Thanks for the shout-out! Made my day. 😎 I've been pondering if maybe the Fail-tality idea makes more sense if they're not actually fatal? Like it just ends with your character knocked out/throwing a tantrum etc. (your opponent is just going to fall over anyway). Or maybe not... is the gore simply necessary lol? I don't know, just a thought. I would be a lot more into the character chapter system if it wasn't so damn one-sided. Shao/Sindel's Aftermath chapter was imo easily the most fun and the only one I immediately replayed after finishing. We need more villain chapters because to me it is baffling that, in the previous trilogy, a character like Jacqui got two chapters while a character like Mileena got zero. The villains are some of the most beloved figures in this series, but NRS story modes treat most of them like they're Dan Hibiki.
Fail-talities work either way, as far as I'm concerned. I suppose a lotta players would find it disrespectful that it causes the character's death, but fuck them. As for the gore, if I had my way, I would absolutely hit the reset button on that; it's gotten way outta hand. If 'impact' is what you're looking for, then this stuff ceased to be impactful 2-7 games ago. When everything is gore, you grow desensitized to it. It's much better if it's a surprise that comes out of nowhere. That's why Brutalities were such a good idea. I wouldn't even show blood, except after the hardest of hits, like X-rays and maybe uppercuts. And I'm glad it's not just me who thinks the story mode shouldn't be gatekept by the good guys.
Personally that was an awesome idea, I can see it almost like a mercy, kinda like "nah you deserved that win!" Or "almost had me there, I'll give it to you". I'd still keep mercy too though, just because I liked the idea of you wanting to give someone that extra chance you feel they deserve, or rub it it that they were never going to win this either way. Fails would be fun in general, even if you're not making a statement, just the idea that I can fake out an opponent that thinks I'm about to fatality and then I go and make reptile dissolve himself in his own acid or shed and just leave the shedding of himself standing there while he scurries off embarrassed.
@@CynicalWarlock sounds like you have another video to make then ... You honestly do so well, I'd take notes and put the fans ideas together that you think might make a great mk. The video can be a fan tribute/ "NRS the fans are even coming up with stuff now" video.....
@@CynicalWarlock nah the story definitely needs to be a bit more grounded.. I get why they keep doing alternate worlds and such since they kill off loved characters and write themselves in a corner but it must be a way better way But yea I was mostly talking about the gameplay, it’s like they’re stuck between trying to be like Street fighter and Tekken which comes out mediocre
@@princecrowe6417 There's a lot of truth to that, I think. And it makes sense. In many ways, MK was the new kid on the block, on the eSports scene. Street Fighter and Tekken put a friendly arm on MK9's shoulders, when it made its first foray into this realm, but MK thought they were secretly mocking it. It tried to find its groove with MKX, but couldn't shake the feeling it was too different from the rest of the frat boys, so it caved and started to emulate them to fit in.. ..and it doesn't fit in.
My favorite MK within recent times was, and still is, MKX. I always felt it was a good evolution for the most part, especially gameplay-wise (everything you mentioned in that section - I also miss the run mechanic, variations etc... ). It was the "sweet spot" for me, just a very fun game. I still enjoy MK1, but there's no denying it's been a pretty bumpy ride since launch, and it's really showing now. Overall, many great points to consider - a lot can be learned from the past installments.
Agree man, something about MKX is how addictive the Fights are. Super satisfying to pull combos etc. Even playing VS against CPU alone already super fun to do.
@@Abel_Unstable Oh yeah - used to stay up til 4 a.m. playing the shit out of it, raging when I lost, but wanting more. Even though the animations are still janky as hell, MKX had that fluidity of general movement that the more recent games lack. Characters just felt more responsive. Not to mention that combos took a *lot* more creativity.
@@tsvetelin6556I wish they had not abandoned MK11 to start MK1 when they did, if only because there were so many load-out options that they could have refined further or iterated upon to make them worth taking. Raiden in particular has had a number of options that I've shared ideas with to players on UA-cam like KnockturnalIs over the past four years.
I think this specific story in MK1 REALLY would have benifited from the character select that Super Smash Bros Brawl had in it's story mode. Where instead of character chapters, you had essentially crew chapters that start off with two characters and grew in numbers and occasionally switches some people out. You wouldn't be tied to one group at a time either, have one chapter be Kenshi and friends tying to find Mileena and save her for one chapter, and Nitara and the other henchmen doing errands for the Deadly Alliance. And by the time when Reptile, Ashra, Baraka, Johnny, and Kenshi are all ready to rock, you can pick your combination of characters that you as the player feel most confident or curious about with 20 options if it's just a 2v2 tag mode. And that would incentivise players to redo chapters and see all of the little lines between characters teaming up. And then when the chapter of Armageddon happens, you finally get your pool of selectable characters to the full (launch) roster that you would have had *at least* one opportunity to play as, and finally pick your favorite duo for the finale. Of course, you might still have solo chapters such as when Raiden fights everyone to become the champion, but moments like that can work just like Brawl does when Meta Knight meets Lucario. And maybe you go from the shaolin training chapter to Baraka's chapter where he has to fight each of them to defend his camp when the Earthrealmers invade and Baraka get's back up from Shang Tsung disguised as another tarkatan or something. And this system wouldn't even CHANGE THE STORY THAT MUCH! Yeah, it's way more emphasis on a *TAG* system, but tbh you already made the fleshed out (mechanically) characters, just have them team up and let the players choose which combo. I'm at work taking a 40 minute "piss break" so I won't be spell checking this.
I JUST REMEMBERED INJUSTICE 2 AND MK11 BOTH HAD CHARACTER SELECTION IN THEIR CHAPTERS HOW DID THEY NOT REALIZE THE POTENTIAL IN THE GAME WITH TEAM MECHANICS ARE YOU KIDDING ME 😂 But yeah, I think the dialogue in those specific chapters is pretty much what I'd expect from the duo's that you would select in my hypothetical story structure for MK1. Only your getting like 20 different combinations of lines depending on the player's choice instead of two lines from either Green Arrow or Black Canary
@@Worst_n00b I was about to write that MK11 dipped its toes in that. Would've thought your idea would be way too complicated to implement, had you not told me someone already did it. Definitely a cool way to handle it. Also, using up your piss break to comment on my video is *tight*. You're a trooper.
solo chapters like that work if the character themself is powerful. Kitana in 9 is not soloing all those characters she did, if so thats good on her but why does she get taken out by two weak Tarkatans who are faaaar weaker than the Johnny and Smoke she beat up.
@@CynicalWarlock I mean, if WB wants NRS to cut corners, the lines between characters could be as cut and dry as they want. Kind of like Titan Lui Kang's remarks to our chacarer of choice in the final Chapter 😅
@@ri_c_eon that note, I would have the solo "chapters" be more like solo introductory fights that are mandatory for the player to get used to the character, and as soon as the character joins another posse, you have the choice to play as them in the group or not. Even in SSBB you lost and gained members constantly, so varrying from different characters wouldn't be to hard to think of way to do so considering our main example here came out on the fuckin Wii 😅
Naw fr tho because I grew up on MK trilogy....and it major playback because the music was just that good....IDC if the game is bad I just want good music 😭😎
You know, I always thought that it would be cool if they branched out into different types of games, like maybe a Devil May Cry combat style game, that focuses on the story or something (that could be very bad idea just a personal thing that I think of every night)
That's totally what keeps me up at night, too. For real though, I think that's what they tried to do with Shaolin Monks and the Konquest modes, but it's perplexing to think that such a long-running series hasn't branched off into other genres, almost at all.
@@CynicalWarlock Yes, very sad. Apparently they're too afraid to experiment or branch out because their 2D fighters have sold well and they no wanna lose $$$. 🙄🥴
Character chapters: the issue with your solution of switching characters during story mode is that this mode is the more casual mode. Made for people to enjoy the story. If they have to switch characters frequently it would be harder for them to learn a character in 1 match only to be changed in the next one. To be honest, I have no idea how to solve this. If you ask me I would remove story mode and have a hybrid tower mode present the story of each character. Besides this and the smaller roster with more DLC characters, I agree with basically every point.
As you pointed out, Story Mode is the casual mode, which means it'll be played on 'Braindead' difficulty, by most customers - even the more competitive ones, cause they wanna breeze through the story, out of curiosity, then go play online - so this is a non-issue, as far as I'm concerned. People just mash through these things anyway. Plus, you can have short quicktime events pre-fight, where you teach the player 2-3 special moves, before dropping them into a fight with that character. Less surprise factor, but easier learning curve. Also, it's not like you won't be revisiting that character before the Story mode ends; there aren't *that* many characters in the roster, after all. The smaller roster is a tough pill to swallow for everyone - myself included - but like I said, you can't please everybody; whenever you include Ermac in the game, Noob Saibot fans will get outraged that you didn't choose their character instead, and vice versa. But knowing that you have 10-20 DLC characters to look forward to, over time, instead of 4-8, would placate most fans, I think. And if you port over the skeleton from one game to the next, then you can start the second game with the now-enriched roster, since you don't have to flat-out redesign everyone and everything from scratch. That way, you can get from 10-20, to 20-30, and 30-40 characters, over the span of 3 games. Then hit the reset button.
@@CynicalWarlock About the story mode, putting it like that you're probably right. About the small roster with DLC, it's not that I'm opposed, it's more like I believe the community would not react positively to that. I don't think DLC on itself is a bad thing, but years of gaming companies taking advantage of gamers through DLC kinda ingrained on gamers' heads that DLC = exploitation. Adding that up to the small roster could turn people against the game from the get-go.
@@doishooligan Oh, for sure, I even said the fanbase would get outraged, so I fully agree. So if MK went down this route, it would have to go through a trial by fire to convince people it was actually doing the right thing, instead of over-monetizing through DLC. Definitely not the most painless solution, I'll give you that.
I think you can get around by not doing it frequently and only when appropriate ….for example chapter 13 of mk1 Fight 1: play as Shang Tsung to take down the portals Fight 2. Elsewhere switch to smoke with a scorpion kameo to fend off the duplicates and dragon Fight 3. Kung Lao sees Shang and Raiden being overwhelmed so jumps down to divert Reikos attention Fight 4…..Shang gets to his feet after Laos save and takes on Dark Shao ending the chapter Fight 5. Kitana and her as a kameo fight an endurance match against the dragon warriors So you only do it a lot at specific times
this^. I'm not a big Johnny fan but hes fucking awesome. His whole thing is hes a secret badass martial artist who came to a whole ass demon fighting tournament to flex the his skills. His characterization in 1 is nice, he doesn't even have a projectile which is super johnny imo. for the most part in 1 hes great, but he should've had more focus later on and thats thanks to the stupid ass chapter system.
6:07 Omg, this one hits so close, the number of times I've been doing combos in practice mode, and my mom questioned the suspicious game voice foley sounds is insane. 😂
Yeah….one of the common criticisms with the modern MK’s is there less memorable soundtracks. Especially when you compare them to the 2000 era 3D trilogy.
I think the only soundtrack that I genuinely remember from mk 11 is Kotal Kahn's Coliseum music. Not only does it perfectly capture his character and his landscape, but it neatly incorporates creepy ethnic instrumentals like the Mongolian throat-singing and the Aztec-inspired chanting and percussion.
11:26 You are absolutely right, and UMVC3 is a perfect example of that principle, Virgil is SOOO broken, but i love playing against him and winning against him cuz it's fun
Yep. I look back at all the games that I still occasionally play now, years or even decades after their release, and it always comes down to their core gameplay loops just being so goddamn enjoyable.
Now the problem with your ideas, it involves a lot of thinking and brain power. But that’s something NRS’s doesn’t strive, because they keep repeating the same mistakes.
Potential Hot Take: maybe instead of variations, bring back stances from the 3-D era, while not destroying the character. For example, I don’t think anyone would want Sub Zero to be a zoner, but maybe give him a “set up” stance, a high damage stance, and “safe” stance
Yeah but stances were mostly cool because of the real-world martial arts names. If you think about it, there's no gameplay mechanic to stances - you could have all the moves coexist in the same 'stance' and it would be functionally the same thing. So they'd need to be reworked a bit, to warrant bringing them back.
If you played Guilty Gear Xrd you may appreciate how they did the story there. Each character has its own ladder/story that is a prequel to the main story, a separate mode, and all are canon.
@CynicalWarlock i think many games still uses this format cause it gives mote freedom of action and its also a remnant of the old format (in mk case it has been like this since the very first game).
MK 9 was the peak for me, and MK X was still good but had some of the rot showing. 11 was the beginning and 1 is the end. Somewhere along the lines this goofy blood-soaked game started taking itself too seriously, and that's why I didn't buy it. Glad I waited for Tekken 8. Over the top, larger than life characters with incredible customization and as a bonus... the developers aren't afraid to make conventionally attractive women like NRS appears to be.
It really is wild to me how NRS made such fluid and quick games that struck a good balance between accessibility w/o lowering the skill ceiling and just said nah and never looked back. Like I remember booting up MK11 and playing with a friend who doesn’t play fg’s asking if we could play X instead. What's worse for MK1 is that we're at a point where all the things NRS was known for doing and what separated it from the competition are now being outclassed by T8 and SF6. SF6 and T8 both have better netcode than MK1, which would've been an insane thing to say 8 years ago. SF6 and T8 also have a ton of replayable single player content, and T8 has by far the best cinematic story mode that imo has finally surpassed MK9's story. Even MK's realism, has been outdone by Tekken and SF who have both made their characters realistic while keeping their animated style in tact, which is something MK11 succeeded in doing as well! Also you are not alone in the sound design, it drives me insane hearing those I2 sound effects which were never that good to begin with and I’m glad someone has pointed that out. Atp im just hoping they patch the game to be much faster and hope they fix their mistakes for Injustice 3 cuz MK1 isn't rly recovering from this.
