So... how do we feel now about the story?
(I know, haven't posted here in a while)

It's been 3 years already since this game was released.. (Wow.. time flies) Now that time has passed and we are only two months or so away from the probably announcement of the long-awaited sequel to this game. How does one feel about the story to this game. What do you think NRS will do for the sequel?

Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if events from this game are retconned/ignored in the next game, NRS is that bad with continuity. It's pretty obvious much of the staff doesn't care in the slightest bit and will make any changes they see fit.

As for me, I still find the infamous Sindel scene to be stupid and rushed and Cyber Sub-Zero... ....that walking refridgerator.... still disgusts me and I always tell my IRL friends "I have TOLD you! We NEVER talk about him! HE NEVER HAPPENED!"

......

Anyway, yeah, I'm not even that bothered... it's pretty obvious Ed Boon and staff are gonna have to pull some resurrections out of their ass otherwise it'll have half the roster this game had.

So my advice on what NRS can do to improve the story mode for the next game is most importantly: No more character chapters. This has got to stop, it limits everything the team can do with the story mode. Imagine how much better played (or even better written) the story modes could do if the writers didn't have this limitation.

Overall, in retrospect, I find that this game's story would've been better off as a starting from scratch point rather than telling a time travel tale.. focus entirely on Shang Tsung's tournament with all the cast of MK1-2, maybe some even some from MK3-MKD where appropriate and a mix of new characters. That might've been better off than we got.

But oh well. What are your thoughts? Still the same? Cooled down? Different? Feel free to say.
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TemperaryUserName
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04/23/2014 03:21 AM (UTC)
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ProudNintendofan Wrote:
How does one feel about the story to this game?

There's a definite curiosity to what MKX's story is going to look like, but the enthusiasm and excitement... that's a dead limb. I don't think I'll ever be truly excited for an MK storyline ever again. And that's not me being bitter: the story has entered a phase where all the old questions, mysteries, and progression no longer matter.

To give an example, let's take a stroll back to early 2004 prior to MKD's release. There were so many questions and debates. Where has Jade been all these years? What happened to Reptile? Is he dead? Is he the boss now? If Smoke comes back, will he be human? A cyborg maybe? Why does Sub look like the Shredder? I thought Kabal died!?!?! WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING!?!?!?!?!

In other words, the old story had potential avenues. Now there's only two avenues: to deviate from the former timeline, or to NOT deviate from the former timeline. Sure, they could try to write new mysteries and characters, but why would I be invested in them? I was invested in MKA's storyline because it sat on the shoulders of a story I followed for over a decade. That story has since concluded. Vogel created a storyline that LITERALLY made every prior event irrelevant. All those dead characters in MK9 have only two logical possibilities in MKX: they could be resurrected, or they could NOT be resurrected. Am I curious as to which? A little. Am I invested? Hell, no.

All things considered, I'll probably enjoy MKX's story mode. Despite all the bullshit and disappointments, I never let that get in the way of having fun with the characters. To me, it's like eating a hot dog. I know there's a lot of grease, sodium, and straight-up carcinogens, but I can enjoy the fuck out of a hot dog. There's something magical about watching these characters I've grown up talk and interact with each other. 100 shitty Sindel massacres aren't capable of ruining that. I hate the bad; I love that good. That has always been my philosophy. I realize that for some people, it only takes a small piece of shit to ruin the soup. I get that. To me, MK is more like cake. I enjoy the good and cut around the bad. No matter how shallow Smoke's role may have been in MK9, seeing him and Sub-Zero shoot the shit was a surreal experience.

Lot of food analogies today. Huh.

ProudNintendofan Wrote:
Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if events from this game are retconned/ignored in the next game, NRS is that bad with continuity. It's pretty obvious much of the staff doesn't care in the slightest bit and will make any changes they see fit.

Well, I disagree for two reasons.

