Yeah I'd say these are some of the best new characters we've had in a long time. Granted we get a lot more of the characters' personalities both from the comics and the fact there are unique Intro dialogues. I love Cassie and D'Vorah. I like Takeda from what I've seen in the comics and the trailer. Kung Jin and Jacqui I'm indifferent toward. Erron Black doesn't do anything for me.

I reserve the right to wait before I pass final judgment. These characters I'm not sure about could grow on me,

That casting call claims he's a younger cousin.

I can't say they are objectively the best for everyone, but for me, this is the best roster of newcomers since MK2.

The new characters introduced in MK3-Deception have not captured my imagination and excitement like the newcomers to MKX have.

Still too many variables to say, imo. It's one thing to have a strong opinion based on what we've seen so far, but until you have played the game you don't know all the information for one, but more importantly you don't know how the character feels and plays.

Maybe I'm just biased towards hands-on gameplay over streams and trailers. Anyway, I believe there are three major factors when considering the roster's quality of a given MK game:

1. New characters, design, gameplay, story, etc.

2. Returning characters, same criteria plus comparing their story to previous appearances.

3. Final boss or bosses, story comparison applies if they're returning.

In a vacuum, I would say that MKX's roster is above average. We're getting mainstay returning characters (though I disagree with a few choices), mostly intriguing new characters, and while we don't quite know for sure who the big bad is (I'm referring to the Arcade-style towers as well as Story), we can trust that it's someone we'd probably want to fight. I've even talked myself into Spawn being a good guest character to have, so I like where the DLC is going as well. Is it the best roster ever? Again, too soon to say, I need to play the game first.

To me, the first roster that really wasn't amazing was MK4's. I've got a lot of love for every roster before that point, but MK4 let me down. I wasn't into Quan Chi at all, Jarek felt lazy, and Kai's ending should not be as funny as it is. I also don't really like the idea of playable bosses unless we're talking like a MKT/MKA style game where everyone under the sun is playable.

MKDA and MKD really weren't much better, if not worse. Deadly Alliance had a pretty cool premise to its story and they made some really solid choices with the returnees, but the newbies were really hit and miss. Kenshi, BRC, and Mavado were cool in my book, but the rest ranged from meh to awful. Also, I could understand the limitations of the game and such, but Shang still doesn't feel right without morphs. I miss it a lot lol. MKD had Havik, who I really enjoyed, and Based Jinko, who quite frankly gets more hate than he deserves. I'll take him over anyone else from the Order-Chaos arc. What saved that game were the returning characters, though. Ermac, Kabal, Jade, Sindel, Mileena, and Kenshi were great picks to come back and were all written pretty well.

I don't really count MKA because there were only 2 new characters, and neither interested me very much. The last game obviously was all returning characters with the exception of the guests, and yet somehow that story ended up being a disaster because of both the leak and the laughably bad writing that had a lot of pointless events (lolz guise we made sub-0 a robot but then we killed him and smokes anywayz)


TL;DR - MKX's roster might be the best since UMK3, but I'm going to wait until I play it to fully judge.

Not the best batch of new characters ever, but definitely the best since MK3. This new bunch of characters are quite varied. We have a Bug lady, Tag team character, Blood/Sun God, and a very Western inspired Gunslinger. Just these guys by themselves are more interesting than most MKDA-MKD characters.

But then we also have Descendant characters. This makes me feel like the game is actually progressing now that we have a new generation of characters.

I think overall fan reception wise they will be, but i also think that has laregly to do with how great MKX is going to be. especially at actually introducing the new people and integrating them into the universe.

Cassie and Jacqi are just so generic, at least as far as their outfits go. I know they will have acts, but they are just very plain and boring.

To break it down, if you describe them simply

Insect Lady
Aztec God
Giant with little person on its back
Whiplash guy
Weird bow weapon guy

Then

Army girl with gun
Army girl w/ flame thrower

The last two just don't seem all that exciting

Its definitely not mk 2 but its close . Honestly even mkx worst characters aren't horrible .

I'm going to reserve judgment until I see gameplay. Takeda is the most interesting to me with the whips, I think that's awesome. Kung Jin is cool. I have no idea what to make of Jacqui at all. Her xray is pretty cool but that's literally all I know and her design isn't very inspired.

And to those saying they're teenagers, they're like 25 years old. Cassie and Jacqui are 15 in the comic and the parts of the story with them take place around the 25 year mark.. Just because they're someones children doesn't make them children. Relax.

But Kotal's band of newbies I like a lot, couldn't be better. But I've always been leaned towards the monster/Outworld type characters.

Fixed that for you.

Really? i like them. They're both seem like they're my cup of tea.

No, unless they come with 1 or 2 more surprises that will blow me away. Even if it is the best, that is not saying much. For all the greatness that is MK, NRS seems rather uninspired in their creation of new characters throughout the years. To the point where they even make fun of their own stupidities. To me, since MK2 these are the only truly new and creative characters they've come up with:

- Kabal, fresh
- Nightwolf, good idea, but could've been a lot better
- Motaro, they tried and it didn't work out.
- Ermac, but only since later games.
- Kenshi, fresh, never done before
- Onaga, they tried and it didn't work out.
- Havik, good idea, but in the end not very well designed.
- Fujin, good idea, but could've been a lot better
- Sektor / Cyrax, fresh
- Nitara, good idea, but could've been a lot better
- Chameleon, they tried and it didn't work out.

