Honestly, I don't know why people hate Hsu Hao so much. I understand he's got an ugly design (and granted, there's a reason for the clothes he has on, like the goofy lookin' hat is part of a Chinese military uniform...but that doesn't make it any less goofy looking, of course), but like...his face and skin color are a relatively accurate, if slightly exaggerated, depiction of Mongolian ethnicity...so, I often wonder...is calling him ugly racist?

Anyway...the only thing about him that really bothered me when he debuted in Deadly Alliance was that when I saw his fighting style was called "Wrestling", I got super-hyped to see some suplexes, backbreakers, powerbombs, etc...and he only has, like, TWO moves like that and the rest are lame punches and kicks. It was extremely disappointing, but nothing ever made me think "this is the worst character in the franchise".

But the dude's specials are actually pretty cool, I think. At least, the Hulk Clap is. The Goro-esque stomp could use some work. And giant chest lasers can be awesome, like Iron Man or Fulgore in the new KI...And look at Jax in MK9, the team actually knows how to make a grappler play satisfyingly and have a lot of grapples and piledrivers and shit now. He COULD be really fun if both the fans and the devs didn't all irrationally hate him so much.

The other thing is, I really like his story. Jax needs his own rival, the Kano thing isn't personal for him like it is for Sonya, so why should they share one badguy?

I know it's already too late...if Hsu came back, he wouldn't be important because the Special Forces have already had a mole (which screws up the whole Black Dragon/Red Dragon rivalry but whatever, they'll probably find some other, less impressive way to introduce the Reds, probably as generic henchmen for the main villain same way they reduced Sektor and Cyrax to working for Kahn in 9...)

So I can't vote yes because it's too late for him to have a relevant role like he did before, I guess it'll have to be a NO...

I'm just sayin', why does everybody call THIS guy the worst MK character when he has some good things going for him and he's nowhere near as badly designed as Dairou? All he needs is the same kind of touching up Stryker got.

Yeah, the way the martial arts styles were done in those games were pretty bad. Some were more accurate than others, but they were all pretty damn shallow. Hsu Hao's other style was Shuaijiao (Chinese Wrestling), which should have been full of Judo-like throws and takedowns, but instead we get straight punches and...bitch slaps?? O_o

Like I said before, he could be very fun and interesting from a gameplay standpoint, a much more technical grappler than Jax. The issue with Hsu Hao kinda comes from what can really be done with his personality and story direction. I can't really see much going for him in those areas other than to be a rival to Jax. Perhaps Hsu Hao's cold, robotic demeanor could be somewhat of a warning to Jax if he were to go too far down the path of artificial enhancements? I don't know....

It could indeed be argued that hating any videogame character is irrational, in terms of going too far with it – as in being a bit obsessive about it.

I like all MK characters in variable measures. Meaning that I also like Hsu Hao. I don't know if I can speak for the rest of us, but I don't hate him. No one wrote they hate Hsu Hao. He is not an incredibly likeable character; at least thus far Hsu Hao hasn't particularly impressed me. I wouldn't say that he is the worst of the cast – he's got a handful of unique gimmicks at his disposal – but man, he is hideous. Not only that, but especially in the current setting of events, he bears little-to-no meaning to make it into the next Mortal Kombat specifically. Your post sort of victimized Hsu Hao, lolz. In short: not everybody takes the time to give out their explanation of justification of their specific choice; that doesn't mean that there wasn't thought in the answer. Just like you ended up in 'no', so did six others.

Well no, calling Hsu Hao 'ugly' is not racist. He's still a videogame character in PS2 graphics with a moustache and a weird combo of clothes. Sonya was also ugly in MK/DC by her face but you cannot deduce that all blondes are ugly based on that. PS4 graphics could no doubt make him look better.

I should point out, Zmoke, that when I say stuff like "Everyone calls Hsu Hao the worst character in the franchise", I'm obviously not talking about just this one topic, because you're right, the responses in this particular thread have been relatively fair...what I'm referring to is, like, past threads, the whole board, the whole fandom, etc. over history.

Generally the treatment of Hsu Hao has indeed been much harsher than what we have here. It probably descends from the developers mostly.

I've always found him terribly unnecessary, as I've found the Seido story arc in Deception, and the characters associated.

Hsu Hao was virtually pointless in Deadly Alliance, imo. It seemed more like a poor method to include Jax, whose inclusion in the game was also a bit unnecessary. Still, due to Jax being Sonya's superior and backing man, he'd always have a valid reason for being in a MK game.

