I'm picturing classic (retro) reptile with new MK9 reptile's stance. I think that would look awesome!

human reptile (mk1 mk2 mk3)

The one and only Classic Reptile which become an icon in fighting games.

The one know is just a shadow of his former self

Now, I understand that there are those that liked the "secret lizard pretending to be a human" aspect from the early games, which we do have as canon. However, I can't really see that happening nowadays (DLC retro costume aside) because the only real reason they did that back then was because it was kind of outside the realm of possibility to have a character as a full fledged reptile throughout the fight, especially since they were using digitized actors.

Doesn't it say something that as soon as they weren't required to have somebody in the costume doing all the moves Reptile never looked like he was a human again? He was always supposed to look like a monster and the MK team have always wanted him to look that way as much as possible. As it stands, there's no more REASON to hide him.

With all that said, I'm all for Reptile showing us he's a monster full time. Maybe have him hiding that nature during story mode, but it should be clear what he really is pretty soon. That's why I have no problem with the new costume for him, though it would be nice to get a better look at it. As many others have said, the SM outfit was a good marriage of his monstrous nature and his ninja roots and it was good as well. Everything else is a bit of a step down, but it takes a lot for me to hate an outfit.

That's Bullshit.

Saying they aren't able to do a reptile looking ninja back then. Why were they able to change his damn head at his fatalities or moves. If they truly wanted to make him reotilian why not using his MK2 head during the dight and just changing the samn skin into the same color. Noob was created by chainging the color of the skin as well.

And even back then we had freaks ala Motaro, Kintaro, Goro and Sheeva... But you want to tell me there was no way to create a reptilian looking human?

That's totally BS.

They screwed him big ass... he was once whe undisputed 3rd classic ninja and by far more popular than the other pallet swaps ala Noob, Ermac and yeah even Smoke. He was the first secret character ever as well.

But now, even if he is still good looking in terms of gameplay, all this is gone and he isn't more than some servant of Shao Kahn with silly looks. Even Noob and Ermac are more discused than him and somehow even became a bit more popular than him

I know back in the days where everyone wanted to fight as Reptile just to take away his mask ans swallow the head of the opponent... Or me and my friend always loooked the first movie to watch the reptile fight and the bad-ass music

But all this is now gone and the interest is fading away.

I really liked his human look best, the render looks cool for the new one too. When he started looking like a giant walking lizard/raptor it just looked stupid IMO.

They made him look human, because palette swaps were easier and filled alot less than making a whole new character. But now they have the technology to make them look exactly like they've always wanted their characters to look like without thinking of memory space and other such issues.

Of course memory space is still something to take into consideration, but it isn't really that much of a problem anymore, if any.

Yeah changing his color in green or just giving him the lizard head like he had in his moves would take space...

Truly that's BS.

It is just color changing. They colored Noob black. Why not Reptile's skin dark green + the head that he had all the time

In the movies and all other shit he was potrayed as human ninja covering his reptilian race... But now... he is showing his bird form

Sorry... noob and Ermac became much more interesting than him and Smoke will become that as well.

You really don't know your MK history. What I stated is fact. The consoles back in the days didn't have that much memory capacity to have so many different looking characters, so therefore it was easier to just make simple palette swaps.

If you don't believe me, look it up then.

LOL yeah of course... Cuz MK take more space than other games back then.

Don't make yourself an idiot.

They could make freaks ala Motaro, Sheeva, Kintaro and Goro. But they couldn't color skin green or take the head of a reotilian like he was doing in his moves after all?

That's BS.

Look at the games which were released duting the time of at least UMK3 and than tell me this once again.

Twitter Boon and ask him yourself then if you don't believe me.

I don't think comparing the montrous version of Reptile to the Shokan or the Centaurs really fits. Yes, they had Sheeva as a playable character, but even then, in order to do it they made her a bit bigger than the rest of the cast.

