Mortal Kombat Thread - GET OVER HERE!!!

[FiveStarAce]

Why is Johnny Cage so fucking cringy in the newer MK games? He always talks like some faggot redditor.

The pre fight Banner in 11 was top notch, the banter in 1 isn't even banter

 

[Mac Monster]

I liked reptile more when he was mostly just a green ninja. it was a long time ago.

Ermac suffers from the same issue. Ever since MKX, they've turned him into some pasty wizard and taken away his mask, which makes him far less cool and intimidating. I'm fine with them diversifying the ninjas and not making them all pallet swaps, but they should still be ninjas.

 

[LecherousGranolaBar]

NRS could have done some interesting changes but they chose to go with minor "safe" options. They could have done something drastic like have Kuai Liang be the evil brother and later Noob Saibot instead of Bi Han. Kitana could have had the Tarkatan mouth instead of Mileena. An earlier post suggested Liu Kang being the main antagonist while Shang Tsung tries to stop him. These ideas could have been a lot better than what MK1 turned out to be.

Its weird as well because MK11 sets up a new era with Liu Kang training The great Kung Lao. I was thinking we were gonna have a Mortal Kombat kinda in the vein of that Konquest show they did where a fledgeling Kung Lao trains to protect earthrealm. NOPE.

Fuck man, I would've preferred the ending where Shang Tsung won. Then we could've had a cool resistance style plot where the few good people left out there are struggling to either take Shang Tsung down or hell, i'd take a given group of protagonists trying to go back in time to stop Shang from winning when he fights Liu.

 

[Mayor Cody Travers]

I liked reptile more when he was mostly just a green ninja. it was a long time ago.

2D and 3D era palette swap ninjas are peak. MK9 is still good as well, as it was the only last true MK in my mind. Pretty much MK is washed out and they are desperate to resurrect their peaked reputation in the 90s.
Whilst I am alright with them having their distinctive unmasked appearances, the ninja part should always retain within them since it is a core part of their memorability.
View attachment 6410596
I might show the thread more new MK drawings made by me, fanservice or not. I decided to draw Reptile today.

Ermac suffers from the same issue. Ever since MKX, they've turned him into some pasty wizard and taken away his mask, which makes him far less cool and intimidating. I'm fine with them diversifying the ninjas and not making them all pallet swaps, but they should still be ninjas.

Spoiler: Ninja 'tism.

All of you are correct.

Reptile is forever stuck with the lizard-man concept from MK4 onward even when they (begrudgingly) slap a green ninja outfit over it, Ermac may as well be the "green" ninja nowadays both with how much they hype the green telekinetic powers as they make the red on his outfits less prominent to empathize his green gemstones and black trim around that, and Rain is now as much if not moreso "prince" than ninja. They clearly want Noob to be a Grim Reaper look but are unintentionally stuck with his Bi-Han origin forcing him to still have a Lin Kuei-ish uniform. Which is sad, because Noob was way cooler when he was a mysterious hidden character with zero backstory whatsoever. THEN theorizing him as MK's Grim Reaper ready to, uh, reap in all the chaos, but never quite getting confirmation on if that's true, would've been atmospheric as hell.

It's bad when a human Sektor skin fulfills "the Red Ninja" design better than the actual Red Ninja Ermac and with more plot relevance to boot. And speaking of Red Ninjas, the old-ass official MK2 comic had John Tobias in a tweet confirm Ermac was that red Lin Kuei helping Smoke pilot the plane Sub-Zero, Liu, and Kung were in before jumping down to fight - note this, like the "Ermac does not exist text" in the MK2 game, was just 100% an easter egg referencing the supposed MK1 Ermac sightings with no bigger implications. But having "Ermac" be a Lin Kuei probably would've helped keep the ninja archetype stronger come the inevitable 3D-era visual differentiations as part of the same clan as Sub-Zero and Smoke. Same as the prototype bio for Rain that he was a Lin Kuei on loan to Shao Kahn who became torn on loyalty to his employer versus home realm (also, I do wonder if Rain was an attempt to make an official "Hydro" way back when, and colored purple just to tell him apart from already-blue Sub-Zero). Assuming this timeline where a Lin Kuei-affiliated Ermac and Rain exist, you can just have Scorpion keep the ninja look because the Shirai Ryu are a spinoff of the Lin Kuei while Reptile in a human disguise just copies all those Lin Kuei running around and their knockoff yellow spectre.

