Storymode
Storymode
About Me
Ethereal, ravenous, piercing. It's Mileena bitch.
Lovely signature by MINION
0
About Me
0
About Me
0
About Me
0
About Me
0
0
About Me
0
About Me
0
About Me
0
0
MK Khronology: 58.49% complete...About Me
0
0
0
For convenience sake:
RazorsEdge701 Wrote:
Are you ready to read a book? Because I'm about to write a god damned book. I thought it was as good a time as any to do a definitive collection of all the ways MK2011 is an objectively inferior-in-every-way story compared to the original.
Here's every positive and negative I can think of, chapter by goddamn chapter:
---
Cage Chapter:
: Right from the beginning I have a problem because they skipped the backstory and boat scenes from the comic and movie, which is one of the best parts of the story because it all established who these people are and why they came to the tournament in a "show, don't tell" way.
: How come the entire plot revolves around Raiden wearing a medallion on his chest, but he never wore it in any game before this one? Couldn't something he ACTUALLY OWNS like his wooden staff have been the plot device instead?
EDIT: It's even dumber now that we know he isn't wearing the medallion in MKX either.
: There's not even an attempt to fool the audience into thinking this tournament follows a logical bracket, as right away Cage fights twice in a row, but nobody ever even comments on Shang cheating or making things up as he goes. Isn't making sure Outworld plays fair supposed to be Raiden's ACTUAL JOB?
: Reptile fighting in the first fight, and everyone being able to see he's a scaly monster, means his ENTIRE story of being a hidden bodyguard who disguises himself is thrown right out the fucking window, but no other story is ever substituted in to make up for it, he's simply a generic fighter. And since he doesn't actually talk in any cutscene, we'd have no idea what his personality or motives are unless we remembered what it was in the old games, or read his text bio. (And the connection between what's in the bios and what's on the screen is pretty dubious when it's saying shit like "Sonya joined the army to find out what happened to her MIA dad" or "Ermac has Kitana's dad inside him" when that never actually comes up during the story mode...which is supposed to be, y'know, the mode that tells the game's story?)
: WHY IS QUAN CHI HERE?! Seriously, in a tournament between Earthrealm and Outworld, how can someone from the Netherealm participate? The games have said again and again that the WHOLE REASON Bo' Rai Cho trains people instead of attending in person is because, since he's from Outworld, if he won, it would count for OUTWORLD. So Quan's wins would count for a realm that's NOT IN THE TOURNAMENT.
: Speaking of Quan, a piece of dialogue later confirms that Mythologies is still canon. So how come neither Raiden nor Sub-Zero seems to notice or care that Quan is wearing Shinnok's Amulet? That's kind of a REALLY important thing, the amulet can free Shinnok, who everyone knows is Quan Chi's boss, from Hell and give him his Elder God powers back, and Sub and Raiden THOUGHT Sub had kept it safe at the end of the game, nobody including Shinnok is supposed to be aware that Quan has it...
: When Cage refuses to kill his opponent and looks around at everyone for approval, even Liu Kang, the most pacifistic character in the entire franchise, has a look of disgust on his face. In fact, he's sneering THE MOST. What the Hell?
: Notice how during all of MK1...in fact, during the ENTIRE story, Shang NEVER steals anybody's soul? The whole reason he likes being the boss of the tourney is supposed to be because it puts him in position to steal powerful souls when people lose and die!
: Okay, I really liked Cage's lines in the scene where Raiden tries to tell him about Outworld and he's all like "I don't wanna be part of your roleplaying game", but all that dialogue could happen in any version, none of it relies on the time travel plot.
: There's NO FUCKING WAY that I can accept Pit II replacing Pit I, those mountains in the background go on way too far to be part of Shang's ISLAND. Do you see an ocean back there? 'Cause I don't.
: Sonya punches Johnny for hitting on her, deservedly so because he was refusing to take no for an answer...so he not only ACTUALLY FIGHTS BACK, the story has you play as HIM, and WIN that fight?! You can NOT have one of your story's good guys, who's meant to be goofy comedy relief, look like an almost-rapist and get away with it with zero bad karma!
: In this universe, the Black Dragons aren't dying, because instead of Hsu Hao being a Red Dragon mole who helps the SF catch them, Kano is the mole and helps his gang evade the SF. If you hate Hsu Hao, you might see this as a positive, but personally, I liked that the BD slowly died more and more game by game until they were gone.
: Also, are they implying Sonya and Kano had a romantic relationship before she found out he was a traitor? That's just gross. Dude's 90% bodyhair and talks like more of a pig than Cage does.
: "Throw THAT on your...barbie...Shrimp!" *lol idunno shrug*
---
Sonya Chapter:
: In the old version, Sonya's captured ally was an actual team of subordinates. This made it possible to have a tragic story where when she fails in the tournament, Shang executes them and she can't do anything to stop it. If Jax is the captured guy, and they successfully break him out of the dungeon...but they can't leave the island, but Shang doesn't put him back IN the dungeon, he just lets him walk around free...what the hell was the point of having him in the dungeon in the first place? Doesn't LETTING them get away just make Shang look incompetent?
: By the way, what the fuck ARE Sonya's rings? What kind of lasers wrap around metal bars like snakes and shatter them? And later she uses them to cauterize Jax's bleeding stumps, so...Are they EVER going to explain how that works?
: Sonya defeats Sub-Zero in an official tournament match Shang has arranged. Sub-Zero fights in another tournament match later. So...losing doesn't eliminate you? WHAT?
: Raiden can HEAL people...with electricity? And he NEVER USES THIS AGAIN, despite the fact that later in the story, he WATCHES Kitana die SLOWLY? Why even have the scene then? It's not like Jax NEEDED his bruises taken away, since he doesn't fight at all during the MK1 part of the story.
: I hope you don't care about Sonya's rivalry with Kano because after they fight here, they'll never meet again even though the fight doesn't settle a damn thing.
: Raiden never explained Outworld to Sonya or Jax, only to Johnny. But when he meets them, they believe everything right away and agree to follow him as if they're totally up to speed?
---
Scorpion Chapter:
: I actually don't mind the Kung Lao-in-disguise-as-a-Masked Guard retcon, because Kung's MK2 story never actually explained why he wasn't at the tournament in a way that made sense. Him being a pacifist who deliberately avoids fighting is something he CHANGED into after MK3.
: Nightwolf being at the tournament actually kinda makes sense, he is one of Earthrealm's greatest fighters. And I like him comparing the Shirai Ryu to the way Native Americans were treated in history, it's a good character moment.
: I really don't like Raiden making the claim that the Elder Gods would resurrect a whole bunch of dead people if Scorpion does him a favor. I mean sure, they MIGHT be willing to do it...they did it in Armageddon...but is that really morally appropriate? To just flippantly reverse the rules and life and death for an entire village of people? In fact, Scorpion's wife and kid were innocents, they're probably in Heaven, maybe they don't WANT to come back. Plus, Raiden is making a promise he can't keep. He can't make the Elder Gods say yes, he's just expecting them to do him a favor.
: In an official tournament match against Sektor and Cyrax, which Shang has arranged and watches, Scorpion wins. So...again, the point is that Cyrax should be eliminated. But he's allowed to fight and eliminate Johnny Cage later. So...what, a loser's only kicked out if they're a good guy?
: The animated cutscene Quan Chi shows Scorpion of the Lin Kuei killing the Shirai Ryu was actually really well done...except the Sub-Zero in it is wearing Kuai Liang's outfit, not Bi-Han's, so...
---
Cyrax Chapter:
: WHY IS SHEEVA HERE? She's not in ANY other scene on the island, she's not in the tournament, and her bio sure as fuck doesn't explain it, it just says her job is to guard Shao Kahn's dungeons...but the ONLY dungeon in the whole game is Goro's Lair, and when Sonya broke out Jax, SHE WASN'T THERE!
Also, she's showing up in the game BEFORE GORO DOES! She's literally the FIRST Shokan we EVER see in this story! How is that fair/appropriate, that she takes away from the Champion of the Tournament's onscreen debut?
: If Cyrax runs away from the clan to escape being a robot, and Smoke does it, and Sub-Zero does it...then running away isn't special anymore, is it? "No one escapes the Lin Kuei" suddenly seems like an empty threat if EVERYONE is doing it and none of them fear the consequences.
And the fact that we don't get to see him be captured, he successfully gets away from Sektor only to be caught again offscreen is a total cop-out.
---
Liu Kang Chapter:
: Shang says Liu's the only Earth fighter left in the tournament, but Sonya never lost a match, when was she eliminated?
: Liu promises not to tell anybody that Kitana failed to assassinate him so she won't be disgraced...but before she went to do it, she TOLD Shang she was going to. So...what, does she just walk up to Shang later and go "Sorry, changed my mind, not gonna fight him"? Did he just forget? Eliminating his biggest threat ought to be kinda important to him, no?
: Other than that, I actually like the interaction between Liu and Kitana here, it's cute and Liu's playful flirting actually sounds like normal things a person would say, they didn't fuck up the dialogue and make it painful like they have in past games. It's a shame there's so few scenes between them after this.
: Goro gets ONE scene in the whole tournament. This is how you respect the most famous subboss, who's been undefeated for 500 years?
: Beating the champion means you're the new champion, right? That's the end of the tournament. So why does Liu still have to fight Shang, who's just the referee, after he beats Goro?