I actually prefer the color shading and the color pallets of Mortal Kombat nine I thought that’s when the series was at its best design wise. My biggest problem with a series is it storylines we went from time travel to more time travel to time travel again. Mortal Kombat ones story mode was actually really solid For the beginning in the middle and then when it started to bring in the big timeline crap is when it lost me. I actually timeline stuff. It bothers me on a whole Nother level. The exception to this rule is DBZ trunks since he’s a bad ass cool character it didn’t make sense then it doesn’t make sense now but he’s like the only possible character and in terms of time shit I can handle.
I said it before the game got released: M1K's story mode will probably dive off a cliff, like it usually does. And people were like "nooo, you'll see, this one's legit". Yeah. I saw.
Chapter system story mode may be getting a little old. Especially since it's all heroes. What we need is a random chapter system. Where you play as multiple characters in different points in the story. For example chapter one. 2 fights as Johnny then 3rd fight maybe scorpion then sonya or whatever
And just to add, I feel like the main reason they don't wanna do it is because it would potentially give people whiplash with having to go from one moveset to another. Why not implement a little assist thing like Tekken does where it pulls up a basic combo as well as all the important moves with one button?
On the topic of animation, I'll never forget how comical they made Darkseid look in Injustice 2 by having his arms folded behind his back literally all the time, even when he's doing dynamic shit like kicking or jumping. It's so bad lol.
It's fan service gone wrong. They didn't consider that that kinda shit is *forever*. A pose like that gets old quick. They have trouble with standing poses/stances, in general. More and more MK characters have no stance at all, just keeping their arms hanging down (e.g. MKX Tanya), like they're waiting in line to buy bread, in some communist country.
Nice video, I usualy tired to MK11 defenders argued that "Changes is necessary" or "Evolving the core gameplay is for the better." Like, my dudes, MK has been lost its Mojo since MK4, not knowing what the game supposed to be. While Deception is Amazing, the series had hiccups real hard. MK9 and MKX is how the series should be, but then they decide to "change" the core gameplay again? Like gimme a break lmao.
@@CynicalWarlock I think they need to do something with the defense in it someone shouldn't be able to do two Combos and kill you if they had a defense bar or if it only cost one bar to do a combo break then I think the game would be more fun
Just look at tekken 7, that game lasted 9 years and had a consistent player base up until January 2024 now that tekken 8 is out. And tekken 7 came out in 2015, that's almost 10 years of support and new characters and features being added to tekken 7. That needs to be studied for sure. Sf5 wasn't as well received as 4 but in comparison, 6 is way better received than 5 was and with what 6 brings to the table I feel alongside tekken 8, people are going to be playing tekken 8 and sf6 for almost another 10 years just because of how they'll be supported over time as opposed to mk1. Nrs needs to take notes from Japanese fighting game devs. They can genuinely learn something.
Yeah, I don't think they will take note. WB/NRS are following the EA model of short-term spike in sales, then abandon project, rinse and repeat. It makes a ton of money, otherwise they wouldn't be doing it. But if you want your game to have any kind of longevity (and more importantly, solidify your fanbase), the SF and Tekken way of doing things is definitely the way to go. That long-term support is key, to which I would add having a truly iterative approach, where you lay a solid foundation that you build on top of, with subsequent games. That's what these other games do pretty damn well.
SF is not comparavle. That series has a history other FG do not. Capcom can literarily shit on a plate and people guzzle it down. SF5 was a horrible game to the very end. SF6 is not as amazing people hype it up to be yet it has players bscause it is SF. Tekken has no competition really, it is a 3d fighting game. It is literarily the only big budget 3d game. Comparing SF and Tekken to MK is just plain dumb.
@CynicalWarlock That would be true if SF and Tekken market was the same as MK market. SF will always have a market presence, because SF will always have fan boys. Capcom can burn a family 5 alive and eat their flesh and there will be lines for the next SF game. SF5 was HORRENDOUS, to the very end. SF6 has MK1 beat in the amount of sinfle player content, but the quality is dubious and the base gameplay is not perfect as may have you believe, I would say at times it is quite worse than MK1, but people eat it up. Capcom does not need to do anything to sell SF. And Tekken is a game with prsctically 0 competition. It is in a sub genre, in which it is the only game. Again Tekken has to do very minimal work to have support. And specially Tekken has legacy moves, shortening their dev time incredibly.
@@CynicalWarlock You know in interviews the creator's for some of the Fatality ideas Ed Boon said no to them he think it would be too much for MK me personally I have good Fatality Ideas it's so unfurntunate.You even have Boon saying he's afraid of titties.BTW I agree I never like the battle cries and the punching and kicking sounds
@@triplexxxgaming7397honestly fatalities need to go back to be being quicker and if they are going to be so cinematic then have it be entertaining and not just "how many ways can we hack this guy up!"
I agree with your chapter idea. The trick will be doing it in the right places like…say if you are playing as Kitana…let her have most of the chapter but as soon as say Shinnok turns you switch to Liu kang because he would be the only one strong to take him down
@@billmcdermott9647 Yeah, that's another thing - you almost always get to play as just the good guys. Would be fun to make you play as a villain, during a pivotal moment, where you think you're gonna help stop the villain, and boom - you're *actually* the bad guy, and wreck shit up, for 1-2 fights. Also, there are a lot of grey characters.
I wish the music was good again. Enough of this cinematic blockbuster nonsense we won't remember come MK13, give us that amazing mix inspired from traditional Eastern and dark fantasy we had all the way back in MK1992. Frick the whole art design and style needs an overhaul like that IMO, even a game as relatively recent as MK9 had so much more personality.
How to revitalize Mortal Kombat in 5 easy steps, my way 1: Remaster Armageddon. Don't put too much effort into making it look hyper realistic, the cartoonishness of it kinda fit. Prioritize the amount of content over having hyper-advanced graphics 2: replace the combo fatality system with actual character specific fatalities. Bring Weapon Fatalities back from Tournament Edition. Add modern-style Brutalities, Friendships and Faction Kills. Make sure there is no shortage of finishing moves. Retool death traps to only work as stage fatalities. Give created fighters unique finishers to pick from 3: Fix the gameplay, give players ways to use "CPU-only" moves, balance the roster, remove glitches, make the ladder and stage rotation truly random, all stages open from the start including Konquest maps... Those were pretty but you never saw them in arcade mode, add more create-a-fighter stuff including more weapons, more sliders etc 4: Add characters that debuted in the NRS era, minus guests. You don't need to add guests since we can make them 5: turn the variation system into style system. Classic, where they fight like UMK3/MK4; 3D, where they have a hand to hand and a weapon stance; and Modern, where they fight like they do now. Characters would have different costumes depending on style: Stryker in Classic would have his MK3 getup and moves. Everyone would have a different moveset depending on style. D'vorah in 3D would have her ovipositors as a weapon stance.
For Gameplay I was thinking about a variation system but, unlike the MKX one, it does change the mechanics you'll use to play. For exemple, using a style switching mechanic from the 3D games that have emphasis on combo potential or using the meter mechanic to enhance special moves (and I still don't have idea for a third style of gameplay to add on), and having custom options for either specials and style branchings. As the art direction for MK, I think it should approach the aesthetics of 3D era games, specifically the ones released on Ps2 era (including Shaolin Monks). For me, it's where the Mortal Kombat essence lies.
Deception was the art style high point for me. Bulky, muscular characters, stylish but simple outfits, lots of shadows and dark colors - it's exactly the larger-than-life style that I mentioned MK needs, instead of the photorealism. And MK games were still funny, back then, like all the stage fatalities were hilarious. I just discussed the fighting style thing with someone else - that would be an elegant solution, cause you can switch them on the fly, instead of having to blind counter your opponent, in the character select screen.
I had a similar idea, only you could make it 2 styles, have a combo for both that transitions and also a designated button to switch while idol. One style would be zoner, but they can switch to a more rush down. A defensive character, can switch to a more offensive character. Some characters get a weapon that extends and enhances combos/moves, or giving them more reach or a projectile. Honestly it's an awesome solution because it's an in game decision, so you're not stuck with an incomplete character, and you aren't stuck to just one play style. Of course it works for adaptation as well, if you need to change up you tactics because the opponent is catching on, switch your style up, see if they can handle that.
@@jackkawf4449 Man, that would be the craziest gameplay you'd ever see. Imagine Sub-Zero zoning out hard, slowing the pace of the match to a crawl, then suddenly switch to his rushdown variation when the opponent least expects it, and runs over him like a freight train. Would be an adrenaline-inducing viewing experience, but it would definitely need extensive testing, to make sure it's not too swingy. But the tamer version is definitely a good idea - e.g. switch from pure rushdown to a midrange anti-zoner.
@@CynicalWarlock yeah some things would have to balanced and I won't pretend to know how, but maybe a few solutions would be a stamina meter or perhaps a cool down (so you can't just spam flipping, you have to actually play in it for a moment).
@@CynicalWarlock plus, and forgive me for not being able to describe it well, but didn't MKX drop combos or something once you've gotten to a certain point or juggled to a limit? Like the a move that would typically be a bounce, would land them on the ground by the third use in combo/in a row?
If the Flip Stance Button didn't exist then most likely would've been the Run button in MKX which would've made it WAY easier for me to actually pull off decent combos
My. Thoughts. Exactly. Not only that, you could (and this may sound like heresy to some), also bind dodging to that button. Crazy, I know - instead of having to double tap like a schizo every 2 seconds, you could just fwd + dash button, bkd + dash button. Short tap is a dash, holding it down is a run, which by the way, that's how MK3-4 worked too - you held a button down and ran.
I know this might be something most people would want but for a while now I've come to the idea that a more live service approach to fighting games could work to it benefits, obviously don't release an unfinished game but have where more than just DLC characters would be added to the game.
That's.. sort of what I'm suggesting, I suppose. Solid core + a ton of DLC added later. 'Live service' in the sense that it's practiced today is a very repugnant model though, and a slippery slope, so we must be careful.
@@CynicalWarlock U should probably make a video explaining the power levels of mk characters, cause basing it on story mode now is just effed up since u can basically beat any character with any character since you are the one in control. And cut scene fights also don't make it any better. Most people think giving villains their own chapters will help
From a serious fighting game player pov: Make combo mechanics more manual and harder. By this i mean, let there be a bit of learning curve. If im paying well over $60 i want my game to have longevity, to have incentive to learn. Combos like xxx, xyx, xab that i can master in one night's session just do not cut out against say, learning, Sakura's tatsu loop combos in SF4 or Menat's orb combos in SF5 or Chun Li's stance cancel stuffs from SF6
That's obviously a tough sell for the less hardcore fighting game enthusiasts, but again I find myself referring to MKX, because even though combos operated in much the same simplified way there, the timings were a lot stricter on some of the characters, for some of the more advanced combos, so there was a surprisingly high skill ceiling. Add to that run mechanics, flash parries and fireball cancels, and you've got enough skill requirement and opportunities for player expression for almost everyone.
I've played MK since the first one and MKX has still somehow turned into my no. 1 favorite fighting game of all time. And I know a lot of people will testify that MKX is the most enjoyable MK to play. And it's like you said, NRS don't need to just make MKX again. We already have MKX and we can go back and play it as much as we want. But, NRS should definitely study what is considered to be their best product to date and figure out what it is that makes it so popular and then bring that over to the next game. This failure to understand their own creation is just unbelievable. Either Ed Boon secretly hates MKX or their game designers are just stupid.
See? This one gets it. NRS kind of learned the wrong things from MKX, like speed bad, running bad, rushdown bad. And that's a recurring theme with them, where their way of learning mostly centers on removing the 'bad', rather than building on the good.
@@CynicalWarlock It's like Core-A Gaming said: Everyone hates nerfs and they only make the gameplay less fun. Balancing through buffs is always the better choice. In other words, focusing on what's good rather than removing what's bad is always a better design philosophy.
So this is in addition to a post I made earlier. I do agree the lack of consistency is hurting the series. going from MK9 - 1 you have Scorpion and he plays differently in each game. Skarlet went form being a rushdown monster to a full blown zoner in 11. Not one game is the same its almost always mechanically rebuilt form the ground up. IT makes the game hard to jump into BC you lose the familiarity that is needed to play the game when you first play it. A reason why SF tends to be so good is BC, in SF4,5, and 6 Cammy is a rushdown with most the same moves and inputs for the moves, Ken and Ryu are always shotos with the same style sto play with, and Zangief is always a grappler. IT helps a player jump in and play BC they already know at least a base level game plan on using a character in the game, which will eventually push them to learn new things and explore the rest of the roster. I think the Kameo system is better than the Variation system, BC it still lets you use your character the way you want to use them, but gives you versatility to deal with ur tough MU’s since the kameos add more utility than anything. I main Rain and I found understanding how to implement the different kameos I can make a MU form hell to fight to easy BC I understood how to use my character’s style with those extra utilities. The Variation system often felt like trying to force a square peg into a round hole. Trying to make ur character do something they are just not built to do at all, or there was just always a variation/set of abilities that were too good not to use, or there seemed to be abilities that if you didn’t take you played with an incomplete character. Though not perfect the kameo system I think is better, but it def. needs some tweaks. I looks at invasions as it was more designed to be a distraction, just something to do when ur not wanting to play matches online and done with the story. I don’t think its great, but I don’t think its completely bad. The think I think is how it feels like its purpose could better serve the player esp. a new player. SF6’s World Tour is a great mode BC it not only does some of what Invasions does with the matches that have wild modifiers, but it spends a large chunk of its time teaching you the game’s mechanics and other FG fundamentals that become essential to becoming better at the game. There are mini-games focused on using the parry system, lil courses teaching you the Drive system and how to use anti-airs and combos. Invasions doesn’t do any of that, it’s all about wild modifiers and crap flying around the screen. Now MK1 has one the most informative tutorials made and really helps to learn its game, but for one it forces you to use characters u may not care to even use and it’s a long boring slog. Now if this concept was used in Invasions, where you choose ur character you learn the mechanics and how ur character choice will benefit from those mechanics. Also, FYI the Arcade endings in MK1 are all cannon to the main story this time around… Anyway just my thoughts great video.