 

[Would]

Am I just an out of touch boomer? I feel like MK's cultural high was with the film and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 in like 1995/1996.

Or is it just the fact that I was 5/6 at that point so it felt that way?

Nope. Their cultural high WAS the MK3-era. Whether you're a casual who prefers Trilogy or an enthusiast who enjoys pulling off sick tricks and combos in UMK3, it's the peak of the franchise in every aspect.
MK4 was a dud, and the 3D era has it's fans and made money but it was not cultural icon anymore, having been supplanted by franchises like GTA, Metal Gear Solid, Halo, Half-Life, etc.
MK9 was a love-letter to the original trilogy for a reason; it's the era when they were on top, competing for the crown, and a consistent topic in school hallways and malls alike.

If MK ever actually becomes a forever-franchise, it'll be a perpetual re-telling of the original trilogy. They've yet to make a boss that one-ups Shao Kahn and a scenario that tops the Outworld Tournament for Earthrealm's fate.

MK9 starts up good, but when DEI and MKX arrives, things start to nosedive further, as it was the former shell of its identity.

I can almost understand why Netherrealm embraced DEI. Reading about how they went through closure and bankruptcy with Midway, I can see Boon and his cronies going "Never Again" and being deathly afraid of shutting down for a second time, so they made the Faustian deal that promised them that they'll never go broke in exchange for their souls.

Boon chasing after esports half-assed didn't help things.

Chasing E-Sports never works. Ever.
Your game has to be so damn fun and good people are willing to spend all day every day on it, and that only happens when you're making a labor of love and passion, not a focus-tested, politically-correct, safe product.
The top E-Sports games (Counter-Strike, League Of Legends, Starcraft II,etc) were all made as fun games first and everything else second.
It also takes times to amass a fanbase big enough to become it's own E-Sport. CS took a decade and a half of running tier-1 events in Hotel lobbies and Dreamhack conventions before ESL and other orgs had an influx of investor money to catapult them to the top of the E-Sports scene.
As dedicated as fighting games pros are and as fanatical as fans are, EVO is nowhere near the prestige and production scale of a LoL World's or a DOTA2 International. What is Boon smoking?
In addition, modern Dev teams want their games to be at that level on day 1 (See Valorant, Overwatch, Concord, etc).
They'll all fail sooner or later. Without organic growth, it's a bubble of lies that will pop.

 

[NaggotFigger]

Here is the Reptile semi-"redesign" drawing that I have. Excuse the animu art style.

Spoiler: Autism

 

[Xenomorphs Are Cute]

Here is the Reptile semi-"redesign" drawing that I have. Excuse the animu art style.

Spoiler: Autism

View attachment 6427966

Would (/sneed, because that would be gay).

 

[Super De Quico]

MK3 was peak MK.

Anything else beyond that was a bunch of experiments in trying to build their own identity in the transition to 3D and MK9 was the only which got things right.

MK became, much like other games, a franchise that relies on brand alone to stay relevant.

Guests aren't that bad but they're overstaying their welcome. And they hardly can fit into the game's atmosphere.

But all of these people (Such as Jason, Ghostface and Leather face) they take away a lot of the game's identity. What are they thinking? Why not make an official version of that Terrordrome fangame on MUGEN, or make a crossover between The Boys and Injustice?

It's not like Fortnite, where you can have stuff like Goku and Chun Li together but even then these things are cosmetics alone. Or Ryu and Chun Li as Power Rangers because they were given the treatment they deserve in legacy wars and battle for the grid.

