The Six Most Amazingly Insane Characters Cut From Previous Tekken Games

Tekken Revolution was recently looking to add a brand new character to the roster, so they narrowed it down to ten finalists and compiled a list for fans to vote on. These were all previously rejected from past Tekken games for being too weird or hard to implement. Do you know how weird something has to be to be too weird for a Tekken game? For comparison’s sake, one character that wasn’t too weird for a past game was a panda that served as a bodyguard for a high school student. If you uttered that sentence to a paranoid schizophrenic, they would suggest you go back on your meds. The list they compiled is absolutely insane, and looks like the ramblings of a mad man that just drank an entire can of paint thinner. I’m not even sure I can pick a favorite out of this bunch. I love them all too much. Here are the six most amazing ideas from the list.

Female Paul

Official Description: For some inexplicable reason, Paul is transformed into a girl, but the appearance is of a very cute girl. The concept was thrown out in 2 seconds, as it was too off-the-wall.

Artist’s Depiction:

The Breakdown: I absolutely love that this was even considered for a full two seconds. I love it even more that someone even voiced this idea. How does this come into someone’s head? This sounds like the result of someone being held at gunpoint and forced to come up with 200 characters in 100 seconds. “Uh…Female Paul, Robot Paul, Child Paul, Double Paul, Paul in a Blanket…uh…uh…PLEASE DON’T HURT ME!” An idea this bad should get you fired from your job, and possibly imprisoned depending on what your job is. If a doctor had an idea this bad, seven people would be dead and the hospital would be on fire. If you spent a year trying to get your dog to speak, and the first sentence it said was “I’d like to play Tekken as a female Paul” you would consider your experiment a failure and kill the dog.

And why the hell would anyone even try to make a female Paul? Had anyone on the staff seen male Paul? He looks like he’s still a couple of rungs back on the evolutionary ladder. His official Tekkenpedia page lists that he has a rivalry with bears and likes the smell of gasoline. That is the manliest sentence that has ever been composed, and after typing it I sprouted a full beard and suddenly knew the secret to mixing concrete. Exposure to Paul is certified by the American Medical Association and World Health Organization to treat low testosterone. If the developers had tried to make his character model into a female, it would have immediately reverted back into a man and the entire room would smell like musk.

The Pitch:

“So, uh, you know Paul?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, like, what if he was like a girl? That could be a new character. And, here’s the big twist, he’s like, just a really cute girl.”

“Well…hmmm. Nah, that’s too crazy.”

“Well, what if he was like a stapler? But like, with boobs, you know?”

And then they finally wheeled the first guy out and had someone treat his massive head injury.

Average, Run-of-the-Mill Old Man

Official Description: You [sic] average old man, like the one you find in almost any neighborhood. He is not a martial artist, so he is pretty weak. It was an idea mentioned early in the series, and thrown out the instant it was mentioned.

Artist’s Depiction: 

The Breakdown: I’ve never been playing a fighting game and thought to myself, “I wish I could pick a character that would make me lose right away,” but apparently there is some market for that with fans of Tekken games. This would be the polite way to tell your friend you aren’t interested in playing anymore. His official character description is essentially “he sucks” and he doesn’t belong in any game except maybe Sudoku Puzzles For the Almost Dead. Pressing the punch button would cause him to break a hip and pressing the kick button would remind him that all his friends are dead.

Why was this terrible idea even stored for future reference? How was this one of the best ten ideas they hadn’t used yet? What could be worse that this? This is clearly just made by someone who hates old people. I mean, honestly, what purpose does this guy serve other than a punching bag that cries when you hit it? He would be going against martial artists, bears, and Paul pretending to be a woman. These are comical mismatches, and I’m almost positive “old man gets mauled by bear” is already trademarked by Fox.

The pitch: “Hey, what if there was like an old person in the game? And like, he couldn’t really fight at all or anything. But you could just keep punching him, and punching him and eventually he would die AND THEN WHO WOULD HAVE TO GET OFF OF WHOSE LAWN MISTER WITHERSBEE?”

“…put this idea down somewhere. I’ll want to reference it again in ten years.”

Zombie Bride

Official Description: A zombie bride to be in a wedding dress. Since the fighting style for a zombie would be quite difficult to create, the idea was scrapped.

Artist’s Depiction:

The Breakdown: This idea was thrown away not because it is weird, but because to truly capture a realistic zombie fighting style would take too much time. Here’s an idea: why the hell does it matter what way a zombie fights? When did Tekken suddenly become the series for realistic fighting styles anyway? One of your other characters is a baby kangaroo fighting from the pouch of a mother kangaroo. How much time went into researching how baby kangaroos fight? If the answer is any more than “zero” someone should be in jail. Besides, I don’t think anyone who would be playing this game would lodge any complaints about the way your zombie bride high kicks. Zombie fighting scholars are probably too busy holed up in their apocalypse huts to be playing fighting game anyway.

The Pitch: “Yeah, uh, loved your game, but that is NOT the fighting style that zombies would use. First off, the stance was all wrong. Secondly, I’m an idiot. Third, PBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBTH.”

Sexy Female Tekken Force Character

Official Description: A gorgeous and sexy Tekken Force member, she is loyal to the Mishima Zaibatsu, regardless of who is in charge. The original concept was proposed for Tekken 5, but the clothing was too revealing and the concept was scrapped for fears the rating would increase.