Exactly my thoughts. NRS change more than they need to, from game to game, by completely redesigning characters from scratch. Even banal things like changing the special move inputs is something that always leaves me scratching my head and wondering "why?". As for Kameos vs Variations, I've mentioned before that I actually like the Kameo system, despite all the hate it gets. It gives you more flexibility to take on a larger variety of matchups, like you wrote. The reason why I prefer Variations is because of the depth that it provides. When you do it wrong, it's terrible. You get an MKX Sub-Zero, where Grandmaster was the only usable one, and the other 2 were poorly conceived from the get go, then adapted to be even worse. But when you do it right, you get a Tremor, with 3 completely competitive variations that all offered unique benefits and opportunities for player expression. And part of why Variations were tough to get right is because, again, the roster's too damn big. Combining Invasions with the tutorial mode is a brilliant idea. They should keep that in mind, in general, going forward. And I'm glad the endings are all canon, this time around, only I do have one question: How do you know?
BC after the MK1 story mode and then you run all the Arcade Ladder ending they all correlate with where that character left off and tell us where they went from there. Even during the lil pre-fight banter acknowledges things that happened in those ladder ending. Ex. Rain in the story mode betrays Outworld and sides with the wrong side and in his ladder ending it leaves off to after the rebellion with Shao failed and he ends up working with Havik since he was wanted in Outworld. Havik convinces him to flood and drown all of Seido killing millions. He feels a sense of regret and remorse and returns to MIleena begging for redemption and a chance to right his wrongs . The ending for Smoke and Scorpy tell where teh Shiya Ryu are headed and how Hanzo ends up within the story as well. The ladder ending actually are really interesting this time around and I hope moving forward they focus on the story telling of this new era. @@CynicalWarlock
@@innocenceUnknown I understand what you're saying, but they've done this before. Pre-fight banter and arcade endings are not reliable sources of information, cause they've been switched around, in the past. What I'm saying is you'll only know for sure if it's canon or not when the next game comes out.
If balance was more important than fun then games like Super Smash Bros Melee and Marvel vs Capcom 3 wouldn't still be played at a high level to this day
I don't really mind the non-canon arcade endings... specially if they involve the actual tournament, since of course, canonically not everybody can win the tournament. But I do hate that the main story is going back again and again to the timeline thing.
As I said, non-canon endings are cool in that they explore various 'what if' scenarios, but it's like.. I can make a thousand of those, on the spot. They don't mean anything; they hold no weight, into the next game. I've said this before, but non-canon endings are a microcosm of the reboot stories they keep doing. That doesn't hold any weight either. But yeah, the non-canon ending is a nitpick; not gonna bang on about them.
@@CynicalWarlock I get what you say but hey, if you play as X character on arcade/ladder and you beat the boss, of course you wanna know what would happen if that particular character beat the boss. No sense to play as say, Baraka, win everything only to get an ending showing him as a jobber as he most of the time is portrayed in story mode.
@@CappuccinO80 True, but there's a middle ground to strike there. Baraka can do something meaningful in his ending without having to beat the big boss. You're right though, non-canon endings are tied to the whole arcade ladder concept, which I'd also change, but not gonna get stuck into the weeds on that one.
Honestly I don't know why they didn't make meat Shang tsungs unfortunate experiments escaped or quan chi being interrupted during the resurrection process
I would take everything that worked in MK (throughout) improve on it and then add previous game modes. I'd scrap the current cinematic story telling for a more personal exploration through a Konquest Mode (similar to Armageddon), that has you go through the world and travel to and within different all the realms with (short) cinematic cutscenes once in a while to help progress the story with a bit of a visual narrative. The story would also be focused on the TOURNAMENT!! After story is complete, you're free to roam the different realms and battle NPCs, find secrets that appear after story completion (and some will be there during story mode too), and find mini games throughout (also in Johnny's mansion, in earth realm, you can access his arcade room and play the OG trilogy). There will also be a mode that is akin to Shaolin Monks as well, which will be just a short off shoot story with maybe a few maps and can be replayed. Each mode wins you some kind of award, the awards will be skins, customisation options, and new characters. Character customization will be limited, but it'll be items that are iconic/relevant for each character (such as masks, weapons, gauntlets, etc...) Colors of items and skins can be changed (with a wheel of fitting color pallets for that character), they will not be premade, but dictated to regions on each items (so for example you can make the chest of scorpions shirt yellow, but his sleeves gold or whatever). Create a character, only to avoid bad balance, they will have the same basic combo list across (kinda like TMNT in injustice), but just like variations worked, you can add moves to them to make them more like your own. Run mechanic would return Each player gets two breakers per round I'd add (able to be toggled off), for some stages fatalities that can be initiated at any point in the match, the player that initiated it has a chance to early fatality and win the match...when it is triggered, it turns into a test your might between you and the opponent... If the person that started it wins, he gets the fatality and win, if he loses then the opponent can flip it, on the second flip if you manage to escape that, it ends it and shuts down the opportunity to do it again the rest of the match, putting both players at starting distance. Also the traditional will still exist too at the end of the match, like uppercut into the Deadpool. Stage transitions (only not nearly as long or cinematic as Injustice 2), just a short bust through the ceiling/floor/walls, of certain stages, changing up the surroundings and minor damage to the player being knocked through. Stage interactions, only there will be some that do different things, like and example would be opening the fridge door in Johnny's stage and one time blocking a projectile before the door explodes off after hit, maybe throwing the floor vac at someone when it comes near you. Some do like the vines in the jungle level of mkx, where you swing and the other holds you up. (Can also be turned off for more traditional play) Air combat and Air block, I like it, just wish they gave characters more combos to do and also I would take out the floaty-ness of the jumps (because all they are doing is compensating to give you time) in MK1. Instead of variations, I would add back the changing of styles during the match, only I would make it only two styles and there would be a couple of transitional combos as well as being able to press the button while idle. The two styles would function to help characters have a full toolset/set of play style... So for example, a zoner can switch up to have more of a rush down style, a defensive character switching to have more offensive options, some characters might just get a weapon that enhances and adds to their move list, and so on... Get rid of stance swap, and make it into a dodge system. Block would still exist, however you can now press the dodge button with up or down to dodge a high or low attack and avoid blocking/chip, in order for a quicker reaction/punishment time. To avoid spamming it, it'll be tied to a stamina meter as well as it must be pressed at the right time, you can't just hold the button and press up and down. Also if you misjudge the high or low attack and/or do it too early/late, you'll be open to punishment as well. Towers will be back and tower endings would work as a "what if" scenario for each character. There will be a big boss that isn't playable. MK1 (og)-MK 3 roster would be included in roster (taking a few from 3 maybe), and a handful of 3D error, a couple from MKX and a couple from MK11..1 or 2 new character that will either be starting roster, or at least eventually the full roster. Online rooms, king of the hill, all that good stuff (and stuff should have been in this current game). After that I would just add a store with in game currency that is earnable (and also buyable) either by certain game modes (offline of course) and/or just playing the game/achievements, for cosmetics. Just to keep something there to play and earn.
I like the test your might/stage fatality idea. And thanks for reminding me about the stage transitions; forgot to talk about those. That was such a fun feature in MK3. Why those things exist in Injustice, but not MK is beyond me. Switching fighting styles is a more elegant solution than variations, yes, because you don't need to blind counter what your opponent's gonna pick, you can just switch to a zoning style, on the fly, so that's a viable alternative. Dodge system is something I also thought of a lot. MK4 had the right idea - it was just a single-tap function that made them sidestep a bit, to avoid projectiles, and that's really how the 3rd dimension was used in the 3D era, as well. Reimplement it, give it a significant cooldown period, and add running back, to allow for counterattacks. This'll make zoning still viable, but not as abusable, and more interesting to watch. The Konquest thing comes down to execution, I guess. The full-on action-adventure genre that you basically describe has had some good examples and many bad ones, in recent games, so it's all about doing it the right way. But it would definitely hold the casual player's interest way better than the current modes they have goin on. And with regards to the roster, there are really only a couple characters that are popular/worth salvaging from each era, so this philosophy might work there, as well (Shujinko and maybe Havik from Deception, Erron and maybe Cassie and Tremor from MKX, and.. that's really it). Lots of good ideas, overall, well done.
@@CynicalWarlock well you're a reptile fan... So I don't think I'm too worried with your picks for a roster (I love reptile too, it was a mistake to leave him out of MK11)
@@jackkawf4449 Can't believe I bought that game, despite the lack of Reptile. Jax became my main, in that game; his playstyle and crushing blow payoffs were pretty satisfying. But yeah, that's the thing, some people are Ermac fans and don't give a shit about Reptile; other people hate all ninjas and want more boring-looking people in the game. Can't please everyone. That said, I do think that if Scorps and Subs are always mandatory, then so should Reptile be, for obvious palette reasons, as well as the history and legacy of this franchise.
@@CynicalWarlock honestly I think over time they've had great ideas, but just either wrong game, wrong time, the technology wasn't quite there, or whatever hardware restrictions I'm sure that came with the older systems (which oddly they managed to squeeze more into). I think they take criticism too deep and drastically change everything in hopes to hit the mark, not realizing they've had great ideas over time that could have been utilized now, with the current systems.
@@CynicalWarlock yeah people are fickle with the roster, however kinda like you said with the subzero/scorpion thing, I personally believe they can please most if they had, at least, the first two, and then sprinkle in some of 3,4,and then mess around from there. That being said it doesn't help that they take away characters or disregard them in story constantly, it makes it so that no character sticks with people (well newer fans) because half don't understand their lore (like reptiles awesome story) or they weren't in the MK game people started playing.
i just want a run button like classic mk, thats why i still play ultimate 3/trilogy, 4 and mk xl it was a unique mk thing and it was what made it fun to play, its a rushdown pressure heavy fighting game it needs to be fast and you need to be attentive to whats happening on the screen
This, a thousand times. Once again, I blame the 'blank slate' design - by the end of MKXL's lifecycle, they had figured out this mechanic - running cost a great deal of stamina up front just to start, you'd lose your entire stamina bar if you got hit during a run, and combo breakers depleted both players' stamina bars. It was perfect. So should we iterate on this mechanic, in the next game? Naah, let's just scrap it.
It's hard for me to agree with the argument that photorealism and stylization can't go hand in hand because DMCV exists. It was able to acheive stylish and over-the-top attacks while still doing some sense of photorealism.
True, but DMCV is a different genre, where less scrutiny and camera attention are placed on the finer details of the animations, and people generally fight with swords that generate huge slash effects, which is easier to pull off convincingly. And even though the look/graphics of DMCV is photorealistic, some of the key poses, in combat, are a bit exaggerated, for effect, which is exactly the right call. But you're right, I drew a correlation between photorealism and inadvertently getting more stringent with your animation, because of it - the more realistic the look, the stricter your eyes become with it, too - but yeah, it doesn't have to be the case.
love this video but id say 9's soundtrack was fine in stages because they were always insane remixes of older tracks like the armory and the subway station but outside gameplay i could agree
Elder gods damn it, how did I forget about the armory track? That's actually one of my favorites. You're absolutely right, should've mentioned that caveat. The remixes were good too. Half a point for those, I guess, since it's not actually original music.
I gotta be honest, I actually love the look of MK11. From the goofy jelly blood to general design aesthetics for most of the characters. Although the MKX ladies had way better outfits (especially Mileena). It’s kind of a travesty that the new game dropped the 3 lines pre fight banter.
Liu Kang looked, by far, the best in MK11. Jax too. Cetrion's design was really weird. So a mixed bag for me, aesthetically. Gameplay-wise, I'd rather eat pin needles than play it again.
One of my biggest things for the story is: let us lose fights that our characters have no business winning. There is no reason Johnny should have beaten Reptile or Baraka in MK9. It just doesn’t make sense. Let us lose fights and let the story change a little bit because of it. Hell have fights we aren’t meant to win due to the power imbalance between characters. Give the enemy super charged moves or more health or whatever. Just make the story feel character driven for once instead of “wow all of a sudden a person with minimal fighting experience and strength just kicked a literal god’s ass”
I love that. You could even let some fights go either way - they're very hard, but winnable. That would make people scramble to figure out which bosses are beatable.
@@CynicalWarlock exactly. They could even put some secret achievements/rewards behind beating them. I’m tired of characters willing everything solely because we control them. It’d actually feel like a tournament instead of a one sided stomp
@@GamerTimeNinja Oooh, that's very generous, thanks. I don't have his expertise. But yeah, I too kept searching through his videos to see if he addressed MK12 at all, but he's probably fed up with the series, at this point.
