That suggests that people who thought the original MK1 thru 3 Liu Kang was boring were right. I don't believe that. I LIKED original Liu. People only think he's boring because his story was told in text instead of shown with emotion.

He had a great arc. He went from a pacifist with no Fatality, to being driven by rage to turn into a dragon and eat people, to calming his shit down and becoming a wise dude who no longer needed Raiden's guidance, he'd learned everything and in MK4 became the mentor himself. AND he coped with the lonely prospect of reliving the "Who Wants to Live Forever" scenes in Highlander by meeting and falling for a hot rebel spy who ages super-slow, bringing "I see the good in everybody" hope to her miserable "I was trained to kill my own people" existence and helping her throw off the shackles of her evil stepdad.

This Liu never learned anything except to not trust Raiden. He died the student, never the master, and never even got to know Kitana. "I wish we had met under different circumstances" indeed. Like in a game where you ACTUALLY GET TO HAVE SCREENTIME TOGETHER.

And how do you propose they get Liu from dead and in the Netherealm to "become a god and go mad with power"? And how is going mad with power in-character for Liu?



He sold guns to Outworld in both timelines, we could have seen MORE of him being friends with Kabal if they hadn't turned Kabal into a fucking cop out of nowhere just to give Stryker someone to talk to, and I definitively hate the idea of him being in Hsu Hao's shoes, not because of any like for Hsu Hao, but because I don't BELIEVE this man can pretend to be good, he's too sleazy all the time.

And not seeing Sonya get her rematch, him wear a lock of her hair as a necklace, and Klingon-Promotion his way to head of the entire army by helping Kahn kill Sheeva kill Motaro is a HUGE negative for me. I was actually emotionally invested in Kano's MK3 story. When I read his MKDA Konquest and found out that's what happened to him, that was the first time I EVER LIKED that shitty fucking character.

And in the invasion part of MK9, he's NOT EVEN THERE except for the Kabal part and one scene where Cyber-Sub beats him up.



Ya keep sayin' that, but I don't want no Herman Blade character. That sounds fuckin' dumb to me. "Oh, all this time, Sonya and Jax had never heard of magic or monsters before the tournament, but her dad secretly knew everything about everything like Nick fucking Fury and he's coming out of the deepest deep cover ever, i.e. death, with ghost powers!"

Besides, I think in her ending she's gone mad from PTSD and the ghost is a hallucination.

That is what everyone does in MK9, after all. They fuck up and then they go crazy at the slightest provocation, because I don't know if you knew this, but it turns out that Schizophrenia is highly contagious.

And it is allergy season, so...If you happen to be hanging out with any Thunder Gods who start hearing voices, or curling up into a ball and crying because their jewelry is broken and they don't know how to make the bad man go away? For the love of god, make him cover his nose, and be sure to carry lots of hand sanitizer.

Don't say I didn't warn ya.



Wasn't even a joke. Jax is the only one who knew how to build a portal machine, and the OIA literally can't exist without that device. The ability to go to other realms wherever and whenever they want is the entire basis of their operation.



OT Kung Lao found peace and enlightenment at the end of MK3. Y'know, he grew as a man and reached a higher spiritual plane to commune with his ancestor or some shit. Sure, letting your friends think you're dead is a dick move, but maybe it was an accident, like he was still passed out in Kahn's castle when it got sucked back to Outworld? He came right back in the next one and even helped Goro become a fucking good guy, that's kind of a big deal.

That's not a maybe for me.



See, where you say his MK2 and 3 story was just "shady shit in the shadows", I say his MKT bio and ending ALWAYS said he's "fightin' for Kahn but really spyin' for Shinnok".



See, there you go again, thinking arcade endings that might not come true have anything to do with Story Mode.



WHAT added backstory?

"Shokans have to fight Centaurs to join the army. He fought more than one, so Kahn made him bodyguard"?

You call that fleshing out?

That's a Chameleon-tier description! MALE Chameleon, spelled with a C!