In the old timeline, they explained that Liu fought Shang at the end because he wasn't just there to win, he was there to boot Shang out of the Grandmaster seat. In the movie, they explained that Johnny cut a deal where Shang would be the last fight if he'd let Johnny skip to the end early. In MK9? No explanation given. They act like this is naturally how the tournament always goes. That just doesn't make sense.
: When Shang loses, he doesn't make an earthquake to cover his escape like in the old timeline or Shaolin Monks, everyone just peacefully walks back to Outworld...including Kano? When did he become one of Shang's allies? Raiden DID have a vision of Kano being chained up in the original MK2, so when did that part of history change?
The island self-destructing was important because it provided a logical explanation for 1) Goro to disappear and be thought dead, allowing him to keep his reputation as a badass who only rarely shows up...and 2) How Sonya accidentally ends up in Outworld (falls there in the chaos because the island is between both realms, remember) all on her own and gets captured for trespassing, instead of the dumb idea that Shang or Baraka would deliberately take her while attacking the Shaolin Temple, making her a helpless damsel in distress.
---
Jax Chapter:
: Say...if you're going to have characters appear in games they weren't on the roster of in the old timeline, like Nightwolf attending the first tournament...that's fine if it makes sense to the story you're telling now...but shouldn't you FOLLOW THROUGH so that their presence continues to make sense? By which I mean, how come Nightwolf's not at the big celebration or participates in any of MK2? He joined the good guy team during the tournament, now suddenly he's the only one who was there that isn't here?
: Boy, we sure don't have enough money to animate cutscenes of the Tarkatans attacking the temple...Oh I know, let's skip most of it by having a POV character be knocked out and wake up after it's already over!
If they had him helpless on the ground, where they could all just trample over his body or stab the shit out of him, how and why did the Tarkatans let Jax live?!
: I actually like that Johnny and Jax kinda bond via fighting over Johnny's lust for Sonya.
: So Sonya is being kept prisoner in the Deadpool...which game material tells us is not a dungeon, it's a sewer where waste from the Flesh Pits goes.
The devs didn't make an Outworld dungeon stage, despite writing at least two scenes during MK2 where characters are jailed...and having a character's bio say she's a jailer...so every time Sheeva is guarding a prisoner, they're tied up in some random-ass level for no good reason, with only the piss-poor excuse of "we moved you here because you tried to escape from the real dungeon". That's almost being-stupid-on-purpose.
: I do like though that they show the weird fat minion guys playing dice. Too bad it's just minions. The villains in this game need more character moments like that, they're REAAALLY underdeveloped. Which reminds me, I like that Jax was smoking a cigar during the temple scene, it's another thoughtful little detail there's way too few of otherwise.
: Jax picks up tech on his tracking device (which turns out to be Sektor and Cyrax), and Raiden decides to investigate because he is searching for the "He" who "must win". Johnny points out it could actually be him or Jax too. So Raiden tells Johnny to stay close...but he lets Sonya and Jax go off into danger alone. That's not very smart. (And this decision leads to Jax getting his arms blown off and having to leave Outworld altogether. Good thinkin', Mr. "I should be wise because I've been alive for a million years")
---
Smoke Chapter:
: So now Sub #2 is driven by revenge, rather than trying to finish his bro's mission, which just makes him a copy of Scorpion, instead of his own character. Remember that in the original timeline, the thing that made Kuai Liang unique from his brother right from the start was that he didn't like to kill people unless the mission required it, which telegraphed his leaving the clan and becoming one of the good guys in MK3. It was good character development.
: Man, during the ENTIRE GAME, all of Smoke's dialogue is just poorly written and poorly voice acted. And his chapter doesn't further the plot OR develop his character, it's entirely a waste of time. The ONLY thing it accomplishes is to show how he joins Team Raiden, and to show Kitana failing Kahn again so he'll be mad at her later...and we didn't need to play as Smoke for those things to happen.
: Boy is Shang shooting rocket launchers in the Living Forest silly looking or what? I dunno, that's not really a complaint, I just think it's funny. What IS a complaint is the fact that when Kano goes to fight Smoke, he puts the fuckin' rocket launcher down instead of just shooting him with it!
: Y'know what was a really interesting story? "Sub-Zero and Smoke come back to the Lin Kuei temple after MK2 and walk in to find that two of their allies have been turned into PROTOTYPE cyborgs and that they're scheduled to be next...so they run away and Smoke tragically gets caught but Sub doesn't."
Y'know what's way less good? "Let's not actually have the Lin Kuei temple appear on-screen. Instead, Sektor and Cyrax will just randomly show up in robot form in Outworld during MK2...and they'll have a bunch of gray robot minions (like in the cartoon! Remember that shit? Why not go Full Retard and have dragon jets and computer geek Nightwolf and his pet wolf Kiva if you're gonna throw out the "they're prototypes" part of the plot just so you can have dumb gray henchbots?) And those minions will have some sort of cheap stun-power so we don't have to show any heroic fighting-to-survive last stands when the captures happen! And Smoke and Sub will be split up when the attacks happen, so it's not like one can tragically sacrifice himself to cover his buddy's escape or anything dramatic and feelings-inspiring like that."
---
Sub-Zero Chapter:
: The Ermac/Jax arm-explosion is actually pretty shocking and brutal the first time you see it. It does get old over the course of replays, though...I miss the deeper character Jax had when his bionics were an optional choice born from self-confidence issues because he realized he wasn't strong enough to fight magic Outworld monsters. This version was just gore and shock value for its own sake and that, like I said, loses its impact over time.
: Again...WHY IS QUAN CHI THERE?! I can kind of understand if his reason for attending MK1 had been to be Scorpion's handler...and that would work fine if not for the fact that he FOUGHT IN A MATCH...but why's he at MK2? Scorpion's not even IN this tournament yet, until Sub-Zero ASKS for him!
: So...we're not going to do the "Scorpion realizes that Kuai is a nice guy and decides to atone for his sins by watching his back" at all in this timeline, huh? Instead of him being an interesting antihero with potential for redemption, we're just going to make Scorp a boring, underdeveloped villain-henchman who barely shows up in the story, even though he's the most popular character in the entire franchise? Fine, that's fine...
: Let's have Raiden show that he can take the gray minion dudes out in one zap...but chooses NOT to, and also prevents Smoke from saving Sub too, because he's afraid Shao Kahn will stop them...even though those robots are interfering in an official tournament match and preventing an Earth warrior from winning, and Raiden's JOB is to make sure his guys have a fair chance in the tournaments, AND he's trying to find the "he" who "must win", and that "he" COULD have been Sub-Zero for all he knew!
: Oh, and remember how in the old version, the Lin Kuei were NEUTRALS in the war between Earth and Outworld? Sektor and Cyrax were just as much being hunted by the Extermination Squads as the heroes were because their souls were immune to being stolen...but they didn't even CARE because they were too busy following THEIR mission, which had nothing to do with the invasion and everything to do with hunting down a Lin Kuei traitor. Well...we can't have that now, can we? There's no room for subtlety or sidequests and dudes with their own agenda in THIS story mode, we don't have the time and budget for those kinds of cutscenes! Let's make the Lin Kuei sign up to work for Kahn so they can be generic-ass villains like everybody else!
---
Kitana Chapter:
: Kitana responds to "We request an audience" with immediate violence. And Smoke seems to want it. I'm not sure if being dumb and jumping the gun all the time is supposed to be a personality trait of his, or just a coincidence...but it not being clearer means it's not written very well. And how come no one in NRS games can let someone finish explaining theirselves before they start a fight? (MKvsDC had this problem too. Not once could any of them just fucking go "Hey, it sounds like you think we're the attackers, but I thought you were the attackers...maybe this is all just a big misunderstanding!")
: Y'know what would have been nice? If Liu Kang had actually been in this fucking chapter in person, instead of just having Raiden namedrop him every time he talks about her having goodguy potential, since he's supposed to be her god damned love interest.
: Mileena's New Origin is a BIG no, for a LOT of reasons, but I'll try to summarize:
In the old timeline, the story was that Kahn WANTED Kitana as a daughter, had actual parently feelings for her...but knew that if she found out about her true parentage, she'd turn on him. So Mileena was created to replace Kitana long ago, with added Tarkatan DNA so that she'd be more loyal and vicious...but the mouth wasn't SUPPOSED to come out that way, she was deemed imperfect as a clone, a failure. But Kahn didn't dispose of her because he figured she could still be useful as a spy to watch Kitana and stop her inevitable betrayal, by posing as her twin sister.
This was a good story because it established A) Kahn isn't all bad, he has a softer side, and B) Mileena's is a SAD story, she KNOWS her "father" loves her "sister" more, and has a reason to wear a mask, be ashamed of her face, and show off her "pretty" features by dressing like a slut. That's a better, more developed character. Also, C) Kitana has an actual emotional RELATIONSHIP to Mileena and feels something when she finds out they're not real sisters and she was made to kill her and steal her life.
In the new timeline, they were never raised together like sisters. And Kahn never loved or wanted Kitana either. He likes Mileena's ugly Tarkatan face because all he wants is another vicious ugly monster minion, and Mileena's just another giggly emotionally underdeveloped psycho-childish-girl stereotype like Harley Quinn or Tira from Soul Calibur instead of a unique character of her own with pathos.
BTW, if they're not twins with something to hide, why do they still wear masks?
-: Speaking of Kitana's backstory and Kahn being one-dimensional...in the original timeline, Kitana found out on her own, via detective work, that Kahn wasn't her dad and began plotting against him in secret. SHE was the one who approached the good guys and gave intel to THEM. This gave her agency in her own story, made her look cunning.