9:24 the thing I hated about MKX 11 was there so many setups. The reason why I didn't play Mortal Kombat X was because there was three characters to pick through and you're playing as one character I don't like that. And then mk11 you have all these movesets that you can choose from. Whatever happened to here's the character these are their moves and that's it do I think MK1 did a great job with having your own set moves that's it but then they added the freaking Cameo which I thought was stupid. I would much rather play with Cyrax and Sektor than them jumping out every 2 seconds
@@CynicalWarlock but when it comes to mk11 I do like the whole you can set up your character look not the moveset but the Skins the making your own mask or spear clothing I thought that was really cool I really wish they kept that in the game. And for a game they could have sold a lot more little things make more money be bigger scumbags
I really enjoyed this video. I have said before that I am haven't really played any of the Mortal Kombat games but I still love listening to what you have to say. And you said a lot of interesting stuff. Art styles can make or break games. Especially when the art style in question doesn't fit the feel of the game. Mortal Kombat has always been more exaggerated. The characters aren't really real people nor are the fights "realistic". So, it's odd that they make each game more real. And as you said it makes it hard to make the gameplay look cool and feel fun without it coming across as weird. They could go into the direction of hyper-real but where realistic characters to unrealistic things but it seems they are uninterested in that. I also think them making it more realistic causes the designs to look more same-y. And not in a good way. Stories with multiple characters can work but man is it hard to do. I like your suggestion of having a core story roster and then side stories. A lot of developers have this tendency to not make "true" sequels. True meaning that the sequel is basically the same under the hood but is expanded. What this can do is allow the developers to actually master their tools. I remember that since BG2 is basically just BG1 that they could do so much more because they knew what worked and what didn't. It feels like Nether Realms just doesn't do that. You idea of having one base game that is expanded and master over tge course of two games and DLCs sounds really good.
Absolutely, the more 'real' something looks, the more it loses its distinctive style. And yeah, I supposed I referenced that really old video of mine on iteration, and how franchises like Mass Effect and The Witcher used it to great effect. That's exactly what's lacking, in Mortal Kombat-land.
@@CynicalWarlock yeah, there is a lot to be gained by an art style that is distinctive. It can give the characters more personality and more leeway on how wacky the characters can look without being ridiculous. I hope to see more games adapt a true sequel style. We are at a point in games where graphics aren't developing rapidly. So, we should expect more consistent sequels from game to game.
I think you didn't consider how greedy WB is, if they were to start with a smaller roster it would ended being more money for less kontent similarly to MK1 when compared with MK11.
This might be just me, but what I started to miss a lot are the exaggerated gibberish they used to yell out in the older MK games. Back then, they'd yell out during combat and it sounded silly, but given the context of being in a fight, it didn't matter as much and added to the absurdity of it all. In mk11, there wasn't as much gibberish, and now in mk1, the gibberish is only whispered or said in a normal tone, rather than a battle cry.
"AAI MOmmy!" "Wha-nya-nya-NYA!" "HOodhyedoyobodah!" MK4 is the god of gibberish; and I'm glad you brought this up, because that's one of many things that made this series silly enough to warrant the violence. It was basically an over-the-top cartoon back then, so this ridiculous violence + silliness was a great recipe that fit it really well. But nowadays, the silliness slowly faded, and the violence and 'realism' got cranked to dangerous levels, so it just registers as gratuitous shock value.
@@CynicalWarlock think one of my faves is Cyrax when he does his air grab in mk9 "HOWBOUTAYOU" or Noob's "HITHIMONETIY" from his x-ray. Another worthy mention is Kung Lao's victory pose in mkx "IS THAT YO WIFE?!"
I think overall I wish NRS would just commit to a legacy system and they can improve upon each game so they don’t spend so much precious development time creating a brand new system each game. I just think about how much more content and quality they could deliver with this.
I wish more DLC space was dedicated to actual Mortal Kombat characters Guest characters are cool because often times they’re unexpected, but MK has played the guest character card so much it stopped being special or exciting Meanwhile characters that haven’t been used for years are being left behind or if they’re lucky, become a Kameo.
Precisely why I I mentioned the roster idea. If most of the DLC fighters were actual MK characters, you could pull off a smaller initial roster, cause you end up with a very large one, later on.
My question is there a need to make a new MK game every 2 to 4 years Why not make a longer lasting game that gets updated regularly like Brawlhalla and 2XKO and make a story mode every 1 to 2 years and if a reboot is needed make a new game containing the universe in a single game
The one thing I'll disagree on is the sound design. I think the Netherrealm games have awesome punching and impact sounds. Other than that, this video is full of amazing ideas and great points. I miss tag team so freaking much...
Sound design is such a subjective thing, of course, and like I said, I do log it as a nitpick. I'd still make the novelty argument, though. It's been roughly the same sounds for 4 games, now.
The Krypt had it's redeeming qualities; creepy atmosphere, free-roaming, and a sense of suspicion and uncertainty when you explore your way around the game's universe. If it were up to me to revitalize it,it'd be: 1. Give the player more of things to do, give it more beat-em up mechanics like in Xiaolin Monks. Unlockable minigames like a chess minigame or hell, a racing minigame like in MK 9 2. Teleportation/fast-travel so it's less tedious 3. Character creation 4. have an actual side story to it, it doesn't even have to be canon, but it sure as hell needs to be interesting. Give us a reason to care about what is going on.
4th one's the most ambitious, I think. Sort of goes with my ARPG idea - you could have this creepy vibe, and an ominous, minimalistic Dark Souls-type story, that's printed in the background.
I feel like a way to combine 2 of your ideas would be to have story dlc based on the now canon tower endings. Give Scorpion his own dlc or Subzero. They dont have to be crazy long or anything and can just be cheap too. It would make money with the large amount of characters too.
You'd have to pick and choose whose ending gets expanded on, cause you definitely can't do em all, but if you're clever, you can weave more characters around some of these stories.
@CynicalWarlock Probably would be able to make dlc for the different groups in the game like the Monks or the Royal family. I agree doing a whole story for each character would be difficult
@@yeolelad888 Yeah that's what I'm thinkin, tackle groups, or even if it's just one person, try to include as many side characters in that short story as possible.
I still think that Konquest could work,but instead of making it a single character,make a RPG like party and bring tag team battles back,so you could explore the world and face diferent battles as team,since most of the time its just Good guys team vs bad guys, you could even bring back the side selection from DCvsMK,and make only two endings depending on which side you picked
The flip stance button is used as a pump fake button. You actually use it to trick your opponents into thinking your going to do a move or make them think your attempting to do combo
I've played MK9, MKX, and MK11, online, extensively. They all had a flip stance button. Never once have I seen anyone use that tactic; not in my matches, nor in high-level tournaments.
One of the things that I’ve heard is that NRS tried making a team game without the brokenness. Take something like Skullgirls or MvC. They’re fun because they’re broken and because they’re so free with how you can play the game. With Mk1, it’s exactly how you put it where each thing is made an intended way.
Yes, they overreacted to MKX, first with MK11, and MK1 isn't much different. It's funny cause, in every other respect, MK games seem to cater to the casual fanbase first and foremost, yet when it comes to balance, they're so incredibly sensitive to it, despite the fact that not much is being invested in the tournament scene.
I had to pause the video on 1:25 because indeed the animation and the whole look of SF and Tekken (and every other fighting game except maybe Soul Calibur) make less sense to me and I find them much more unrealistic and like they're made for children. So in terms of visuals MK is actually 100% the best for me!
On Fatal Blows, they like X-Rays were meant to be the Get Out of Jail Freen Card for the game. The FBs in 11 were there and almost often unavoidable and nearly every time it was used you knew it was coming. Problem was it was just unsafe on block and once hit you were done. In 1 they have more strategic value IMO, you get only one use of it, unless its blocked or whiffs, whoever this time its better used when you know its gonna kill, other wise you wasted it and now if it hits, its breakable with a Kombo Breaker, making it even more of a risk to use. I feel like MK1 takes a collaboration of what worked in the 3 games and made a single game with those.
That was definitely MK1's goal, and in some respects, it succeeded. I may very well be biased, cause I see too much of MK11's DNA in it, but I sincerely think that there are better alternatives out there than Fatal Blows. Every fighting game has its flashy 'cutscene' super-move, so it's never gonna go away, but even visually, these moves have gotten longer and more elaborate, to the point where I feel like something shorter and punchier would be more impactful. How many times can you sit through Kenshi's Fatal Blow animation, before you mentally tune out?
Oh I agree there as well they make these things too long now, I feel the same about fatalities too. After so many sets, I don't care to even do them, 99% of the time I don't even do them. This BC they are long and after you see them a couple times you seen enough of them. I like the Brutalities BC they are fast straight to the point and done. @@CynicalWarlock
@@innocenceUnknown Exactly, Brutalities were such a good idea (again, MKX, not that I'm keeping score). They make for better Fatalities than Fatalities.
I agree with the first portion for sure, I won't say it's a bad thing necessarily, because come back mechanics can be a good thing. X rays at least came with a choice though, either use your bar completely for a big move, or sparingly and enhance everything else, I didn't mind that too much because you didn't completely rely on it and it wasn't always the best option. I wish they stuck with X-rays and made them shorter or krushing blows could work if they didn't have the stupid requirements and it was tied to a meter, similar to X-rays. So for an example if you see someone has built their meter to the max, you know they have a crushing blow they can use (with a specific move), so you'll be looking out for it as an opponent, the only thing I might do some tweaking to is, maybe they don't do AS MUCH damage, and possibly work slightly different for each character, like some work as a knock down, some work as a bounce, and for some characters maybe it just does a good chunk of damage or opens the opponent up for a nice combo.
18:40 I do agree if you could figure out the buttons of your opponent's Fatality and it canceled it out that would be hilarious cuz I'm sick of seeing fatalities at least for me it takes up too much time but if there was Babalities I could steal their fatality with a harakiri then hell yeah
5:52 Regarding MK9, the soundtrack for that game was still solid because it remixed tracks from the original trilogy using the orchestral resources WB gave NRS to work with. Unfortunately, the sound has taken the wrong lessons from that by emphasizing these cinematic, orchestral tracks that sound so generic and lack the same hook that Midway era audio took advantage of.
Just go back to the good old days of tyrannical ruler poses threat or outworld champion wins 9 times something simple like that became memorable. I think the reason they seem to keep upping the stakes is because of two things 1. Culture trends like Marvel pushing the multiverse they see it as a trendy thing to do that will gain attention 2. The last time they tried to avoid great multiversal timey wimey plots they made MKX’s story which most people thought sucked
People keep asking me how I'd fix characters like Kronika, but there's nothing to fix; MK11's entire plotline only exists because of what you wrote - they wanted to ride the multiverse wave, despite arriving too late to the party. There's nothing to salvage.
thats what im saying, no disrespect to raiden whatever but theoughout mk1-x he had triubles with shiet that wasnt just universal destruction. Liu kang can have shit challenge him
Or you could try sitcom writers, Liu Kang scores a date with Kitana only to later realize he asked the wrong twin out! The player has to navigate him through the night in one piece, hijinks ensue.
I've always told my friends this MORTAL KOMBAT NEEDS MORE PUSHBACK ON ATTACKS. It's like when I hit someone or get it and block the attack I don't even slide, this has been the case since mk9. When you hit a blocking opponent in street fighter the opponent slides back smoothly and different distances depending on the strength of the attack
I've noticed that about Street Fighter. I think it's a deliberate choice, in order to maintain some neutral. It's a fun detail you mentioned, cause this shows how rushdown-oriented MK is, as a series; characters are meant to stay in your face and mix or pressure. I bet they didn't even think of the pushback aspect much.
Animation: completely agree, they REALLY need to hand animate more moves Fun trumps balance: YES, actually, with post launch patch being a thing, they can always make a fun game first, balance later Story/ conquest: honestly, a single character focused story(with interruption from play others) could work, Mortal Kombat even have the advantage of shapeshifters that by lore can switch moveset so you can unlock characters and change playstyle at will while still being that one character in story, and we have FOUR candidates for that: Shang Tsung, Shujinko, Shinnok, Reptile. I would pay for a cool Shang Tsung redemption story or a remaster of Shujinko vs. Onaga. Netcode and Online: the fact that they don't even have crossplay multiple months after release is unacceptable. Extra modes: PLEASE, DON'T MAKE UNLOCKING THINGS SO GRINDY Predatory monetory practice: no, just no
Shujinko comeback - heart Shang Tsung redemption story - mega-heart Reptile - ...I mean I'm a biased piece of shit. I'm down for anything involving ol' lizzie.
Damn, I had that thought, as I was editing the video, and quickly shoved it back in my brain. That would be insane. Would look like a full-on gang fight, which is kinda cool, I guess.
@@CynicalWarlock It would hopefully be similar to the tag in concept; like the Marvel vs. Capcom series, but still have its own MK flare added to the mix. MK 9 showed how awesome the tag feature would be in the first place, but I always liked the Noob/Smoke concept from MKD. Kombinations would be endless, but imagine Lui Kang and Kung Lao tagging with Johnny as a Kameo providing a finish to a combo or a finisher? It'd reference MK Shaolin Monks and would look awesome! Might even be my main; unless I use Scorpion and Sub-Zero with Smoke as a Kameo.