Also, that bio is predicated on a LIE! He doesn't DO any bodyguarding in Story Mode! He's let out of a cage to fight in the tournament and then he's a random ground troop during the invasion, he never ONCE protects Shao Kahn from anything!

And nothing involving Centaurs or how the Shokan hate them EVER happens ANYWHERE, so why should I care that he killed a bunch at once? Maybe if this made him an enemy Motaro wants revenge on, that would be an actual character trait. But since there IS no Motaro really, and LESS than nothing of the rest of his race in the game, then who gives a fuck?



See, him being the Grandmaster's son is cool and all, gives him a backstory, sure...but I have a big problem with the idea that Sektor was planning to overthrow his dad and become big boss all along and that turning himself into a robot while keeping his free will was all part of the master plan.

OT Sektor was just as mindless as Cyrax, and that made SENSE because that's the ENTIRE POINT of the initiative, turn all ninjas into slaves who follow orders! When he turned in MKDA, it was because his programming went haywire from battle damage.

He malfunctioned. Like a robot.

New Sektor is a robot that LAUGHS. I don't WANT a robot that laughs. HOW did no one notice that he was keeping his personality and not slave to the programming, when they performed the surgery that connected his brain to a computer?



You could say that. But what I would say is, AFTER the minus and the plus cancel each other out, you have to take into account that at the end of the original MK3, every cyborg was in a different and unique place. Sektor was still Lin Kuei, Cyrax joined the Special Forces, and Smoke was presumed dead until Noob turned him into a cyberdemon.

The fact that Cyrax is STILL SEKTOR'S PARTNER is an immediate additional minus.



I hate Kabal as a cop. I know that's not the majority opinion, they think it gives him more backstory.

I think it takes away his backstory, makes him look like a useless shlub "regular guy" when he first appears, who gets One-Hit-KO'd without throwing a punch by everything that Stryker can beat when he SHOULD have been a slick hooksword-weilding criminal who gets scarred because the Extermination Squads don't discriminate one human from another enough to know he's Kano's friend, AND on top of that, it doesn't make any fuckin' SENSE because in America, people with criminal records CAN'T BECOME COPS.

And again, y'know, no matter WHAT portrayal he got, he fuckin' DIED.



Nightwolf was never a "C-lister". People only saw him that way 'cause he's a goofy indian. And he's STILL a goofy indian, so instead of people going "oh shit, turns out he's a badass", what most of the casuals are actually doing, I've found, is going "it's so silly that the goofy indian is being made to look like a badass."

The original MK3 portrayed him straight-up as the replacement Raiden, there to lead the heroes in Rai-dude's place because Earth gods couldn't interfere in the invasion.

I don't count other people taking 15 years to see what I already saw a "plus".

I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't like the cop thing and how he was overshadowed by Stryker.

I hated it. His storyline from the original timeline was far better.

Wait, Liu Kang lost faith in his religion? When?


Because if you imply Raiden i would point out that buddhism is an inherently atheistic faith, not counting Tibetan buddhism. To my knowledge he only turned on Raiden.

But then again, this is MK where the depth of research barely goes beyond three words.

I think it is an exercise in futility to debate the merits and pitfalls of the two continuities until we get a glimpse of what exactly Boon and co. intend to do.


One thing is certain, MK will NEVER be as coherent as some of you would like or pretend it to be. Imo there is basically two choices: accept that MK's story is mostly bullshit for fun's sake, or waste your sanity trying to put together something that will never come to pass. Not with the current team.



Imo they should have hired a professional writer for the reboot, and I do not mean the usual diletantes who work for video games and pass off as writers.

Plus, Raiden, last time I checked, was ONE god, of course, the Elder gods were being freaking stupid too, he may of criticized them too, but he only tried to ATTACK Raiden.

