Hey now, I wasn't JUST patronizing Chrome with that one.

Half the people on this board throw around that ignorant "I don't think romance fits MK" line as if for some bizarre, arbitrary reason, fighting games can only ever depict people who are angry and want revenge for something, never positive interactions.

The only possible excuse for that that makes any psychological sense to me is if all those people just plain get unhappy when they see scenes of people kissing in movies and shit.

Okay, let's be nice and change what I just said to "SOME of those people". I'm sure a few really do believe somehow that fighting Outworld is SO time consuming that there's no room for quiet moments...even though we've SEEN plenty games where that's not true, or that "it's inappropriate to pursue romance during a war" even though none of the MK games are ABOUT a war, really. MK3 is fought in a DAY via one-on-one skirmishes, DA and Deception are both about heroes WALKING for a long time and then having the boss fight when they get where they're going like Lord of the Rings, and there are months to years of peaceful downtime between each game where the characters could be getting to know each other better and the like.

No more descendants.

I think that Shang Tsung might have a few great-great-great-great grand kids running around. Wasn't he alive for about 1000 years or something? Plus it would be a great opportunity to have someone say "Why does my great-great-great-great grand father look better than I do?"

I don't particularly have any beef with him, but I also tell anyone that he/she's an asshole without sugarcoating it. probably because the majority would eat that up as well.

And I am also a dick, I make no secret out of that. but to assume that we are only that is a gross udnerestimating of ourselves.

Given that the particular novels use less than 10 characters in it's narrative I would not say it is about war. Just because it is based on the most extensive fictional war universe does not mean it can not be anything else.

If there is a place for romance in MK it is in background or in material not primarily preoccupied with the subject matter.

Also, I do not know if this is an American thing, but without harkening back to movies... why? Why can't they be JUST comrades in arms? This one is subjectively my preferential choice, but I find romance one:

1. disingenuous most of the time. 2. overplayed. 3. overused.
4. atrociously far from the real thing.

Also, they would have to do it the smart way if anything. MK is basically self-parodical with it's own stuff, nowehere near as serious as we make/made it out to be. And I do not think that would be digestible given it's goofy nature.

Hopefully there's only a few descendants, after Cassie I hope there's only 3-4 more. That's all. It shouldn't overtake the roster and just start having random kids of past/dead fighters. More original is what i'd like.

I want to see a descendant character from Jax. We never knew enough about his personal life to rule out him having already had a kid somewhere before getting killed off in MK2011.

Even though i'd like to see an aged Jax with brand new arms, higher tech shit like Kano. I'd like to see a kid just as much though, but for tradition they'd really need some sort of augmentation done to them. Like father like son. And a descendant of Nightwolf, a female of course.

Because it would be placing a completely artificial and arbitrary barrier on the kinds of stories that can be told in an otherwise extremely diverse setting.
You can't go "Warhammer can be about more than just war, you can tell character-driven stories in that setting too" and then in the same post go "Mortal Kombat CAN'T be about more than just fighting and platonic comradery" without sounding a little hypocritical.



It would be more accurate to say MK is contradictory in its presentation.

Yes, many game elements are comedic and self-parodying. The STORY elements, however, are almost never so and do take themselves seriously outside of isolated incidents like Mokap.
At the end of the day, I would say this: it's ONE thing to have the opinion that romances you have seen have been poorly done and that YOU would rather avoid potential future ones, that's on you to avoid the thing you don't like, or to suck it up and tolerate the parts you don't like when they exist as smaller elements within a thing you overall do like, or hell, to go on the net and complain about the parts you don't like after the fact, that's fine. It's ANOTHER thing entirely to say an artist SHOULDN'T do a thing with their art or that doing that thing is somehow objectively WRONG or "doesn't fit" when it clearly does and already has, because it goes against your opinion. Police yourself, not the franchise.
The creators intended for love interest angles, those angles blatantly exist in games we already have, they have existed since 1993. It's just plain WAY too late to go "There's no room for romance in Mortal Kombat".

The argument just made a godawful idea cross my mind. Ok, here it is:

Movie trailer voice guy: In a world filed with centaurs, 4-armed monsters and what ever the f*ck that is...

Baraka: I told you! I'm a Tarka-

Movie trailer voice guy: one man has a confession...

Shang Tsung: I've... I've never had sex before...

Baraka and Noob: *falls out of chair* WHAT!?

Movie trailer voice guy: Shang Tsung is... The 1000 Year Old Virgin. Coming soon to a theater near you.

^ Had to get that out of my system.

I don't think MK shouldn't have any romance at all, just that it might work better for a tv show or a movie. Really, you could flesh out so much more in tv show or a movie. Its not impossible to have a game have a deep plot, just harder when you have fit in fighting game play.

How MUCH of the relationships between characters needs to be depicted vs. how much can be implied or referred to after-the-fact is certainly a matter of opinion.

But personally I think it's counterintuitive to the whole IDEA of storytelling to have important character development happening off-screen. Like...in MKX, we're going to see Johnny and Sonya's child. So if Johnny and Sonya are in the game and have scenes together, but NEVER show any affection to one another, wouldn't that be kind of retarded? Wouldn't that actively contradict Cassie's backstory/very existence?

But yes, telling the story of Mortal Kombat in a novel or comic book or cartoon or anime or live-action TV show or miniseries or movie or SOMETHING that's actually passive entertainment WOULD be better than telling it in the limited gameplay-beholden medium of video games...in theory.

In practice, however, everyone who's done it to date has sucked at it. So I'd rather let someone who knows the lore do it for now...even though they too have started to suck at it.

I'd like to see a Sorceress, which would be the counterpart of Shang Tsung, Quan Chi and Shinnok.

That would be awesome! Quan Chi will finally have real competition. Who better to oppose him than a woman?

I'd be intrigued if she was to be on the good side. She would also play somewhat different than the Sorcerers, in accordance to moves and such.

Razor could teach a college course on the MK lore lol

There's Reptile/Khameleon. There's also Ass-pull family members like playing as someone's brother/nephew that was never established until X.

I'd like for that to be Tanya. :P

I don't mind descendants, I don't mind more originals. As long as there's new characters, I'll accept either way.

My only request is for a new original that I would like some sort of witch doctor. I freaking love the class in Diablo and slowly starting to level them in Heroes of the Storm. I did a created character for this site's contest (and she did fairly well may I add). I just think they would somewhat make a great fit with the series.

I know you would and she would make a good one. I'm thinking a new female or even Delia could fit the role.

Well, Delia is dead. It was shown in MKA's Konquest Mode that both she and Argus had died long ago, probably against Shao Kahn when he tried to take over Edenia.

No, Daegon killed them because Shinnok made him paranoid that they'd side with Taven.

And then the endings revealed that they weren't really dead, Argus just let Daegon think he'd succeeded.

Only acceptable descendant I could think of is if Liu Kang and Kitana had a kid.

But like what Razor said they're dead :/

They'll probably come back anyway who knows

Whoa, mindfart... I dunno why I had forgotten that, but thanks for correcting it. ^^

We know there are more decendants, Boon even specified a son amongst others...

I doubt they are going to drop their main characters just like that.
The game spans 25 years, ALOT of shit is going to happen during that time. I wont be surprised if Kitana and Liu Kang have a child...

Get ready for Kiu Kang guys!

Sons, daughters, and cousins are coming and I can't wait.

I want a Mileena/Baraka child as well. It's bound to happen.