@@CynicalWarlock Do you think they could add it to MK1 or do you think they'd have to start in the next installment? 🤔 Either way they need more content for MK1 to keep it going. I personally have NO interest in their guest characters; save the MK characters. NRS is getting out of hand with their special guests. They can be fun editions, but they shouldn't rely on them. Granted Peacemaker will serve as NY fatality practice because John Cena is dumb, but we need more MK KHARACTERS added to the roster. How is this "MK 1" and you don't even have Sonya on the roster; except as a Kameo? Than they're adding Takeda? That's cool and all, but Sonya is OG. It's like NOT having Chun Li in a Street Fighter remake. Why would you make such a decision as a studio developer? I know fans were vocal; TOO vocal, when Mileena wasn't in MK 11, but where is the support for Sonya? Not just for MK Sonya is one of gaming's FIRST ladies! Ms. Pac-Man Peach Zelda Samus Chun Li Sonya Laura Of course I'm missing VERY key ladies to the industry as a whole, but I think MOST would agree these ladies are the stand outs and Sonya is IN that ranking. So disappointing NRS. 😞
20:16 I love having a big roster so again agree to disagree but when they added Freddy Krueger to MK9 I was so freaking happy I probably would have played MKX if it had one character not three different characters to pick from
0:04 what I would like is a defense bar I don't know how they could change that or at least it would only cost one bar to break because if you don't have a full bar against the very good player you are dead when someone does two combos you're dead
They tried the defensive bar in MK11. Didn't work. The 1-bar breaker is interesting; depends on the overall speed and dps of the characters. It sort of goes with an idea that I had, which is involving the meter more heavily in combos. For instance, if you do a meterless combo, it's around 20%, in most cases. One bar increases it to 28-30%, 2 bars to 35%-38%, and the truly spectacular stuff happens with a full stick of butter. In M1K, people can pull off 40+% combos with like 1 bar, which is kinda swingy and one-sided.
31:09 Not only is it boring, but you're ignoring how dumb it is. Capcom has been trying to make its own game a service for a long time, which isn't a problem if it's good, but when it's something WEAK, it's bad
How about bringing back 3D combat, revamping the system to make it feel less restricting. My fav fighting game atm is SC6 and while it may not be as well known, it’s combat system is unparalleled to me with it being 8 way run system. I think it’ll be interesting to see how they’d implemented it if they did
I feel validated watching this. I agree with pretty much all of your points and I've been feeling crazy praising MKX while everyone plays these inferior projects imo. I also think the “run” button should be as staple to MK games as the block button at this point. (though I would be curious to see netherrealm experiment with back to block in mainline mk games or at least a game mode that does it) I really don't understand why the devs have tried everything to get a way from mkx rather than refine it.
It's because of that 'blank slate' mentality I mentioned. Once a game is released, throw everything out and start from scratch. It's incredibly tiring for both the fans and the devs, and you end up throwing the baby with the bathwater a lot, like in MKX's case. And yeah, the run button *is* a staple of MK, as far as I'm concerned. Help me understand the back-to-block thing. I know most other fighting games have it, but apart from discouraging turtling, I don't see the point of it.
@@CynicalWarlock just adding in an option for actual cross ups in Mk. I remember laughing hilariously when the devs did mileena ethereal reveal in mkx and said her going back and forth was a cross up and that literally can’t exist with a dedicated block button lmao. So now people would have to consider if high, lows and if the jump in hitbox actually hits the back of their head lol
@@Duke_ofGames So you have to react in time and switch directions to block it. Makes sense. Personally, I'm a bit iffy about jump attacks, in general, in MK, because anti-airs are so inconsistent in these games, and the shitty netcode makes it that much harder to consistently punish air attacks, making them a bit overpowered, for 90% of the player base.
@@CynicalWarlock well yes, I guess my curiosity could only be fed if those design flaws were remedied. Personally my biggest gripe in netherealm games was zoning being way too good for many characters and even character’s answers to zoning like Kitana reflect in mkx was way too slow where the animation played but the effect didn’t work till seconds later. Even when they patched it, it seems more like you have to guess projectiles are coming rather than react to it.
@@Duke_ofGames yeah, the startup is deliberately slow. The actual answer to zoning, in NRS games, is teleports, for the most part. Which breeds another problem, cause everyone ends up having a super-fast, tracking teleport attack that can be done on reaction, and the entire gameplay devolves into abusing jump attacks and teleports - or jump attacks *into* teleports, even. As much as I love MKX, this was one of its biggest problems.
i really wish they would make new old school mks like 1,2,umk3 and trilogy. they were so innovative, fun, bright, new characters, etc. there are a slew of mk fans making 2Ds online that are really fun.
@CynicalWarlock Oh, yeah, these 2 are peak, so as that video of yours, tho who would be your #2 character from those pesky inferior named characters? Also favourite MK game?
@@vaggos2003 Well, the most popular current theory in my Discord is that I'm either Reptile or Chameleon, so let's go with that. As for MK games, obviously, different MK games do different things well, but if we're talking about picking one, it's no competition: MKX. Best gameplay, lots of creativity and player expression, run mechanic, ingenious variations, good roster, great character reimaginings like Tremor and Tanya, a couple actual new characters that are decent like Erron and perhaps Cassie, guest fighters are done the most justice, it's impossible to compete with it. Story is crap, of course, but all MK stories are crap.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks MK's art style and soundtrack hasn't been good in a long time, the photo realistic art style is boring and doesn't fit MK and the soundtrack is super generic. Me personally I wish they'd go back to the art style of MK9 and the 3D Era games and I think Mick Gordon should make the OST in the next game given that he expressed interest in composing for MK and he has written music for both Modern Doom and Modern Killer Instinct, 2 series with similar energy
Duuuude! Imagine Mick Gordon composing Scorpion's theme, for the next game. MK flirted with rock and industrial before, but to have it let its hair down and commit to this vibe would be fuckin epic. Also, it's so ironic that the more tame fighting games that don't even feature blood or over-the-top violence, like Street Fighter, have a bolder, more colorful, larger-than-life art style, while Mortal Kombat, which is so violent that it's for borderline psychopaths, insists on making everything look as real as possible.
Well done video! I agree with some and disagree with some. All of it has good logic behind it though. But also apparently the MK1 tower endings are indeed canon and an insight into the future story mode update and beyond
Flip stance is dumb but it actually has a use it's for defensive movement but it's useless still. Fatal blow is a damn crutch the way it's implemented x-ray worked because you had to build meter and you burn it and miss you couldn't wait it out to regain it back. MK11 was never really fixed and i expect the same with MK1 punishing pokes works sometimes some fatal blows hit from behind (Baraka and Kano) for sure but i remember even as far back as mk3 ultimate when has this never been broken
I thought you were going to focus on character rewrites, like how you did for Kung Lao. For instance, I know and love how tight-knit you made the Mortal Kombat elemental system and especially for Scorpion and Sub-Zero's rivalry, but could there be any way for Bi-Han and Hanzo Hasashi to avoid their respective tragedies, deaths, and Netherrealm fates? For that matter, in terms of Scorpion's rivalry with Sub-Zero, is Scorpion all there is to the fire elemental, or are there characters who represent other facets of fire like how Kuai Liang and Frost expand upon Bi-Han's ice powers (I know that some game before Mortal Kombat X stated that Hanzo Hasashi was meant to be Raiden's Earthrealm champion before Liu Kang received that honor, but I'm not sure that counts. Why does Liu Kang specifically use fire when he can "soul-manipulate" his own soul and thus gain fabulous secret powers? What about the new continuity where Kuai Liang has fire powers due to being the new Scorpion despite not having been to the Netherrealm? Where does Bi-Han's relationship with Sareena fit in to all of this? And who would be Noob Saibot if not Bi-Han?)?
Ok, lots of questions there. First off, the whole reason I made this (more general) video was to buy more time for the character rewrites and such, cause those take a bit more time to make. I'll definitely make more power system videos, like ones where I rank every Fire user, every Air user etc, and go into the little differences between them. Scorpion was actually supposed to be the elder gods' champion, in Deception, but they scrapped that idea, unfortunately. Would've been one of the coolest things to see. Every Shaolin monk uses Soul, in much the same way that a Jedi uses the Force, which is to say in a fairly defensive, limited manner (mostly). So that's not necessarily their specialization element, like Fire is for Liu and Air is for Lao. As for the Sareena-Bi-Han relationship, I think that the whole point of it was to undermine the player/viewer's preconceptions and make them question the story, cause everyone keeps telling Bi-Han that his soul is corrupted and hinting that he's beyond redemption, when there's clearly enough evidence to the contrary, including him befriending Sareena - an actual demon who's tired of doing evil - so that's relationship serves to drive this theme home. The more I think about it, MK: Mythologies is pretty damn solid, on the story and symbolism front.
@@CynicalWarlock EDIT: Reviewing this video, I was thinking that MK1 even did Takeda dirty. And MKX put Takeda on the frickin' map in the first place. EDIT: What do you think of the return of animalities? MK11's Friendship mechanic?
@@maddenboseroy4074 I think they're cool features that should probably be in most MK games. I don't necessarily think Animalities should be canon, cause that's too ridiculous to even try to explain, but it doesn't need to be; it's main attraction is associating the characters with a particular animal and letting them express themselves in a new way. I think Friendships, in particular, should always be a thing - I think it's important to cater to a player's merciful side, not just their sadistic one. The more varied ways a player can express themselves, the better.
Thanks for the shout-out! Made my day. 😎
I've been pondering if maybe the Fail-tality idea makes more sense if they're not actually fatal? Like it just ends with your character knocked out/throwing a tantrum etc. (your opponent is just going to fall over anyway). Or maybe not... is the gore simply necessary lol? I don't know, just a thought.
I would be a lot more into the character chapter system if it wasn't so damn one-sided. Shao/Sindel's Aftermath chapter was imo easily the most fun and the only one I immediately replayed after finishing. We need more villain chapters because to me it is baffling that, in the previous trilogy, a character like Jacqui got two chapters while a character like Mileena got zero. The villains are some of the most beloved figures in this series, but NRS story modes treat most of them like they're Dan Hibiki.
Fail-talities work either way, as far as I'm concerned. I suppose a lotta players would find it disrespectful that it causes the character's death, but fuck them.
As for the gore, if I had my way, I would absolutely hit the reset button on that; it's gotten way outta hand. If 'impact' is what you're looking for, then this stuff ceased to be impactful 2-7 games ago. When everything is gore, you grow desensitized to it. It's much better if it's a surprise that comes out of nowhere. That's why Brutalities were such a good idea. I wouldn't even show blood, except after the hardest of hits, like X-rays and maybe uppercuts.
And I'm glad it's not just me who thinks the story mode shouldn't be gatekept by the good guys.
Personally that was an awesome idea, I can see it almost like a mercy, kinda like "nah you deserved that win!" Or "almost had me there, I'll give it to you".
I'd still keep mercy too though, just because I liked the idea of you wanting to give someone that extra chance you feel they deserve, or rub it it that they were never going to win this either way.
Fails would be fun in general, even if you're not making a statement, just the idea that I can fake out an opponent that thinks I'm about to fatality and then I go and make reptile dissolve himself in his own acid or shed and just leave the shedding of himself standing there while he scurries off embarrassed.
@@jackkawf4449 Ok, we need to document these; the Reptile ideas are comedy gold.
@@CynicalWarlock sounds like you have another video to make then ... You honestly do so well, I'd take notes and put the fans ideas together that you think might make a great mk. The video can be a fan tribute/ "NRS the fans are even coming up with stuff now" video.....
@@CynicalWarlock honestly the shedding could work as a move like a subzero ice clone mimic, except it wraps you in his skin momentarily
MK just needs to bring back its edge and absurdity they been playing it to safe these past few titles story wise and gameplay
Depends how you define absurdity. The story's definitely absurd.. ly bad.
Gameplay-wise, I agree, things have gotten way too tame.
@@CynicalWarlock nah the story definitely needs to be a bit more grounded.. I get why they keep doing alternate worlds and such since they kill off loved characters and write themselves in a corner but it must be a way better way
But yea I was mostly talking about the gameplay, it’s like they’re stuck between trying to be like Street fighter and Tekken which comes out mediocre
@@princecrowe6417 There's a lot of truth to that, I think. And it makes sense. In many ways, MK was the new kid on the block, on the eSports scene. Street Fighter and Tekken put a friendly arm on MK9's shoulders, when it made its first foray into this realm, but MK thought they were secretly mocking it. It tried to find its groove with MKX, but couldn't shake the feeling it was too different from the rest of the frat boys, so it caved and started to emulate them to fit in..
..and it doesn't fit in.
The MK reddit has turned on this game so quickly LOL. People started calling it MK Temu
That's actually funny.
what MK reddit? I only know the tekken sub
I'll have to check again because last time I checked, if you said ANYTHING remotely negative, you were swarmed by "git gud" and "plays something else"
It’s funny cause they were glazing that shit for months
@@nono9543 typical reddit. That place is the holy ground for grifters
My favorite MK within recent times was, and still is, MKX. I always felt it was a good evolution for the most part, especially gameplay-wise (everything you mentioned in that section - I also miss the run mechanic, variations etc... ). It was the "sweet spot" for me, just a very fun game. I still enjoy MK1, but there's no denying it's been a pretty bumpy ride since launch, and it's really showing now. Overall, many great points to consider - a lot can be learned from the past installments.
Agree man, something about MKX is how addictive the Fights are. Super satisfying to pull combos etc. Even playing VS against CPU alone already super fun to do.
MKX is the one game they should've iterated on, instead of scrapping everything, like they usually do.
@@Abel_Unstable Oh yeah - used to stay up til 4 a.m. playing the shit out of it, raging when I lost, but wanting more.
Even though the animations are still janky as hell, MKX had that fluidity of general movement that the more recent games lack. Characters just felt more responsive.
Not to mention that combos took a *lot* more creativity.
The current state of MK11 in terms of variations is actually better.
It should have started like that though but at least it got there.
@@tsvetelin6556I wish they had not abandoned MK11 to start MK1 when they did, if only because there were so many load-out options that they could have refined further or iterated upon to make them worth taking. Raiden in particular has had a number of options that I've shared ideas with to players on UA-cam like KnockturnalIs over the past four years.
4:43 Armageddon Bell Tower, MK 2 Pit, MKMSZ songs like Water and Earth God, they had sum bangers in midway.
Hell yeah. Some of em were weird as fuck, but had character.