I like how Chrome knows the Shaolin aren't buddhists in MK, they're Elder Gods/Raiden-worshippers and have been established as such since at least 1995, he just likes talking about the real world so much he brings it up at any opportunity he can find anyway.
I also like that he used the term "atheistic faith".
Perhaps "atheistic philosophy" would be a less contradictory turn of phrase?

Just rewatched the MKDA and MKD intros. I miss how perfectly those games go from Deadly Alliance to Deception. Before Armageddon released I was hoping we'd get to see how Deception officially ended through a cg intro.

What bugs me the most about MK9's errors, is that they were intentional. They did a great job during that intro and Raiden's initial flash back showing all the cool scenes from the games.

Then the rest of the story happened

THIS and to be able to finish your opponent off!

No, see, that breaks immersion.

Sarcasm, the lowest form of wit.

1.
I find it half-assed and somewhat even probably disrespectful towards culture. And since every created fantasy world is based on Earthly paralels, yes... I am cognisant of the fact that they could basically write whatever they want. I dislike it because I find it distastefully stupid. Why the hell use the shaolin, if they are not going to be shaolin?

2.
Because Buddhism IS atheistic in some denominations, as it does not have deities in the sense that monetheistic religions or poluytheistic ones have. it is not a contradiction, because buddhism does have religious .

Hell, even Buddha discouraged metaphysical pondering of the world, as his idea was based on particularly useful and PRACTICAL thinking that would liberate the man from the wheel of fate and reincarnation to achieve nirvana in the Bardo.

Tibetan buddhims however DOES have deities since it could not develop without the influence of Bon priests, and hindi polytheism. And you know what? There are plenty of atheistic religions because a religion does not require a deity.

Like the necrocracy that is North Korea.

Or Jainism.

Or certain animisms.

No, that's puns.



Because to most people, their religion isn't what defines them, their martial arts practices are.

I want it to be as simple as solid. No bvllsh!t plots, I mean a desent story because imo they F@kt#p the last story mode, sorry. They wrote the story in such way that they are stuck(imo). Keep it simple!
But I realy don't care that much for the story anymore, as long as the fighters look good, the engine works well, and the "atmos-fear" is right, I will play MK
No doubt.

I would like something a little more than cutscene-fight, cutscene-fight over and over.

I like the cutscenes, but in konquest we get to see more of the MK universe, not just cutscenes that take place in the stages that are already in arcade mode.

I would like for the cutscenes to have fight scenes like in Injustice.

ex.

Liu Kang appears with his face hidden in his hood watching Kai.

He appears to Kai attacking him.

Kai vs Liu Kang begins at round 1.

Then heading to round 2 is where Kai knocks Liu as he reveals his face. Kai, shocked at the face, he was fighting his own hero. Liu's face was revealed to be scarred and burned. Left confused he had no choice but to fight him.

At the end of the fight, Kai demanded answers why and that they were fighting on the same side. Liu tells him nothing except tells him that Raiden killed them all.

But the worlds were so bland, they were just kind of an empty plain with occasional settlements.

Shujinko goes to Outworld, has theoretically the entire realm to explore, and the only FAMILIAR location from a previous game that you can actually find on the map is the Living Forest? FUCK that!

Shaolin Monks has so far been the ONLY MK game where the world felt like a world.

It goes without saying that pretty much every single characterization in the NT loses out when compared to seven games worth of backstory in the OT. So when I did this little analsis back during the MK9 aftermath, I tried to remain as objective as I could and stick strictly to the MK1-3 timeframe. The only time I allowed myself to bitch about the loss of post-MK3 character development was Cyber-Zero, because fuck that shit.

With that said...


See, you and I know all of that, but it's still nice to finally see the public opinion turn around. This notion of a darker, more cynical Liu who renounced his former mentor was what they were shooting for with Legacy, but ended up with TEH EDGEMASTER instead.


So keeping in mind what I said earlier about restricting ourselves to MK1-3 timeframe for the sake of the argument, Liu's Highlander dilemma is out. As far as I recall, the first time it came up was in MK4.

