During Evolution weekend (The largest fighting game tournament on the planet), we were presented with a trailer for a brand new character named “Azucena” before TEKKEN 7‘s Top 6 played. This is significant because every other trailer before this one featured a returning character from a previous iteration of TEKKEN. Of course, like everyone else, I was curious to see what happened.
IMPRESSIONS
My first thoughts when I saw Azucena was that she was cute, but seemed a bit “hyperactive”. The way she was moving around in a dance-like fashion while seemingly having an air of arrogance to her was a bit “off-putting” in the fact she seemed like someone who’d be annoying to hang around with in real-life. That was doubled-down by her persistent attitude of loving coffee throughout the entire video (which is her gimmick), along with her gameplay which has her being overly flashing and taunting mid-fight to humiliate her opponent (which suites her to be honest). However, the more I watch the video, the more I am intrigued with this coffee fanatic.
The way that she dodges attacks bring me back to mechanics in Bloody Roar, with how you’re able to slip past opponents blows with pushing a direction before an opponent attack hits while in a heavy guard. Azucena seemingly has these auto-dodge mechanics built into her moveset, which is probably something similar to how Asuka parries things (just this looks a lot more stylish and disrespectful). And while a good majority of her trailer seemed to be centered around her dodge-centric playstyle, they also showed off a few moves which are a bit flashy too.
At 1:16 it looks like she does a series of dance moves, even though it’s a three kick combo; there’s also a breakdance-esque counter at 1:52 that seemingly acts as a launcher. There’s also a few boxing moves thrown in, such as the counter punch at 0:58, the dance to body shot at 1:01, and the overhand thrown at 2:09. This character is going to be piss people off when played correctly, as a perfect with her is going to feel like you’re being read and disrespected all at once.
Azucena’s personality is a bit obnoxious, but I love coffee and her playstyle is pretty cool. I hope she’s within the story so she can be fleshed out a bit, as anyone I main I tend to go for their personality as well as aesthetics before moveset…but we’ll see!
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