It's been what...six years since there's been a brand spanking new Tekken character to play around with, right? Palette swaps don't count. That streak comes to an end today, as a new patch has brought forth the character fans voted for, the female vampire Eliza.
Fans were asked to vote for which new character they would like to see back in July. Out of some truly unique and bizarre character suggestions that included a run of the mill old man, zombie bride, giant praying mantis, female version of Paul, and a flopping, flapping, egg shooting salmon. It was a fairly close vote, with a female member of Tekken Force and a classmate of Jin Kazama's coming in at a respective second and third, but fans went with the female vampire. Harada announced the results of the poll at the end of the month, sharing some early concept art for her design. And thus, Eliza was on her way.
Since then, her story has been fleshed out a bit more as well. According to a recent press release, Eliza was born more than 1000 years ago. At some point, she decided to take a small cat nap, but her 40 winks turned into a Rip Van Winkle style slumber that lasted for hundreds of years. During her sleep, the estate of Lili Rochfort's family was built atop her resting ground, leaving her imprisoned.
Shortly after fans got their first look at her in action, Eliza caused a small amount of controversy with Tekken Producer Katsuhiro Harada catching some flack over the fighter's rack revision. But now that she's playable, players have the option to judge her on more than just the novelty of changing chesticles.
Another noticeable aspect of Eliza was her tendency to doze off mid-fight, a side effect of her borderline coma. Obviously, this leaves her open to attack, but whenever she does fall asleep, she also recovers health, so it's an interesting trade off that will have some interesting effects on matches. Adding to Eliza's uniqueness is a brand new fighting style, and a special "power wave" move, making her the first character in the history of Tekken to use projectiles. True, we've seen laser beams and bursts of flames, but this is something considerably different.
Thankfully, players won't have to buy Eliza to unlock her. Instead, players will have to collect Blood Seals (or Blood Points, the name seems to vary from region to region) which are received after Online and Arcade battles, or in Mokujin Rushes. Players will need 10,000 seals to unlock her, at which point, additional content can be unlocked by collecting more seals.
Check her out in her debut trailer below.
The patch also adds in a few other things of interest, like the bulky Bob, but he won't be playable until later this month, December 24. Maybe he'll have a Santa suit to celebrate the Christmas cheer. After all, he is a fat man with a fondness for red. The patch also adds the following:
- New costumes for Jaycee, Bob
- New Premium effects for Eliza, Christie, Lee
- Jaycee Swimsuit costume