I think this specific story in MK1 REALLY would have benifited from the character select that Super Smash Bros Brawl had in it's story mode. Where instead of character chapters, you had essentially crew chapters that start off with two characters and grew in numbers and occasionally switches some people out. You wouldn't be tied to one group at a time either, have one chapter be Kenshi and friends tying to find Mileena and save her for one chapter, and Nitara and the other henchmen doing errands for the Deadly Alliance.
And by the time when Reptile, Ashra, Baraka, Johnny, and Kenshi are all ready to rock, you can pick your combination of characters that you as the player feel most confident or curious about with 20 options if it's just a 2v2 tag mode. And that would incentivise players to redo chapters and see all of the little lines between characters teaming up.
And then when the chapter of Armageddon happens, you finally get your pool of selectable characters to the full (launch) roster that you would have had *at least* one opportunity to play as, and finally pick your favorite duo for the finale.
Of course, you might still have solo chapters such as when Raiden fights everyone to become the champion, but moments like that can work just like Brawl does when Meta Knight meets Lucario. And maybe you go from the shaolin training chapter to Baraka's chapter where he has to fight each of them to defend his camp when the Earthrealmers invade and Baraka get's back up from Shang Tsung disguised as another tarkatan or something.
And this system wouldn't even CHANGE THE STORY THAT MUCH! Yeah, it's way more emphasis on a *TAG* system, but tbh you already made the fleshed out (mechanically) characters, just have them team up and let the players choose which combo.
I'm at work taking a 40 minute "piss break" so I won't be spell checking this.
I JUST REMEMBERED INJUSTICE 2 AND MK11 BOTH HAD CHARACTER SELECTION IN THEIR CHAPTERS HOW DID THEY NOT REALIZE THE POTENTIAL IN THE GAME WITH TEAM MECHANICS ARE YOU KIDDING ME 😂
But yeah, I think the dialogue in those specific chapters is pretty much what I'd expect from the duo's that you would select in my hypothetical story structure for MK1. Only your getting like 20 different combinations of lines depending on the player's choice instead of two lines from either Green Arrow or Black Canary
@@Worst_n00b I was about to write that MK11 dipped its toes in that.
Would've thought your idea would be way too complicated to implement, had you not told me someone already did it. Definitely a cool way to handle it.
Also, using up your piss break to comment on my video is *tight*.
You're a trooper.
solo chapters like that work if the character themself is powerful. Kitana in 9 is not soloing all those characters she did, if so thats good on her but why does she get taken out by two weak Tarkatans who are faaaar weaker than the Johnny and Smoke she beat up.
@@CynicalWarlock I mean, if WB wants NRS to cut corners, the lines between characters could be as cut and dry as they want. Kind of like Titan Lui Kang's remarks to our chacarer of choice in the final Chapter 😅
@@ri_c_eon that note, I would have the solo "chapters" be more like solo introductory fights that are mandatory for the player to get used to the character, and as soon as the character joins another posse, you have the choice to play as them in the group or not. Even in SSBB you lost and gained members constantly, so varrying from different characters wouldn't be to hard to think of way to do so considering our main example here came out on the fuckin Wii 😅
YOUR THE ONLY GUY WHO TALK ABOUT THE MUSIC....yes it's dying because of the music who wants to play a game with boring music 🤷🏿♂️
It matters way more than people think.
Naw fr tho because I grew up on MK trilogy....and it major playback because the music was just that good....IDC if the game is bad I just want good music 😭😎
That failtallity idea is excellent. Someone’s got to get that to the developers
You know, I always thought that it would be cool if they branched out into different types of games, like maybe a Devil May Cry combat style game, that focuses on the story or something (that could be very bad idea just a personal thing that I think of every night)
That's totally what keeps me up at night, too.
For real though, I think that's what they tried to do with Shaolin Monks and the Konquest modes, but it's perplexing to think that such a long-running series hasn't branched off into other genres, almost at all.
Yakuza x MK would be perfect
Yes, we need sequels/remakes of MK Shaolin Monks, MK Mythologies: Sub-Zero and stuff like the Konquest modes from Deception and Armageddon.
@@CynicalWarlock Yes, very sad. Apparently they're too afraid to experiment or branch out because their 2D fighters have sold well and they no wanna lose $$$. 🙄🥴
@@robertminnie782 Don't see what one has to do with the other. These would be spinoff games, with their own budgets, and profit margins.
Character chapters: the issue with your solution of switching characters during story mode is that this mode is the more casual mode. Made for people to enjoy the story. If they have to switch characters frequently it would be harder for them to learn a character in 1 match only to be changed in the next one.
To be honest, I have no idea how to solve this. If you ask me I would remove story mode and have a hybrid tower mode present the story of each character.
Besides this and the smaller roster with more DLC characters, I agree with basically every point.
As you pointed out, Story Mode is the casual mode, which means it'll be played on 'Braindead' difficulty, by most customers - even the more competitive ones, cause they wanna breeze through the story, out of curiosity, then go play online - so this is a non-issue, as far as I'm concerned. People just mash through these things anyway. Plus, you can have short quicktime events pre-fight, where you teach the player 2-3 special moves, before dropping them into a fight with that character. Less surprise factor, but easier learning curve. Also, it's not like you won't be revisiting that character before the Story mode ends; there aren't *that* many characters in the roster, after all.
The smaller roster is a tough pill to swallow for everyone - myself included - but like I said, you can't please everybody; whenever you include Ermac in the game, Noob Saibot fans will get outraged that you didn't choose their character instead, and vice versa. But knowing that you have 10-20 DLC characters to look forward to, over time, instead of 4-8, would placate most fans, I think. And if you port over the skeleton from one game to the next, then you can start the second game with the now-enriched roster, since you don't have to flat-out redesign everyone and everything from scratch. That way, you can get from 10-20, to 20-30, and 30-40 characters, over the span of 3 games.
Then hit the reset button.
@@CynicalWarlock About the story mode, putting it like that you're probably right.
About the small roster with DLC, it's not that I'm opposed, it's more like I believe the community would not react positively to that. I don't think DLC on itself is a bad thing, but years of gaming companies taking advantage of gamers through DLC kinda ingrained on gamers' heads that DLC = exploitation. Adding that up to the small roster could turn people against the game from the get-go.
@@doishooligan Oh, for sure, I even said the fanbase would get outraged, so I fully agree. So if MK went down this route, it would have to go through a trial by fire to convince people it was actually doing the right thing, instead of over-monetizing through DLC. Definitely not the most painless solution, I'll give you that.
I think you can get around by not doing it frequently and only when appropriate ….for example chapter 13 of mk1
Fight 1: play as Shang Tsung to take down the portals
Fight 2. Elsewhere switch to smoke with a scorpion kameo to fend off the duplicates and dragon
Fight 3. Kung Lao sees Shang and Raiden being overwhelmed so jumps down to divert Reikos attention
Fight 4…..Shang gets to his feet after Laos save and takes on Dark Shao ending the chapter
Fight 5. Kitana and her as a kameo fight an endurance match against the dragon warriors
So you only do it a lot at specific times
this^. I'm not a big Johnny fan but hes fucking awesome. His whole thing is hes a secret badass martial artist who came to a whole ass demon fighting tournament to flex the his skills. His characterization in 1 is nice, he doesn't even have a projectile which is super johnny imo. for the most part in 1 hes great, but he should've had more focus later on and thats thanks to the stupid ass chapter system.
I miss the big monster characters in mortal Kombat
#bringbackonaga.
they are only really fun to play if the opponent is also playing them as well unless they are an esports player because then its just bullshit
@@CynicalWarlockshoulda been the big bad for mk1
Mkx and 3d era had the best hard hitting sounds, wow I thought I was the only one who noticed about mk11 and mk1!
Same. I assumed only I care about this stuff.
@@CynicalWarlock 😅 also even killer instinct bone crushing hard hit sounds. Have a good week!
6:07 Omg, this one hits so close, the number of times I've been doing combos in practice mode, and my mom questioned the suspicious game voice foley sounds is insane. 😂
Yeah, that's why I always practiced on Jason, back in MKX, because he *shuts the hell up*.
@@CynicalWarlock 😂
Yeah….one of the common criticisms with the modern MK’s is there less memorable soundtracks. Especially when you compare them to the 2000 era 3D trilogy.
It completely lost its character.
I think the only soundtrack that I genuinely remember from mk 11 is Kotal Kahn's Coliseum music. Not only does it perfectly capture his character and his landscape, but it neatly incorporates creepy ethnic instrumentals like the Mongolian throat-singing and the Aztec-inspired chanting and percussion.
Great video! If I remember correctly I think the MK1 ladder endings are canon this time around. One of the few things they did right XD
Until the next game throws most of them out the window.
Sad facts
11:26 You are absolutely right, and UMVC3 is a perfect example of that principle, Virgil is SOOO broken, but i love playing against him and winning against him cuz it's fun
Yep. I look back at all the games that I still occasionally play now, years or even decades after their release, and it always comes down to their core gameplay loops just being so goddamn enjoyable.
God you know it’s bad when people are looking back on mk11 fondly
They are???
You won't be believe how many people are saying "maybe we were too hard on mk11" @@CynicalWarlock
I actually love it!
But it's my 1st MK game that I play a lot since MK4 so maybe that's a big part.
@@tsvetelin6556 thats obviously a big part lol, go try 9 or x
@@tsvetelin6556 Eyy, fellow MK4 fan.🙌
Now the problem with your ideas, it involves a lot of thinking and brain power. But that’s something NRS’s doesn’t strive, because they keep repeating the same mistakes.
Putting points in Intelligence is hard, yes.
Potential Hot Take: maybe instead of variations, bring back stances from the 3-D era, while not destroying the character. For example, I don’t think anyone would want Sub Zero to be a zoner, but maybe give him a “set up” stance, a high damage stance, and “safe” stance
Yeah but stances were mostly cool because of the real-world martial arts names. If you think about it, there's no gameplay mechanic to stances - you could have all the moves coexist in the same 'stance' and it would be functionally the same thing. So they'd need to be reworked a bit, to warrant bringing them back.
Tekken 8 > MK1
Paying for fatalities was the nail on the coffin. We let shit slide for too long. MK9 was where it his the glass celiling.
If you played Guilty Gear Xrd you may appreciate how they did the story there. Each character has its own ladder/story that is a prequel to the main story, a separate mode, and all are canon.
Pretty much what I advocate for. Guilty Gear has a brain.
@CynicalWarlock i think many games still uses this format cause it gives mote freedom of action and its also a remnant of the old format (in mk case it has been like this since the very first game).
MK 9 was the peak for me, and MK X was still good but had some of the rot showing. 11 was the beginning and 1 is the end. Somewhere along the lines this goofy blood-soaked game started taking itself too seriously, and that's why I didn't buy it. Glad I waited for Tekken 8. Over the top, larger than life characters with incredible customization and as a bonus... the developers aren't afraid to make conventionally attractive women like NRS appears to be.
Mk9 had the best balancing. When everyone is broken, nobody is broken.
@@zzodysseuszz lol.
@@zzodysseuszz As Syndrome once said: And when everyone is Super... No one will be
It really is wild to me how NRS made such fluid and quick games that struck a good balance between accessibility w/o lowering the skill ceiling and just said nah and never looked back. Like I remember booting up MK11 and playing with a friend who doesn’t play fg’s asking if we could play X instead.
What's worse for MK1 is that we're at a point where all the things NRS was known for doing and what separated it from the competition are now being outclassed by T8 and SF6.
SF6 and T8 both have better netcode than MK1, which would've been an insane thing to say 8 years ago. SF6 and T8 also have a ton of replayable single player content, and T8 has by far the best cinematic story mode that imo has finally surpassed MK9's story. Even MK's realism, has been outdone by Tekken and SF who have both made their characters realistic while keeping their animated style in tact, which is something MK11 succeeded in doing as well!
Also you are not alone in the sound design, it drives me insane hearing those I2 sound effects which were never that good to begin with and I’m glad someone has pointed that out.
Atp im just hoping they patch the game to be much faster and hope they fix their mistakes for Injustice 3 cuz MK1 isn't rly recovering from this.
Thanks, I feel less insane now, about the sound effects.
Agree with everything in this comment.
I actually prefer the color shading and the color pallets of Mortal Kombat nine I thought that’s when the series was at its best design wise. My biggest problem with a series is it storylines we went from time travel to more time travel to time travel again. Mortal Kombat ones story mode was actually really solid For the beginning in the middle and then when it started to bring in the big timeline crap is when it lost me. I actually timeline stuff. It bothers me on a whole Nother level. The exception to this rule is DBZ trunks since he’s a bad ass cool character it didn’t make sense then it doesn’t make sense now but he’s like the only possible character and in terms of time shit I can handle.
I said it before the game got released: M1K's story mode will probably dive off a cliff, like it usually does.
And people were like "nooo, you'll see, this one's legit".
Yeah. I saw.
Chapter system story mode may be getting a little old. Especially since it's all heroes. What we need is a random chapter system. Where you play as multiple characters in different points in the story. For example chapter one. 2 fights as Johnny then 3rd fight maybe scorpion then sonya or whatever
My thoughts exactly. Especially the hero bias.
@CynicalWarlock Right like there's nothing wrong with villains picking up a few Ws Makes the story more believable
And just to add, I feel like the main reason they don't wanna do it is because it would potentially give people whiplash with having to go from one moveset to another. Why not implement a little assist thing like Tekken does where it pulls up a basic combo as well as all the important moves with one button?
4:01 I still cant get over Mileena's Predator mouth and little gecko tongue. It looks so goofy.😂
Yeah, lips, no lips, mandibles - they keep tryna reinvent the wheel with her, for some reason.