In the new version, Raiden is the one who approaches and gives intel to HER, and she has no idea why her daddy is so evil and unloving until he, for no good reason, just spontaneously decides to spill the beans and admit everything right to her shocked face? C'mon, man...how is that at all better? She comes across like a bimbo who can't see the obvious. What, should we just consider ourselves lucky that at least this time, she wasn't under mind control like in MKSM?
---
Jade Chapter:
: I'm gonna say some of the same things that I said about Smoke. The fact that she had no personality before this game and the writers don't know what to do with her as a result resulted in badly written dialogue for her, a bad voice actor, and a chapter that doesn't further the plot or develop her personality, meaning the game would have been better without it, it's just filler.
Seriously, the whole story of this chapter is that she tries to break Kitana free, but fails and has to go ask Team Raiden to do it for her, which is what happens in Kung Lao's chapter, not her's.
: Also, we get the second scene where Sheeva has to guard someone in a place that's NOT a dungeon and looks stupid doing it.
: And we see another scene where Smoke starts a fight like an idiot. He thinks Mileena is Kitana and Jade is attacking her own friend, even though they wear blatantly different clothes...okay, whatever...but before the fight starts, Raiden LITERALLY YELLS "Stop, that's not Kitana!" and Smoke apparently doesn't pay any attention? Maybe being dumb is supposed to be an established character trait...but it sure doesn't make me LIKE Smoke, a guy who NEEDS to earn some appreciation because this is the first game where Human Smoke is treated as an actual character...and he's already starting off on the wrong foot by having the worst hair ever in his primary costume, lol.
Speaking of Edenians and the part of the story where Kitana finds out the truth and switches sides, y'know who really would have been nice to have in this part of the story for her and Jade to interact with, because he's an Edenian who deliberately betrayed his people to work for Kahn? Yeah, sure was smart of them to keep Rain off the starting roster and save him for DLC while putting Quan fucking Chi in as a launch character...
---
Kung Lao Chapter:
: There is some nice friendship-banter between Kung Lao and Liu here, much better written than when they tried to have the same dynamic in Shaolin Monks. MKSM made Kung look like a childish, jealous ass. MK9 actually makes them look like bros who just tease each other here and there.
: Goro is once again made to look like an unimportant hench-chump. And Kung Lao doesn't even seem to notice or think about the fact that he's just defeated the man who killed his ancestor.
: So we see Ermac beat Johnny in the tournament here...why doesn't he kill him? Why doesn't Kahn even say "finish him"? Killing their enemies was so important to Kahn earlier when Kitana was fighting in the tournament that he got impatient and killed her opponent himself. So why does he suddenly not care?
: So Raiden didn't save Sub-Zero because he was afraid Kahn would stop him...but nobody stops Liu from walking right up to Kitana and freeing her from her chains?
Also, when did Kitana change her clothes? She's been captured/tied up since the last time she had her other costume on, so did someone make her wear that? Is it a slave outfit? Because if it is, why does she keep wearing it during the entire invasion? In fact, there's a lot of scenes where a character is wearing one outfit one scene and then a different outfit in the next, when time DIDN'T pass between scenes.
: QUAN CHI IN A TOURNAMENT FIGHT AGAIN GOD DAMMIT. Also, since when the fuck can Kung Lao beat the Deadly Alliance all by his damn self? The dude lost his first fight in the previous tournament, didn't even come close to making it to a fight against Shang alone, when he was a weaker older man. Kung was so not-good-enough that the temple elders didn't even want him to attend! Not to mention that he died fighting these same two guys in MKDA and that was after getting new training from Bo' Rai Cho.
: Kintaro has no story at all, he just shows up, loses, and goes away. WHY is this dude the fighter you send out AFTER you sent out the two most powerful sorcerers in the universe and they lost? C'mon, writers, give us SOME kind of exposition about this guy!
: I actually don't mind Kung Lao's death so much. I mean, I don't like the idea of killing him before MK3, but I have no complaints about the way the scene was written.
: So they all think Kahn is dead...and Kitana goes with them to Earthrealm, instead of staying to make sure he's dead and claim the throne for herself? She's just MET them, Outworld is her home, she has a legit claim to the throne, and if she cared about freeing Edenia, Outworld is the only place she could do it from!
: Oh hey look, it's one of Motaro's three scenes in the whole game (and he's a dead body in one of them), and he doesn't talk in any of them!
Hey, remember all those cool scenes in the MK3 attract screens, of hordes of centaurs running around, because they became Kahn's top troops because the Shokan failed too many times? Remember how Sheeva had a story all about how she hated seeing the Centaurs replace her people? Yeah...none of that happens in this version, even though the game's text-bios totally establish that Shokans and Centaurs hating each other and being rivals for Kahn's favor is still a thing.
Because hey, why would villains need to be 3-dimensional characters with their own feelings and motives, amirite? Sheeva's much better as the guard of a dungeon that doesn't exist!
: Let's talk about Sindel at length for a bit.
In the old timeline, she committed suicide solely to escape a horrible life of forced marriage to an evil tyrant. That's pretty tragic and pathos-y, right? And Kahn planned to have her resurrected for YEARS and ASKED the Netherealmers to do it because he LOVED her and wanted her back...and it just so happened that, if he didn't win the tournaments, he could say "do it on Earth, the gods will let me go there to claim my property, and that way I can backdoor-invade. Clever, right?"
And Shang and the Shadow Priests helped, because even with the ruler of Hell and master of Necromancy involved, Perfect Resurrection is still HARD, it takes years of planning and lots of wizards working together on a big elaborate ritual.
In the new timeline, she's a selfless hero! She committed suicide to cast a spell that would protect Earth, because apparently the Elder Gods don't ACTUALLY have the power to stop Kahn from walking through portals, that's just a lie they've been telling for thousands of years!
That don't make a lot of sense to me.
And who needs Shang Tsung, he's not important anymore! Quan comes up with the idea all by himself, spontaneously, AFTER MK2, because he can bring a person back AND mind control them in SECONDS all by himself, because Resurrection should be EASY, shouldn't it? Why WOULD you want death to be difficult to overcome or have dramatic weight to it? Naw, bringin' people back is easy, let's do it by the boatload!
By the way, if the idea for Sindel's resurrection is just happening now...then how did Mythologies happen? Because the only reason Quan Chi knew about the map to the Amulet was Shang told him in exchange for help rezzing Sindel. (Shang knew 'cause the Shaolin had the map and Shang learned it from stealing Great Kung Lao's soul.)
---
Stryker Chapter:
: I don't like Cop Kabal. When his story was "I was a Black Dragon...but then I was mutilated by the same dudes who Kano's supplying weapons to, so I turned on them", that made sense to me.
Saying a known felon just one day decided to go straight, and was allowed into police academy? That does not. I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to apply if you have a criminal record. And having a real first and last name is probably a requirement on the application too, Mister "Just Kabal".
: Reptile blocks BULLETS with an acid-spit mist. That's literally the single dumbest visual in the entire game.
: Poor Motaro, killed in one hit. If Raiden can do that to people, why doesn't he do it all the time? At least preventing Johnny's death acknowledged that it happened in the old timeline, though.
: Kintaro, who in this game so far has no story or personality and means nothing significant to anything, is the guy they chose to give Kabal his scars, just because he has fire breath. Again, wouldn't it be more thematic if a flamethrower given to the enemy by Kano had done the deed?
: Speaking of which...It sure is convenient writing that Raiden only gets visions of bad stuff happening to his fighters when it's something the writers want to change, like Johnny's death and Cyber-Smoke, but he doesn't forsee and try to prevent Kabal being horribly burned at all.
: Stryker, the most mundane human in the franchise, can beat Ermac in a fair fight. Every time Ermac shows up, he's made out to be a badass of epic power levels, who can blow up a dude's arms with his mind (and in the old timeline, once won a 5-on-1 battle against Kung Lao, Kitana, Sonya, Jax, and Cage)...but he never actually wins a single fight in MK9.
---
Kabal Chapter:
: So even though Kano had nothing to do with what happened to Kabal, he kinda blames him anyway. Oh, and he blames and wants to kill Kahn...but he NEVER thinks about the guy who ACTUALLY did it to him, Kintaro, because Kintaro is THAT forgettable/unimportant.
: I wonder what the devs were thinking when they offed Tsung here. "Y'know what? Since we can just have Quan Chi do everything Shang does anyway, why not just kill Shang off and give his power to...oh, who deserves to be more evil and important than they were in MK3? Sindel! The character who's ALREADY the central plot device anyway!"
: Oh look, it's Smoke, pretending to feel sad about Sub-Zero. I say "pretending" because the scene's only a few seconds long and his dialogue and acting still sound fake as hell.
So y'know how I mentioned that in the old timeline, the way the Lin Kuei escape-and-capture plot was told was better than "ambush in the Outworld woods"? Well here we finally see the consequences of the capture and here's another thought: Automation is bad because it's meant to make you think about body horror, about being mutilated on an operating table and shit like that, right? Sure would've been nice if we got to SEE THAT HAPPEN.
And remember how in MK3, "My best friend was taken and I couldn't save him and now he's being forced to hunt me and I feel guilty and don't want to fight him, I want to restore him somehow" was Sub-Zero's WHOLE STORY, and Cyber-Smoke's story was kinda about trying to resist the programming and hold onto his humanity through sheer force of will?
