But the nonsense was never marketed. You'd never see the BS characters in trailers or intros or title enbu's and the such. And even if they did, they were relegated to side stuff that you have to actively unlock which gives it more of a "joke unlockable" rather than an integral part of the game. It's like the big head modes we got in old school ps1 and ps2 games. You just unlock them at the end of the game as just some random feature, not some major part of the game.
Just look at all the intro's to Tekken from 1 to 5. We don't see Dr. B or Gon or Alex in any of them trolling around. Tekken 2 and Tekken 5 had milliseconds of Kuma and Roger, but even then, they were represented as fighters and not trolls like they are in game.
You can look at the trailers of Tekken since I remember them:
Tekken 4
Trailer 2 Trailer 1
Tekken 5
Trailer 1 Trailer 2
Notice how in NONE of them do they advertise joke animals in any of their trailers? They were both relegated to the very end showing an "and" implying "here is some random stuff also included in the game for fun". With this kind of marketing you don't get the implication that "this is a huge part of the game".
You can't blame people who were fans of the series from that era feel disconnected with trailers now looking like
this.
But whatever, let's see if Lucky Chloe really does make more people want to play Tekken.