Big hallo to whole MKO community!

Ancient MK fan here. been playing since MK1 on Sega Genesis, and have been visiting this site for a number of years, primarily looking for information and a few interesting thoughts, theories and generally fun stuff, which were abundant here.

But never had the need to post anything until MKX came out and I finally got my hands on it, so I decided to toss my few cents here...

PREPARE FOR GIGANTIC AMOUNT OF TEXT :

(English is not my first language so forgive me for eventual grammatical mistakes )

PROS:

Let me first get this out : as a MK fighting dame it is a dream came trough, engine is magnificent, presentation is awesome, innovations (primarily variation system) are great and nicely thought of.
Game is insanely fun, but (most of you) know that already so I won't spent too much of space on that.

CONS:

Things that I didn't like are few and are mostly also mentioned by members of community :

1)
Yeah, the amount of stages is really low and while they are gorgeous they are beginning to bore me already (the only thing that does that in game really ) and I'm really hoping that rumors of eventual free DLC stages are true

2)
While I think that roster is mostly great and I alike all of the new characters are cool and worthy to be a part of MK cast (for the first time in LOOONG years) and I was expecting going a bit safe with roster choices (Liu Kang, Kitana), some of them like Jax and Kung Lao (who is now just catering to the tournament crowd) have absolutely NO reason to be here.

Now don't get me wrong I do like those characters, but they had their time, and specially when I saw Kung Jin's chakram variation, which is essentially half-assed imitation of few Kung' Laos moves and won't be used by ANYONE when we have proper KL in game, it's puzzling why they didn't just transfer KL signature moves there, and splitting Jax's moves between Jacquie (instead of not much beloved Shotgun variation) and Tremor.

With that in mind KL would function perfectly as unplayable revenant NPC and Jax while revived would show up just in cut-scenes, with more moments with Jacquie and his chapter would go to Kenshi (poor chap will go to retirement without ever doing anything meaningful, and hes even one of the heroes! )

So, yeah i consider inclusion of those 2 instead of Rain and Smoke as
criminal. And I'm not even a Rain fan! After playing the story game somehow feels unfinished without him included.

I purposely omitted Fujin because I would give my left arm if he doesn't become DLC somewhere along the road. (And if he doesn't than the company is run by idiots who doesn't know how to make money... )

Why I mentioned Smoke, you say? Yeah hes popular and such, but why him specifically? Because of the fact that in game that revolves around the conflict with damned God of Hell we have only 1 (ONE) playable DEMON from his army (Quan Chi) ! (Revanants are not demons, that's not a replacement damn it!)

When Noob ended in soulnado, being seen Smoke's ending, I thought that
he was pretty much a certain, being a perfect replacement for Noob as demonic ninja. How in the hells name did they missed that opportunity is beyond me.. there still stays a (faint) hope for DLC, but I'm not really convinced in that.

STORY:

Now, what caught my eye is that most of complains I saw revolve around game's story mode, let me give my opinion:

This is definitely the best MK story but it could be much better, script by itself was good but presentation was really screwed with some production decisions.

Main reason for me liking it is that in process of revisiting the old timelines they really did thir job in rectifying mistakes of the past and that after years of being one of the biggest failure in MK history (but not THE biggest) mk4 FINALLY got that proper remake I dreamed of when I was a teenager.


Shao Kahn is one of my favorite characters (played MK2 and all versions of MK3 like crazy in childhood days and I want him playable, don't care how non-canon that is! ) but Shinnok is the Ultimate Villain for me since I read his back-story, and I was always bummed that they were constantly ruining him with presentation.
I hated his (first, not demonic one) look in MKM and MK4 and he didn't even use his SPECIAL MOVES in MK4 AI fight FFS!. The (so called) boss of the game was essentially bugged, damn, call that a screw up...

So when MK9 finished, and I saw him in ending animation I was excited beyond measure, seeing how good MK9 turned out and that was one of the main reasons for expecting this game, to see will they manage to finally do justice to the Demon God.

Probably because of that I was one of minority that was actually bummed by that (unfortunate) Boon's statement that we will get returning surprise boss. That got my expectations a bit low. And I got disappointed and saddened that they don't nave the balls to actually take the Shinnok and make him a bad-ass as he is in lore.

But I have kept a little spark of hope that is was only poor choice of word and a badly thought of declaration, because he thought of Demon Shinnok from MKM as "returning"

So, unlike, some of you, who expected surprise, I was actually rejoiced when I saw him as the main villain, and buy did they nailed it. Mannerism, look, voice everything. End he even has a demon form from MKM at the end. I'm happy as I could be.

Except demon form could be less glowy (consider his look when he's about to explode at the end of the arcade tower, he would be better that way), but it fine even in this way, and he could be tougher to beat, since they made AI easier because of casuals... but that is now just nitpicking.

For all the Reiko/Havik/Blood God controversy we have a Story Mode complain tread so I will post that there. This has become pretty long anyway.



Thank you if you have read through all that.

See you around MK Online and have fun with MKX (I know that I will)!