Well apparently that's too good for the new timeline, where we don't have time to animate drama or give people personal sidequests, because nobody was hunting Smoke, Cyber-Sub never fought Smoke, Smoke had no real role in saving Sub, he was merely a bystander with a scant few vaguely sad sounding, completely forgettable lines of dialogue while Kabal and Jax and Raiden did all the real work of bringing their new robot buddy into the fold.
: By the way, y'know how if you freezeframe during the scene where we see through Cyber-Sub's eyes and he's scanning Kabal trying to recognize him, and his HUD shows cameos like Frost and Reiko? Well I sure hope those are just a noncanon gag, because if not, they're fuckin' wrong. Particularly the fact that the text lists Frost as a Lin Kuei, but she didn't join the clan until Deadly Alliance.
---
Cyber-Sub Chapter:
: Getting to see a Cyberninja's HUD was kinda neat, especially the fact that their operating system's in partial Chinese.
: So the heroes assembled offscreen, before the first chapter about the invasion even started, and are hiding out in a church inside the city? I guess that's convenient for the plot...but it was more interesting IMO in the original MK3 when part of the plot was about how the invasion caught them by surprise and they all had to travel from their homelands to meet up with each other and the meeting place was Nightwolf's reservation because he specializes in protection-magic, so they had a safe camp from Kahn's forces there.
: Speaking of the Church, how come in fights it's an evil place where a Shadow Priest stands in the background resurrecting a zombie, but in the story it's the good guys' hideout? Wouldn't it have been more thematically appropriate if, had they gone with having the heroes hide out in Nightwolf's reservation like in the original, the church could have been where Sindel's resurrection happened, instead of the desert?
Which reminds me, how come the Shadow Priests are never actually mentioned or appear in any cutscenes, they're SOLELY a decoration in stage backgrounds? You'd think someone would NOTICE these creepy wizards floating nearby while they fight, or Kahn would have some kind of ACTUAL USE for them?
: Y'know what? Let's just go balls-deep on making Goro and Kintaro look as weak and useless as possible as henchmen, by having someone fight them both at the SAME TIME and win. But it's okay for Ermac, we'll give him another badass entrance to make him SEEM like a powerful guy before we job him out like we have every other time.
: So in the original MK3, Shao Kahn kicked off his invasion by casting a spell that stole every soul in the world. Which he can do because it's well established that stealing souls and turning worlds into wastelands is his thing. Then, once the Earth was barren save for the heroes the gods protected, he sent his armies forth to clean up the stragglers.
I will admit that having the armies happen first led to some cool looking warzone scenes...but if you can wipe out the resistance first, why not do so?
Oh, but wait, Kahn's NOT the guy who does the soul steal in the new timeline! THIS time, it's QUAN FUCKING CHI...because HE can do that now! Even though the ONLY reason the Deadly Alliance even HAPPENED in the old timeline was because sucking souls out of a person's body and sending them elsewhere is the ONLY THING Shang Tsung can do that Quan Chi CAN'T, so he NEEDED him as a partner in order to reanimate an army of dead mummies using stolen souls.
And you might say "Well MK9 calls it "making a soulnado"...which Quan Chi DID do in MKDA. Except the Soulnado in MKDA wasn't MADE by Quan Chi. The soulnado in MKDA was made by opening a portal to Heaven, which is a place full of souls, and the souls poured out ALL ON THEIR OWN.
---
Nightwolf Chapter:
: So Sub-Zero gets to have a decently written scene where he finds out Noob is his brother and has a dramatic showdown with him...but he's NOT the one who actually finishes that fight? NIGHTWOLF, who has nothing to do with Noob, is the one who kills him? How is that appropriate?
: Okay, so now we're starting to see Raiden lose his fucking marbles, zoning out mid-conversation, being at a loss for strategy, flipping his lid that nothing they do will get his amulet to stop cracking, and making rushed, desperate, poor choices as a result...and hey, that's on purpose, that's the story they want to tell, fine, they're doing a good job portraying that idea.
But is that in-character for a dude with a billion years of life-experience? I'm not feelin' it.
: Especially since his next choice is to take Liu with him to see the Elder Gods...and Liu never actually SAYS A WORD or makes any difference at all during that scene, which makes it clear that the only reason the writers had him do that was they needed an excuse for Liu to not be at the church when Sindel attacks. That's a poor contrivance that could have been easily avoided simply by giving Liu some actual dialogue during the Elder Gods scene.
: Speaking of which, I really like how the Elder Gods' council looks like a cosmic revamp of the room with the blue faces from MK4. I really hope that's an actual arena in MK10.
: But it occurs to me that, if the Elder Gods can see what's happening in Earth and Outworld, and know that Kahn is invading, why don't they also already know that part of his plan is to start a merger, the very thing they say has to happen before they will intervene?
And why is it that the game says the merger hasn't started yet, but some of the stages totally look half-merged already, like New York has Outworld buildings in it?
: So...the Sindel Massacre. A few thoughts on that:
Some characters can take multiple hits...some die from obviously lethal strikes like palming their nose into their brain, stabbing them in the neck, etc...but Cyber-Sub, whose entire body is covered in armor, whose bones are metal, and who we JUST established last chapter can beat Goro, Kintaro, and Ermac at the same fucking time...He somehow dies from one punch to the chin.
And nobody uses their powers/projectiles, they all just run in to punch her.
And Nightwolf is apparently immune to her scream but he's the only one?
So lemme ask this: If the only reason to switch Smoke and Sub-Zero's fates was to do something different with them and give Human Smoke a chance to be a character for a while...why would you kill BOTH of them?
Why would you go to the effort of making Stryker, who used to be the worst character in MK3, into a badass...if you're not going to let him live past this?
Y'know, I really liked the Outerworld Investigation Agency. And the Agency can't really exist without Jax, because he's the brains of the operation, Sonya doesn't really do anything important there, she doesn't have the technical knowhow to build portals with science or reprogram Cyrax or anything like that...so I guess what I'm saying is, Jax being dead right now makes future stories worse.
And hey, how come when EVERYONE ELSE in Mortal Kombat steals a soul, it's green...but when Sindel - who only knows how to do it because she was given Shang Tsung's powers - does it, it's purple?
Oh, and y''know how whenever Shang dies in other games, we always see a big swarm of all the souls he's ever stolen get set free and fly off into the sky? And setting those souls free is Kenshi's whole character motivation? Well Sindel had those souls in her, but we don't see them fly free when she dies. So where are they now?
---
Raiden Chapter:
: Oh hey, Kitana's still alive, but she's fading fast. It's a good thing Raiden has healing powers, we got here just in the nick of time to save her! Hey Raiden, you wanna use your healing powers? Remember, that thing you did to Jax's bruises a while back? Raiden? Any thoughts, buddy? No? Okay...we'll just let her die, then...
: Oh look, Scorpion's in this game again! I kinda forgot about him for several hours there...because, y'know, he's just standing around, guarding Quan Chi, not being important to anything...
: "Hi, I'm the hero of the story and you're supposed to like me. That's why I'm going to sell the souls of everyone who likes and trusts me to the literal Devil, who rules literal Hell, without asking their permission, if he'll help me win. But it's okay because I'm gonna sell my soul too...because that's what we want some bad guys who have tried to conquer Earth before to have, a god as a slave! Saving Earth today is totally worth dooming it tomorrow!"
: Oh darn, that plan failed because he already HAS their souls, even though they're all good guys, some of whom are established in previous games as being literally completely pure and without sin, and previous games established that ONLY sinful souls can even EXIST in or travel to Hell. And the reason he has them is because Kahn gave them to him...even though they died on Earth and the merger hasn't technically started yet, so Kahn isn't ON Earth yet, doesn't own Earth yet, and wasn't present when they died in order to steal those souls.
: So, Raiden...you can't let Liu fight Kahn, even though you know he can win that fight because he's done it before, SOLELY because you know Kahn won't die and you need him to be dead?
Why can't you just, instead, let Liu fight him, wait until after Liu beats Kahn and then do what you should'a did when he punched him through the chest, and CONFIRM THE KILL?!
DOUBLE-TAP, MOTHER FUCKER!! Why does that never occur to anybody? I mean, okay, as soon as he was down at the end of the tournament, his body was carried off by his minions...but on the rooftop, there is nobody to save him, you could see he was all alone. You put the guy down and THEN you FRY THE CORPSE!
But I digress...I mean, after all that time living with the visions and cracking amulet, the dude was too consumed with figuring out this stupid "he must win" riddle to think about having other plans, fine...which brings up a VERY important point...
: If "he must win" refers ONLY to the invasion, because if the bad guy had won during either tournament, he'd have conquered Earth fairly and that would've been bad...then why didn't Armageddon Raiden SEND IT TO THE INVASION PART OF THE TIMELINE instead of sending it to himself at the first tournament?
: Raiden, the GOD of lightning, who has complete power over all lightning, and has been using lightning for a billion years, kills Liu Kang with lightning and LOOKS SURPRISED, like it was an accident. Does that seem right to you?
(And don't tell me he ain't dead. You can see he's clearly not breathing. Raiden takes his body at the end while saying "we must tend to the fallen", as in bury the dead.)
: So here we are at the end, and notice how unless you count Scorpion as a bad guy, none of the villains got to be playable or have any screentime to themselves? I said they'd be underdeveloped, right? I said you'd never see Sonya and Kano fight each other again after the island, right? I said you'd never see Reptile or Sheeva amount to anything, right? Well in the old timeline, get this: They ALL had their very own subplots and developments!
