Considering how they handled the story in MK: Shaolin Monks, I'm definitely not having my hopes up. A problem with this series is that there's still too much attachment to nostalgia with the old characters. Being the first game under WB, NRS should have made this the game in which they start a new era for the series by having real "newness" by bringing in a fair bit of new characters instead of going back to all of the old ones. I think that it's not just the direction of the story that is ticking people off. The content seems to also be an issue, such as the stuff with Kung Lao. It's like they're trying to fix what wasn't broken to begin with.

Oh, I have plenty of problems with the script that relate to pacing and plotholes, not just characters I'm a fan of being mis-managed.
The dialogue is snappier and better written than Shaolin Monks, I'll give it that...at least, during the first half, it is. During the parts where it's more character driven than plot driven and the personalities are allowed to shine like they should.
But it feels like it was written on a rushed deadline and they really couldn't make the format of having a limited number of character-specific chapters work because it's just all over the place by the end and it doesn't cover everything it should by a long shot, it ONLY tells the story of Raiden trying to prevent his time visions, to the detriment of almost all the other characters and sideplots that're supposed to be occurring.
That was my biggest disappointment while I was reading it, to be honest. It started out very good but by the end I was just immensely let down by how little character there was left in it. To see great potential and then watch it fall away in a piece of writing is sad...
And the argument of course will always be "well it'll surely come off much better when you can actually watch it, and aren't just reading the dialogue." And maybe some scenes will be better with the visuals added in. But for me, dialogue was the part I was most looking forward to from this game because that's where you get character from, that's what shows their personalities. And so much of the cast needs a personality yet...
And I'm sorry to say, without spoiling anything, most of the underdeveloped characters are STILL not any more developed personality-wise than they were before this game, they're exactly the damn same. Only the ones who already HAD fleshed out personalities, like Johnny Cage for instance, do much shining.

Thank you for this post. I now understand what appear to be legitimate issues. Are these problems that can't be fixed in the sequel? Is it honestly worth "dropping the series" over?

Yes. Mortal Kombat can't afford throwing its mythos out of the window.

Why? They have before and the series has more than survived. What this series can't survive is another abysmal mess in the gameplay department. Shaolin Monks was laughably bad in the narrative department and it was one of the best MK games of the last generation. This series will more than survive handful of people that willing to leave over the storyline if the gameplay is solid (which it is.)

Anything CAN be fixed, just write more damned time travel or another reboot or what have you.

The real question is...WILL they? Do they know how? Does NRS even believe there's anything to fix? Maybe they like this mess they've made. Maybe they never really knew what we liked about the original games' story the first time around and thus, lack the ability to recreate the magic?

Obviously, these are questions we can't answer until like three years from now when the sequel actually exists and we can see if they've cleaned up after themselves or made an even bigger mess.
But for the right here and now? I can absolutely see why someone like Warlady would choose to not buy MK9. She wasn't in it for the gameplay, so the fact that that's good is never going to console her.

Last time I checked, several users left the site due to the absurd amount of crap that got leaked, not because they found out the game's story was poor... This tells me that they were more aggravated due to the leakage, not because of the story.

I'm certain that the game's story is decent. Whether or not anyone is going to agree with me, I'm still sticking with that because I'll judge it when I see it with my own eyes when I'm discovering things through the game, not through the leaks.

That's not what THIS thread is about, though, is my point. This thread is about people who're mad the story sucks and whether or not they'll still support the game with their money in spite of that.

Of course I know what this thread is about, Razor... The point is though is that the remainder of the story was leaked out to you all and MAJORITY of you users took the time to read them. If these leaks never came about, you all would still be questioning and figuring out possibilities what the story would be like.

I know that you're all bummed about how the story went, I get that and I'm not stupid to see that. Even if I'm not mentioning it in my post, I get the picture. But it's still the fact that you're upset about the leak as well. If these things never got leaked, you all wouldn't be disappointed right now. So yeah, I can state that you're upset about the leakage, because if these things never got released, you all wouldn't be dropping the series or not supporting the game.

