Tekken (Arcade)

Tekken
Developer: Namco Publisher: Namco Platform: Arcade (Namco System 11) Released internationally: December 1994 Released in JP: September 21, 1994 This game has unused animations. This game has unused playable characters. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused sounds.

TEKKEN!!

The very first game in the eponymous bear-smashing, devil-whacking series, long before it would go on to dominate the 3D fighting game space.
Tekken had humble beginnings as an internal 3D animation test within Namco, which would later be retooled as a competitor to Sega's illustrious Virtua Fighter series. Many of the team who worked on the original Virtua Fighter helped Namco develop for Tekken as well, including Seiichi Ishii in the director's chair once again, giving the 1st game a somewhat similar feel to Sega's effort while introducing enough of its own flavor to stand out.

Wild Card

Wild Card is applied as the data for an empty fighter panel on the character select screen. However, the data can be manifested into playable form, and produces bizarre results if hacked in.

Wild Card uses Kazuya's 2-player model and Kunimitsu's moveset, and has its name show up both on the character select screen and underneath the health bar in battle. Perhaps most intriguingly, the voice clips which play don't correspond to any character in the game, and are otherwise completely unused. Other audio glitches may also manifest while playing as Wild Card, including the announcer's "Good Morning!" voice clip playing at random intervals.

Unused Character Portraits

To do: Find rips of these portraits.

Character portraits and unique colour palettes for the bars seen in the "CHARACTERS" ranking screen exist for Heihachi and the 8 sub-bosses (Ganryu, Anna, Wang, Lee, Kuma, Prototype Jack, Armor King, and Kunimitsu), but these are never normally used anywhere, as none of them are selectable. They can be seen on the Character Usage rankings screen if one hacks the game and plays as them enough to get on the rankings, and they are used as normal on all ranking screens in the PlayStation port.

Unused Audio

Wild Card Voice Clips

A full set of voice clips for a young male character, which play if the data for Wild Card is forced into a playable state, but are never heard when playing the game normally. These voice clips are much shorter on average than those of other playable fighters, and are grouped right after the voice clips for Kazuya internally. It is possible that this may be an early voice for Kazuya, or that Lee was planned to receive his own voice clips as opposed to reusing Kazuya's.

Unused Announcer Callouts

"Rave War!", Tekken's original working title for much of its development cycle. The Rave War name can be seen in contemporary media coverage for the game around the time, and would be referenced in Ridge Racer as a car decal, and later by Tekken itself, with one of Law's moves being christened the Rave War Combo.

"VS." - the game's music plays over the VS screen, leaving this announcement unused.

Announcer callouts for Lee Chaolan, Wang Jinrei, and Heihachi Mishima. None of these characters are playable in the original arcade release, and so these callouts can only be heard if one hacks the game to make them appear on the character select. They would later be used in the PlayStation port, and in all versions of Tekken 2.
These callouts also have slightly different versions of Lee & Wang's names, calling them "Lee Chaolang" & "Wang Jinlei".

An announcer callout for Wild Card. The existence of this voice clip at all implies that Wild Card was once selectable in some manner, presumably akin to selecting Random in other fighting games.
Bizarrely, it is used if one hacks the game to select Ganryu, Anna, Kuma or Kunimitsu on the character select, and when winning a 2 Player match as them. It also remains in the data for the PlayStation port despite not being used there either, even when any of the above characters win a 2 Player match.

The announcer callout for Law is noticeably truncated in-game - the unaltered voice clip actually calls him the early name of Law the Dragon!
This old leftover moniker of "Law the Dragon" can be seen in other sources around the time too - a screenshot on the back of the North American box art of the PlayStation port shows Law with the name "DRAGON" under his health bar, and this exact voice clip can also be briefly heard in Namco Game Sound Express VOL.17, in the track labelled "Martial Master -Billy's mix-" . This was likely truncated due to possible copyright concerns. Law's Player 1 outfit bears resemblance to the main protagonist from the known Bruce Lee movie.

Unused Miscellaneous Audio

A harsh electronic sound that would later be used in Tekken 2 for Devil's iconic eye laser attacks.
Devil isn't present in any arcade release for the 1st Tekken, and his "appearance" in the console port as an unlockable costume for Kazuya has him re-using Kazuya's normal moveset with no new attacks, so the presence of this sound in the Arcade release remains a mystery.

A brief unused voice clip for Paul.

An unused voice clip for Law.

An unused voice clip for Nina.

An unused voice clip for Michelle - this would later be used in Tekken 2 during a victory pose animation, the data of which actually exists in this game too, but remains unused.

Unused Victory Animations

To do: Although difficult, GIFs of the animations while facing the camera would be preferable to a Youtube video.

Each playable character has 2 unique victory poses, with Heihachi and the 8 sub-bosses having 1. However, various unused animations corresponding to victory poses exist, but were dummied out. These include:

• A variant of Kazuya's crouching victory pose, where his fist stays clenched in place without the arm sweep that follows.
• A variant of Nina's laughing victory pose, where she uses her other arm.
• A unique victory pose for Law, where he looks up at the sky and clenches both of his fists - the intro cinematic for the console port would show Law in a pose very similar to this.
• A unique victory pose for Michelle, where she jumps while pumping her fist upward, before clasping her hands together - this victory pose would later be used in all versions of Tekken 2.
• A unique victory pose where the victor turns their back, cracks their neck and shoulders twice, before turning around again.
• A unique victory pose where the victor walks forward, lunges their left leg forward, then bends down with their fists together.
• A unique victory pose where the victor stomps and tenses their arms before lowering them.
• A unique victory pose where the victor jumps thrice for joy, their arms raised skyward.
• A unique victory pose where the victor bows to their opponent.
• A unique victory pose where the victor rapidly raises and shakes their arms in victory.
• A unique victory pose where the victor dusts off their torso and hands before pointing their right arm forward.

Many of these don't appear to correspond to any particular character, and may have been made for characters who were never implemented into the final game.