 

[NaggotFigger]

Ghostface Fatality. Game is extremely dry nowadays.
edit: Noob animality

edit 2: gorilla animality is smoke’s

 

[BlankSpaceBaby]

Yes, because Ghostface will totally destroy Sub-Zero with that tiny knife. Most retarded guest character ever.

 

[Shao Khan]

The mishmash between extreme realismo gore and all the dei faggotry is really offputing

 

[NaggotFigger]

Off-topic, but recently painted Sonya in her MK3 appearance.

The mishmash between extreme realismo gore and all the dei faggotry is really offputing

It was the exact reason why MK1 falls behind a lot, unlike the meh success of MK11 and MKX. MK1 was slapped with fuck load of DEI niggerfaggotry that sounds like they came from DEI Kikes and dykes that have never worked on any project before. This especially mixed with off-putting retcons, redesigns that makes no logic at all, extremely over-the-top realistic gore that they kept on going with MK11, sucking away the soul of what makes MK peaked in the first place. Boon is still beating the dead horse, and the only things that feed on the carcass were shills, newfags, fujoshits. Oldfags since have been alienate themselves from NRS as a result, and Boon will reap what he sows on.

 

[Anonymus Fluhre]

I liked reptile more when he was mostly just a green ninja. it was a long time ago.

Sometimes I didn't mind this reptile, other times I wanted him to die. It's like they had multiple writers who didn't read each others notes or talk to each other at meetings

 

[NaggotFigger]

New Johnny Cage Animality.

 

[Shao Khan]

I REMEMBER JAWS!
also that shit doesnt make any kind of sense

 

[Psyduck]

Oh come on, i know sharks dont have a lot to work with, but if you're gonna make an animality give it more than just another bisection

Don't need over the top gore to make a horrifying shark finisher, take this scene from the same movie theyre referencing:

Want a brutal, entertaining animality? Here's Deep Blue Sea:

It's gonna be real disappointing if animalities end up being more of the same eye gouging, head splitting, cut in half stuff fatalities have meshed up into

 

[NaggotFigger]

Another one. Reiko and Shao Kahn Animalities.

Oh come on, i know sharks dont have a lot to work with, but if you're gonna make an animality give it more than just another bisection

Don't need over the top gore to make a horrifying shark finisher, take this scene from the same movie theyre referencing:

Want a brutal, entertaining animality? Here's Deep Blue Sea:

It's gonna be real disappointing if animalities end up being more of the same eye gouging, head splitting, cut in half stuff fatalities have meshed up into

MK1's milquetoast usage of bisection/cut-into-halves Fatality was repetitive, really makes the game look insanely boring with over-the-top gore and mid graphics. At least with MK3/UMK3/MKT's animalities are goofy and at times amusing, MK1 is trying hard way too much that it doesn't make MK, MK anymore.

 

[Mac Monster]

Another one. Reiko and Shao Kahn Animalities.

MK1's milquetoast usage of bisection/cut-into-halves Fatality was repetitive, really makes the game look insanely boring with over-the-top gore and mid graphics. At least with MK3/UMK3/MKT's animalities are goofy and at times amusing, MK1 is trying hard way too much that it doesn't make MK, MK anymore.

You would think that a fatality where you turn into a sheep would be humorous, but it's just the same bisection fatality we've seen a dozen times since MKX. Sure, some of the original animalities could be pretty repetitive, but you also had some really surreal ones like Rain or Scorpion.

 

[NaggotFigger]

Guest Characters Animalities.

You would think that a fatality where you turn into a sheep would be humorous, but it's just the same bisection fatality we've seen a dozen times since MKX. Sure, some of the original animalities could be pretty repetitive, but you also had some really surreal ones like Rain or Scorpion.

I find Scorpion's Penguin and Rain's Elephant Animalities surreal, consider their base elemental powers. I can still take that over the dime-a-dozen repeated bisection Fatalities from MKX to MK1.
edit: new sektur ending

 

[Shao Khan]

this game has the ugliest characters ever. just what in the fuck