I feel it's very well done! Certainly like...gods I wish we got this instead of Blood Vengeance so hard. I hope, one day, maybe we will get it. I can keep that wish!
Okay. FAIR WARNING: HERE THERE BE SMALL SPOILERS. I will not of course give away endings or results or anything, BUT, I am going to do a review, and it will give some synopsis, so if you want to go in 100% blind, then you might want to skip. I will block off the part where I get to spoiler territory.
So! Without further ado...
In the footnotes it describes that it was based on the arcade version of Tekken 6; this would be pre-Scenario Campaign. Now, while this is licensed work, there are parts of this novel that REALLY should have been remembered by Lars in the Scenario Campaign(you'll definitely know them when you see them) if it were actually canon. In addition, it's pretty clear some of this story is retconned to what's going on in Tekken 7 anyway, and there are other liberties taken here and there as well with some of the game material. So for my money? It's best just to read it as it's own work and enjoy it for what it is.
So to say it short: It's an official novelization for the Tekken 6 arcade game, but does not seemed to be referenced in SC, and is somewhat retconned by 7. (I should note: Just because this is 'official', it could be this is one of the retconned pieces rather than the game. It's sort of hard to tell. After reading this I'll have to do some piecing together.)
Okay with THAT out of the way, to give a brief synopsis(it's not the longest read, more like a short novel):
Leading up to what we know of Tekken 6; it deals mostly with the Mishimas, their past(at the time of the writing; again, this seems to have been retconned somewhat or changed somehow, I am not completely sure, we'll know more with 7), and some events leading up to what I'm guessing is Bloodline Rebellion.
The other characters involved are mostly sort of backdrops; they serve as foils, and in Raven's case, his role seems to be that of the guy that Heihachi(who is the story's Mr. Exposition when it comes to the background) explains everything to so the reader learns it. Besides Kaz, Hei, Jin, and Lars and the aformentioned Raven, Dr. B, Eddy, Nina, Anna, Bruce, Dragunov, and (sort of), Jinpachi make appearances(Jane and the Jacks make a small appearance as well). As mentioned, this story IS pretty firmly on the Mishimas, so the rest don't get too much in the way of backstory or anything. They have a purpose, at least.
It goes into the backstory of the Mishimas, their family, the Devil, various other demons and how it passes from family member to family member. Essentially, if you want to know the background to the Mishimas, as it was before the Devil Gene stuff took hold, you'll find a take of it here.
It's opening scene is a pretty good doozy, I'll say that much, with Lars essentially watching Jin slaughter some poor mooks; someone should have told them not to pick the ones who were all one day from retirement. It branches out to some travels around-touching on some of the other characters and their journey to discover Jin's current location and...I'll leave it at that and let you read the rest. Because it's short, I can't really say too much without spoiling too much of it.
That being said, I'll try:
Incoming mild spoilers. If you wish to skip these, pass over until I say 'spoilers end.' I do not spoil any major outcome, just a couple of more minor fights.
So I have to say, one thing that had me completely happy was the fact that besides the four Mishimas(Kazuya, Jin, Lars and Heihachi), the most badass motherfucker in this story? It was Dragunov. Dragunov manages to not only tire Lars out to the point where a normal is able to temporarily knock him out, he puts out Anna and Bruce with a quickness that's scary(he knocks them out faster than Heihachi takes to body Nina and Eddy who are likewise 'normals', so to speak), and is not knocked out himself until a certain supernatural guy whose name begins with D and ends with Jin kinda wakes up and explodes(and then his ass isn't even *knocked out*.) Oh yeah, there's a trail of corpses leading up to the area where him and Lars were fighting. (Keep in mind in a story with some pretty graphic fights and some mook deaths...they do not describe what Dragunov and Lars did to these guys. Think about that for a moment.) He lives up to his name, and while his only role is sort of...well, his storyline(he's sent to collect Jin, just like the game), he basically proves he's incredibly dangerous. Please for the love of the gods Bamco, give him his intro in Tekken 7 where he gets to body dudes. I was fangirling so damned hard during his short scene. Like I got that vindication that my boy is actually one of the more powerful and badass characters in the series and I never knew this.
I'm also just going to say the Lars vs. Kazuya fight is amazeballs and that's all I'm saying. I will say, between all of Lars' scenes-and his Scenario Campaign intro-do not piss him off. Seriously. You'll regret it. Hard. Lars only looks like a nice guy. He will fucking wreck every bone in your body.
Jin is a monstrous fighter. Like making me cringe at times. It's awesome, though. He's also naked a lot. Long story.
I don't even want to spoil the end fights. Not even in the spoiler section.