: As a final point, I'd like to say that I just plain don't like Raiden being the main character of the story who fights the final boss and saves the world at the end, because he's not a human hero, he's a god. His job is supposed to be to advise men and raise them up into heroes, not hold their hands or do the hard work for them.
Are you ready to read a book? Because I'm about to write a god damned book. I thought it was as good a time as any to do a definitive collection of all the ways MK2011 is an objectively inferior-in-every-way story compared to the original.
Here's every positive and negative I can think of, chapter by goddamn chapter:
---
Cage Chapter:
: Right from the beginning I have a problem because they skipped the backstory and boat scenes from the comic and movie, which is one of the best parts of the story because it all established who these people are and why they came to the tournament in a "show, don't tell" way. : How come the entire plot revolves around Raiden wearing a medallion on his chest, but he never wore it in any game before this one? Couldn't something he ACTUALLY OWNS like his wooden staff have been the plot device instead? EDIT: It's even dumber now that we know he isn't wearing the medallion in MKX either.
: There's not even an attempt to fool the audience into thinking this tournament follows a logical bracket, as right away Cage fights twice in a row, but nobody ever even comments on Shang cheating or making things up as he goes. Isn't making sure Outworld plays fair supposed to be Raiden's ACTUAL JOB? : Reptile fighting in the first fight, and everyone being able to see he's a scaly monster, means his ENTIRE story of being a hidden bodyguard who disguises himself is thrown right out the fucking window, but no other story is ever substituted in to make up for it, he's simply a generic fighter. And since he doesn't actually talk in any cutscene, we'd have no idea what his personality or motives are unless we remembered what it was in the old games, or read his text bio. (And the connection between what's in the bios and what's on the screen is pretty dubious when it's saying shit like "Sonya joined the army to find out what happened to her MIA dad" or "Ermac has Kitana's dad inside him" when that never actually comes up during the story mode...which is supposed to be, y'know, the mode that tells the game's story?) : WHY IS QUAN CHI HERE?! Seriously, in a tournament between Earthrealm and Outworld, how can someone from the Netherealm participate? The games have said again and again that the WHOLE REASON Bo' Rai Cho trains people instead of attending in person is because, since he's from Outworld, if he won, it would count for OUTWORLD. So Quan's wins would count for a realm that's NOT IN THE TOURNAMENT. : Speaking of Quan, a piece of dialogue later confirms that Mythologies is still canon. So how come neither Raiden nor Sub-Zero seems to notice or care that Quan is wearing Shinnok's Amulet? That's kind of a REALLY important thing, the amulet can free Shinnok, who everyone knows is Quan Chi's boss, from Hell and give him his Elder God powers back, and Sub and Raiden THOUGHT Sub had kept it safe at the end of the game, nobody including Shinnok is supposed to be aware that Quan has it... : When Cage refuses to kill his opponent and looks around at everyone for approval, even Liu Kang, the most pacifistic character in the entire franchise, has a look of disgust on his face. In fact, he's sneering THE MOST. What the Hell? : Notice how during all of MK1...in fact, during the ENTIRE story, Shang NEVER steals anybody's soul? The whole reason he likes being the boss of the tourney is supposed to be because it puts him in position to steal powerful souls when people lose and die! : Okay, I really liked Cage's lines in the scene where Raiden tries to tell him about Outworld and he's all like "I don't wanna be part of your roleplaying game", but all that dialogue could happen in any version, none of it relies on the time travel plot. : There's NO FUCKING WAY that I can accept Pit II replacing Pit I, those mountains in the background go on way too far to be part of Shang's ISLAND. Do you see an ocean back there? 'Cause I don't. : Sonya punches Johnny for hitting on her, deservedly so because he was refusing to take no for an answer...so he not only ACTUALLY FIGHTS BACK, the story has you play as HIM, and WIN that fight?! You can NOT have one of your story's good guys, who's meant to be goofy comedy relief, look like an almost-rapist and get away with it with zero bad karma! : In this universe, the Black Dragons aren't dying, because instead of Hsu Hao being a Red Dragon mole who helps the SF catch them, Kano is the mole and helps his gang evade the SF. If you hate Hsu Hao, you might see this as a positive, but personally, I liked that the BD slowly died more and more game by game until they were gone. : Also, are they implying Sonya and Kano had a romantic relationship before she found out he was a traitor? That's just gross. Dude's 90% bodyhair and talks like more of a pig than Cage does. : "Throw THAT on your...barbie...Shrimp!" *lol idunno shrug* ---
Sonya Chapter:
: In the old version, Sonya's captured ally was an actual team of subordinates. This made it possible to have a tragic story where when she fails in the tournament, Shang executes them and she can't do anything to stop it. If Jax is the captured guy, and they successfully break him out of the dungeon...but they can't leave the island, but Shang doesn't put him back IN the dungeon, he just lets him walk around free...what the hell was the point of having him in the dungeon in the first place? Doesn't LETTING them get away just make Shang look incompetent? : By the way, what the fuck ARE Sonya's rings? What kind of lasers wrap around metal bars like snakes and shatter them? And later she uses them to cauterize Jax's bleeding stumps, so...Are they EVER going to explain how that works? : Sonya defeats Sub-Zero in an official tournament match Shang has arranged. Sub-Zero fights in another tournament match later. So...losing doesn't eliminate you? WHAT? : Raiden can HEAL people...with electricity? And he NEVER USES THIS AGAIN, despite the fact that later in the story, he WATCHES Kitana die SLOWLY? Why even have the scene then? It's not like Jax NEEDED his bruises taken away, since he doesn't fight at all during the MK1 part of the story. : I hope you don't care about Sonya's rivalry with Kano because after they fight here, they'll never meet again even though the fight doesn't settle a damn thing. : Raiden never explained Outworld to Sonya or Jax, only to Johnny. But when he meets them, they believe everything right away and agree to follow him as if they're totally up to speed? ---
Scorpion Chapter:
: I actually don't mind the Kung Lao-in-disguise-as-a-Masked Guard retcon, because Kung's MK2 story never actually explained why he wasn't at the tournament in a way that made sense. Him being a pacifist who deliberately avoids fighting is something he CHANGED into after MK3. : Nightwolf being at the tournament actually kinda makes sense, he is one of Earthrealm's greatest fighters. And I like him comparing the Shirai Ryu to the way Native Americans were treated in history, it's a good character moment. : I really don't like Raiden making the claim that the Elder Gods would resurrect a whole bunch of dead people if Scorpion does him a favor. I mean sure, they MIGHT be willing to do it...they did it in Armageddon...but is that really morally appropriate? To just flippantly reverse the rules and life and death for an entire village of people? In fact, Scorpion's wife and kid were innocents, they're probably in Heaven, maybe they don't WANT to come back. Plus, Raiden is making a promise he can't keep. He can't make the Elder Gods say yes, he's just expecting them to do him a favor. : In an official tournament match against Sektor and Cyrax, which Shang has arranged and watches, Scorpion wins. So...again, the point is that Cyrax should be eliminated. But he's allowed to fight and eliminate Johnny Cage later. So...what, a loser's only kicked out if they're a good guy? : The animated cutscene Quan Chi shows Scorpion of the Lin Kuei killing the Shirai Ryu was actually really well done...except the Sub-Zero in it is wearing Kuai Liang's outfit, not Bi-Han's, so... ---
Cyrax Chapter:
: WHY IS SHEEVA HERE? She's not in ANY other scene on the island, she's not in the tournament, and her bio sure as fuck doesn't explain it, it just says her job is to guard Shao Kahn's dungeons...but the ONLY dungeon in the whole game is Goro's Lair, and when Sonya broke out Jax, SHE WASN'T THERE! Also, she's showing up in the game BEFORE GORO DOES! She's literally the FIRST Shokan we EVER see in this story! How is that fair/appropriate, that she takes away from the Champion of the Tournament's onscreen debut?
: If Cyrax runs away from the clan to escape being a robot, and Smoke does it, and Sub-Zero does it...then running away isn't special anymore, is it? "No one escapes the Lin Kuei" suddenly seems like an empty threat if EVERYONE is doing it and none of them fear the consequences. And the fact that we don't get to see him be captured, he successfully gets away from Sektor only to be caught again offscreen is a total cop-out.
---
Liu Kang Chapter:
: Shang says Liu's the only Earth fighter left in the tournament, but Sonya never lost a match, when was she eliminated? : Liu promises not to tell anybody that Kitana failed to assassinate him so she won't be disgraced...but before she went to do it, she TOLD Shang she was going to. So...what, does she just walk up to Shang later and go "Sorry, changed my mind, not gonna fight him"? Did he just forget? Eliminating his biggest threat ought to be kinda important to him, no? : Other than that, I actually like the interaction between Liu and Kitana here, it's cute and Liu's playful flirting actually sounds like normal things a person would say, they didn't fuck up the dialogue and make it painful like they have in past games. It's a shame there's so few scenes between them after this. : Goro gets ONE scene in the whole tournament. This is how you respect the most famous subboss, who's been undefeated for 500 years? : Beating the champion means you're the new champion, right? That's the end of the tournament. So why does Liu still have to fight Shang, who's just the referee, after he beats Goro? In the old timeline, they explained that Liu fought Shang at the end because he wasn't just there to win, he was there to boot Shang out of the Grandmaster seat. In the movie, they explained that Johnny cut a deal where Shang would be the last fight if he'd let Johnny skip to the end early. In MK9? No explanation given. They act like this is naturally how the tournament always goes. That just doesn't make sense.