1) if that was their attitude, I doubt they would have incorporated the events of MKA into MK9 at all. We would have gotten a true reboot. I honestly do think Boon/Vogel care about continuity, but it's not priority. Boon is a gaming developer at heart, and he probably has a grand vision of what MK9 was going to look like. I think he does value the story, but at the end of the day, the story is only one portion of that vision, and he's not going to break his back on the details. Vogel's team probably had to write a story around a very shitty chapter system with a finite amount of time. It's hard to blame him for cutting corners.

2) They were able to get away with retcons back in the day because they were retconning things in bios, endings, etc. They were things that were all but invisible to the casual fan. If Boon retcons entire scenes from the MK9 story mode, the casuals are sure as hell going to notice, lol. I'd wage they're paying more attention to the storyline now than they ever have in the history of MK.
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FROST4584
04/23/2014 04:48 AM (UTC)
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I've been disappointed at the direction of MK since Mortal Kombat Deception. MK Armageddon was a step in the right direction(less pointless mini games, more additions to the fighting engine), but was far too much in terms of everything; to the point it didn’t have that much of a unique feel.




When it comes to MK (2011), I disliked the story today as much as I did when I first played it. This whole concept of time travel in MK, to me was and is a bad idea and out of place in a MK game. Even the plot points, such as the whole Mileena born “today” are one of many errors that shouldn’t have been written. Another example would be, didn't Shao Kahn invasion’s in MK3 suck everyone souls on Earth, therefore why are there soldiers aka non "chosen ones" fighting Khan's forces? Also at the end of story mode, Shinnok talking to Quan Chi while, Quan was wearing his amulet to me is funny, long term MK fans would know why this is not a good idea for the set up for the next MK. Also, Nightwolf at the MK2 tournament... what?



Isn't lame that Mortal Kombat (2011) makes MK1 all the way to MK: Armageddon, redundant even more so the cannon opening of MK (2011)? I mean MK Armageddon ends with everyone dying . Now with the end of MK (2011), all the characters everyone likes/ mattered are dead (again)minus Sonya, Cage and Raiden, leaving the vast majority of unpopular characters from Mortal Kombat 4 to Armageddon alive. So MK is pretty much where it left off at the end of MK Armageddon and the start of MK (2011).



The character assassination of MK 2011 of terms of story, made me dislike it more. Who do you take more seriously? Jade from UMK3 victory pose or the dumb stripper pole victory poses in MK (2011)? Johnny Cage was too much of a fool. Even from the first MK movie the writers made Cage’s character much better. The film’s Johnny Cage had a much better character progression than in the recent game. I could go on, but in a nut shell, MK since MK Deception feels like a violent cartoon series on Saturday morning thanks to the “story mode/Konquest”. Katina’s line of:” You’ll learn respect” was so cheesy and so typical of a line if I told a random person to write a line for a “royal” female. As a long time MK fan, I would have written a line of what Kitana really is , which a person who was trained and killed countless innocent people throughout her better half of 1000 years for Shao Kahn.



Sure, MK was never serious “serious”, but it was serious enough during MK1- MK DA days, that you root for a character and understood their goals. Their roles and their goals of how they represented were in their design, fighting moves, and victory poses. This in combination with their bios and endings, made the characters who they are. MK (2011) gets rid of that , with the retconned, weird sub-plots, and the oversexualation of the females. From this, I expect more dumbed down versions of cool characters and plot points from a rehash plot from John Tobias's storyline from Mortal Kombat 4. I just take it, for what it is.




Like many things, of my generation, I guess this new vision of MK isn’t meant for me. It’s for a new generation. Like more TV, music, movies, and even video games. It is sort of like how Capcom posted a few months ago that kids that grew up with Resident Evil back in 1996 are now in their late 20 and 30s, they are trying to capture the new generation. I can see how the new generation, could find the new “Kitana” and “Mileena” more appealing. I get the feeling that the writers were told to add more” appeal” to MK. Because of this, I am not upset as I was, before. I think of MK (2011) and MK2 (2014?) as not really connected to the previous trilogy.



Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance’s storyline worked because it had almost nothing to do with previous MKs. It focused on the future of MK. To me this is why this, post Tobias Mortal Kombat (storyline) worked. MK Deception is where MK took a downhill in both gameplay and storyline. Deception’s Konquest /story mode , retconned so many different things about MK past that it fell apart.


I don’t dislike Vogel or the other writers. I just find it odd, that MK has gone in this direction with time travel and the errors from the retelling. It would be better for them to stop retelling and retconned MK history .


I am burnt out of Mortal Kombat. I guess I have been since Deception. MK (2011) , should have been a clean break in terms of newness like Deadly Alliance was with new gameplay and a new storylines that progress the storyline. Instead, we have a game that caters to the UMK3 crowd and a storyline that is just a lame altered retelling/rehash of classic MK. Classic MK characters to me are ruined. Of course ,I'll get the new MK, but I am not excited to see something I saw back in 1997 retold again.



I wish we could touch on the gameplay, since how MK (2011) was more of a love letter to fans of UMK3. In fact maybe, MK(2011) is everything MK4 should have been, minus the rehash plot and settings. After all, MK(2011) has more in common with MK1,MK2,MK3,UMK3, and MKT, than any other of the MK games after MKT. Lets face it, Mortal Kombat 4 is a plain jane MK game. All the characters , pretty much played the same. I would have liked to see and new incarnation of MK gameplay with a lot of new, while having some of the core gameplay fundamentals.
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Sub-Zero_7th
04/23/2014 11:06 PM (UTC)
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ZOMG PNF!! wow

Now...getting to the story, it's still pretty bad. Yeah, I'm still not happy about it, but I'm mostly put it behind me. While I'm still into MK's overall mythology, I've been more interested in gameplay aspects of fighting games.

I think that Boon and co. really do care about the fans and go out of their way to make the best games they can. Having said that, there still seems to be an issue in terms of execution of certain ideas.

Like you said, it would have been better to have simply done a reboot instead of doing a quasi time-travel story. The portrayal of many characters is a huge issue for the story, and the Idiot Plot format of the storytelling does take away from the appeal of MK's story.

Some might give blame to the character-specific chapter format, but the bigger issue here is simply how to tell a good story. MK's universe still has great potential for great storytelling, but the mindset needs to change.
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KungLaodoesntsuck
04/25/2014 05:24 PM (UTC)
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Still a little bitter about how completely stupid Kung Lao's death was, but overall I'm cool with it.
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Chrome
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04/26/2014 06:52 AM (UTC)
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It is not that they do not care, it is that the fanbase takes the story way too seriously than they intended.

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Sub-Zero_7th
04/26/2014 07:22 PM (UTC)
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Chrome Wrote:
It is not that they do not care, it is that the fanbase takes the story way too seriously than they intended.



In some way, I can agree with you. However, I don't see an issue with wanting to have a good story considering the history of the mythology and the amount of effort NRS put into the story mode.
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ErmaSco
04/27/2014 05:35 PM (UTC)
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Chrome Wrote:
It is not that they do not care, it is that the fanbase takes the story way too seriously than they intended.



/thread
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hankypanky1
04/27/2014 05:59 PM (UTC)
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Two sides of the story in storymode! One from the Heroes perspective and one from the Villains. Everyone should get a turn. Keep the cutscenes, but please change it so that we're not stuck with one character for a chapter. It forces the writers to put a character in fights they don't need to be in.
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RazorsEdge701
04/28/2014 01:48 AM (UTC)
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I still hate all the things I hated in 2011, it's just that the hate has mellowed with the passage of time from white-hot rage to bitter disappointment.

Either way, they broke my trust and I'll never have faith in or excitement for another MK release.

