I’m disappointed in Nakayama’s reply. I'm disappointed they couldn't think of a better story that can fit in the small WT engine. They wanted to go big, but gave us the outcome of this supposed Rom-Com relationship. I'm disappointed they used Patricia as a prop for a lazy trope to give change to Alex. The new story Nakayama shares in the above tweet tried to rewrite their relationships and a poor attempt to inject something into Pat reads just as rushed and disappointing as his WT lines.

There’s a reason we don’t see much of the married characters private lives. Because it’s hard to plot out all these characters! Guile’s wife? Don’t know nothing about her. But I know about Guile’s daughter. I know Ken misses his family, but he’s laser-focused on Mel. Now you want to write about Patricia? Whom everyone already had almost 30 years of expectations being a sister to Alex? You wanted to skip to the ending without the build up and expect everyone to nod and understand?

My interpretation of Nakayama’s “you’re confused” line is not that we’re confused what we read, we’re confused because the writers didn’t write the how and why. (The writers: “It makes sense actually! …in my head. No, I will not elaborate.”) He’s apologizing that they didn’t write a good story to sell it.

All of Alex's wonderful characterization is stuffed into his playable form. I see a vibrant wrestler who will watch with fierce intent to choke the other out. When the bell rings he’s locked in, no mercy, loser. After strangling or breaking bones he will either stare at his work or laugh what a fun fight it was. WT Alex was not intergraded from playable Alex and vice versa. (No, we do see he loves weight training in both versions but that’s about it.)

Everyone praises Ken’s storyline because not only was he given a miniseries to explain what happened, he has a locket in-game (in two outfits!) to show he misses and values his family. It connects both what we play and what we read in WT. If you want to sell Alex fans a tired trope because you refuse to take the time to meaningfully change it, we need volumes and volumes of story to explain why this outcome works.

But that’s a lot of hard work and would take a lot of time, so its easier to tell fans they’re wrong.