Artist’s Depiction:

The Breakdown: This ended up being one of the finalists, so there is no imagination necessary here as they actually did a full workup of what she would look like. And she looks, well, almost naked and ridiculous. She’s wearing what looks like an armored bustier, because in the Tekken universe Victoria’s real secret is defense against hatchet attacks. Why the hell is she even wearing gauntlets and shin armor? She is vulnerable to attack literally everywhere else, but at least no one will be able to give her an indian burn. Although maybe she’s just wearing that because her spinal defect prevents her from wearing normal human clothes. Do you know how hard it is to turn in such a way to show off your chest and your butt at the same time? Go ahead, try it. That snapping you hear is your spine begging for mercy. She looks like she is shooting herself in the head on the right side of the picture, most likely because someone put her spine in sideways and she is suffering from constant and unrelenting agony.

The best part was that they were afraid that a naked character might change the rating, and instead of giving her clothes they just got rid of her entirely. This is sexy female Tekken Force character, dammit, not boring woman with reasonable clothing Tekken Force member! How else would we know she’s sexy? I am disappointed that this ended up being one of the finalists. What the hell, Tekken fans? If you wanted boobs that badly, you should’ve just picked female Paul! He has them. In a suitcase somewhere, but still that totally counts.

The Pitch:

“Uh, boss, the ESRB just rated our game Adults Only for partial nudity, full nudity, full depiction of a woman’s reproductive organs, disregarding the basics of human anatomy, and incredibly stupid costume design. I think I can fix the whole thing if I just give her a tiny pair of shorts.”

“Ugh. Gross. What are those weird things over her breasts?”

“Uh…that’s a shirt.”

“Lame. What is she, a senator? Just remove her entirely and replace her with a panda bear.”

Female Vampire

Official Description: She has a dark personality, but her gothic attire and uncanny beauty are mesmerizing. During development of Tekken 6, she was proposed as a character that used an actual martial art, but also with fireballs, like a 2D fighting game character. However, aside from Harada, a strange phenomena occurred in which many members got married or gave birth to children around the same time. As a result, not many staff were left at work to complete the character, and she was discarded. The concept was salvaged again during Tekken 6 BR, but the same strange phenomena occurred again and Harada locked the concept away in a safe, wanting to keep it secured within the development team since it (she) seems to bring good fortune.

Artist’s Depiction:

The Breakdown: Oh man, this one is legitimately dangerous. Who twould risk playing as the Tekken fertility vampire that puts babies in your lady parts if you look at her too long? This was another one of the finalists, so we get the full animated possibilities of what the character would look like. I’m not even positive of what a female vampire in the Tekken universe means, and apparently neither was the animator as they have the word “Succubus?” typed out with a question mark after it. That’s not even close to a what vampire is. A succubus is a creature that appears in dreams to seduce and sleep with people and OH GOD I JUST FIGURED OUT WHERE ALL THE BABIES WERE COMING FROM.

RUN! RUN EVERYONE! DON’T LOOK DIRECTLY AT IT BECAUSE oh man it’s too late I’m already pregnant.

Dammit, Tekken, this is why you don’t get vampires and succubi confused. Look at what you’ve done to me. I’m too young and male to be pregnant. Why didn’t they learn after the first string of unexplained pregnancies occurred? Still, I’m pretty sure the second time all of the employees were just messing with their boss to get more time off.

The Pitch:

“Uh, remember how we talked about that female vampire again the other day?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, I’m pregnant. Definitely pregnant. So, I won’t be around the next nine months because that is how pregnancy leave works in this insane place.”

“WOW. Unbelievable. Everyone here is pregnant and can’t come to work. Even the men. This vampire is magic or something, so I’m going to store it in a safe to protect everyone else from its baby making powers.”

Joke was on him though, because when he got back to the office on Monday, he found the safe was full of little baby safes and the fertility vampire had escaped.

Syake/Salmon  

Official Description: Originally planned for Tekken 3, punch buttons would cause the Salmon to flop around, and the kick buttons would make it release eggs, which was quite an idea at the time. However, arcades were still popular worldwide, and charging 100 yen (1 USD) per play with such a character was likely to be a problem. That, and the fact that character would be always be the target of Kuma, lead to the concept being scrapped.

Artist’s Depiction:

The Breakdown: The Tekken series has this weird habit of putting animal characters in their games, but they usually put ones in that can do more than lay eggs and die. Have we learned nothing from Pokémon? Splash never has any effect! They also planned on having a button that was specifically designated to release eggs, apparently in the hopes of grossing your opponent out enough to just left the arcade. They refer to this as “quite an idea at the time”, which I totally agree with as long as they replace “quite an idea” with “stupid” and “at the time” as “then and forever”. Think about how this would play out though—the character would flop around on screen and occasionally be able to pull off an attack. This sounds almost exactly like how Doctor Bosconovitch plays with some alterations, and hey, he also appeared in Tekken 3, too! This means there is probably some early build of the game where Doctor Bosconovitch spawns eggs. Think of that when you’re trying to go to sleep tonight.

The best part of the description is that one of the main reasons they cut the fish was because they were unsure they could stop Kuma the bear from chasing it down and eating it. Kuma’s got bigger things to deal with, guys. Paul dressed up like a woman and beat up five of his kids. The giant egg laying salmon wouldn’t be high on his list of priorities. Oh, also he’s a video game character and you can probably program him not to interrupt every game to try to eat the fake fish. It is a shame that they never put the salmon and the magic fertility vampire in the same game. I feel like this fish’s ability to spawn unlimited eggs and the vampire’s power to fertilize everything in sight would solve the global hunger crisis within the day.

The Pitch:

“How about…a salmon.”

“Like the fish?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you just saying that because I’m eating some salmon right now?”

“No.”

“Do you have any other ideas?”

“How about…meatloaf.”

THE WINNER:

So with all these exciting entrants (and more that were too boring to cover), who did fans select as their next character? It was…the fertility vampire! Surprise! Just by reading that she laid a brood of vampire eggs in you! Congrats to the female vampire fans out there who voted for her, and congrats to the millions of women that are now pregnant thanks to vampire magic.