Heihachi in Tekken Tag Tournament 2: Possible Reference to Shang Tsung?


As if video games just have not enough of copying each other and Tekken is no exception.  After all Tekken was inspired by Virtua Fighter then by Street Fighter in some ways (Asuka vs. Lili is similar to Karin vs. Sakura).  Now here we have Heihachi in the non-canon Tekken Tag Tournament 2 with his youth restored.  In his ending, we see him rapidly age and drink some youth serum to become young again.  Again, this is non-canon.

File:Shang Tsung opens a portal for the Tarkatan.png
In MK2, Shang Tsung went from old man (in MK 1) to being a younger man in MK2 (and became a cheap playable character).  Later on, senior actor Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa played as Shang Tsung in the first MK film (which succeeded) and as Heihachi in the must avoid even for franchise fans, the Tekken live movie.  I just thought did Namco take that into consideration when they gave Heihachi his non-canon story in Tekken Tag Tournament 2?

If I'm to draw some similarities between Heihachi and Shang Tsung, they are both treacherous individuals who draw profits from tournament gaming.  Shang Tsung was the big bad of MK1, Heihachi was the big bad of Tekken 1.  In Tekken 3, Heihachi sought ultimate power from getting Ogre's DNA just as Shang Tsung sought to steal Shao Kahn's soul.  Both of them are backstabbers who always betrayed their higher ups.  Should I mention Heihachi betrayed his own father Jinpachi to rule over it too?  No wonder he's afraid his own descendants will do the same... which history repeats itself.

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