How I usually think of the revelance of a character is this: "If you took the character out of the game, would it affect the story in any way?"

I wouldn't say everything always needs to be about the main plot, though.

For example, Sub-Zero, Sektor, Cyrax, and Smoke actually have nothing to do with the main plot of MK3/UMK3/Trilogy...and yet they're some of the best characters in those games.

Sure, Sub is technically a member of Team Raiden, but he doesn't canonically fight or interact with ANYONE except the other Lin Kuei and Scorpion.

In fact, going by "If you took the character out of the game, would it affect the story in any way?"...the only characters who can't be removed from MK1 thru 3 in order to tell the main plot are Liu Kang, Raiden, Goro, Shang Tsung, Kitana, Shao Kahn, Sindel, and maybe Nightwolf and Kung Lao. That's only 9 people out of like 30.

At any rate, Hsu Hao's mole-ness is actually kind of important to the entire history of the Special Forces vs. Black Dragon subplot (in the old timeline), so...I guess it depends how important you think that sidestory is to the franchise.

I don't know if you remember the way things were before the reboot, but Kano and co. weren't exactly strong allies of Shao Kahn like they are in MK9. They were actually in decline, the Special Forces was winning. Jarek was the last one left by MK4, remember? So the gang was dead until Kabal restarted it as a Chaos-worshipping terrorist cell in Deception.
All that was established to be Hsu Hao's doing, the Reds wanted to get rid of the Blacks but wanted to stay a secret, so they fed Sonya and Jax intel and let them do the heavy lifting. He'd been working with them since before MK1. If that relationship were ever to actually be DEPICTED in something, if we actually got to see that Hsu Hao was a member of the team, a trusted friend and partner to Sonya and Jax for years before he betrayed them, the character and story would be far more interesting, wouldn't it?
(come to think of it, one of the big storytelling failings of the games and related media so far is that except for the occasional comic book, nothing EVER shows the other soldiers who work with Sonya and Jax, which leaves you with the dumb impression that the entire Special Forces, a whole branch of the U.S. Army, only has two fucking people in it...3 if you count Gemini from MKSF. The games need more NPCs for groups like these.)
Plus, Hsu destroying the technoportal was mildly important to the plot of DA because it forced the good guys to use that portal "known only to sorcerers and deities" that the game kept talking about, the one that will only let you through if you pass the test of fighting an illusion of "your greatest enemy". It's mentioned in almost every single damn character's Konquest.

Hsu Hao gets a bad rap mainly I think because Ed Boon/Vogel hates him for some reason. I mean in a game where Kobra, Kira, Jarek, Mokap, Meat, etc., exist, Hsu Hao IS NOT the worst character in the franchise. Granted Hao is Red Dragon (which is a weak subplot) but his biggest negatives aren't really that egregious and could be revamped into something much better without throwing everything out the window.

Oh and YES for next game.

I would disagree.

As much as I dislike Kobra and Kira, at least they had some level of importance. Kobra and Kira were both hand-picked by Kabal to rebuild the Black Dragon, after Kabal was inspired by Havik to return to his former self. This led to their inclusion in the main plot.

Jarek actually had a great importance in MK4, marking the first time an active member of the Black Dragon fought alongside the Forces of Light, to defeat Shinnok no less.

Mokap was merely a bonus character, and wasn't meant to have any importane in MKDA. Even then, one cannot deny the fact that Mokap was sought after by Johnny Cage for his vast experience in martial arts, establishing Mokap's potential.

Meat was originally no different from Mokap, but his bio in Armageddon gave him extreme importance, making him a missing link to the true insight of Shang Tsung and his creations in the Flesh Pits. Meat could very well know something highly vital to either side of the field.

With all this, I still find Hsu Hao gravely unimportant. The only way I could see him being important is if they make him good instead of evil.

In an way, I'd liked him to return but I'm going to say no because I don't think he really has anything to do in the early MK timeline, though his DA was also kinda pointless.

Truthfully I never hated Hsu Hao, it wasn't until I replayed Konquest that I realize what the problem with him is. He is severely lacking in personality to the point that he's pretty much nothing more than an puppet following orders without question or even just an space filler. The fact that Vogel openly hates him and cares little about fleshing him out really hurts the character since he has no fault in how poorly he was developed and treated throughout his appearances and had potential to be something just an little better, which is why part of me does want him returning as an good way of redeeming his character, especially since other characters have radically changed in personalities despite the fact that Raiden's recons shouldn't have affected them anyways.

From a gameplay perspective, I'd be all for it. He has potential to be a great grappling character. Would make a nice contrast to Jax's grappling.