At least not until they do something to rebuild that lost goodwill. A good start would be scrapping the current universe, because its very foundation is flawed...but I don't expect to see that happen for another ten or twenty years.
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Venkman28
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04/28/2014 02:06 AM (UTC)
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Over time, I feel like it could've been better. There were parts I liked about it like seeing Cyrax and Sektor before there were cyborgs, Nightwolf having much more time as well as other things

But some of the retcons like Mileena being born now, the amulet that Rayden all of a sudden had in the beginning of Story Mode (He never had one as long as I can remember from the old timeline) which is really just a Macguffin and Rayden being derpy with decisions in regards to visions.

I didn't mind Cyber Sub-Zero, but felt he should've survived and not get killed off after his chapter.

And NRS has wrote themselves into a corner with 75% of the cast of MK (2011) dead and under Quan Chi's control along with the surviving Johnny Cage and Sonya left to defend Earth. Both of them will break down trying to fight the undead versions of their comrades.

I'm just curious what's going to happen, but I'm not optimistic about it. I do feel it can be a second chance to be what Mortal Kombat 4 should've been.
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BADASS6669
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04/28/2014 03:01 AM (UTC)
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I think that after the first few chapters in MKX Story Mode we'll fight Quan Chi for the rights to the Soles of the Dammed and it will unlock them. So everybody is happy. The game will be Badass regardless!
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ErmaSco
04/28/2014 06:05 PM (UTC)
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Honestly I think its story mode. In the past and in konquest modes, the scope were larger and left a huge area for fans speculation and setting up their very own image of the story and its direction. The story mode doesn't only downsize the scope to a poorly written small high school play level,but also somehow manages to bring some of the cheesiest characters' interactions. Its a video game afterall , the character you play with must have ups and downs and even when Raiden isn't supposed to act like an idiot, he will because at the end they want you to have the sense of vulnerability.

And I totally agree, the foundation the new universe is taking is massively flawed and needless to say feels very forced. I would rather have a mere remake of the very 3 games than ruining them this way.

By all means, seeing how Injustice fared which to my OPINION was 10X times worse than MK9's,I feel the series is beyond the point of redemption.
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Zmoke
04/28/2014 08:51 PM (UTC)
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ErmaSco Wrote:
Honestly I think its story mode. In the past and in konquest modes, the scope were larger and left a huge area for fans speculation and setting up their very own image of the story and its direction. The story mode doesn't only downsize the scope to a poorly written small high school play level,but also somehow manages to bring some of the cheesiest characters' interactions. Its a video game afterall , the character you play with must have ups and downs and even when Raiden isn't supposed to act like an idiot, he will because at the end they want you to have the sense of vulnerability.

MK:A's konquest mode form could have worked better in all ways. Without the limitations of the story mode, the MK9 plot would have been drastically different. It's kind of unfortunate that the story has to come second to the gameplay mechanics. This time around, at least, an increased amount of players got the hang of what actually happened in the game storywise.
ProudNintendofan Wrote:
Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if events from this game are retconned/ignored in the next game, NRS is that bad with continuity. It's pretty obvious much of the staff doesn't care in the slightest bit and will make any changes they see fit.
I have pondered that too, I even made a thread about that rather recently.
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wdm6789
04/29/2014 04:12 PM (UTC)
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Worth mentioning again...

The Kitana/Mileena retcon, completely ruined their story, it ruined part of Shao Kahn's too, he's so much more two dimensional then he was in the original story.

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Icebaby
04/29/2014 10:55 PM (UTC)
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Sub-Zero_7th Wrote:
Chrome Wrote:
It is not that they do not care, it is that the fanbase takes the story way too seriously than they intended.



In some way, I can agree with you. However, I don't see an issue with wanting to have a good story considering the history of the mythology and the amount of effort NRS put into the story mode.


I agree with this statement 100%.