And if you're talking about having done him up like Goro and Motaro, that doesn't work either. Even though the guys were basically just big guys with four arms and a few other tweaks to a basic human appearance, that required clay-mation and all that sort of thing. And in the end, they still wound up being the big guys so that they could really make it work. Doing that same thing with a smaller fighter with a more varied moveset, a look that is much more removed from the human norm, and a set of fatalities while still making them playable would have been a nightmare. And that's without even considering the memory constraints already mentioned.

When they first had Reptile as more than just a secret character, the most they could do was to show his face during the acid spit and his fatalities. Now they can do more, and so they're doing more.

I mean, seriously. What sort of game would get away with having a character that looked exactly like a human but was known to be a lizard nowadays?

Complain about making him live up to his name if you want, but I think it's the right thing to do for the character.

New primary MK9 Reptile's costume is so far his best. Perfect balance between ninja and animal look.

Very well said, Reptile showing...well, that he is a reptile is most appropriate. I understand the whole disguise angle but for someone with the ability to turn invisible such a disguise seems redundant.

Yea but...

Sometimes, you capture the complete idea of a thing the right way.... the first time.

The other thing is, Reptile started out as Shang Tsung's bodyguard. The whole concept made sense until the whole de-evolution part of his story came along.

Yes, there are problems with the whole de-evolution aspect of his storyline. I'm not going to stand here and dispute that.

But the reason the MK team felt they needed to do that was because they wanted to show Reptile as a monster but had to reconcile that with the fact that he'd always shown himself in a human disguise beforehand. And... possibly... to reconcile the differences between the MK4 model and the DA-A model.

If we start off at a point where Reptile looks less than human, then we can probably sweep a little bit about that under the rug.

I would love to see Reptile wearing the skin of his victims, roughly sewn together, and with the mask from the movie. That would be my dream reptile EDIT: MKDA was the worst reptile by a landslide

I wish they had tied the Devolution into Onaga taking over his body more, like the Dragon King's spirit was somehow preparing him to become his host ahead of time. Instead of coming up with that "it's because his people are extinct and he's away from the matriarch" thing that makes no sense.

I mean that's part of the reason they've said they changed him like that behind the scenes, they wanted build-up to him becoming the Dragon King in the next game, to have an in-between stage from classic Reptile to giant, monstrous Onaga.

Yea, you're right.

Y'know, I actually liked that part about why he started to de-evolve. I just don't appreciate that he did. lol! I more appreciate the fact that they actually explain why his looks started changing around.

I think at the end of he day, I've always thought the "reptilian man" designs fail. What it is about it I think, is that those designs seem to step too far into the fantasy element for me. It's too unbelievable. While I'm more convinced that an alien, who is a reptile, who is trying to blend in, would hide himself. Reptiles actually do this. If a given reptile were actually also humanoid, I would expect him/her to mimic our race homosapiens/humans.

Even if for nothing other than to survive among us.

I feel kinda the opposite way, I don't mind that he started changing, I hate the explanation for why he started changing.

"Apart from the matriarch" for too long? What the fuck is that? What does that even mean? What kind of species' evolution is based entirely on proximity to a single member? What makes this queen so special? How does her mere presence have anything to do with them mutating? Lizards aren't biologically forced to base their whole society around a queen, that's insects who do that.

Even for a fantasy story that doesn't make any sense!

Reptile has been living on Earthrealm protecting Shang Tsung during the MK tournament, he was a whole realm away from "the matriarch", where the fuck was this devolution then? His species has been dead since MK2 or 3, but he doesn't change until Deadly Alliance? He wasn't even devolving yet in MK4, that was just regular Reptile without his human disguise on.

I'm tellin' ya, if they had used the Dragon King as the explanation, it would've not only made more sense, it might have made people accept the change better because they'd understand that it was a one-time thing and they might better appreciate the buildup for the Dragon King's return because it'd be like "Oh, they planned it to be Reptile all along" instead of "His ending was canon? I didn't expect that."

The thing about Reptile looking human is that, aside from his time on Shang Tsung's island, he's lived most of his life in outworld under Shao Kahn's reign, so far as I understand (and Razor will no doubt correct me if I'm wrong). I doubt that anyone there would really mind if he stopped wearing the mask, given what some of the people there look like, so I can't see him feeling the need to disguise himself.