You took the time to read something that shouldn't have gotten released to the public. If it never got released, we'd all be questioning still. But since it's leaked, you're bummed.

We'd be disappointed a month from now instead of disappointed now if nothing had leaked.

The leak was a good thing, it gave us time to prepare for the shock of how shitty the story turned out.

And for my part, the leak saved me a hundred bucks. I WAS going to preorder the Kollector's Edition for the art book, but after seeing that they just churned out another Shaolin Monks, I was able to decide to save my cash and now I'm getting the game as a gift from a friend instead.

Here's the thing. Given MK's track record as well as having knowledge of the premise of the story, it can be expected that the story of this game was going to turn out horribly. Instead of truly moving forward with the story, we get a hokey time travel story that attempts to "fix" things, only to create more messes.

Hell the fuck no I wouldn't drop the series over a crap story. I was a HUGE, and I mean, HUGE fan of MK's story. I used to only play the games all for that aspect. But after the past few games I've just given up on it. MK is a FIGHTING game, not a novel, so I can live with a crap story and awesome "everything else". Not saying I want the story to remain that way but...I just don't care any more.

I already made it clear that while MK is a FIGHTING game series, the story and characters are big staples to it. I don't see why the story and characters can't or shouldn't be done well if NRS bothers to even give such attention to them in the first place. About the fighting aspects, well, MK hasn't had a good track record. This new game looks promising, but I'm not keeping my hopes up, because we'll most likely see an assortment of problems revealed within the first week of its release.

Every day brings me a new emotion. I've seen cyborg Sub-Zero.

At this point I'd rather be buried in the cemetery of Buffalora and be brought back as a zombie by doctor Xabaras while my soul works in the salt mines of Golconda for all fucking eternity than give a shit about MK anymore.

My last word in: Sonya fucking sucks forever.

Goodbye.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out! Because I don't want ass prints on my new door!

I did not understand anything that was just said there aside from zombie.

Yeah, unfortunately you'll be back on sooner or later. No one leaves this site forever.

It's just like World of Warcraft... No one leaves that game forever... just taking long breaks from it. XD

Because research is basically the hardest thing.

On topic: No, I wouldn't drop MK purely for story reasons. Quite the opposite really, the more jumbled and messy the storyline gets, the more I like it. A youth misspent on DC comics kinda conditioned me to dig stuff like this.

She's coming back they always come back. To get on topic I'm never leaving mk even if smoke Kung Lao dies. I've been playing mk most of my life.

Dude, I just did this not too long ago. Stopped playing for a month, I've been playing for at least four straight days in a row... (Of course not the entire day, but at least two to three hours per day).

No one ever leaves. No matter how much the game made you starting to hate.

I haven't played Wow in two months now... but now I spend most of my freetime on this forum, always looking for news until the games come out. One addiction took over after the other. XD

Me, I really don't care about the storyline because it always has been crap. The rest means a lot tho.

Because of the obvious restrictions of the technology, Mortal Kombat's story was very disjointed and awkward through MK1-4. Deadly Alliance was the first MK game where I actually felt like there was a sturdy story that was far more coherent and interesting than 99% of most fighting games. I am talking about the main games here, not comics, not movies, not spin-offs.

I think MK1-4 needs a retelling. I also think MK needs a reboot.

This was a genius way of doing both!

It's all at once wiping the slate clean while not REALLY saying F*** you to everything that came before. It's retelling MK 1-3 while keeping it fresh and tossing surprises at us vets!

And so what if many characters bite the dust. It's not like that's something new to the series... and this time around the deaths actually mean something because it's not the characters 8th death, it's technically their first.

I think people will generally think this story is fantastic for a fighting game and the best MK story yet.

From what I've seen storywise, MK is better than ever.

I agree what Neatherrealm studios has done is just UNFORGIVABLE!