I suppose you can argue that it's a moot point since both Liu and Kitana are dead by the end of MK9, but I still think that the amount of characterization and character development they've been able to achieve in that time is fairly commendable.

It helps that his voice actor is competent, though. His scenes with Raiden towards the end of the game were some of the high points of story mode.


Well, he died right before Kahn got wiped out from existence and the merger of the realms stopped, so there might be some wiggle room there. He's also the active Mortal Kombat champion. You'd think that maybe his soul of all people would be somehow immune to realm-shifting shenanigans.

He'd be "going mad with power" in the same way that Dark Raiden did.

Which is to say, not really.

He'd simply want to protect Earthrealm by any means necessary, because he believes that Raiden is too incompetent to be trusted with that responsibility, and I don't think anyone can blame him for thinking that.


YOU DISPLEASE US, THUNDER GOD

SHINNOK, THE FALLEN ONE, HAS BEEN BIDING HIS TIME FOR AEONS, WAITING FOR AN OPPORTUNITY TO STRIKE BACK AGAINST THOSE WHO BANISHED HIM, AND YOU PLAYED RIGHT INTO HIS HANDS

YOUR RECKLESS TAMPERING WITH FORCES BEYOND YOUR UNDERSTANDING HAS UNBALANCED THE FURIES AND THREATENED THE VERY FABRIC OF EXISTENCE
YOUR FELLOW DEITIES ARE BEING OVERWHELMED BY SHINNOK'S LEGIONS AS WE SPEAK

YOUR PRECIOUS CHAMPION'S LIFE IS FORFEIT, NOT IN BATTLE WITH THOSE WHO SEEK TO INVADE HIS REALM, BUT BY YOUR OWN HAND

YOU HAVE DONE ENOUGH, THUNDER GOD

YET...

YET EVEN AS THE EARTHREALM CHAMPION SHEDS HIS MORTAL COIL, HIS SPIRIT SHINES EVER SO BRIGHTLY

PERHAPS...

PERHAPS HE IS MORE CAPABLE OF SHOULDERING THE DUTIES OF GOD-PROTECTOR OF EARTHREALM THAN YOU, THUNDER GOD

SO IT SHALL BE...






Could be hype, bro. Just sayin'. :3

But seriously, her dad is mentioned in both her bio and her ending. They better fucking follow up on that in some way.


I know, it's just that Sonya is of the OGs of MK. Compared to her, Jax felt like more of a B-lister.

So sometimes even I periodically have to remind myself that "oh yeah, he is the one who actually outranks her and always has to bail her out of trouble, not the other way around".


Again, the only thing we know about him as of the end of MK3 is that he's probably dead. And I know it's not saying much, but after seeing how horrendously wrong he was portrayed in MKSM, his characterization in MK9 was a pleasant surprise.

Besides, you were the one who said this:




I was just as disappointed with MK9's story mode as you were, but I still don't think it's fair to judge it in a vacuum. When Deception came out, we certainly didn't judge the quality of the story based on Konquest alone.


Wasn't he the sub-boss that you fight before Kahn in the MK2 portion of the story?

Sounds about right to me. That was pretty much his role in OT, too. Hell, OT Sheeva didn't get to do much bodyguarding either. That's probably why they made into Kahn's dungeonmaster or whatever the fuck.


Considering that his personality pre-cyberization was a blindly loyal murder machine, I suppose it'd be hard to notice. :)

I agree, though. Sektor needs to be a soulless automaton, a walking Skynet. Reposting Xiahou's Sektor bio for the gorillionth time for those who haven't seen it, because I still think it's one of the best things he ever wrote and it fucking nails the automaton angle perfectly:



Fuck year.


Again, mind the timeframe.

As of the end of MK3, Cyrax malfunctions and gets stranded in the desert. The OIA actually recovers him in MK4.

As of the end of MK9, doesn't Cyrax end up at the Wu Shi academy with the monks or some shit? Hold on, let me refresh my memory real quick...