: When Shang loses, he doesn't make an earthquake to cover his escape like in the old timeline or Shaolin Monks, everyone just peacefully walks back to Outworld...including Kano? When did he become one of Shang's allies? Raiden DID have a vision of Kano being chained up in the original MK2, so when did that part of history change? The island self-destructing was important because it provided a logical explanation for 1) Goro to disappear and be thought dead, allowing him to keep his reputation as a badass who only rarely shows up...and 2) How Sonya accidentally ends up in Outworld (falls there in the chaos because the island is between both realms, remember) all on her own and gets captured for trespassing, instead of the dumb idea that Shang or Baraka would deliberately take her while attacking the Shaolin Temple, making her a helpless damsel in distress.
---
Jax Chapter:
: Say...if you're going to have characters appear in games they weren't on the roster of in the old timeline, like Nightwolf attending the first tournament...that's fine if it makes sense to the story you're telling now...but shouldn't you FOLLOW THROUGH so that their presence continues to make sense? By which I mean, how come Nightwolf's not at the big celebration or participates in any of MK2? He joined the good guy team during the tournament, now suddenly he's the only one who was there that isn't here? : Boy, we sure don't have enough money to animate cutscenes of the Tarkatans attacking the temple...Oh I know, let's skip most of it by having a POV character be knocked out and wake up after it's already over! If they had him helpless on the ground, where they could all just trample over his body or stab the shit out of him, how and why did the Tarkatans let Jax live?!
: I actually like that Johnny and Jax kinda bond via fighting over Johnny's lust for Sonya. : So Sonya is being kept prisoner in the Deadpool...which game material tells us is not a dungeon, it's a sewer where waste from the Flesh Pits goes. The devs didn't make an Outworld dungeon stage, despite writing at least two scenes during MK2 where characters are jailed...and having a character's bio say she's a jailer...so every time Sheeva is guarding a prisoner, they're tied up in some random-ass level for no good reason, with only the piss-poor excuse of "we moved you here because you tried to escape from the real dungeon". That's almost being-stupid-on-purpose.
: I do like though that they show the weird fat minion guys playing dice. Too bad it's just minions. The villains in this game need more character moments like that, they're REAAALLY underdeveloped. Which reminds me, I like that Jax was smoking a cigar during the temple scene, it's another thoughtful little detail there's way too few of otherwise. : Jax picks up tech on his tracking device (which turns out to be Sektor and Cyrax), and Raiden decides to investigate because he is searching for the "He" who "must win". Johnny points out it could actually be him or Jax too. So Raiden tells Johnny to stay close...but he lets Sonya and Jax go off into danger alone. That's not very smart. (And this decision leads to Jax getting his arms blown off and having to leave Outworld altogether. Good thinkin', Mr. "I should be wise because I've been alive for a million years") ---
Smoke Chapter:
: So now Sub #2 is driven by revenge, rather than trying to finish his bro's mission, which just makes him a copy of Scorpion, instead of his own character. Remember that in the original timeline, the thing that made Kuai Liang unique from his brother right from the start was that he didn't like to kill people unless the mission required it, which telegraphed his leaving the clan and becoming one of the good guys in MK3. It was good character development. : Man, during the ENTIRE GAME, all of Smoke's dialogue is just poorly written and poorly voice acted. And his chapter doesn't further the plot OR develop his character, it's entirely a waste of time. The ONLY thing it accomplishes is to show how he joins Team Raiden, and to show Kitana failing Kahn again so he'll be mad at her later...and we didn't need to play as Smoke for those things to happen. : Boy is Shang shooting rocket launchers in the Living Forest silly looking or what? I dunno, that's not really a complaint, I just think it's funny. What IS a complaint is the fact that when Kano goes to fight Smoke, he puts the fuckin' rocket launcher down instead of just shooting him with it! : Y'know what was a really interesting story? "Sub-Zero and Smoke come back to the Lin Kuei temple after MK2 and walk in to find that two of their allies have been turned into PROTOTYPE cyborgs and that they're scheduled to be next...so they run away and Smoke tragically gets caught but Sub doesn't." Y'know what's way less good? "Let's not actually have the Lin Kuei temple appear on-screen. Instead, Sektor and Cyrax will just randomly show up in robot form in Outworld during MK2...and they'll have a bunch of gray robot minions (like in the cartoon! Remember that shit? Why not go Full Retard and have dragon jets and computer geek Nightwolf and his pet wolf Kiva if you're gonna throw out the "they're prototypes" part of the plot just so you can have dumb gray henchbots?) And those minions will have some sort of cheap stun-power so we don't have to show any heroic fighting-to-survive last stands when the captures happen! And Smoke and Sub will be split up when the attacks happen, so it's not like one can tragically sacrifice himself to cover his buddy's escape or anything dramatic and feelings-inspiring like that."
---
Sub-Zero Chapter:
: The Ermac/Jax arm-explosion is actually pretty shocking and brutal the first time you see it. It does get old over the course of replays, though...I miss the deeper character Jax had when his bionics were an optional choice born from self-confidence issues because he realized he wasn't strong enough to fight magic Outworld monsters. This version was just gore and shock value for its own sake and that, like I said, loses its impact over time. : Again...WHY IS QUAN CHI THERE?! I can kind of understand if his reason for attending MK1 had been to be Scorpion's handler...and that would work fine if not for the fact that he FOUGHT IN A MATCH...but why's he at MK2? Scorpion's not even IN this tournament yet, until Sub-Zero ASKS for him! : So...we're not going to do the "Scorpion realizes that Kuai is a nice guy and decides to atone for his sins by watching his back" at all in this timeline, huh? Instead of him being an interesting antihero with potential for redemption, we're just going to make Scorp a boring, underdeveloped villain-henchman who barely shows up in the story, even though he's the most popular character in the entire franchise? Fine, that's fine... : Let's have Raiden show that he can take the gray minion dudes out in one zap...but chooses NOT to, and also prevents Smoke from saving Sub too, because he's afraid Shao Kahn will stop them...even though those robots are interfering in an official tournament match and preventing an Earth warrior from winning, and Raiden's JOB is to make sure his guys have a fair chance in the tournaments, AND he's trying to find the "he" who "must win", and that "he" COULD have been Sub-Zero for all he knew! : Oh, and remember how in the old version, the Lin Kuei were NEUTRALS in the war between Earth and Outworld? Sektor and Cyrax were just as much being hunted by the Extermination Squads as the heroes were because their souls were immune to being stolen...but they didn't even CARE because they were too busy following THEIR mission, which had nothing to do with the invasion and everything to do with hunting down a Lin Kuei traitor. Well...we can't have that now, can we? There's no room for subtlety or sidequests and dudes with their own agenda in THIS story mode, we don't have the time and budget for those kinds of cutscenes! Let's make the Lin Kuei sign up to work for Kahn so they can be generic-ass villains like everybody else! ---
Kitana Chapter:
: Kitana responds to "We request an audience" with immediate violence. And Smoke seems to want it. I'm not sure if being dumb and jumping the gun all the time is supposed to be a personality trait of his, or just a coincidence...but it not being clearer means it's not written very well. And how come no one in NRS games can let someone finish explaining theirselves before they start a fight? (MKvsDC had this problem too. Not once could any of them just fucking go "Hey, it sounds like you think we're the attackers, but I thought you were the attackers...maybe this is all just a big misunderstanding!") : Y'know what would have been nice? If Liu Kang had actually been in this fucking chapter in person, instead of just having Raiden namedrop him every time he talks about her having goodguy potential, since he's supposed to be her god damned love interest. : Mileena's New Origin is a BIG no, for a LOT of reasons, but I'll try to summarize: In the old timeline, the story was that Kahn WANTED Kitana as a daughter, had actual parently feelings for her...but knew that if she found out about her true parentage, she'd turn on him. So Mileena was created to replace Kitana long ago, with added Tarkatan DNA so that she'd be more loyal and vicious...but the mouth wasn't SUPPOSED to come out that way, she was deemed imperfect as a clone, a failure. But Kahn didn't dispose of her because he figured she could still be useful as a spy to watch Kitana and stop her inevitable betrayal, by posing as her twin sister.
This was a good story because it established A) Kahn isn't all bad, he has a softer side, and B) Mileena's is a SAD story, she KNOWS her "father" loves her "sister" more, and has a reason to wear a mask, be ashamed of her face, and show off her "pretty" features by dressing like a slut. That's a better, more developed character. Also, C) Kitana has an actual emotional RELATIONSHIP to Mileena and feels something when she finds out they're not real sisters and she was made to kill her and steal her life.
In the new timeline, they were never raised together like sisters. And Kahn never loved or wanted Kitana either. He likes Mileena's ugly Tarkatan face because all he wants is another vicious ugly monster minion, and Mileena's just another giggly emotionally underdeveloped psycho-childish-girl stereotype like Harley Quinn or Tira from Soul Calibur instead of a unique character of her own with pathos.
BTW, if they're not twins with something to hide, why do they still wear masks?
-: Speaking of Kitana's backstory and Kahn being one-dimensional...in the original timeline, Kitana found out on her own, via detective work, that Kahn wasn't her dad and began plotting against him in secret. SHE was the one who approached the good guys and gave intel to THEM. This gave her agency in her own story, made her look cunning.
In the new version, Raiden is the one who approaches and gives intel to HER, and she has no idea why her daddy is so evil and unloving until he, for no good reason, just spontaneously decides to spill the beans and admit everything right to her shocked face? C'mon, man...how is that at all better? She comes across like a bimbo who can't see the obvious. What, should we just consider ourselves lucky that at least this time, she wasn't under mind control like in MKSM?
