So I decided to take a critical look on how both games snipped rosters, and see if maybe one stood out as 'better'(since a lot of T7 people critical of their cuts cite GG as doing it 'right'...but I see an awful lot of similarities.
Okay so first off; we're leaving Tag 2 clones out. So not really discussing, say, Sebastian here. Miharu has been a long time clone, but she is a clone still. Likewise, while he's not a TOTAL clone, I'll leave Forest Law out, since he is clone-y enough that having a smaller roster, he and his dad together would have been really too same-y. The reason why I'm not using Tag 2 is because it is a non canon installment; a sort of 'best of', so I feel it's more fair to use the previous numbered installment.
What I'll be looking at are the rosters of each previous game; so +R for GG, and T6 console for Tekken. I'll also discuss how GG has added characters over time since Sign(T7 is still too new right now for console, but I'll touch on 7.0 vanilla too, comparing it to vanilla Sign pre-DLC.
So going from +R to the base Sign, the following cuts were made from its roster of 25:
ABA, Anji, Baiken, Bridget, Dizzy, Jam, Johnny, Justice, Kliff, HOS, Robo-Ky, Testament, Zappa(13)
Sign added Sin, Ramlethal, Elphelt, Leo and Bedman. 3 of these(Sin, Elph, Leo) were DLC, totaling 17.
Going from T6 to 7.0, the following cuts were made from its roster of 40:
Anna, Armor King, Baek, Bob, Bruce, Christie/Eddy*, Marduk, Ganryu, Julia, Lee, Lei, Mokujin**, Nina, Kuma/Panda***, Raven, Roger, Wang, Zafina. (See notes on Jin, Devil Jin, Jack and Yoshimitsu.)
7.0 added Claudio, Shaheen, Lucky Chloe and Katarina as new characters on release. As 'Time Release'(I suppose you could sort of slot this with Sign's added DLC), they added Gigas, Josie, and Kazumi(New), and Devil Jin, Jin, Jack and Yoshimitsu. After the time releases(these did not take long to implement the gang), 7.0's roster was totaling 27.
*they were two separate slots, but essentially clones.
**A mimic, though quintessential enough that I'll count him as Tekken has had a mimic since T3.
***Still swaps in those days, oddly enough they seemed to trade places with Eddy/Christie now but I'll get to that.
Now to be fair, both Sign and 7.0 received hefty criticism each. They really did hit things hard. Both games had some fairly edgy fans after these cuts and they did let social media know it. Both games did snip longtime folks, though Tekken 7.0 quickly added a few of the classics, like Jin, back in via time release.
Moving on, what I'll do is fast forward to Revelator 2 and FR, to give the complete rosters that we ended up on console with. Then I'll proceed to list some similarities of missing characters.
Revelator 2 now has as its current roster:
Axl, Bedman, Chipp, Elphelt, Faust, I-No, Ky, Leo, May, Millia, Potemkin, Ramlethal, Sin, Slayer, Sol, Venom, Zato, Dizzy, Jack-O, Jam, Johnny, Haehyun, Raven, Baiken and Answer(25 total, or as much as +R had.)
Still Missing: Anji, Bridget, Testament, HOS, Robo-Ky, Zappa, Kliff, Justice, ABA.
New Characters Introduced between +R and Rev2: 7. 9 if you want to count Raven and Sin, but they were in Overture so were not technically new to the series, just new to the fighting games.
(Some of these appear in story mode, or are mentioned, but are not playable.)
Tekken 7 on consoles roster now looks like:
Alisa, Asuka, Bob, Bryan, Devil Jin, Eddy, Eliza, Feng, Heihachi, Hwoarang, Jin, Kazuya, King, Kuma, Lars, Lee, Leo, Lili, Ling, Law, Miguel, Nina, Panda*, Paul, Dragunov, Steve, Yoshimitsu, Akuma, Claudio, Gigas, Jack, Josie, Katarina, Kazumi, Chloe, Master Raven, Shaheen. (Total: 38, or 2 less than T6.)
Still Missing: Anna, Armor King, Baek, Bruce**, Christie***, Marduk, Ganryu, Julia, Lei, Mokujin, Raven****, Roger, Wang, Zafina.
New Characters introduced between T6 and console T7: 10. You could knock this down to 9 if you factor in that Eliza actually debuted in Tekken Revolution.
*In the odd thing, sort of like how they had Eddy and Christie separate slots in 6, they made Kuma and Panda separate in 7. I kinda think Eddy/Christie could have been clone slots in 6 and the bears in 7, but that'll be discussed later.
