Lars Alexandersson - Reception

Reception

Critical reception to Lars' character has often been mixed with several writers commenting on the character's outfit. IGN's Ryan Clements found Lars appealing commenting on his "badass nature" as well as his movesets which were often punches aimed at the opponent's face. Additionally, the accessories that became to available to Lars were noted to make the him more likable to the point of commenting "I don't think you realize how badass this guy is." On the other hand, writers from GameSpy labelled Lars as "Captain Ridiculous" owing to his "absurd" looking design which they found similar to Michael Jackson. Nevertheless, he liked his gameplay mechanics as it made him a fast character and allowed to torture the opponent. GameSpot's Justin Calvert found him similar to Jin Kazama and commented that "the only thing remarkable about him on this occasion was his gravity-defying hair style." Writing for 1UP.com, Shane Bettenhausen also praised Lars' moves mentioning their balance between speed and strength. However, like other reviewers, Bettenhausen considered the character's appearance ridiculous comparing him with Final Fantasy protagonists despite his integral role in the story. While also calling Lars similar to a Final Fantasy character, Bryce McDonough from IGN AU stated he was "ridiculously strong" joking it was better not to make fun of him. Jeff Gerstmann from GiantBomb considered his actions in the plot "pretty dull" and concluded that his leading role from the story mode was "sloppy" since while players were able to choose any character to play with, Lars was always the focus following fights. His moves were also compared with the Mishima characters by Videogamer.com's Wesley Yin-Poole, yet at the some less effective. Yin-Poole often called Lars "the emo", but added that his hairstyle and cape are "classic Tekken." Within the debuting Tekken 6 characters, GameZone found him as the most challenging one as his moves would require a skilled player. Nelson Hum of GameFocus called Lars a "dud" and "Dragon Ball reject".

Lars' addition to Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 has receive mostly positive comments. Kotaku's Mike Fahey liked it as it helped to expand the game's roster, but thought others characters from the Tekken series would be more suitable than Lars. A similar comments was made by Tyler Nagata, a writer from GamesRadar, who found Lars' alternate design to resemble Naruto's character Sasuke Uchiha despite not suffering changes for the game. Jamin Smith from Videogamer called it a "strange crossover", but still noted that fighting games fans would appreciate his appearance in the game.