On the topic of animation, I'll never forget how comical they made Darkseid look in Injustice 2 by having his arms folded behind his back literally all the time, even when he's doing dynamic shit like kicking or jumping. It's so bad lol.
It's fan service gone wrong. They didn't consider that that kinda shit is *forever*. A pose like that gets old quick. They have trouble with standing poses/stances, in general. More and more MK characters have no stance at all, just keeping their arms hanging down (e.g. MKX Tanya), like they're waiting in line to buy bread, in some communist country.
Yeah they made Darkseid fight he always does. How bad!
People who criticize NRS animation are some of the mkst braindead people I have seen.
Nice video, I usualy tired to MK11 defenders argued that "Changes is necessary" or "Evolving the core gameplay is for the better."
Like, my dudes, MK has been lost its Mojo since MK4, not knowing what the game supposed to be. While Deception is Amazing, the series had hiccups real hard.
MK9 and MKX is how the series should be, but then they decide to "change" the core gameplay again? Like gimme a break lmao.
Yeah, they need to settle on a foundation and let it bloom, in time, already.
Just.. not this one. :D
11:08 yeah because everyone was expecting it to be like MK9 and it wasn't like MK9 that's why it sold so quick and then died off MK9 is awesome
It didn't die, that's my point.
@@CynicalWarlock I think they need to do something with the defense in it someone shouldn't be able to do two Combos and kill you if they had a defense bar or if it only cost one bar to do a combo break then I think the game would be more fun
how tf did i miss this vid? i like to pride myself on watching your vids on time. Ah, better late than never.
We'll let this one slide, and never speak of it again. ;)
Just look at tekken 7, that game lasted 9 years and had a consistent player base up until January 2024 now that tekken 8 is out. And tekken 7 came out in 2015, that's almost 10 years of support and new characters and features being added to tekken 7. That needs to be studied for sure. Sf5 wasn't as well received as 4 but in comparison, 6 is way better received than 5 was and with what 6 brings to the table I feel alongside tekken 8, people are going to be playing tekken 8 and sf6 for almost another 10 years just because of how they'll be supported over time as opposed to mk1. Nrs needs to take notes from Japanese fighting game devs. They can genuinely learn something.
Yeah, I don't think they will take note. WB/NRS are following the EA model of short-term spike in sales, then abandon project, rinse and repeat. It makes a ton of money, otherwise they wouldn't be doing it.
But if you want your game to have any kind of longevity (and more importantly, solidify your fanbase), the SF and Tekken way of doing things is definitely the way to go. That long-term support is key, to which I would add having a truly iterative approach, where you lay a solid foundation that you build on top of, with subsequent games. That's what these other games do pretty damn well.
SF is not comparavle. That series has a history other FG do not. Capcom can literarily shit on a plate and people guzzle it down. SF5 was a horrible game to the very end. SF6 is not as amazing people hype it up to be yet it has players bscause it is SF.
Tekken has no competition really, it is a 3d fighting game. It is literarily the only big budget 3d game.
Comparing SF and Tekken to MK is just plain dumb.
@CynicalWarlock That would be true if SF and Tekken market was the same as MK market.
SF will always have a market presence, because SF will always have fan boys. Capcom can burn a family 5 alive and eat their flesh and there will be lines for the next SF game. SF5 was HORRENDOUS, to the very end. SF6 has MK1 beat in the amount of sinfle player content, but the quality is dubious and the base gameplay is not perfect as may have you believe, I would say at times it is quite worse than MK1, but people eat it up. Capcom does not need to do anything to sell SF.
And Tekken is a game with prsctically 0 competition. It is in a sub genre, in which it is the only game. Again Tekken has to do very minimal work to have support. And specially Tekken has legacy moves, shortening their dev time incredibly.
I loved this video I'm waiting on your reptile idea video
You don't know what you're asking..
1-hour vid, maybe more.
cant wait@@CynicalWarlock
Honestly, after MK9, Mortal Kombat lost it's identity it's not even really a M rated game anymore if feels like a game for kids now
A kids' game with the most overtly violent visuals.
Quite the paradox.
@@CynicalWarlock You know in interviews the creator's for some of the Fatality ideas Ed Boon said no to them he think it would be too much for MK me personally I have good Fatality Ideas it's so unfurntunate.You even have Boon saying he's afraid of titties.BTW I agree I never like the battle cries and the punching and kicking sounds
@@triplexxxgaming7397 "Uhh, oo-aah, mmf-aagh-hoo-AAA-aaaaah" - screams like that after getting poked.
@@triplexxxgaming7397honestly fatalities need to go back to be being quicker and if they are going to be so cinematic then have it be entertaining and not just "how many ways can we hack this guy up!"
@@jackkawf4449Agreed
I agree with your chapter idea. The trick will be doing it in the right places like…say if you are playing as Kitana…let her have most of the chapter but as soon as say Shinnok turns you switch to Liu kang because he would be the only one strong to take him down
Precisely. This way, you tailor the player characters to the story.
Right now, they're doing the opposite, which is nonsensical.
@@CynicalWarlock I think as well because they have a limited amount of chapters will always miss out…unless it was 23 chapters long
@@billmcdermott9647 Yeah, that's another thing - you almost always get to play as just the good guys. Would be fun to make you play as a villain, during a pivotal moment, where you think you're gonna help stop the villain, and boom - you're *actually* the bad guy, and wreck shit up, for 1-2 fights.
Also, there are a lot of grey characters.
I wish the music was good again. Enough of this cinematic blockbuster nonsense we won't remember come MK13, give us that amazing mix inspired from traditional Eastern and dark fantasy we had all the way back in MK1992. Frick the whole art design and style needs an overhaul like that IMO, even a game as relatively recent as MK9 had so much more personality.
Word!
How to revitalize Mortal Kombat in 5 easy steps, my way
1: Remaster Armageddon. Don't put too much effort into making it look hyper realistic, the cartoonishness of it kinda fit. Prioritize the amount of content over having hyper-advanced graphics
2: replace the combo fatality system with actual character specific fatalities. Bring Weapon Fatalities back from Tournament Edition. Add modern-style Brutalities, Friendships and Faction Kills. Make sure there is no shortage of finishing moves. Retool death traps to only work as stage fatalities. Give created fighters unique finishers to pick from
3: Fix the gameplay, give players ways to use "CPU-only" moves, balance the roster, remove glitches, make the ladder and stage rotation truly random, all stages open from the start including Konquest maps... Those were pretty but you never saw them in arcade mode, add more create-a-fighter stuff including more weapons, more sliders etc
4: Add characters that debuted in the NRS era, minus guests. You don't need to add guests since we can make them
5: turn the variation system into style system. Classic, where they fight like UMK3/MK4; 3D, where they have a hand to hand and a weapon stance; and Modern, where they fight like they do now. Characters would have different costumes depending on style: Stryker in Classic would have his MK3 getup and moves. Everyone would have a different moveset depending on style. D'vorah in 3D would have her ovipositors as a weapon stance.
That's great. Now send this pitch to NetherRealm.
Lmfao
This can be called Ultimate Mortal Kombat: Armageddon. I think stages from Deadly Alliance and Deception should return as well.
For Gameplay I was thinking about a variation system but, unlike the MKX one, it does change the mechanics you'll use to play. For exemple, using a style switching mechanic from the 3D games that have emphasis on combo potential or using the meter mechanic to enhance special moves (and I still don't have idea for a third style of gameplay to add on), and having custom options for either specials and style branchings.
As the art direction for MK, I think it should approach the aesthetics of 3D era games, specifically the ones released on Ps2 era (including Shaolin Monks). For me, it's where the Mortal Kombat essence lies.
Deception was the art style high point for me. Bulky, muscular characters, stylish but simple outfits, lots of shadows and dark colors - it's exactly the larger-than-life style that I mentioned MK needs, instead of the photorealism. And MK games were still funny, back then, like all the stage fatalities were hilarious.
I just discussed the fighting style thing with someone else - that would be an elegant solution, cause you can switch them on the fly, instead of having to blind counter your opponent, in the character select screen.
I had a similar idea, only you could make it 2 styles, have a combo for both that transitions and also a designated button to switch while idol.
One style would be zoner, but they can switch to a more rush down.
A defensive character, can switch to a more offensive character.
Some characters get a weapon that extends and enhances combos/moves, or giving them more reach or a projectile.
Honestly it's an awesome solution because it's an in game decision, so you're not stuck with an incomplete character, and you aren't stuck to just one play style.
Of course it works for adaptation as well, if you need to change up you tactics because the opponent is catching on, switch your style up, see if they can handle that.
@@jackkawf4449 Man, that would be the craziest gameplay you'd ever see. Imagine Sub-Zero zoning out hard, slowing the pace of the match to a crawl, then suddenly switch to his rushdown variation when the opponent least expects it, and runs over him like a freight train.
Would be an adrenaline-inducing viewing experience, but it would definitely need extensive testing, to make sure it's not too swingy.
But the tamer version is definitely a good idea - e.g. switch from pure rushdown to a midrange anti-zoner.
@@CynicalWarlock yeah some things would have to balanced and I won't pretend to know how, but maybe a few solutions would be a stamina meter or perhaps a cool down (so you can't just spam flipping, you have to actually play in it for a moment).
@@CynicalWarlock plus, and forgive me for not being able to describe it well, but didn't MKX drop combos or something once you've gotten to a certain point or juggled to a limit? Like the a move that would typically be a bounce, would land them on the ground by the third use in combo/in a row?
If the Flip Stance Button didn't exist then most likely would've been the Run button in MKX which would've made it WAY easier for me to actually pull off decent combos
My. Thoughts. Exactly.
Not only that, you could (and this may sound like heresy to some), also bind dodging to that button. Crazy, I know - instead of having to double tap like a schizo every 2 seconds, you could just fwd + dash button, bkd + dash button. Short tap is a dash, holding it down is a run, which by the way, that's how MK3-4 worked too - you held a button down and ran.
I know this might be something most people would want but for a while now I've come to the idea that a more live service approach to fighting games could work to it benefits, obviously don't release an unfinished game but have where more than just DLC characters would be added to the game.
That's.. sort of what I'm suggesting, I suppose. Solid core + a ton of DLC added later.
'Live service' in the sense that it's practiced today is a very repugnant model though, and a slippery slope, so we must be careful.
I love to see characters analysis from ferra/torr and have a nice day
Thanks.
"look man I like your vids but there is no way I'm watching a 34 minutes video"
Here is me after watching 3 time. Nice vid
Stockholm syndrome is a thing.
@@CynicalWarlock
U should probably make a video explaining the power levels of mk characters, cause basing it on story mode now is just effed up since u can basically beat any character with any character since you are the one in control. And cut scene fights also don't make it any better. Most people think giving villains their own chapters will help
@@syki-tp1tn Not a bad idea. Might make a power level tier list.
From a serious fighting game player pov: Make combo mechanics more manual and harder. By this i mean, let there be a bit of learning curve. If im paying well over $60 i want my game to have longevity, to have incentive to learn. Combos like xxx, xyx, xab that i can master in one night's session just do not cut out against say, learning, Sakura's tatsu loop combos in SF4 or Menat's orb combos in SF5 or Chun Li's stance cancel stuffs from SF6
That's obviously a tough sell for the less hardcore fighting game enthusiasts, but again I find myself referring to MKX, because even though combos operated in much the same simplified way there, the timings were a lot stricter on some of the characters, for some of the more advanced combos, so there was a surprisingly high skill ceiling. Add to that run mechanics, flash parries and fireball cancels, and you've got enough skill requirement and opportunities for player expression for almost everyone.
I've played MK since the first one and MKX has still somehow turned into my no. 1 favorite fighting game of all time. And I know a lot of people will testify that MKX is the most enjoyable MK to play. And it's like you said, NRS don't need to just make MKX again. We already have MKX and we can go back and play it as much as we want. But, NRS should definitely study what is considered to be their best product to date and figure out what it is that makes it so popular and then bring that over to the next game. This failure to understand their own creation is just unbelievable. Either Ed Boon secretly hates MKX or their game designers are just stupid.
See? This one gets it.
NRS kind of learned the wrong things from MKX, like speed bad, running bad, rushdown bad. And that's a recurring theme with them, where their way of learning mostly centers on removing the 'bad', rather than building on the good.
@@CynicalWarlock It's like Core-A Gaming said: Everyone hates nerfs and they only make the gameplay less fun. Balancing through buffs is always the better choice.
In other words, focusing on what's good rather than removing what's bad is always a better design philosophy.
@@Shining4Dawn Preach!
So this is in addition to a post I made earlier. I do agree the lack of consistency is hurting the series. going from MK9 - 1 you have Scorpion and he plays differently in each game. Skarlet went form being a rushdown monster to a full blown zoner in 11. Not one game is the same its almost always mechanically rebuilt form the ground up. IT makes the game hard to jump into BC you lose the familiarity that is needed to play the game when you first play it.
A reason why SF tends to be so good is BC, in SF4,5, and 6 Cammy is a rushdown with most the same moves and inputs for the moves, Ken and Ryu are always shotos with the same style sto play with, and Zangief is always a grappler. IT helps a player jump in and play BC they already know at least a base level game plan on using a character in the game, which will eventually push them to learn new things and explore the rest of the roster.
I think the Kameo system is better than the Variation system, BC it still lets you use your character the way you want to use them, but gives you versatility to deal with ur tough MU’s since the kameos add more utility than anything. I main Rain and I found understanding how to implement the different kameos I can make a MU form hell to fight to easy BC I understood how to use my character’s style with those extra utilities. The Variation system often felt like trying to force a square peg into a round hole. Trying to make ur character do something they are just not built to do at all, or there was just always a variation/set of abilities that were too good not to use, or there seemed to be abilities that if you didn’t take you played with an incomplete character. Though not perfect the kameo system I think is better, but it def. needs some tweaks.
