Both.

I love MK lore and I probably know every tidbit about the story.

I'm passionate about the characters, the secrets, everything. I always loved videogames but MK was the first game to ever fascinate me, hell, I'm still fascinated by the plethora of secrets this series has, the characters have soul, they have charisma, the arenas, the realms... sure, I love the gameplay to death, but it's a mix of both... I feel like I actually know every realm, I feel like it's a real world, and it's fun to be able to play in those places.

ps: I actually hate most "cinematic" gaming of nowadays. I hate those games where you keep going from cutscene to cutscene and the gameplay is boring. But MK has top-notch story (IMHO) and interesting characters, as well as a fun style of gameplay, so, to me, both aspects are important to me in this series. Sure, I would play MK if it was made of stick figures because the gameplay is fun, but I wouldn't spend the insane amount of time posting and thinking about it hehehe

Definitely gameplay.

It's a fighting game, by default gameplay should take precedence. The actually fighting is the core of the game. And the meta continues to evolve overtime. A story is a one time experience. An amazing experience, but it only lasts one playthrough.

I like the story, it's fairly interesting. But since MKA it's been a little ridiculous. I still enjoy the story and the characters, but gameplay will always trump the story for me.

Definitely gameplay first. While the story is nice to have, especially HOW they did it in MK9 (not necessarily agreeing with WHAT they did), it's something you go through a few times at best and thats it. The gameplay is what decides if you keep playing the game months or even years after release. This is especially the case for fighting games. Look at SF Third Strike. Its still being played and I can tell you its not cause of the story

Story, I'd love to have a PS2 Collection of MKDA/D/A just because I love that Arc. I do replay the games for the story.
I only have a few PS2 games left from those days. Final Fantasy X, FFXI & the Mortal Kombats.

Plus this question is about more interested, from the looks of things its basically MK9+Injustice. So we know a lot about the actual gameplay. Story we only know the timeframe. So I'm more interested in seeing what they have to say about the story.

Story Mode- I'll be intrigued if every character had their own.

Game Play- If you consider the special moves and Fatalities, I'm in. The speed doesn't really matter. MK9 had a decent speed. MK3 was off the rails with the hyper implement.

As an MK fan, I want the game to be as successful as it can, and the only way it can happen it is if MK has superb gameplay and SOME kind of story. I LOVED all MKs on PS2 despite shortcomings in the gameplay department, and it was because of story. I want new MKs to have solid and well thought storyline like in the original timeline. So far MK9 kinda let me down in that regard (gameplay was the best for me alongside MK Shaolin Monks, no complaints there). Lets hope MKX becomes new MK Deadly Alliance for me (storywise,I am pretty sure NRS proved already they can make awesome gameplay given time and resources).

I can assure you that when I get to the age of 75(Maybe not even then, 75 year olds these days are as active and vital as people in their 30s. So let's kick it up and say 95) I'll sit on my front porch and think about those great games. But I can assure you I'll be thinking about how FUN they were to PLAY- not the cheesy cut scenes and convoluted story. All of that stuff is the icing on the cake, don't get me wrong, but at the end of the day I'm here to play a game, so gameplay will be what lasts for me. Hell every now and again I fire up Armageddon and best believe, that has nothing to do with its shitty story.



This. I'm not saying story ISN'T important, but at the end of the day gameplay should always be the first priority...THEN the story. But I'd take great gameplay and a lame story any day(MK9) over shitty gameplay and a fantastic story. As I said, if I wanted nothing but a brilliant story I'd go find a novel. Gameplay has to come first.

This site answers the question itself.

Look at the Gameplay section and look at everything else. We spend more time discussing the story of the series than we do gameplay mechanics.

The thing is, because it is a fighting game people expect for the gameplay mechanics to be good. That's not a surprise nor should it be. However, the story is something of greater interest. Most fighting games have a story no one pays attention to. However, with Mortal Kombat, interviewers ask about the story. They try to urge Boon or someone else to throw hints as to what's going on and what we can expect.

The story is clearly the most important factor of Mortal Kombat, because it's the one thing that people don't expect out of a fighting game, but MK has it. Blood and gore may create a great shock value, but it's the story that makes MK special.

Yes, the story makes MK special to us diehards, but general audiences don't seem to give a crap about story. Most people's knowledge of the story ends after MK2. Most of them are in it for the gameplay. I just don't see the casual gamer biting their finger nails, rocking back and forth going "Oh my...oh my...I so cannot wait for story mode! It's going to be the shit! This will be the best MK story ever!". No. Their looking at the awesome gameplay and characters and jazzing over that, as they should be.

Now diehard fans? Yes I can see them being hyped for storymode even if the gameplay is shit, but the rest of the world? Not so much.

Well....I don't want the game to play like crap, that's for sure. But, whenever I unwrap a MK game, I go straight to playing for the sake of finding out what happened to the characters.Only after I'm fed from the story element do aim for leaders boards and so on.

In a fighting game the gameplay is always number one for me. Good story doesn't hurt tho.

About 50/50, though recent years have had me lean more towards gameplay. I won't say I'm not the least bit excited about where things are headed this game, though.

Both are important, but I play more for the story. I'm not an intensely serious gamer when it comes to fighting games, I don't know all the terms and slang the tournament people use, and honestly I'm probably not even that good. I still enjoy the gameplay a ton because that's the point of a game, but as long as the fighting isn't bad then I'm alright. If everything flows smoothly and all the characters are balanced, that's all I ask for. I care most about the story for the interactions and fates of the characters and how the events impact them and possibly set up the rest of the series. I would also like to know if Scorpion is ever ever ever going to stop fighting Sub Zero.

Spoiler alert

This pretty much sums up exactly how i feel.

For me I'd say story, personally Tekken Tag 2 overshadowed MK9 for me as far as gameplay (don't hate me plz) so I didn't play it much outside of going through story mode twice, but I've always been a fan of the lore.

Although it irks me that the MK4 era won't be the whole story(I've always felt that MK4 was the least elaborated of the others and Shinnok needs some sort of redemption as being a threat) i'm still interested to see what they do.

In my case, when it comes to the story, my excitement or lack thereof has a big part on which returning characters come back so I guess we'll be seeing how that goes.

I have just about the exact same collection of PS2 games as yourself (Plus a few of the DBZ Budokai games) FFX and Deception being two of my absolute favorites, so I thought that was pretty cool.

I have to go with story for this one, pretty much for the exact same reasons Razor mentioned earlier. Story is what personally brings me back to these games, for example I like the gameplay of MK9 over Deceptions, but I play Deception consistently because of it's story/konquest. Deception is my favorite MK game so far.

I still go back and play MKDA, MKD and MKA when MK9-level gameplay is available to me.

GG.

Story.