During an exhibition leg of the EVO fighting tournament today, Sony thought it apropos to unveil not one, but two new characters joining their own star-studded fighting title, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. While combatants, like Nathan Drake and BioShock‘s Big Daddy, are considered newcomers to the fighting genre, these two additions are no stranger to laying the smack down.
First up is Toro Inoue (featured in the trailer above), the rather innocuous Japanese mascot for Sony who appears primarily in black and white. While Toro might not be as widely known in the states as overseas, his presence as a Sony representative should be familiar to any fan. Beyond simply serving as an unofficial Sony mascot, Toro also most recently appeared in Street Fighter X Tekken as a playable character, alongside his black cat neighbor Kuro.
In Street Fighter X Tekken, Toro’s fighting style was similar to that of SF‘s Ryu, but we imagine he will be getting a more whimsical portrayal in All-Stars Battle Royale.
Joining Toro on the PlayStation All-Stars roster will also be Heihachi Mishima, the original villain from the Tekken series. As you can guess, Heihachi is no stranger to the fighting game genre, and should be a perfect fit for this game.
Mishima’s storied history as a fighting game villain and icon has made him a perfect foible for downloadable content, but this the first time that he will be taken out of his comfort zone. In addition to rocking a pretty sweet dual-hawk (that’s two Mohawks) our hope is that one of Heihachi’s supers – Battle Royale‘s scoring system relies on kills accrued in one of three super-powered states – will have something to do with the devil gene, and will surely be awesome.
Alongside the two new character announcements Sony also revealed a new stage for All-Stars, titled Dojo. Like the five stages released for the beat-em-up thus far, Dojo is a mash-up of Parappa the Rapper and Killzone with Master Onion’s dojo in the foreground and a walking fortress from Killzone in the background.
Though the assumption was that Sony would be unveiling more additions to the PlayStation All-Stars roster during Comic-Con (they are doing that as well) it appears that they were ready to add a few more names to the list before them. While neither Heihachi nor Toro ranked high on our list of must-have characters, they do feel appropriate in terms of Sony’s history of first and third party franchises.
What other characters do you hope Sony adds to the PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale roster? Which do you think would be perfect for a Comic-Con unveiling?
PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale releases October 23, 2012 for the PS3.
Source: IGN
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Ergh. Still waiting for some better characters to join the roster.
I thought Heihachi was a shoo-in for Smash Bros. I was wrong.
Considering that Tekken has been predominantly found on Sony systems with only two titles ever on a Nintendo platform (one which hasn’t released yet) you were very much stretching it to believe a Tekken character would appear in a Nintendo title.
Not really. I don’t think it’s THAT far of a stretch to think that the makers of Super Smash Bros U would include one of their most popular characters in the roster. I completely understand the inclusion of Heihachi to Sony’s new fighter though, as he was exclusive to the PS2 version of Soulcalibur II and Tekken is practically akin to the PlayStation brand.
However, once Nintendo announced that Namco was developing SSBU I figured Heihachi would make an appearance, along with other Namco characters like Pac-Man, Klonoa, etc. I can almost guarantee we will still see a Tekken character included in SSBU though obviously not Heihachi. Probably Paul Phoenix or Marshall Law, or maybe even the likes of Roger or Roger Jr. They are probably more suited for the Nintendo brand anyways.
Awesome, when i was watching this at EVO and saw the ps mascot i said…. WHY!!!!! but the character actually looks really good and im happy now. As for Heihachi he is a F****** Bad-A** and am really happy to see him appear. Seeing these third party characters is really making me think were getting Crash Bandacoot and Spyro. If they make it its a definite Pre-Order.
also they previewed a new mode, 1v1 which really appeals to me and i think that the mode that will make it into tournaments if the game is good enough for it.
Those two are appropriate combatants. The Tekken brand was synonymous with PlayStation back in the day – making Heihachi Mishima a solid choice. Toro looks pretty cool too.
Waiting for Sir Dan….
the hero from Patapon 3. i really think he’d be a great charecter to play as.
Still waiting for Jak and Daxter and Garrus Vakarian to make an appearance
waiting for Sackboy to join the fray, imagine a sackboy with the Kratos costume, fighting against Kratos
Ah snap. Did I just see chop chop master onion and his dojo.
Heihachi Mishima! Awesome! Anyway else get the Tekken 5 – Heihachi’s reference?