Tekken 1 [Arcade] - play as Wang Jinrei

This is a playthrough using Wang Jinrei in the Arcade version of Tekken 1. Read on below for more information...

Wang is the personal sub-boss for Law, and he is a non-selectable character in this version of the game.

===== ABOUT WANG =====

He fills the "Chinese-wise-old-master" role and does the job quite well. Every fighting game needs one of these right? He is a friend of Jinpachi Mishima which means that he has some relations to the Mishima family, giving him some significance to the main storyline.

In Tekken 1 he was "unnoticed" due to the story of the franchise being very raw and "uncooked" at the time. I think he is a bit of an eyesore in Tekken 1... he looked much better in Tekken 2, especially his character select portrait image.

===== WANG IN ARCADE TEKKEN 1 =====

Gameplay-wise, he is a derivative of Michelle. He is basically a more powerful version of her, because he has been given two of the game's best moves - one being Nina's Blonde Bomb; and the other being a slightly weaker, slower and less-ranged version of Paul's Phoenix Smasher (it's still VERY effective by the way). It should be noted that for his throws he has Kazuya's hip toss and Nina's arm flip.

In the PS1 version of the game he has a few extra unique moves, such as a low power strike, as well as having his own throws.

===== ADDITIONAL INFORMATION =====

---- In the Arcade version of the game, he is the only sub-boss to have his own unique voice for all situations/activities.

---- On the character select screen, his portrait image shows him wearing a beaded necklace. This is not seen when he is in actual gameplay.

---- Despite being an unplayable character, using external methods he can be made to appear highlighted by a player on the character select screen, but with some minor flaws.

---- When you select/confirm him on the character select screen, it plays his "FMV" portrait animation like as if you selected a regular character. This comes as a bit of a surprise because he is normally non-selectable.

(for the record: all the bosses' character select screen FMV portrait animations are normally only shown when the player loses to them on Stage 8 and goes back to the character select screen to continue - when the system is set to allow character change at continue.)

---- When you select/confirm him on the character select screen, the announcer says his name as "Wang Jinrei", which comes as a bit of a surprise seeing as he is non-selectable.

---- When using him in a 2-Player game, if he wins a round or a match, the announcer will say "Wang Jinrei wins". Again, this comes as a bit of a surprise because being an unplayable character means that it would not be possible for him to appear in a 2-Player game.

---- He only has one costume, due to him being a non-selectable character. This means that in a mirror match, both Wangs will use the same costume.

---- When you complete the game with him in single-player mode, after entering your name, he appears with Kazuya's icon on the Time ranking screen.

---- Interestingly, he actually has his own icon on the Character usage statistics screen. The bosses normally do not appear on this screen at all, so you have to actually use them to get them to show up here. You can see this around 10:55 in the video.

---- He does not have a Stage 8 sub-boss. In the PS1 version of the game, his sub-boss on this stage is Law.

---- In Tekken 2, he was switched to be Jun's personal sub-boss instead of Law's.

---- In the PS1 version of the game, his character select screen portrait image (which is still) is the Arcade static image BEFORE it plays the animation.

===== ABOUT ARCADE TEKKEN 1 =====

This is the very first version of the game that started the entire franchise... this is the one right at the start of the full Tekken timeline (including ports, etc.). When Arcade Tekken 1 was first released, it was up against Virtua Fighter 1... with Tekken being regarded as the more popular game due to the "better" gameplay and visuals, and the fact that it ran at 60fps unlike VF1.

The game sees the debut of a large portion of the characters who are still active in the modern Tekken games of today, basically becoming staples of the franchise. All of the characters in it (besides male Kunimitsu) have made a return in the sequel Tekken 2, which from thereafter in the future games, some have constantly reoccurred, while some have had infrequent appearances.

The interesting thing (at least for me) about the arcade version of Tekken 1 is that it features unplayable unique personal bosses for each one of the characters... I'm not 100% sure but this is possibly the first 3D fighting game with this feature. The bosses (besides Heihachi) gameplay-wise are pretty much derivatives/clones of their regular character counterpart, but it's still a nice feature to have, bringing an element of "mystery" due to them being non-selectable.