...Wait, so neither the story mode nor the arcade ending go into any detail as to how he actually manages to break free of his programming..?

Nevermind then. :/

Ok I have to ask, mainly to Razor because you have a great knowledge of MK. Do you feel Liu Kang will be in the game and will he be alive in this game?

The only thing that I want for story mode is having segments with good and evil characters that simply move the story along or add character to said chapters. The story mode should do just that, provide a good overall narrative with a mix of characters from both sides. There doesn't need to be two separate story modes for each sides.

See, but ANY version of Liu that's darker and more cynical is always TEH EDGEMASTER anyway.

Liu's not SUPPOSED to be ANY amount of dark and cynical, he's the fucking hero. That's what I like about him. That's the ONLY reason he's a good fit as Kitana's love interest, because her life prior to MK2 has been nothing but darkness and compromise, only a bright shining knight who sees the best potential in everyone and forgives any trespass could raise her out of that.

And just for the record, the Highlander aspect didn't first come up in MK4. To be honest, it NEVER comes up in the games at all, it's an invention of Defenders of the Realm.

However, since "the tournament champion doesn't age till the next generation's tournament" IS canon to the games, we can logically ASSUME that Liu's fear of outliving everyone he knows CAN be an official canon element of his relationship with Kitana. DotR was clever to think of that angle, in SPITE of being dumb enough to conceive of Dragon Jets and Kiva...but hey, DotR has best depiction of the Cyber-Initiative process too, so...y'know, you take what you can get.



Well that's not what happens in his ending. What happens in his ending is he oppresses the mortals and only a Bo' Rai Cho-trained Shang Tsung can stop him. Which is just fucking silly.



You're not thinking 4th-dimensionally. Just because something wasn't REVEALED until MK4 doesn't mean it didn't HAPPEN until MK4. Kung Lao was never actually dead, we just didn't know because we were told the story by an unreliable narrator.



But again, fans cared about Kintaro in the original MK2 because he was the hardest, scariest, most intimidating thing in the game.

Now he's a useless, easy fight with a kitten's face and nobody gives a shit about him except as the butt of jokes about his kitten face.

Therefore, Kintaro is worse off.



Still, I'd rather be lost in the sand than Sektor's butt-buddy. Maybe that's just me.

Well that depends what you mean by "alive". Liu Kang DEFINITELY died at the end of MK9. But if someone comes back from the dead, are they alive or are they still dead? What's the difference between a zombie, Scorpion, and the MK4 version of Johnny Cage?

But that doesn't mean the Liu Kang of another universe where he never died won't show up if the game's about alternate universes colliding.

Shit, we could see THREE Liu Kangs and one of them could be Zombie Liu from Deception. How am I supposed to know?

Something has me curious as well Razor. Do you like this whole soulnado thing for Bi-Han returning? Personally, I hate it. I argue that if Bi-Han and Noob Saibot are indeed different characters then Noob Saibot being removed would essentially make Bi-Han what Kuai Liang is. Because Noob Saibot would essentially be the evil in Bi-Han. So if the soulnado "rips" them apart. 1. The pureness of the soulnado would destroy Noob Saibot all together. 2. Then, Bi-Han can't come out acting like the douchey evil guy he once was or else that's a huge blunder on NRS part. Bi-Han would essentially be pure, therefore should act good correct? So, he would act like Kuai in a way?

So, basically it kills a popular character (Noob) and it leaves a Sub-Zero similar to Kuai. Tell me if I'm correct in this assumption because that's how I see it. Overall, I just hate this theory, but it seems to be the most common theory getting thrown out there right now.

Just to jump in, why would Liu Kang (zombie) be in???

There are theories that we may have alternate MK dimensions crossing over.

Yes but konquest was just a side game in MKD, so they couldn't make it too big and detailed.

Shaolin Monks was just an adventure game so it had much more room to expand.

Those games are from ten years ago, they could make it way better and bigger and much more detailed and in depth now.