** Sorta-kinda replaced by Josie but they are not clones. She has a couple of his moves.
***Using this due to what IMO could be clone status
****Replaced by Master Raven, an essential clone, though worth mentioning for those who liked Blade
Whew, a lot of ***'s there, but so be it.
Now, I do need to make one allowance for Tekken here, and that's the ever-
Alrighty! Now that we have the breakdown, let's look at it more technically.
Both games added almost a similar percentage of new characters. 7 to Guilty Gear(7 out of 25 is 28%, not counting the previously featured Raven and Sin), and 9-10 out of 38 to Tekken which factors out to between 23-26%(chopping off decimals, let's not get too crazy here ;P) technically giving GG the higher percentage of replaced characters.
Both games cut classic, iconic, and story-important characters, without a doubt. On the GG side, Testament had been fairly tied into the Gear story, and was pretty iconic anyway; Bridget is a long-time icon of the GG series as well to say the least. Over on the Tekken side, the cut characters had a bit less story importance, though Lei and Anna were tied into things somewhat. Both games had folks with their own stories.
Playstyle wise, unique was cut in both cases, though this is hard to compare since in GG, everyone is very unique, where in Tekken there is a bit more 'crossover', so I don't want to be unfair there and say GG sorta 'wins' this straight up; it's the nature of the games. But to pick out some of the more unique on the Tekken side, once again Lei, and also Marduk and Zafina were quite unique in their styles(Marduk was not like King in grappling.) Ganryu was fairly unique as well. Really both sides had unique(Tekken's Roger had a mishmash of moves, Christie was a clone), but again, hard to compare.
Both sides cut older and newer characters. Testament, Kliff and Justice(okay, granted, the latter two are kinda dead but hey, it's a fighting game, you can asspull if you want) were all around in the first game and then some. Anji came in soon after, and Bridget was around '02. Likewise Tekken cut several older; the only newer characters cut were Zafina(Marduk is T4 which IS fairly old now remember.)
So yeah. We now have the lineup. Both sides cut very similar amounts(in terms of percentage), types, and styles of characters. Both sides added similar amounts of new characters. Both sides have fans that are known loyalists. Yet Tekken gets more harshly criticized. Maybe because it's a bigger audience? Simply 'bigger audience=more voices?'
One thought I had was that Tekken's new characters didn't have the 'oomph' to some as the older new folks, and thus it made them miss older ones more, where with GG's new characters, they're much more overall well liked. (Twitch whining about Raven's oki aside. ;P) It also could be the story; perhaps GG's story, and how the new characters tie in, being a bit more well received helped? Can't say since I doubt the cut characters would have made a huge story difference either way in Tekken(I think in GG they would have had more impact, though Lei as the cop narrator in Tekken would have been excellent.)
I mean, I'm sympathetic. While I got lucky in Tekken(even 7.0 had my main and three of my main subs safe, and I got most of the rest of people I cared about in FR, save for two dabble characters, plus I am fairly keen on Shaheen and Claudio gameplay wise these days), in GG, I came in with Sol. Yeah, I had no Testament, no Anji, no HOS, no Bridget. But Sol at least WAS my main so I had that, I just really didn't have any subs I much cared about. (Raven took over my main slot.) And gods know I was out favorites in the past too; in SFIV, I had no Alex, no Urien, and none of the EX characters I liked either of course. I mean it's interesting since I don't recall characters like Lei, Anna or Marduk being particularly played by gaggles of people(though social media may seem like it.)
There are characters on both sides with the 'We may not play them a lot but we like them on the roster' sense. Lei, Anna over on the Tekken side, and folks like say Zappa and Bridget(the latter sort of a GG mascot) on the GG side. They don't have the highest played percentages, but people miss them. Each game dropped a couple of characters who were played more too. Testament was popular, HOS was popular. Others were more just average. I think on Tekken's side Jaycee/Julia and Armor King were the two most popular(More the latter than the former-Jules was more maybe top 1/3 to half, but AK was played a more IIRC last I checked). Actually, AK was one of THE most played online in Tag 2(King/Armor King was a very popular team among more casual players.) So there is that. I guess you can say AK fills the Testament slot in terms of popular, well played, didn't make it in spot(though Testament had a bit more story importance.)
One thought I had deals with the fact that social media amplifies voices(making it seem like there is a lot of complaints when there are few), and perhaps because Tekken is a bit bigger, there are a few more voices by proxy...but I could swear I see a bigger percentage complaining too.
I guess again, my confusion is simply why Tekken gets the flack more. I guess the only thing I can come up with is that the fans are more attached? Did that extra 3 years or so that Tekken's been out over GG make that much difference? Was it the new characters after all? Is it just social media at work= I wish, after this extensive breakdown, I could tell you but I think this is something I'll have to leave open to the crowd to answer.
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