I've played Arcade about once in T7, so I agree. I think the idea of character episodes were a good idea but a majority of the episodes were just plain bland. A lot more could have been done, a minimum of three fights and cut scenes would've been acceptable. One? Not so much. Love this game, but the character episodes were pretty lack luster.

As for the main story, I get it's the "Mishima Saga" but they really do all that great of a job incorporating characters into the main story. The characters they did introduce throughout the main story still stood on the side lines and it was pretty uninteresting. The reason I was looking forward to the story was because I thought new characters that were under-developed would finally get some time to shine in the main story, I was clearly very wrong.

Back to the character episodes though. Most were just generic rival plots that have been overdone for 10+ years of promotional material. I think the ones that bother me the most though are Lili, Asuka and Hwoarang. Some of the few characters with the biggest fan following and ability to be pushed into more than poster children got reduced to their generic rival plots. Sure the former pair had a humorous ending but it was still pretty generic and predictable. As for poor Hwoarang, his ending was just cheap and disappointing. As a long time character with a lot of forgotten backstory, he deserved a lot better than that. It honestly barely even makes much sense and felt incredibly forced. His attire change would've been better aligned to him leading a resistance in South Korea, getting involved with some shady practices and getting harmed in the wake of things. His rivalry with Jin is SO overdone and boring now. Adding insult to injury, Jin doesn't even care he exists. They really need to make Hwoarang move on.