Storywise, I could care less about him. If he plays well in the next game he's in story doesn't mean shit to me.

Yes from me.

Yeah but everyone in MK4, DA, and Deception has no personality because there's so little voice acting or written dialogue, and what there is was terrible. Just a bunch of flavorless exposition, read into a mic by developers who don't know how to act rather than pro voice actors. You can't say it's just him when Mavado, Nitara, Ashrah, Hotaru, even Kenshi, all have the same problem.
Hell, the characters from MK1 thru 3 might not have personalities either if it weren't for the live-action movie. Raiden in the games is STILL bland as shit after being around for 20 whole years, specifically because he's the only character whose personality they haven't carried over from the movie.
Granted, it's an actual part of Hsu Hao's character that he's emotionless and purely logical...but that's also true of numerous characters in fiction, particularly robots, cyborgs, Vulcans from Star Trek...even Sektor and Cyrax at certain points in their stories. And many of those are great characters.

I disagree, Mavado, Nitara, Ashrah, Hotaru and Kenshi were much better developed, even with what little they had. I honestly don't get the same from Hsu Hao. He doesn't even have his own "voice" (not talking voice acting-wise).

I also disagree about MK1 - MK3, they still have the personalities I noticed even before the movie. Raiden is kinda always gonna be the same though.

Could you describe Nitara or Kenshi's personality traits to someone who asked? Not just "this is what person X cares about and wants to do", that's motivation and plot. I mean "This is how X behaves and this is the way X talks."

I could only give a maybe two word answer for Nitara. "Manipulative" and...is there a word like "Patriotic" that means you care about your species rather than a nation? Oh...and I guess she has an archaeology hobby? That's something I suppose...

But does she have a sense of humor or does she take everything too seriously? Is she short-tempered or is she calm and patient? What was her childhood like and how did it shape her adult behavior?

I guess we know Kenshi used to be arrogant about being the best fencer in the world, but does that mean he was funny-cocky like Johnny Cage is, or was he a stuck-up snobbish prick? How did he ACT, y'know? And how much different is he now that he's paid for his hubris by going blind and has psychic enlightenment? Is he just a boring sage-wisdom guy, or is there more to him? He wants revenge...is it a cold, calculated thing where he just wants to rescue his ancestors' souls, or is he a short-tempered angry guy who wants to make Shang pay for what he did to him? All that flavor is missing from the text, and we have no acting performance to go by either.

On the other hand, look at all the things I can tell you about Sonya Blade: She grew up an army brat and followed in her father's footsteps, so she's driven to prove herself and achieve as a soldier, takes herself seriously, and has a practical mindset (i.e. She doesn't believe in the supernatural at first, kind of an important detail in a magical fantasy setting) but she's young, hotheaded, and very emotionally closed-off because people close to her have died and she's obsessed with avenging them, so now she's easily annoyed or angered, and tries to not let people get close so she can't be hurt again, which is the crux of her relationship with Johnny Cage - he's open and outgoing and tries to appeal to her but she's bitchy in response in an attempt to chase him away.

THAT is what a human "personality" is. And I can do that with most of the MK1 and 2 roster...but anybody from 3 on, things start getting shallow and one-dimensional. Although Sektor's got some meat to him now that we know he's the Grandmaster's son.

Now, I only got a little of that from MK1 and MK9. MOST of it was invented by the movie.

Kenshi: Calm, well-tempered, persistent, emotionally fragile

Nitara: Easily angered, impatient, somewhat selfish, self-absorbed

This is what I've gathered, at least, from Nitara being in Deadly Alliance, and Kenshi being in Deadly Alliance and Deception. To say, I've always felt Nitara was borderline-villainous.

Which parts of their stories are you getting these from? For an angry, impatient person, Nitara is awfully tolerant of Reptile's mental problems. Hell, she's downright kind and generous to him despite them. Yeah, she's pretending so as to manipulate him, but a person who loses their cool easy would freak out if a henchman kept hallucinating and trying to kill them.

I came to the idea of Nitara being impatient from reading her Deadly Alliance and Armageddon bios.

It seemed she is quick to act and concoct schemes to suit her ends, rather than take time to seek out possible - and probably easier - solutions. Instead of searching for Cyrax herself and asking him to be kind enough to help her, she decided instead to manipulate one person and trouble another. Due to this take on her being impatient, I figured she may just as well be short-tempered and easily angered.


As for Kenshi, I'm honestly not sure how I got the idea of him being emotionally fragile; it merely came to me. It may have been due to his calm demeanor and dread over the torture of his ancestors.