---
Jade Chapter:
: I'm gonna say some of the same things that I said about Smoke. The fact that she had no personality before this game and the writers don't know what to do with her as a result resulted in badly written dialogue for her, a bad voice actor, and a chapter that doesn't further the plot or develop her personality, meaning the game would have been better without it, it's just filler. Seriously, the whole story of this chapter is that she tries to break Kitana free, but fails and has to go ask Team Raiden to do it for her, which is what happens in Kung Lao's chapter, not her's.
: Also, we get the second scene where Sheeva has to guard someone in a place that's NOT a dungeon and looks stupid doing it. : And we see another scene where Smoke starts a fight like an idiot. He thinks Mileena is Kitana and Jade is attacking her own friend, even though they wear blatantly different clothes...okay, whatever...but before the fight starts, Raiden LITERALLY YELLS "Stop, that's not Kitana!" and Smoke apparently doesn't pay any attention? Maybe being dumb is supposed to be an established character trait...but it sure doesn't make me LIKE Smoke, a guy who NEEDS to earn some appreciation because this is the first game where Human Smoke is treated as an actual character...and he's already starting off on the wrong foot by having the worst hair ever in his primary costume, lol. Speaking of Edenians and the part of the story where Kitana finds out the truth and switches sides, y'know who really would have been nice to have in this part of the story for her and Jade to interact with, because he's an Edenian who deliberately betrayed his people to work for Kahn? Yeah, sure was smart of them to keep Rain off the starting roster and save him for DLC while putting Quan fucking Chi in as a launch character...
---
Kung Lao Chapter:
: There is some nice friendship-banter between Kung Lao and Liu here, much better written than when they tried to have the same dynamic in Shaolin Monks. MKSM made Kung look like a childish, jealous ass. MK9 actually makes them look like bros who just tease each other here and there. : Goro is once again made to look like an unimportant hench-chump. And Kung Lao doesn't even seem to notice or think about the fact that he's just defeated the man who killed his ancestor. : So we see Ermac beat Johnny in the tournament here...why doesn't he kill him? Why doesn't Kahn even say "finish him"? Killing their enemies was so important to Kahn earlier when Kitana was fighting in the tournament that he got impatient and killed her opponent himself. So why does he suddenly not care? : So Raiden didn't save Sub-Zero because he was afraid Kahn would stop him...but nobody stops Liu from walking right up to Kitana and freeing her from her chains? Also, when did Kitana change her clothes? She's been captured/tied up since the last time she had her other costume on, so did someone make her wear that? Is it a slave outfit? Because if it is, why does she keep wearing it during the entire invasion? In fact, there's a lot of scenes where a character is wearing one outfit one scene and then a different outfit in the next, when time DIDN'T pass between scenes.
: QUAN CHI IN A TOURNAMENT FIGHT AGAIN GOD DAMMIT. Also, since when the fuck can Kung Lao beat the Deadly Alliance all by his damn self? The dude lost his first fight in the previous tournament, didn't even come close to making it to a fight against Shang alone, when he was a weaker older man. Kung was so not-good-enough that the temple elders didn't even want him to attend! Not to mention that he died fighting these same two guys in MKDA and that was after getting new training from Bo' Rai Cho. : Kintaro has no story at all, he just shows up, loses, and goes away. WHY is this dude the fighter you send out AFTER you sent out the two most powerful sorcerers in the universe and they lost? C'mon, writers, give us SOME kind of exposition about this guy! : I actually don't mind Kung Lao's death so much. I mean, I don't like the idea of killing him before MK3, but I have no complaints about the way the scene was written. : So they all think Kahn is dead...and Kitana goes with them to Earthrealm, instead of staying to make sure he's dead and claim the throne for herself? She's just MET them, Outworld is her home, she has a legit claim to the throne, and if she cared about freeing Edenia, Outworld is the only place she could do it from! : Oh hey look, it's one of Motaro's three scenes in the whole game (and he's a dead body in one of them), and he doesn't talk in any of them! Hey, remember all those cool scenes in the MK3 attract screens, of hordes of centaurs running around, because they became Kahn's top troops because the Shokan failed too many times? Remember how Sheeva had a story all about how she hated seeing the Centaurs replace her people? Yeah...none of that happens in this version, even though the game's text-bios totally establish that Shokans and Centaurs hating each other and being rivals for Kahn's favor is still a thing.
Because hey, why would villains need to be 3-dimensional characters with their own feelings and motives, amirite? Sheeva's much better as the guard of a dungeon that doesn't exist!
: Let's talk about Sindel at length for a bit. In the old timeline, she committed suicide solely to escape a horrible life of forced marriage to an evil tyrant. That's pretty tragic and pathos-y, right? And Kahn planned to have her resurrected for YEARS and ASKED the Netherealmers to do it because he LOVED her and wanted her back...and it just so happened that, if he didn't win the tournaments, he could say "do it on Earth, the gods will let me go there to claim my property, and that way I can backdoor-invade. Clever, right?"
And Shang and the Shadow Priests helped, because even with the ruler of Hell and master of Necromancy involved, Perfect Resurrection is still HARD, it takes years of planning and lots of wizards working together on a big elaborate ritual.
In the new timeline, she's a selfless hero! She committed suicide to cast a spell that would protect Earth, because apparently the Elder Gods don't ACTUALLY have the power to stop Kahn from walking through portals, that's just a lie they've been telling for thousands of years!
That don't make a lot of sense to me.
And who needs Shang Tsung, he's not important anymore! Quan comes up with the idea all by himself, spontaneously, AFTER MK2, because he can bring a person back AND mind control them in SECONDS all by himself, because Resurrection should be EASY, shouldn't it? Why WOULD you want death to be difficult to overcome or have dramatic weight to it? Naw, bringin' people back is easy, let's do it by the boatload!
By the way, if the idea for Sindel's resurrection is just happening now...then how did Mythologies happen? Because the only reason Quan Chi knew about the map to the Amulet was Shang told him in exchange for help rezzing Sindel. (Shang knew 'cause the Shaolin had the map and Shang learned it from stealing Great Kung Lao's soul.)
---
Stryker Chapter:
: I don't like Cop Kabal. When his story was "I was a Black Dragon...but then I was mutilated by the same dudes who Kano's supplying weapons to, so I turned on them", that made sense to me. Saying a known felon just one day decided to go straight, and was allowed into police academy? That does not. I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to apply if you have a criminal record. And having a real first and last name is probably a requirement on the application too, Mister "Just Kabal".
: Reptile blocks BULLETS with an acid-spit mist. That's literally the single dumbest visual in the entire game. : Poor Motaro, killed in one hit. If Raiden can do that to people, why doesn't he do it all the time? At least preventing Johnny's death acknowledged that it happened in the old timeline, though. : Kintaro, who in this game so far has no story or personality and means nothing significant to anything, is the guy they chose to give Kabal his scars, just because he has fire breath. Again, wouldn't it be more thematic if a flamethrower given to the enemy by Kano had done the deed? : Speaking of which...It sure is convenient writing that Raiden only gets visions of bad stuff happening to his fighters when it's something the writers want to change, like Johnny's death and Cyber-Smoke, but he doesn't forsee and try to prevent Kabal being horribly burned at all. : Stryker, the most mundane human in the franchise, can beat Ermac in a fair fight. Every time Ermac shows up, he's made out to be a badass of epic power levels, who can blow up a dude's arms with his mind (and in the old timeline, once won a 5-on-1 battle against Kung Lao, Kitana, Sonya, Jax, and Cage)...but he never actually wins a single fight in MK9. ---
Kabal Chapter:
: So even though Kano had nothing to do with what happened to Kabal, he kinda blames him anyway. Oh, and he blames and wants to kill Kahn...but he NEVER thinks about the guy who ACTUALLY did it to him, Kintaro, because Kintaro is THAT forgettable/unimportant. : I wonder what the devs were thinking when they offed Tsung here. "Y'know what? Since we can just have Quan Chi do everything Shang does anyway, why not just kill Shang off and give his power to...oh, who deserves to be more evil and important than they were in MK3? Sindel! The character who's ALREADY the central plot device anyway!" : Oh look, it's Smoke, pretending to feel sad about Sub-Zero. I say "pretending" because the scene's only a few seconds long and his dialogue and acting still sound fake as hell. So y'know how I mentioned that in the old timeline, the way the Lin Kuei escape-and-capture plot was told was better than "ambush in the Outworld woods"? Well here we finally see the consequences of the capture and here's another thought: Automation is bad because it's meant to make you think about body horror, about being mutilated on an operating table and shit like that, right? Sure would've been nice if we got to SEE THAT HAPPEN.
And remember how in MK3, "My best friend was taken and I couldn't save him and now he's being forced to hunt me and I feel guilty and don't want to fight him, I want to restore him somehow" was Sub-Zero's WHOLE STORY, and Cyber-Smoke's story was kinda about trying to resist the programming and hold onto his humanity through sheer force of will?
Well apparently that's too good for the new timeline, where we don't have time to animate drama or give people personal sidequests, because nobody was hunting Smoke, Cyber-Sub never fought Smoke, Smoke had no real role in saving Sub, he was merely a bystander with a scant few vaguely sad sounding, completely forgettable lines of dialogue while Kabal and Jax and Raiden did all the real work of bringing their new robot buddy into the fold.
