I thought about how Mortal Kombat (2011) had its problems with LICENSING. Yes, guest characters in fighting games outside your IP can be a real problem. I felt the same fate could happen to Tekken 7 and Tekken 8 — both entries in the beloved Tekken franchise are having guest characters outside their IP. But I think the biggest sink moment was AKUMA from Street Fighter. I thought about how Tekken 7's inclusion of Akuma in the STORY MODE was already a dead giveaway of the game's decline period.
I remember playing Mortal Kombat (2011) with the guest characters Freddy Krueger and Kratos (for the PS3, which I had). The guest characters can get off as jarring, and honestly — I felt that including slasher movie villains like Leatherface and Jason can ruin Mortal Kombat X's roster. My reasons are that Mortal Kombat doesn't rely on torture but on efficient gore. However, they were treated as nothing more than What If characters. It's like what if Leatherface was in Mortal Kombat. Mortal Kombat (2011) didn't put Freddy or Kratos into the Story Mode either. Sure, the licensing issues can become a nightmare but the purity of Mortal Kombat (2011) Story Mode depended on characters who mattered. Guest characters were treated as they were — GUEST CHARACTERS!
However, I don't know what came into Namco's head when they entered Akuma into the STORY MODE. Supposedly, Tekken and Street Fighter operate in different universes. However, Akuma was added to the Story Mode. It was integrated into the story where Kazumi Mishima asked Akuma to kill her husband and son should they become a threat to the world. Heck, I must admit that the Devil Gene twist in Tekken 7 was already just a poor twist! Akuma getting integrated ruined the plot because Tekken was always meant to operate separately from Street Fighter.
So far, this is what I call the Jump the Shark moment. I hope Namco will learn its lesson NOT to do this again. After all, Tekken is my favorite fighting franchise and it's a shame how this even happened.
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