Tekken 1 [Arcade] - play as Kunimitsu

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

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

===== ABOUT KUNIMITSU =====

As an "alternative design" to Yoshimitsu (she was once part of his Manji clan), she offers a unique contrast to the space ninja. In Tekken 1, Kunimitsu is often mistaken as a male character due to the fact that she uses Yoshimitsu's voice and also her physical build being far more closer to a male's one. It is unknown on whether the developers intended for this character to be male in the first place or not.

===== KUNIMITSU IN ARCADE TEKKEN 1 =====

Gameplay-wise, she a derivative of Yoshimitsu. She does not have the sword strike and sword thrust moves that Yoshimitsu has (which makes sense considering the weapons she is armed with). The kunais in both of her hands is purely aesthetic, meaning that there is no functional use for them.

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

---- In the PS1 version of the game, her chest and neck area are covered by inner black clothing. In the Arcade version, these areas of her are exposed.

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

----- On the character select screen, her portrait image and "FMV" video animation of it are identical to Yoshimitsu's one. It saved Namco from having to produce a completely new portait and FMV animation for Kunimitsu.

(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 her on the character select screen, the announcer says her name as "Wild Card".

---- When using her in a 2-Player game, if she wins a round or a match, the announcer will say "Wild Card wins".

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

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

---- Interestingly, she 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 12:45 in the video.

---- She does not have a Stage 8 sub-boss. In the PS1 version of the game, her sub-boss on this stage is Michelle.

---- In Tekken 2, she was switched to be Yoshimitsu's personal sub-boss instead of Michelle.

---- In the PS1 version of the game, her 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.