Windice Wrote:


So why do people see these characters needed again????! To add more story to the people who have been in the spotlight for years???? I swear some of these other people need to get there opinions straight.

JaymzHetfield Wrote:
I'm excited for the inevitable reveal of at least a couple 3D era characters and half of people eating crow and the other half complaining that there aren't enough or that it was the least they could do.

TigerStyle Wrote:
Again this isn't wishful thinking because it's not like I loved every 3D era character, I just think there's a lot to MKX we don't know yet, and if there arent more than Shinnok, Kenshi, and Quan Chi in MKX, then MK11 will see the return of some Trilogy characters who were dead at the end of MK9 and some 3D era characters. Do you really think guys like Smoke and Jade will stay dead? They're another flavor of ninja for when people get a little tired of Ermac, Reptile, Mileena, etc.

They'll cycle in old characters who haven't been around for a while with a couple returning MKX characters and some new ones for a fresh roster and get people excited/speculating again.

Their success partially hinges on recognizability so even characters like Kabal/Stryker/Sheeva/Sindel gotta come back some time. Not that I dislike them, I just know some people really don't like them.

Windice Wrote:


Sonya going to eat Cassie's heart so she can stay alive. That is Cassie's true purpose hahaha

KenshiMaster16 Wrote:
Hell, I'm even pretty confident in saying that 80% of the new characters in this game won't be back in MK11, we'll get another new batch and maybe 1 or 2 will stay that were introduced in X.

FerraTorr Wrote:
Oh jeez, it's not a given. I see MKX as being like MKDA redux basically; it's a 'fresh start' for the series that focuses on MK1-2 staples and a fresh batch of newbies. I'm hoping the follow-up to the game will be like the follow-up to Deadly Alliance. Deception gave a chance for less often used, underappreciated returning characters to shine. MK2 characters like Baraka and Mileena and MK3 characters like Nightwolf, Sindel and Ermac. I think a lot of people forget that Deception did a LOT to elevate Mileena and Ermac, in particular, as characters. That game pretty much made Ermac into the character we know him as now instead of a generic palette swap and it elevated Mileena into being one of the franchise's most popular characters.

Mojo6 Wrote:
Kenshi, it'd be great if you could write more succinctly. Multiquotiing walls of text is tedious and frankly I'm not going to spend 30 minutes writing out a rebuttal and dicking around with archaic html tags in resonse what essentially boils down to you wishing that more 3d era characters "were given a chance to shine and develop like their Holy trilogy counterparts". Especially when you've already decided that the new characters aren't "new and unique" enough for you. We're just fundamentally in disagreement there. I'd argue that you're being reductive in order to support your claim of "aesthetic clone character concepts" as you can generalize ANYTHING with that kind of logic.

My point is that in 1992, those tropey characters in a fighting game WERE new and unique from a contextual perspective (despite some parallels to Street Fighter) and to disregard that context is to deliberately misrepresent the label of "popularity" over genuine creativity given the state of video games at the time.

Look man what do you think would yield more creative freedom and room for creative innovation?

• An artist sets out to paint but is given the predetermined established parameters to only use one exact color of red and one exact color of green and nothing else without deviating, improvising, or adjusting the colors at all. Also, it has to be of this exact tree right here and you can only use this one particular brush.
  
• An artist sets out to start a piece of work on a still life nature scene of their choosing with whatever colors / brushes they want to use.

That essentially what you want NRS to with these weak ass 3d characters (and no, not all are weak) and frankly I think they don't have an interest in taking a c-tier shitter character and trying to make them relevant because "guys lets give Kai a chance!" They'd rather develop and create brand new characters that they get right the FIRST time instead of having to try and bend, reimagine, and fuck around with concepts that weren't that great to begin with. Why do that? What's the sense in that? To give fucking Jarek his day in the sun?

