This Monday Sakurai presented Kazuya and now the character was already released, together with the 12.0.0 update. The presentation was quite funny in many ways. Sakurai losing against a Min Min was hilariously unexpected, because he usually dominates the CPU in these showcases. And right after the presentation the development team was told to nerf the character, from what it seems...
The whole message about Kazuya was pretty much the following: "a Tekken character in Smash is too weak, so we added lots of bullshit to make him compete". Like with some other DLC characters, this comes with the first impression of being overpowered, where we will have to wait and see how this one fares.
It seems kind of unnecessary that one of Kazuya's forward attacks (Left Splits Kick) has a reflector. They've nerfed Min Min's reflecting Up Smash and that's okay, because that move could certainly be broken, though I personally already had troubles with timing her reflector correctly. But they do this, while at the same time they add something similar to Kazuya's already gigantic attack arsenal. The Oni Front kick, which can be unleashed even quicker, has also this ridiculous launch angle...
And then there's this comeback Down Special, which goes through absolutely everything and where Kazuya can just keep trying. Someone like Little Mac only gets one shot... While Kazuya is also a very grounded character, just like Little Mac, his recovery is actually pretty good. Doesn't seem all that fair in comparison.
But it's not like I can really complain as a Min Min main and despite all the shenanigans Kazuya feels like a character that can be handled, which is something that they really wanted to point out during the presentation. When did you ever see Sakurai struggle that much?
Well, for me personally this is one of the not-so-interesting DLCs, like most of the first Fighters Pass. I've played a bit of Tekken 7 and I liked it, but I could hardly call myself a fan and Kazuya is one of my least favorite characters from that game. The implementation in Smash also seems somewhat over-the-top, where I liked the Street Fighter characters a little better. Did they really had to put his entire Tekken moveset in here?
The Mishima Dojo stage also isn't as good as the King of Fighters stadium in terms of mechanics. It works similarly and also offers a wall above you, but it's just obstacles and the whole stage is simply very close to the blast zones, which makes recovering quite awkward here. With the breaking walls the stage has this special fighting game vibe to it, where smashing your opponent through a wall reminds me personally a lot of Dead or Alive. And the background with the full moon above the mountains is absolutely gorgeous, which makes this a good pick for Battlefield / Omega forms.
Update: The Kazuya Challenge
Now, people on the internet have noticed that the Level 9 Kazuya CPU is kind of good, brutally good even. And it really seems to be on a whole other level. When I play as Min Min, the CPU usually can't handle this character at all, where I rarely ever even lose a stock. This makes playing against the CPU as Min Min is quite boring, actually, because the same tricks keep working (some might argue that playing as Min Min is boring in general, but not for me personally).
But when I play against a Level 9 Kazuya, it makes me struggle and sometimes even lose matches. He's that good for some reason, but arguably that's how the best bots should be. It's fun and probably what the "Sephiroth Challenge" should have been in its hardest difficulty. So, I call this the "Kazuya Challenge".
Spirits
With the new Tekken spirits, there are now 1486 Spirits in total. In the end there will certainly be more than 1500 Spirits in the game... Sophia and Arthur also got added to the normal rotation, where I actually now have a complete Spirit collection for the first time ever. Update: And there comes the next save-game exclusive Spirit with the Razewing Ratha from Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin. (Source)
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