Spoilers end here.
With the basics out of the way, I'm going to hit up what I feel it's strongest and weakest points are!
Strongest Points!
They do a really nice job with a lot of the characterization! Heihachi is actually written with some depth and nuance. Jin's sort of 'mental battles'(you'll see) are well-exposed, Kazuya is certainly on point as the Kazuya we've come to know, and Lars is that great mix of 'Obviously more caring guy who nonetheless is a total hardass who will wreck your shit.' Dragunov, while he doesn't talk, is nonetheless a clearly scary man.
The fight scenes are very well done for the most part. While mooks get bodied pretty quick and easy, the fights with a lot of the big players are very cool to awesome(some are incredibly short, for those who read the mild spoiler box. ;)) The writer actually got the fighting styles down, too. Lars, for example, using his Entry moves, Dragunov getting noticed for both his ground game and utilizing a lot of his trademark big nasty kicks he has in game. The Mishimas, naturally, utilize their Mishima style Karate. (Also, Bruce spams b+2. I freaking died.) Everyone has their styles basically accurate, so kudos to them. (You really get an idea of just how powerful the Mishimas are in this, too. Including Lars, jesus. He's wonderful.)
The take on the story is really solid, and I very much enjoyed the background chapters of the history further back of the Mishima clan.
To be completely honest, most of this was 'ups.' If I pointed out all the ups, I'd be pointing out most of it, I really would.
And now for some weaker aspects:
One down I have is the lack of Lee, actually. Lee is a Mishima by adoption, and I sort of feel that they could have maybe helped the pacing(see below) by having some bonus bits with how he's doing with the family as well. While he and Lars don't meet until the Scenario Campaign(and again, see how this may not actually tie 100% in due to events not being remembered), I kinda feel there was a slight missed opportunity, especially since in Tekken 7 they're going to be going heavier into how he and Kazuya have their big thing. At the same time, I can maybe understand that they didn't want to stretch the story too thin; so it's a minor quibble, but he also could have had some wonderful fight scenes as well with his style.
The pacing IS a bit wonky. You can kinda tell that the author was trying REAL HARD to get to Ultimate Throwdown of DOOOM and Awesomeness, and as a result, I feel a fair bit of the story was a little too fast-moving, and some of the other cast glossed over a bit much. I'm not saying they needed big parts, but Dragunov is pretty much just used to show he's a badass(which, again, I appreciate XD), Nina and Eddy are basically literally just there because they work for the Zaibatsu and...that's about it, and Bruce and Anna are a couple of small wrenches to be thrown into the gears(Anna basically playing the role of what counts as this story's comic relief, for my money, since she definitely got the most laughs out of me.) Dr. B. is a bit of exposition. As mentioned, Raven is the recipient of exposition, more for the reader's sake. Essentially, the pacing is 'Setup, Stuffhappens COOL STUFF stuffhappens BIG THROWDOOOOOWN.' It might be a bit jarring for some.
I feel both the pacing and the rest of the cast could have enjoyed a little more if the story was a bit longer, actually. I actually feel the story may have been a tiny bit too short for what it wanted to do. While I think it's great they focused the most on the Mishimas, I think a bit more length would have provided a little more for the rest of the crew. I also do think some of the characters' personalities could be hit or miss-while some were strong above, people like Eddy and Nina were sorta...they had some things, but they were kinda muted.
Finally the dialogue does reach some cheesy levels. Like, I had to stop myself from laughing a couple of times levels of cheesy. It can be a bit of a 'video gamey' esque dialogue, for lack of a better description. Definitely a bit of goofball factor.
As I mentioned, though-don't let the longer neutral/down section turn you off. It's only because i had to be more specific with them since the overall strong points basically boil down to 'Most of the story', so that's a good thing!
Final Thoughts:
All in all though, it was a really good and entertaining read. It gives a bit of a different and bizarre take of the Mishima story, and given this was an officially sanctioned novel in the footnotes, I believe a lot of this stuff is actually not too farfetched in the past Tekken storyline, anyway(retcons notwithstanding.) It's a light read, to be sure-any moderately fast reader will be done fairly quickly, I think(I finished it in a morning), but it's a quality one. If you're a Tekken fan, who wants some actual quality licensed/official material even if it's a different take on what we'll be getting in the canon games going forward, I highly suggest you drop the 10 bucks on it. I bought it and I have no regrets at all.
Anyway, this review isn't mean to be a big, comprehensive thing, but just some bits of info on it, and me telling you that if you're a fan of Tekken lore and want some enjoyable stuff with it, definitely grab this for a really great take on stuff.
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