Mojo6 Wrote:
Kenshi, it'd be great if you could write more succinctly. Multiquotiing walls of text is tedious and frankly I'm not going to spend 30 minutes writing out a rebuttal and dicking around with archaic html tags in response what essentially boils down to you wishing that more 3d era characters "were given a chance to shine and develop like their Holy trilogy counterparts". Especially when you've already decided that the new characters aren't "new and unique" enough for you. We're just fundamentally in disagreement there. I'd argue that you're being reductive in order to support your claim of "aesthetic clone character concepts" as you can generalize ANYTHING with that kind of logic.

My point is that in 1992, those tropey characters in a fighting game WERE new and unique from a contextual perspective (despite some parallels to Street Fighter) and to disregard that context is to deliberately misrepresent the label of "popularity" over genuine creativity given the state of video games at the time.

Look man what do you think would yield more creative freedom and room for creative innovation?

• An artist sets out to paint but is given the predetermined established parameters to only use one exact color of red and one exact color of green and nothing else without deviating, improvising, or adjusting the colors at all. Also, it has to be of this exact tree right here and you can only use this one particular brush.
  
• An artist sets out to start a piece of work on a still life nature scene of their choosing with whatever colors / brushes they want to use.

That essentially what you want NRS to with these weak ass 3d characters (and no, not all are weak) and frankly I think they don't have an interest in taking a c-tier shitter character and trying to make them relevant because "guys lets give Kai a chance!" They'd rather develop and create brand new characters that they get right the FIRST time instead of having to try and bend, reimagine, and fuck around with concepts that weren't that great to begin with. Why do that? What's the sense in that? To give fucking Jarek his day in the sun?

Mojo6 Wrote:
@Tiger

Again I'd argue that some (not all ) WERE that bad though. I predicated this whole thing that I fully believe NRS at this point could take MOKAP and make him work. They've grown significantly as a developer since Midway. You're absolutely right in that they'd flesh out more solid special moves, a personality, and some sort of story relevance. My point continues to be though....at what point are you just adding new shit to a c-tier character when it could be better executed with a clean slate? Also, if you have to adjust a character to the point that they undergo a significant change (such as drastically different specials, appearance, personality) at what point are you really just making a new character?

I get that a lot of this is preference but the fact is that the 3D era characters will continue to be held back by the fact that they were in shitty games. I'm sure the more popular 3d characters will still have a shot as DLC (Fujin, Bo Rai Cho, Reiko, Tanya, etc) or cameo status.

Mojo6 Wrote:
@Tiger

Again I'd argue that some (not all ) WERE that bad though. I predicated this whole thing that I fully believe NRS at this point could take MOKAP and make him work. They've grown significantly as a developer since Midway. You're absolutely right in that they'd flesh out more solid special moves, a personality, and some sort of story relevance. My point continues to be though....at what point are you just adding new shit to a c-tier character when it could be better executed with a clean slate? Also, if you have to adjust a character to the point that they undergo a significant change (such as drastically different specials, appearance, personality) at what point are you really just making a new character?

I get that a lot of this is preference but the fact is that the 3D era characters will continue to be held back by the fact that they were in shitty games. I'm sure the more popular 3d characters will still have a shot as DLC (Fujin, Bo Rai Cho, Reiko, Tanya, etc) or cameo status.

Mojo6 Wrote:
@Kenshi

Look I get it, you don't like the "new generation" characters because NRS has deliberately used pre-existing legacy characters and their powers to show relation. It's at the core of the creative design of the game. To you that's not unique enough to warrant inclusion over the 3d characters you mentioned. I've seen this line of thinking since the release of the other new characters and honestly I don't know what to tell you at this point. Either you get on board or you take a pass with MKX or lobby for whichever 3d era characters you want in as DLC.

I mean the game isn't even out yet so don't even know whose going to be DLC or make the final roster cut. You're speaking out of pure assumption.

KenshiMaster16 Wrote:
Here are my thoughts on the 3D era characters... Some I like, some I don't, some have potential, some are just dead in the water and likely can't / won't be fixed (Hsu Hao, Mokap, ect.). I do see a lot of arguments around the different MK forums though ripping these characters apart and I would just like to take a second to put some things into perspective and show off some of the arguments I collected this morning about these characters;

"Frost is just a clone of Sub-Zero since she has ice powers"

So there can be multiple characters who use and spam fire attacks, but only one ice based character? .....Okay.

