The Story in Tekken

When it premiered in 1994, having a story in an arcade video game was unheard of really. Most people didn’t pay attention when plopping in their quarters what the game had to say, but Tekken had a very deep storyline which has spanned over the course of the original and its five official sequels. So what is the story of Tekken? You are about to find out.

The original arcade and later Playstation hit set the tale up of Heihachi Mishimi, a harsh man who owns an international finance company called Mishimi Zaibatsu. This man had a great love for martial arts, and so he announced the King of the Iron Fist Tournament, where eight fighters would compete for one billion dollars.


Each one had his or her reasons for being in the competition, but one man stood out amongst the others. Kazuya Mishima was there for only one reason and that was revenge. For you see, his father was Heihachi and when he was only five years old, the man wanted to be sure that his son had the same courage, strength, and will to survive. And so, he did what every loving parent would do when faced with that question. He found a mountain and threw his son off the cliff. If he survived, he was his son. If not, well it wasn’t meant to be. Nice, uh?

Anyway, Kazuya did survive, but left him seriously injured with a huge scar on his chest that did not recover, thus robbing him of his strength. The Devil, seeing an opportunity to gain a soul, appeared before the young boy and told him that if he agreed to the terms, he would regain his strength and be able to get his revenge. Anger, hurt and disappointment against his father convinced him to take the demon up on his offer. And before long, he was able to fight back against the emotional and physical pain, winding up a powerful man and fierce competitor.

Two decades later, the announcement of the tournament gave him the chance he’d been waiting for his whole life. Now 26, Kazuya was the undefeated champion in the martial arts world, except for a draw with Paul Phoenix who also is pining for his chance at the billion dollars and getting a rematch against his foe Kazuya.

The goal for Kazuya is to reach the final round against his father and once he does, he and the man he’d hated all these years fought heavily on top of the same mountain in which the boy was thrown off. The battle waged on and on, the strength the Devil had given Kazuya was paying off, but the toll was the same. Finally after hours of brawling, Kazuya finally overtook his father, causing the old man to pass out. Kazuya looked over the cliff, picked up his opponent’s body, and with a satisfying smile, threw it off the cliff as had happened to him those many years earlier. He then takes control of Mishimi Zaibatsu which continues the tournaments, which play out over the future games.

In the original game itself, of course, you can play from any number of characters including Kazuya and Paul to reach the final battle with Heihachi to win and get revenge if that is the goal. Further games spend more time on the battle of the tournament than they do the backstory of revenge, etc., but have this to go back to.