Now my two cents:

I still feel that the story was good, not great (I mentioned this before in a different thread concerning about the story). It's got its flaws. I'm intrigued to know where this story is going to head now seeing what we got in 2011. I can certainly say that Raiden has become one of my mot disliked characters. Not because of his actions in this game, but because I thought they made him utterly annoying. I get what his character is supposed to be, but my goodness, I feel that he was as useful as he was in Annihilation and I LOATHE that movie with a passion. (The very thought of it makes my blood boil). But, I liked the story, not that I liked it completely, it had its moments where I didn't like but hey, not everything is perfect.
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Sub-Zero_7th
04/29/2014 11:46 PM (UTC)
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Raiden, as portrayed by Christopher Lambert and Jeffrey Meek, are the two versions of the character (which are practically the same type of portrayal) that should have been used for the games. As for Razor had argued before, it actually makes more sense with the story since Raiden has been around humans for thousands of years and would have picked up on their different personalities, especially for blending in.

The big problem with Raiden in the last two MK games was making him the main protagonist. In fact, going on a bigger scale, the mentality of forcing a protagonist down our throats is one of the big mistakes the story writers have been making. Even though some defenders of MK 2011's story can argue that it brings about new, interesting twists and changes, a lot of things stuck to a similar formula that didn't really make it as interesting or exciting.

What if instead of Liu Kang winning the tournament that Johnny Cage or Sonya won? Let's take Johnny Cage for example. As we all know, he goes to the tournament to prove himself. As he goes through the tournament, he realizes the seriousness of what's going on and gradually matures in the process. I mean, given how his Armageddon bio has him stepping up into a more prominent role, it could have been an interesting route to explore. Instead, the story suffers from being centered around the idiot plot of Raiden trying to make sense of the mangled visions from his future self.

Shao Kahn is another problem. He's one of my favorite characters, and yet all of the interesting dynamics he had before are replaced with him being this almost dopey villain who is clearly overshadowed by Tr0ll Chi. It's really bad when the two main characters of the story have more or less been flanderized. If Shao Kahn was more like the Jeffrey Meek version, that would be awesome sauce! grin

Also, NRS shouldn't have tried to cram the stories of three games into one.
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MortalMushroom
04/30/2014 05:15 AM (UTC)
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The story did a lot right, but it did a lot wrong too. Keep in mind that there's more to the story in this game than JUST the story mode. The non-story mode aspects of the game were amazingly done and they do introduce a lot to the mythos, except this time instead of pulling some things out of thin air like the Dragon King's army or the Kamidogu like Deadly Alliance or Deception did, they expanded the characters instead, through bios and sometimes even the endings.

I LOVED learning that one of the souls in Ermac was the soul of King Jerrod. The idea that Kung Lao could be the reincarnation of the Great Kung Lao was interesting but it doesn't quite make sense. Having Johnny Cage unknowingly being a descendant of a cult of super-warriors explains a lot about him. And there's more than that too, and it's all awesome!

The actual story MODE though, I ended up not being too fond of. As for what they did right, the voice acting for MOST of the main characters was great, and really suited them. My favorites were Liu Kang, Sonya, Jax, Kitana, and Johnny Cage (especially Cage). The dialogue was corny at times but it was mostly pretty charming and they seemed to have a knack for getting the characters to interact (before the rapid clutter halfway through the events of MK2).

As for what it did wrong, it's really too much to say. The pacing was bad, unnecessary character deaths, and it just didn't really do anything impressive besides the stuff I just said they did right.

The ideal story for the next game for me (and I know this would never ever happen) would be to scrap absolutely everything and redo the entire story from MK1 to wherever (Armageddon, possibly) in a huge, 20+ hour story mode, sparing no expense for exploring and expanding every character and making it as theatrical as possible, like an interactive movie. Because we never really had a proper visual take on the real events of MK1-3 and because I'm totally okay with forgetting the MK9 story ever happened.

But realistically, I would like to see them retcon the last two chapters of MK9 and making it work from there, or just starting out directly where they left off.
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