So Mortal Kombat X returns with a great, cinematic story mode that rivals, if not excels, the one before it.

It had a lot of good things going for it. A lot of the new characters were good, they meshed well. There was a lot going on, but it was paced well, the story never sacrificed itself for the sake of the character you were using, and it made a good habit of using characters that weren't even playable, making sure to incorporate as much of the characters as possible. The ones you wanted, the ones you didn't, they were all there.

Of course, this is where the problem sets in, because you end up having so many characters, you don't know what to do with them. Let's start with how my personal favorites got jobbed this time around.

Reptile was a virtual non-entity. It was great that he actually got to speak this time around, but again, he did nothing. He had the same number of fights as non-playable characters. Rain had more of an impact on the story than Reptile, who wasn't even present in some scenes where the rest of Kotal Kahn's group were. I'm glad the devs have the decency to keep him around, really, I am, I just wish the writers could figure out something to do with him. Speaking of which, let's move on to my next personal favorite, so I can finish with complaints based in bias...

Ermac got fucked over. Ermac got fucked over when he was in a position to do a lot of work in the story this time around. His ending in MK9 left him juxtaposed as King Jerrod, something which would have made a good story element on its own, and if I remember correctly was something we all liked. More than that, it could have become so much more in the context of MKX's war for rule of Outworld. Instead of that, though, this character, who had one of the better stories at the end of MK Armageddon, was turned once again in to generic goon #4.

Ermac, moreso than Reptile, is a character teeming with story potential, but it's another case of the writers dropping the ball to focus on new characters, which was a big problem this time around. It felt like the focus was entirely on the new cast, with the writers having the idea that we wouldn't care about what the veterans did as long as they were there.

Which begs the question, why were they even there? In fact, in some cases I was wondering how they were even there. How was Scorpion human again? How was Sub-Zero, who died a cyborg human again? I want to believe these were answered in "blink and you miss it moments," much like Jax's own revival (the time frame of which was more than a bit sketchy, seeming to take place in the present but with implications that he'd been there while Jacqui was growing up). The whole mechanic of the revivals was handled in a very inexplicable and incomplete manner, it was just fucking sloppy, and I really hope I wasn't the only one confused by it.

Another disappointing thing was that there was, once again, no focus on the villains. MK9 went through most of the story from the heroes' perspective, which made sense, and it really worked to its advantage when it blindsided you by killing most of them in one fell swoop. That said, with the introduction of new villain characters in addition to heroes, including the Anti-Villain Kotal Kahn, I expected them to get more focus, more chapters, more of an ability to play through and see them develop. But again, there was a ball, and it was dropped, and the only time we got to play as a villain without a hero sectioned within arms reach was Kotal Kahn's chapter, which really only served to frame the narrative, and contributed nothing else.

Finally, there were just... so many lingering plot threads, there were too many, and not even in a cliffhanger kind of way. What happened to Kotal Kahn when he returned to Outworld? Did he even make it? How many of his subordinates were killed along the way? How many of Mileena's subordinates were killed before then? What happened to Kano (or was the end to his rivalry with Sonya really that forgettable)? What happened to Nightwolf after his first fight with Kenshi? What the hell happened to Noob, the only character who wasn't mentioned in this game??

On the surface level, story mode was great, if you take it at face value. It was a fun, engaging story, a great amount of action, beautiful cutscenes, enjoyable characters, emotional scenes that never got too hammy or embarrassing. But beneath the surface, it's really lacking, it feels like we were given a really nice chess set, but for some reason it only came with the white pieces. I guess I'll wait for MKXI or some kind of sequel comic series, but that's it, that's not everything, but that's what bugged me the most about the story.

Oh, and Ferra/Torr did not need to exist. Like, at all. In any capacity.