines once more.
After a series of mandatory battles and reuniting some of the cast together, Tekken 8 Unforgotten Echoes rapidly brings players back face to face with Heihachi Mishima, a man who’s a mere shell of his former self. As Lidia, Yoshimitsu, and Eddy are brought together, they’re introduced to a sect of Tekken Monks secretly training in the forest for reasons best left for the player to discover. Among these monks, the most powerful of which are named after the four guardian spirits that protect Kyoto. If you’ve experienced some sort of Japanese mythology, chances are you’re at least remotely familiar with Genbu, Seiryu, et cetera. Heihachi Mishima has passively aligned himself with these monks as a much more meek version of himself, perhaps attributed to a bout of amnesia or perhaps regret towards seeing his sons routinely chucked into an active volcano time and time again. Heihachi has really let his hair down this time around and I couldn’t help but take note that he seemed to be taking a liking to Hulk Hogan’s hairstyle in his later years.
The ole Iron Hand wielder himself comes with a few new tricks up his sleeve when it comes to bringing him out in versus combat. He’ll also come out swinging with a new stage, Genmaji Temple, based on the secluded training grounds of the Tekken Monks, which features a nighttime variant with complementary mood lighting. As part of Heihachi’s new suite of abilities, the time spent training with the Tekken Monks has also unlocked some spicy tech to add to his already intimidating bag of tricks.
New for the godfather of Tekken are a complimentary pair of stances: Wind God and Thunder God. Each can be linked into as part of certain combos and augment his already impressive moveset with some additional tools. Heihachi has also been granted a unique powered-up state known as the Warrior Instinct that increases the amount of damage he can deal to gray damage, or Recoverable Damage along with changing up the properties on select moves. This comes with a trade-off with only being able to be activated after going into Heat mode three times in a match, so this may be the trump card players might need to come back like a level-3 X-Factor. If reliably pulling off an Electric Wind God Fist is something that’s still outside of your muscle memory, hitting it in Warrior Instinct might even eliminate the need for frame-perfect execution.
I’m still on the fence about Heihachi Mishima’s return to the Tekken 8 roster, as I thought it was a bold move to finally kill off one of the series’ most infamous antagonists after so long, but I have to respect the way that Tekken 8: Unforgotten Echoes was able to bring the figurehead back in a way to feels deliberate as part of the greater story and giving him a side that’s more than just pure chaos. On the other hand, I’m not looking forward to eating another axe kick to the face after taking so many of them over the decades.
Heihachi Mishima will come to Tekken 8 on September 30th if you have the Playable Character Year 1 Pass. Otherwise, he will be available on October 3rd for purchase. If the pricing for Lidia and Eddy still holds true, Heihachi Mishima will be available as a standalone DLC character for $7.99. The new Unforgotten Echoes story expansion will be a free part of the Version 1.08 update for all players, allowing players to go hands-on with Heihachi, Lidia, and others while also bringing in a few new features including a customizable main menu to change up your favorite fighter on display.