I guess its a no for me on Hsu Hao. He'll only appear as a cameo anyway.

He's not interesting.

So...educated guessing, then.

I have nothing against that, I do it myself quite often...but it's still guessing. When I do it, I'm always like "This isn't confirmed canon, but it seems like..."
Still, the games haven't actually told us what she's like as a person except that she's morally ambiguous and good at manipulation. Not the way they've told us what MK1 and 2 characters act like and why they came to be that way.

At any rate, it's far more likely that Nitara's reason for using Reptile instead of just politely asking Cyrax for help is that, y'know, if you give someone a choice, they can choose to say no. If you can't risk that, then it makes a lot more sense to FORCE them to help you by arranging it so they NEED something you have.

In this case, she needed someone that couldn't be traced back to her to destroy Cyrax's portal device, so that she could then show up and offer "if you help me, I'll make a portal to send you home". That doesn't sound like an emotional or impatient plan to me, it sounds like devious manipulating. It probably actually took time and study to think of that scheme, because she'd have to be familiar with her marks to pull off that con.

Also, the game specifically points out how her befriending Reptile caused him to not be there to protect Kahn when the Deadly Alliance attacked. Coincidence? I bet not since Kahn is the one who merged her realm with Outworld, and might try to stop her from undoing it if he were to find out. Having him dead made her plan to find and smash the orb more likely to succeed.

The game also stated that Nitara saw Reptile as "a fool for exploitation," resulting in how easy it was for her to manipulate him.

This seems to emphasize a more negative personality than a positive one, especially towards Reptile.

I never said she was a good person. Manipulative people usually are bad, or at least selfish. Though keep in mind she's doing what she's doing to free her people from Shao Kahn, which is a good goal. It's a lot like how people think Reptile's a good guy deep down because he just wants to bring his people back...but they're all ignoring the fact that he hates and eats people, which is totally evil.
I said there's no evidence she's someone who's quick to anger or rushes to act without thinking first.
Not all bad people are angry, you know.

I personally never cared for this character because I just never really found an interest with the Dragon clans story. I did play as him in Konquest mode and that was really it. I never really enjoyed how he played and felt that he was more of a bland character and had nothing really for him to want me to have him return for another game.

I don't dislike him because the creators hate him... I find that to be silly to go with to not liking a character. But I just never really found him as interesting or someone I want to make a return. Had he had something that was really cool that struck out and stayed out, I'd probably give this guy another go. But out of all the characters that debuted in Deadly Alliance, I never really liked him.

Mongolian cyborg grappler with cool Chinese military aesthetics and a chest beam is a much stronger aesthetic concept than any of the characters I mentioned. Plot points are relative and the ones you mentioned are pretty shallow and VASTLY overstated. "Trained Johnny Cage, Good-guy Black Dragon, helps rebuild Black Dragons, and flesh pit experiment" aren't really that innovative and are almost interchangeable with other characters.

Regardless I still think Hsu Hao has more aesthetic distinction than Kira/Kobra/Jarek combined. I actually liked his uniform though it would benefit from a facelift.

Hsu Hao is a Red Dragon version of Kano, with a chest laser instead of an eye laser.

Hell, his fatality was even taken from Kano. He is no different from Kira, Kobra, or Jarek.



I dare say he is my least favorite of all the characters introduced in Deadly Alliance, more so than Blaze, and I hate Blaze.

I agree, he had nothing that made him stand out. His chest laser only reminded me of Kano, his fighting style was seriously boring, and his appearance is so bland he could blend into a room full of blondes.

The only thing he had that was even the slightest bit interesting were his Sun-Moon Blades. However, the weapon could have been given to anyone, and I would have liked them just the same. It had nothing to do with him.

Another character done with voting for, Hsu Hao is not a character you want to return, so with that said, next up is Jade:



Well, I was half and half with this character for the latest game. I liked what they did with her game play wise, and I thought her arcade ending was... creative to say the least. (I mean, her ending is highly talked about seeing how no one knows who the heck the mysterious woman is). But... I did not care for the amount of times she says the word "Easy" throughout the entire game. Has anyone tried to count exactly how many times that word comes from her? Anyways... I like Jade, she's not a bad character at all, however, with her fate being enslaved in the Netherrealm and such, I can only see her return as a NPC, not really as a playable character (I'll get into that more later on when we're all done voting through the entire cast). But since I did say you can vote for a character whether or not you want them playable, as long as they return for the next game, I say yes... but not playable.