Johnny Cage was killed off pre-MK3 but then came back for Trilogy and later MK4 and Deadly Alliance where he was then killed off but came back in Armageddon. So yeah, death has always been meaningless in MK.

People fight in and have a war with basically Hell; death is pretty much just going to another realm in MK.

All of the heroes died pre-Deception and got brought back in the end (and for Armageddon).

You know I could live with Kung Lao returning (The spirit of his ancestor being in his body and all)

But Kitana and Jax returning from the dead (while Kabal, Nightwolf, Sindel and Jade probably stay dead forever because Boon wants it and don't like them as much like the others that DID return from the dead) is shittalk and doesn't make sense.

This game's story would be better with Cyrax taking Jax his place, he's boring ,bland and doesn't have anything to do in MKX than probably sucking up to Sonya's heels.

We get it!

You don't like Jax. You think the game would be better without him. Unfortunately for you, you can't get rid of him because it looks like he's in.

Most people here on MKO don't like you for your constant shit-posting. They think the forum would be better without you. Unfortunately for them, they can't get rid of you either.

Nobody wins

Good, I love it when i'm hated by sheep and peasants. That gives me positive energy.

I'd be so fucking happy if this forum had a block user button.

Too bad, YOU will die. xxx Sindel

Is it just me or do you say boring in every post?

Death has become a running joke in MK. Which is sad because it should be the ultimate price. But instead, they'll just get resurrected or something and come back in the next game.

Or mods who actually banned trolls as opposed to blaming us for interacting with them when they spam every thread

This.

All I'm seeing is "defeated" I'm not seeing anything about death or Resurrection.

That's the thing though. This wasn't a thing from the get go, it happened later on. I'm saying near the start of the series if you went to NR you were staying there or at serving for them. There were no get out of jail cards.

Death has always been meaningless in MK. But don't feel too bad.

Death has been meaningless in every fighting game.

Pretty much is meaningless except for a select few that will always stay dead.

I am SO tired of seeing dead characters returning. In my opinion, if you can't write a story competently enough whereas you keep resurrecting the characters you've killed off then hire someone else to write the story!

Death becoming meaningless is good story poison, nothing is at stake and therefore no emotional investment since the viewer already know nothing significant and truly dramatic is going to happen. It becomes a joke. Various examples are of often given to brush off any criticism on consistency and continuity, I say is just a way to conform with mediocre writing.

Realistically speaking, definitive death in fighting games is almost impossible, however, you can still give ingame deaths some weigh and serious tone by making the character skip a title or two, or make a drastic change in their character to give a sense change and that the story is actually is moving forwards for example:

Cage died and wasn't in MK3 and UMK3, there were consequences to his death, whatever the reasons. Sub Zero's change in appearance after defecting from the Lin Kuei

Liu Kang died in DA, wasn't present in that title and returned quite changed in the next, his death had consequences in the story and its characters, an impact that defined DA.

Deception's darker tone was defined by the good guys failing in DA and getting murdered, again reflected by them not being playable characters, the heroes were few, disorganized and some corrupted, unable to face the might of the ascending Dragon.

Of course there's always the "T'was a doppelganger/clone" kind of shit, one the cheapest most lame explanations to justify cheating death ever.

Armageddon's whole point was to bring back every character from the franchise ever so I'm not going to get into that.

The other thing you can do is simply not carelessly kill so many characters or leave their fate unknown for potentials comebacks, then people wont have such a hard time accepting a character's early return.

Unfortunately, MK9 didn't follow any of these approaches and massacred half of the roster for shock value. People enjoyed it because they assumed the events that happened during the storymode mattered, as what we know about MKX's has led us to believe since they're going to pick up from MK9's ending and, since it was a reboot, there was always the possibility of things changing permanently.
I believe many of us thought that the reason they killed so many characters was to leave some space for new ones or 3D era, but then again those are only expectations.



So now we have three choices for the revived characters who conveniently revived when others didn't:

A) A contrived explanation describing how they managed to do it during the Netherrrealm wars.

B) MK9's events got retconned, some characters didn't really died while others did, which will be explained during the intro or in the comics

C) And unexpected twist that reveals the characters aren't really what they seem to be or what they once were.

I think NRS is trying to have his cake and eat it too when it comes to the story, if you want the fans to care about it you have to introduce some stakes, if you don't want to risk it then don't go halfass about it. Otherwise, is just going to flop and fans are going to be rolling their eyes everytime something dramatic happens like characters dying.

Well said, Denizen.

Yes, yes it is and always will be meaningless.

How about stop giving them the feed and actually ignoring them...

act like grown ups, by voicing your righteous indignation you basically add wood to the pyre..

This is very true.

On the other hand, part of the reason why it doesn't carry much weight is fan expectations. People will want to see their favourite characters return, even at the expense of storytelling. This forum has delivered numerous prime examples in the past day of people being unhappy about a favourite being confirmed dead, or a character they dislike possibly being brought back.

I imagine death having more weight in the series as a whole would probably alleviate some of the frustrations on who returns and who doesn't, but not entirely. Arguably, while the fans do bemoan how pointless the deaths have been, some would be far more annoyed if, for example, Sindel did permanently kill off all of those characters in MK2011.

It's a difficult balance given the nature of the game, to begin with. Killing your opponent at the end of a fight is Mortal Kombat's definitive, stand-out feature. No wonder NRS has trouble juggling whether or not somebody actually stays dead or not, since most fighting games don't even broach the possibility of killing another character.

As John vogel said years ago: no one ever really truly dies in Mortal Kombat

Death and resurrection are apart of MK. Always has been. The first game has a resurrected in the roster. It's just one of those elements of the franchise. Of course they could have some deaths hold more meaning but I think they're trying to do that with Sonya wearing what seems to be a wedding ring and Kitana using a fallen friends weapons.

MK is a fantasy franchise and the main returning villain is a necromancer, we were ALWAYS going to see some of these heroes coming back to life in some capacity.

Uh... I don't see how OP was being a troll and how this was a spam thread.