"Havik looks like a generic enemy in an rpg"

Same could be said for Baraka, yet everyone loves him despite the fact he is literally just a mindless henchman who acts as a punching bag the majority of the time.

"Li Mei is boring and has a generic moveset"

Li Mei was one of the more promising characters that started out; she had four special moves in MK:DA while most characters had only two or three. I mean, for crying out loud, she was touted as The Defender of the People of Outworld, she could've basically been the female/Outworld equivalent to Liu Kang.

"Hotaru looks exactly like Fujin, so he shouldnt come back".

All the ninjas looked the same and with time started looking completely different. Why cant Hotaru be given that chance as well?

"Sareena is garbage and her moves are just knive throws and kicks.

Sareena barely had any time to develop. They could incorporate her monster side into it to make gameplay more interesting plus her and Bi-Han's connection could be a major story point, especially if Bi-Han is still Noob Saibot. Her connection to Quan Chi could also become of importance if Quan Chi isn't offed in MKX.

"Bo Rai Cho is gross and a lame joke character".

And why exactly cant there be a major character with some humorous qualities? I mean Johnny did it. They should definitely cut his farting and throwing up down but he can still be a great character.

- A lot of non-specific griping and shit-talking about Tanya or Fujin.

Tanya is a traitor and a massive wildcard, also one of only a handful of characters in the canon who is Edenian and could serve as a major threat to Kitana if Edenia ever comes back into play. Fujin is the God of Wind, that alone should given him an excuse to be included because that's just fucking as awesome a set-up a character could hope for.

Now, a lot of people I'm assuming at this point are thinking, "Hey KM, you're missing the bigger picture here. It doesn't matter if you can defend individual arguments against individual characters, the fact is that the 3D characters are tainted by their association with what most people see as the worst period in the franchise."

Sure, I guess, but that all comes down to pure opinion. My opinion is that the era of 3D games started the trend of Boon & Co. branching out and starting to try and make Mortal Kombat MORE than just your average, run of the mill fighting game. They wanted more depth, they wanted characters more fleshed out, they wanted the story to be bigger and bolder than it was before, they wanted a more expansive and deeper mythology to their universe. They started experimenting with Konquest Mode which eventually would lead us to getting full-fledged story campaigns that actually let us get to see the story in action instead of through a singular 3 minute opening cut-scene and still picture endings. Without that era of experimentation, I doubt Mortal Kombat would be the way it currently is today.

I think that quite a few people give many of the 3D era characters a lot of pointless and rather unfair hate. However, that doesn't automatically mean they are all hidden gems either, diamonds in the rough if you will. The major problem many of the 3D characters had was that on paper they sounded good, some were even awesome on paper, but they just turned our either boring, forgettable and just plain underwhelming which is arguably worse then being just bad. They suffered at the hands of Midway's need for a new MK every other year. They just simply didn't get enough work done to them to smooth out their looks, their story and their gameplay to make each one of them individually stand out.

I personally think that many of the characters could turn out great if they were given a second chance and treated with more care and attention to detail. After all, look at Kano's reveal for MKX. Many people were on the fence or neutral about him. Then, the second his MKX reveal came up there was just a huge BOOM in the number of people in support of the character and even the amount that was purely excited for his inclusion. I mean, let's face it. Kano was always nothing more than just a thug who ran a gang, that's it. Nothing special there. Now look at peoples opinions of him based on the gameplay we've seen. Surely they could do the same for characters that were, at first, underwhelming but had a lot of potential from the 3D era. As evidence of how this could work in their benefit, see Exhibit A; MK9 Stryker. If the work is put in, these characters can shine. That point cannot even be argued, in my opinion.

Mojo6 Wrote:
@Kenshi

Again, I'm not going to even begin to go down the "clones taking up roster spot" line of conversation again because we're essentially arguing preference. To you they're too similar and lazy. To me they're fucking awesome and inspired by legacy characters so the design connection makes sense. That's as nice as I can be about this at this point.