Now, on Shang's island Reptile might disguise himself as a human so that he could surprise people with extra human abilities when anyone threatened the sorceror. Once the story leaves the island, so too does the justification of a "surprise monster" bodyguard.

And, on the note of the de-evolution, I kind of have an idea about that. Since we only hear that flimsy justification during DA, after the rest of his people are already dead and Reptile himself has gone just a little mad from the change, is it at all possible that he was the only one people could ask what was going on and that was the answer he came up with in his insanity? It's just as flimsy, I know, but I wouldn't mind seeing it used as a justification for a retcon to see the "Dragon King preparing his vessel" thing become the canon reason.

Remind me to NEVER cross paths with Icebaby. Razor got PWNED!

Back on topic though, my favourite look of his was the Deadly Alliance look. I used to love his MK2 and UMK3 outfit but when he actually began to lose control of his mind and regress into a more primal creature, I thought the whole concept of it was genius. It was a shock at first, but I liked it.

I love his new look too, I really cant see what the problem is that fans have with it. Admitedly, for a game thats going back to it's nostalgic roots it should look a lot more like his original mk2 outfit. But I like this, it's got him humanoid but still very reminscent of his MK4 outfit too. The only look I didnt like for Reptile was his alternate in MK:DA. His Shaolin Monks outfit was cool for a while but by Armageddon I grew bored of it.

lol, I did? You really think so? Let's just say I wasn't so impressed. But I'm sure she'll take that personally like she takes every post I make that has her name in it. She thinks I'm stalking her or something.

She sent me a PM this morning, demanding that if I don't agree to never post a response to anything she says ever again, she would tell the mods I'm "harrassing" her and demand they do something about it.

True story. I'm not making that up, she actually did this. You can't MAKE someone not post on an internet forum. And you certainly can't threaten them with blackmail that doesn't actually exist! She's THAT incapable of handling ordinary criticism. I think this whole internet drama queen thing is ridiculous, quite frankly. I'm not chasing her around or harassing her, I don't think anything much of her, and I'm not about to start treating her special. I'm simply responding to posts on a message board and sometimes she says things that don't make sense and I question them, just as I'd question whenever anyone says things that don't make sense.

All I'll say further on the matter is this: Reptile's devolution's not even obscure. It's not something you have to dig around a krypt to know about, it comes up in every single thread about Reptile. THAT is why I was surprised she didn't know it.

I don't ridicule people when they didn't read the third picture on the fifth page in the krypt or something stupid like that. I have never done that. When someone doesn't know something obscure, I understand completely why they wouldn't have known that, and I usually even help them find the source if they're looking for it. The fact that she acts like I am that guy and that's how I'm treating her just makes this whole thing that much more cartoonishly overblown.

Frankly, I get the distinct impression she is harrassing me by behaving this petulantly.

I was cracking a joke Razor, bu Internet humour's not really my forte. Apologies about that man.

Fair enough. I'm just a little uptight at the moment about this internet drama she's been flinging my way. I don't come here to pretend I'm a cast member on The Real World, I come here to talk about Mortal Kombat. This personal feuds stuff is obnoxious, but it did make me feel a little better to get that whole ridiculous PM blackmail thing out in the open air.

Apologies for letting it derail the topic, everybody. Back to the subject of Reptile...

I dunno, I half-agree with Predator that some of Reptile's appeal was his MK1 hidden character status and how the human disguise really captures that sense of "I'm fooling the human fighters into thinking I'm normal like them, but then I'm gonna reveal I'm a creature like they've never seen before and kill them." I just really wish his human disguise LOOKED like a disguise, that you could TELL there's something not quite right when you look at him. I'm tellin' ya, peach scales like in MKSM vs. mode or to make the flesh look like he skinned it off someone and made a slightly sloppy skinsuit would be great.

And on the other side of it, I ALSO agree with Drake that the disguise only works during Shang's tournament. When he's around other Outworlders, or his disguise has already been given away, during MK2 and 3, it no longer seems to serve a purpose for him to keep wearing it. At that point he should just look like his normal Saurian self dressed in a ninja uniform.