I might have missed one or two, but most were replacements, related or alternates to earlier characters imo. Seriously, just looking at some of the fan art for Ermac, Reptile, even for Tremor is way better than 90% of newly introduced MK characters since MK2. I don't know why it's so hard to come up with great characters that fit the MK mold but it seems to be rather difficult.

Now let's look at MKX new ones:
Design wise, the new Special Fources with Cassie, Takeda, Jin & Jacqui are very bland. Erron Black is not that much better, since the loner outlaw / cowboy idea while in itself is good, just straight copying the popular cowboy image is not. Ferra is okay I guess, could have a nice story and the little midget on his shoulders is something new. D'vorah is cool, an insect inspired character is just the kind of new thing NRS needs to do more of. Kotal Kahn is the best so far, story wise and design wise.

I agree, design and story wise, Kotal is the best so far, followed by D'vorah.

It's not looking bad so far, but I will have to see the final game to make my final judgment.

As it stands Mortal Kombat 3 and Deadly Alliance are still in the top in this category.

If Erron is in him and Takeda will have been some of the freshest designs I've seen in quite sometime. I'm not a kotal ft or dvorah fan at all. But Erron n' Takeda both took my interest.

Erron more so because of the outlandish badassery he carries.

I find Kotal, DVorah, Ferra Torr and Kung Jin interesting so far and look forward to finding out more about them as well as playing as them.

Cassie, Jaqui and Takeda don't interest me so much tho obviously we've seen so little of Jaqui and Takeda so that hopefully will change. I'm intrigued to know what their fighting is like and what their story brings. At the moment they just seem so uninspired to me.

Anyone else have a feeling that the newer characters are so popular in MKX because MK9 was such a solid game all-around that people are expecting the same thing this time instead of being wary like pre-release DA/Deception?

As far as best roster since the older games since everyone loves those out of nostalgia, or at least they refuse to see flaws with MK1/2, I really liked a lot of Deadly Alliance and Deception's characters.

MK4 wasn't bad. Reiko and Kai were sorta interesting. I just wished Tanya and Reiko didn't look like palette swaps with minor alterations. Shinnok was better as a creepy robed fuck from Mythologies and Quan Chi was alright but he got played out way too fast having no personality, backstory, and just getting pushed way too much.

Deadly Alliance had a lot of cool new characters. Kenshi and Bo Rai Cho were all around great, Li Mei had a decent design (her primary anyway) and story, Frost was surprisingly alright for a student of Sub-Zero with the same powers, and Nitara at least offered a new realm we never got to see.

Deception brought Ashrah and Havik who were both really damn cool all around like Kenshi and Bo Rai Cho, and Hotaru and Darrius weren't bad either. Kobra and Kira needed some reworking but Dairou was really bland.

So far in MKX Ferra/Torr, Kotal Kahn, Cassie, Jacqui, and D'Vorah all seem pretty good. Takeda, Kung Jin, and Erron Black don't feel like MK characters to me yet.

MK2 wins obviously. But next in line for me is MK4. I Loved every newb except Jarek.

Dvorah is my fav newb of MKX so far. I Like KotaL Kahn, but I'm afraid he will be another Drahmin. Meaning he LOOKS awesome and has an awesome storyline, but doesn't deliver on gameplay. I'll wait to judge him once the game is out, becuz from what I've seen so far, the developers aren't that good with him. LoL

MK3 probably had the best new characters IMO. Sindel, Kabal, Nightwolf, and Sektor are some of my favorites and Sheeva is cool too. Plus the update had Ermac and Rain. Motaro was also a really cool sub boss.

I believe this feeling is simply because this is the first time we get to witness new MK characters in a full-fledged story mode and not some bio cards. We are more um...for the lack of a better word, interacted? with these new characters more than the past characters. We got comics and a story mode that will let us learn more about these characters more than what we probably could learn from the bio cards.

And yet, we still haven't played the story mode, so you guys feelings may change by the end of it.

Now there's a demographic difference.
Most of you guys are in it for the Story. So I guess this is why most of you are comparing characters that you never played as yet against the past characters we already experienced.

As for me, eh for the story.

But as for gameplay?
Obviously can't judge yet.

So as for character concept?

D'Vorah and Kotal Kahn is the only ones that intrigue me.

Kung Jin is ALMOST close. The deal breaker for me was that I would immediately hate him if he was related to Nightwolf because that would be too cheap of a character design for me. And him being related to Kung Lao doesn't effect the character concept at all, and that's good.

D'Vorah is a god damn bug lady. C'mon! This is like Darkstalkers status. It's unfortunate that we don't have more visually odd characters.

While an Aztec looking dude is already done, the concept of Kotal Kahn is better than just another human character.