: By the way, y'know how if you freezeframe during the scene where we see through Cyber-Sub's eyes and he's scanning Kabal trying to recognize him, and his HUD shows cameos like Frost and Reiko? Well I sure hope those are just a noncanon gag, because if not, they're fuckin' wrong. Particularly the fact that the text lists Frost as a Lin Kuei, but she didn't join the clan until Deadly Alliance. ---
Cyber-Sub Chapter:
: Getting to see a Cyberninja's HUD was kinda neat, especially the fact that their operating system's in partial Chinese. : So the heroes assembled offscreen, before the first chapter about the invasion even started, and are hiding out in a church inside the city? I guess that's convenient for the plot...but it was more interesting IMO in the original MK3 when part of the plot was about how the invasion caught them by surprise and they all had to travel from their homelands to meet up with each other and the meeting place was Nightwolf's reservation because he specializes in protection-magic, so they had a safe camp from Kahn's forces there. : Speaking of the Church, how come in fights it's an evil place where a Shadow Priest stands in the background resurrecting a zombie, but in the story it's the good guys' hideout? Wouldn't it have been more thematically appropriate if, had they gone with having the heroes hide out in Nightwolf's reservation like in the original, the church could have been where Sindel's resurrection happened, instead of the desert? Which reminds me, how come the Shadow Priests are never actually mentioned or appear in any cutscenes, they're SOLELY a decoration in stage backgrounds? You'd think someone would NOTICE these creepy wizards floating nearby while they fight, or Kahn would have some kind of ACTUAL USE for them?
: Y'know what? Let's just go balls-deep on making Goro and Kintaro look as weak and useless as possible as henchmen, by having someone fight them both at the SAME TIME and win. But it's okay for Ermac, we'll give him another badass entrance to make him SEEM like a powerful guy before we job him out like we have every other time. : So in the original MK3, Shao Kahn kicked off his invasion by casting a spell that stole every soul in the world. Which he can do because it's well established that stealing souls and turning worlds into wastelands is his thing. Then, once the Earth was barren save for the heroes the gods protected, he sent his armies forth to clean up the stragglers. I will admit that having the armies happen first led to some cool looking warzone scenes...but if you can wipe out the resistance first, why not do so?
Oh, but wait, Kahn's NOT the guy who does the soul steal in the new timeline! THIS time, it's QUAN FUCKING CHI...because HE can do that now! Even though the ONLY reason the Deadly Alliance even HAPPENED in the old timeline was because sucking souls out of a person's body and sending them elsewhere is the ONLY THING Shang Tsung can do that Quan Chi CAN'T, so he NEEDED him as a partner in order to reanimate an army of dead mummies using stolen souls.
And you might say "Well MK9 calls it "making a soulnado"...which Quan Chi DID do in MKDA. Except the Soulnado in MKDA wasn't MADE by Quan Chi. The soulnado in MKDA was made by opening a portal to Heaven, which is a place full of souls, and the souls poured out ALL ON THEIR OWN.
---
Nightwolf Chapter:
: So Sub-Zero gets to have a decently written scene where he finds out Noob is his brother and has a dramatic showdown with him...but he's NOT the one who actually finishes that fight? NIGHTWOLF, who has nothing to do with Noob, is the one who kills him? How is that appropriate? : Okay, so now we're starting to see Raiden lose his fucking marbles, zoning out mid-conversation, being at a loss for strategy, flipping his lid that nothing they do will get his amulet to stop cracking, and making rushed, desperate, poor choices as a result...and hey, that's on purpose, that's the story they want to tell, fine, they're doing a good job portraying that idea. But is that in-character for a dude with a billion years of life-experience? I'm not feelin' it.
: Especially since his next choice is to take Liu with him to see the Elder Gods...and Liu never actually SAYS A WORD or makes any difference at all during that scene, which makes it clear that the only reason the writers had him do that was they needed an excuse for Liu to not be at the church when Sindel attacks. That's a poor contrivance that could have been easily avoided simply by giving Liu some actual dialogue during the Elder Gods scene. : Speaking of which, I really like how the Elder Gods' council looks like a cosmic revamp of the room with the blue faces from MK4. I really hope that's an actual arena in MK10. : But it occurs to me that, if the Elder Gods can see what's happening in Earth and Outworld, and know that Kahn is invading, why don't they also already know that part of his plan is to start a merger, the very thing they say has to happen before they will intervene? And why is it that the game says the merger hasn't started yet, but some of the stages totally look half-merged already, like New York has Outworld buildings in it?
: So...the Sindel Massacre. A few thoughts on that: Some characters can take multiple hits...some die from obviously lethal strikes like palming their nose into their brain, stabbing them in the neck, etc...but Cyber-Sub, whose entire body is covered in armor, whose bones are metal, and who we JUST established last chapter can beat Goro, Kintaro, and Ermac at the same fucking time...He somehow dies from one punch to the chin.
And nobody uses their powers/projectiles, they all just run in to punch her.
And Nightwolf is apparently immune to her scream but he's the only one?
So lemme ask this: If the only reason to switch Smoke and Sub-Zero's fates was to do something different with them and give Human Smoke a chance to be a character for a while...why would you kill BOTH of them?
Why would you go to the effort of making Stryker, who used to be the worst character in MK3, into a badass...if you're not going to let him live past this?
Y'know, I really liked the Outerworld Investigation Agency. And the Agency can't really exist without Jax, because he's the brains of the operation, Sonya doesn't really do anything important there, she doesn't have the technical knowhow to build portals with science or reprogram Cyrax or anything like that...so I guess what I'm saying is, Jax being dead right now makes future stories worse.
And hey, how come when EVERYONE ELSE in Mortal Kombat steals a soul, it's green...but when Sindel - who only knows how to do it because she was given Shang Tsung's powers - does it, it's purple?
Oh, and y''know how whenever Shang dies in other games, we always see a big swarm of all the souls he's ever stolen get set free and fly off into the sky? And setting those souls free is Kenshi's whole character motivation? Well Sindel had those souls in her, but we don't see them fly free when she dies. So where are they now?
---
Raiden Chapter:
: Oh hey, Kitana's still alive, but she's fading fast. It's a good thing Raiden has healing powers, we got here just in the nick of time to save her! Hey Raiden, you wanna use your healing powers? Remember, that thing you did to Jax's bruises a while back? Raiden? Any thoughts, buddy? No? Okay...we'll just let her die, then... : Oh look, Scorpion's in this game again! I kinda forgot about him for several hours there...because, y'know, he's just standing around, guarding Quan Chi, not being important to anything... : "Hi, I'm the hero of the story and you're supposed to like me. That's why I'm going to sell the souls of everyone who likes and trusts me to the literal Devil, who rules literal Hell, without asking their permission, if he'll help me win. But it's okay because I'm gonna sell my soul too...because that's what we want some bad guys who have tried to conquer Earth before to have, a god as a slave! Saving Earth today is totally worth dooming it tomorrow!" : Oh darn, that plan failed because he already HAS their souls, even though they're all good guys, some of whom are established in previous games as being literally completely pure and without sin, and previous games established that ONLY sinful souls can even EXIST in or travel to Hell. And the reason he has them is because Kahn gave them to him...even though they died on Earth and the merger hasn't technically started yet, so Kahn isn't ON Earth yet, doesn't own Earth yet, and wasn't present when they died in order to steal those souls. : So, Raiden...you can't let Liu fight Kahn, even though you know he can win that fight because he's done it before, SOLELY because you know Kahn won't die and you need him to be dead? Why can't you just, instead, let Liu fight him, wait until after Liu beats Kahn and then do what you should'a did when he punched him through the chest, and CONFIRM THE KILL?!
DOUBLE-TAP, MOTHER FUCKER!! Why does that never occur to anybody? I mean, okay, as soon as he was down at the end of the tournament, his body was carried off by his minions...but on the rooftop, there is nobody to save him, you could see he was all alone. You put the guy down and THEN you FRY THE CORPSE!
But I digress...I mean, after all that time living with the visions and cracking amulet, the dude was too consumed with figuring out this stupid "he must win" riddle to think about having other plans, fine...which brings up a VERY important point...
: If "he must win" refers ONLY to the invasion, because if the bad guy had won during either tournament, he'd have conquered Earth fairly and that would've been bad...then why didn't Armageddon Raiden SEND IT TO THE INVASION PART OF THE TIMELINE instead of sending it to himself at the first tournament? : Raiden, the GOD of lightning, who has complete power over all lightning, and has been using lightning for a billion years, kills Liu Kang with lightning and LOOKS SURPRISED, like it was an accident. Does that seem right to you? (And don't tell me he ain't dead. You can see he's clearly not breathing. Raiden takes his body at the end while saying "we must tend to the fallen", as in bury the dead.)
: So here we are at the end, and notice how unless you count Scorpion as a bad guy, none of the villains got to be playable or have any screentime to themselves? I said they'd be underdeveloped, right? I said you'd never see Sonya and Kano fight each other again after the island, right? I said you'd never see Reptile or Sheeva amount to anything, right? Well in the old timeline, get this: They ALL had their very own subplots and developments! : As a final point, I'd like to say that I just plain don't like Raiden being the main character of the story who fights the final boss and saves the world at the end, because he's not a human hero, he's a god. His job is supposed to be to advise men and raise them up into heroes, not hold their hands or do the hard work for them. About Me
0
About Me
0
© 1998-2024 Shadow Knight Media, LLC. All rights reserved. Mortal Kombat, the dragon logo and all character names are trademarks and copyright of Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.