I looks at invasions as it was more designed to be a distraction, just something to do when ur not wanting to play matches online and done with the story. I don’t think its great, but I don’t think its completely bad. The think I think is how it feels like its purpose could better serve the player esp. a new player. SF6’s World Tour is a great mode BC it not only does some of what Invasions does with the matches that have wild modifiers, but it spends a large chunk of its time teaching you the game’s mechanics and other FG fundamentals that become essential to becoming better at the game. There are mini-games focused on using the parry system, lil courses teaching you the Drive system and how to use anti-airs and combos. Invasions doesn’t do any of that, it’s all about wild modifiers and crap flying around the screen. Now MK1 has one the most informative tutorials made and really helps to learn its game, but for one it forces you to use characters u may not care to even use and it’s a long boring slog. Now if this concept was used in Invasions, where you choose ur character you learn the mechanics and how ur character choice will benefit from those mechanics.
Also, FYI the Arcade endings in MK1 are all cannon to the main story this time around…
Anyway just my thoughts great video.
Exactly my thoughts. NRS change more than they need to, from game to game, by completely redesigning characters from scratch. Even banal things like changing the special move inputs is something that always leaves me scratching my head and wondering "why?".
As for Kameos vs Variations, I've mentioned before that I actually like the Kameo system, despite all the hate it gets. It gives you more flexibility to take on a larger variety of matchups, like you wrote. The reason why I prefer Variations is because of the depth that it provides. When you do it wrong, it's terrible. You get an MKX Sub-Zero, where Grandmaster was the only usable one, and the other 2 were poorly conceived from the get go, then adapted to be even worse. But when you do it right, you get a Tremor, with 3 completely competitive variations that all offered unique benefits and opportunities for player expression. And part of why Variations were tough to get right is because, again, the roster's too damn big.
Combining Invasions with the tutorial mode is a brilliant idea. They should keep that in mind, in general, going forward.
And I'm glad the endings are all canon, this time around, only I do have one question:
How do you know?
BC after the MK1 story mode and then you run all the Arcade Ladder ending they all correlate with where that character left off and tell us where they went from there. Even during the lil pre-fight banter acknowledges things that happened in those ladder ending.
Ex. Rain in the story mode betrays Outworld and sides with the wrong side and in his ladder ending it leaves off to after the rebellion with Shao failed and he ends up working with Havik since he was wanted in Outworld. Havik convinces him to flood and drown all of Seido killing millions. He feels a sense of regret and remorse and returns to MIleena begging for redemption and a chance to right his wrongs . The ending for Smoke and Scorpy tell where teh Shiya Ryu are headed and how Hanzo ends up within the story as well. The ladder ending actually are really interesting this time around and I hope moving forward they focus on the story telling of this new era.
@@CynicalWarlock
@@innocenceUnknown I understand what you're saying, but they've done this before. Pre-fight banter and arcade endings are not reliable sources of information, cause they've been switched around, in the past.
What I'm saying is you'll only know for sure if it's canon or not when the next game comes out.
If balance was more important than fun then games like Super Smash Bros Melee and Marvel vs Capcom 3 wouldn't still be played at a high level to this day
And a whole bunch of other games. Fun will always trump balance.
Aye i forgot how much hell Nimble Reptile use to bring. I was a demo Sonya main but Rep was so cool to watch.
Scar was an artist with Demolition Sonya. Remember watching some of his tournament runs, back in the day. Very solid, technical variation.
Absolutely. MKX was huge in our scene. No one plays MK1. @@CynicalWarlock
I don't really mind the non-canon arcade endings... specially if they involve the actual tournament, since of course, canonically not everybody can win the tournament. But I do hate that the main story is going back again and again to the timeline thing.
As I said, non-canon endings are cool in that they explore various 'what if' scenarios, but it's like.. I can make a thousand of those, on the spot. They don't mean anything; they hold no weight, into the next game.
I've said this before, but non-canon endings are a microcosm of the reboot stories they keep doing. That doesn't hold any weight either.
But yeah, the non-canon ending is a nitpick; not gonna bang on about them.
@@CynicalWarlock I get what you say but hey, if you play as X character on arcade/ladder and you beat the boss, of course you wanna know what would happen if that particular character beat the boss. No sense to play as say, Baraka, win everything only to get an ending showing him as a jobber as he most of the time is portrayed in story mode.
@@CappuccinO80 True, but there's a middle ground to strike there. Baraka can do something meaningful in his ending without having to beat the big boss.
You're right though, non-canon endings are tied to the whole arcade ladder concept, which I'd also change, but not gonna get stuck into the weeds on that one.
Easy: Make Meat the main character
Gives a whole new meaning to 'beating the meat'.
🤣@@CynicalWarlock
😏@@CynicalWarlock
Honestly I don't know why they didn't make meat Shang tsungs unfortunate experiments escaped or quan chi being interrupted during the resurrection process
Meat The Steak God, gather earthrealm's most honorable allies, the shaolin Baraka and Reptile, against the dark forces of Mokap the Konstellation
I would take everything that worked in MK (throughout) improve on it and then add previous game modes.
I'd scrap the current cinematic story telling for a more personal exploration through a Konquest Mode (similar to Armageddon), that has you go through the world and travel to and within different all the realms with (short) cinematic cutscenes once in a while to help progress the story with a bit of a visual narrative.
The story would also be focused on the TOURNAMENT!!
After story is complete, you're free to roam the different realms and battle NPCs, find secrets that appear after story completion (and some will be there during story mode too), and find mini games throughout (also in Johnny's mansion, in earth realm, you can access his arcade room and play the OG trilogy).
There will also be a mode that is akin to Shaolin Monks as well, which will be just a short off shoot story with maybe a few maps and can be replayed.
Each mode wins you some kind of award, the awards will be skins, customisation options, and new characters.
Character customization will be limited, but it'll be items that are iconic/relevant for each character (such as masks, weapons, gauntlets, etc...)
Colors of items and skins can be changed (with a wheel of fitting color pallets for that character), they will not be premade, but dictated to regions on each items (so for example you can make the chest of scorpions shirt yellow, but his sleeves gold or whatever).
Create a character, only to avoid bad balance, they will have the same basic combo list across (kinda like TMNT in injustice), but just like variations worked, you can add moves to them to make them more like your own.
Run mechanic would return
Each player gets two breakers per round
I'd add (able to be toggled off), for some stages fatalities that can be initiated at any point in the match, the player that initiated it has a chance to early fatality and win the match...when it is triggered, it turns into a test your might between you and the opponent... If the person that started it wins, he gets the fatality and win, if he loses then the opponent can flip it, on the second flip if you manage to escape that, it ends it and shuts down the opportunity to do it again the rest of the match, putting both players at starting distance.
Also the traditional will still exist too at the end of the match, like uppercut into the Deadpool.
Stage transitions (only not nearly as long or cinematic as Injustice 2), just a short bust through the ceiling/floor/walls, of certain stages, changing up the surroundings and minor damage to the player being knocked through.
Stage interactions, only there will be some that do different things, like and example would be opening the fridge door in Johnny's stage and one time blocking a projectile before the door explodes off after hit, maybe throwing the floor vac at someone when it comes near you. Some do like the vines in the jungle level of mkx, where you swing and the other holds you up. (Can also be turned off for more traditional play)
Air combat and Air block, I like it, just wish they gave characters more combos to do and also I would take out the floaty-ness of the jumps (because all they are doing is compensating to give you time) in MK1.
Instead of variations, I would add back the changing of styles during the match, only I would make it only two styles and there would be a couple of transitional combos as well as being able to press the button while idle.
The two styles would function to help characters have a full toolset/set of play style...
So for example, a zoner can switch up to have more of a rush down style, a defensive character switching to have more offensive options, some characters might just get a weapon that enhances and adds to their move list, and so on...
Get rid of stance swap, and make it into a dodge system. Block would still exist, however you can now press the dodge button with up or down to dodge a high or low attack and avoid blocking/chip, in order for a quicker reaction/punishment time. To avoid spamming it, it'll be tied to a stamina meter as well as it must be pressed at the right time, you can't just hold the button and press up and down.
Also if you misjudge the high or low attack and/or do it too early/late, you'll be open to punishment as well.
Towers will be back and tower endings would work as a "what if" scenario for each character.
There will be a big boss that isn't playable.
MK1 (og)-MK 3 roster would be included in roster (taking a few from 3 maybe), and a handful of 3D error, a couple from MKX and a couple from MK11..1 or 2 new character that will either be starting roster, or at least eventually the full roster.
Online rooms, king of the hill, all that good stuff (and stuff should have been in this current game).
After that I would just add a store with in game currency that is earnable (and also buyable) either by certain game modes (offline of course) and/or just playing the game/achievements, for cosmetics.
Just to keep something there to play and earn.
I like the test your might/stage fatality idea. And thanks for reminding me about the stage transitions; forgot to talk about those. That was such a fun feature in MK3. Why those things exist in Injustice, but not MK is beyond me.
Switching fighting styles is a more elegant solution than variations, yes, because you don't need to blind counter what your opponent's gonna pick, you can just switch to a zoning style, on the fly, so that's a viable alternative.
Dodge system is something I also thought of a lot. MK4 had the right idea - it was just a single-tap function that made them sidestep a bit, to avoid projectiles, and that's really how the 3rd dimension was used in the 3D era, as well. Reimplement it, give it a significant cooldown period, and add running back, to allow for counterattacks. This'll make zoning still viable, but not as abusable, and more interesting to watch.
The Konquest thing comes down to execution, I guess. The full-on action-adventure genre that you basically describe has had some good examples and many bad ones, in recent games, so it's all about doing it the right way. But it would definitely hold the casual player's interest way better than the current modes they have goin on.
And with regards to the roster, there are really only a couple characters that are popular/worth salvaging from each era, so this philosophy might work there, as well (Shujinko and maybe Havik from Deception, Erron and maybe Cassie and Tremor from MKX, and.. that's really it).
Lots of good ideas, overall, well done.
@@CynicalWarlock well you're a reptile fan... So I don't think I'm too worried with your picks for a roster (I love reptile too, it was a mistake to leave him out of MK11)
@@jackkawf4449 Can't believe I bought that game, despite the lack of Reptile.
Jax became my main, in that game; his playstyle and crushing blow payoffs were pretty satisfying.
But yeah, that's the thing, some people are Ermac fans and don't give a shit about Reptile; other people hate all ninjas and want more boring-looking people in the game. Can't please everyone.
That said, I do think that if Scorps and Subs are always mandatory, then so should Reptile be, for obvious palette reasons, as well as the history and legacy of this franchise.
@@CynicalWarlock honestly I think over time they've had great ideas, but just either wrong game, wrong time, the technology wasn't quite there, or whatever hardware restrictions I'm sure that came with the older systems (which oddly they managed to squeeze more into).
I think they take criticism too deep and drastically change everything in hopes to hit the mark, not realizing they've had great ideas over time that could have been utilized now, with the current systems.
@@CynicalWarlock yeah people are fickle with the roster, however kinda like you said with the subzero/scorpion thing, I personally believe they can please most if they had, at least, the first two, and then sprinkle in some of 3,4,and then mess around from there.
That being said it doesn't help that they take away characters or disregard them in story constantly, it makes it so that no character sticks with people (well newer fans) because half don't understand their lore (like reptiles awesome story) or they weren't in the MK game people started playing.
i just want a run button like classic mk, thats why i still play ultimate 3/trilogy, 4 and mk xl it was a unique mk thing and it was what made it fun to play, its a rushdown pressure heavy fighting game it needs to be fast and you need to be attentive to whats happening on the screen
This, a thousand times. Once again, I blame the 'blank slate' design - by the end of MKXL's lifecycle, they had figured out this mechanic - running cost a great deal of stamina up front just to start, you'd lose your entire stamina bar if you got hit during a run, and combo breakers depleted both players' stamina bars. It was perfect.
So should we iterate on this mechanic, in the next game?
Naah, let's just scrap it.
It's hard for me to agree with the argument that photorealism and stylization can't go hand in hand because DMCV exists. It was able to acheive stylish and over-the-top attacks while still doing some sense of photorealism.
True, but DMCV is a different genre, where less scrutiny and camera attention are placed on the finer details of the animations, and people generally fight with swords that generate huge slash effects, which is easier to pull off convincingly.
And even though the look/graphics of DMCV is photorealistic, some of the key poses, in combat, are a bit exaggerated, for effect, which is exactly the right call.
But you're right, I drew a correlation between photorealism and inadvertently getting more stringent with your animation, because of it - the more realistic the look, the stricter your eyes become with it, too - but yeah, it doesn't have to be the case.
love this video but id say 9's soundtrack was fine in stages because they were always insane remixes of older tracks like the armory and the subway station but outside gameplay i could agree
Elder gods damn it, how did I forget about the armory track? That's actually one of my favorites. You're absolutely right, should've mentioned that caveat.
The remixes were good too. Half a point for those, I guess, since it's not actually original music.
I gotta be honest, I actually love the look of MK11. From the goofy jelly blood to general design aesthetics for most of the characters. Although the MKX ladies had way better outfits (especially Mileena).
It’s kind of a travesty that the new game dropped the 3 lines pre fight banter.
Liu Kang looked, by far, the best in MK11. Jax too. Cetrion's design was really weird. So a mixed bag for me, aesthetically. Gameplay-wise, I'd rather eat pin needles than play it again.
@@CynicalWarlockYeah, I definitely agree about Liu. He looks great in 11
One of my biggest things for the story is: let us lose fights that our characters have no business winning. There is no reason Johnny should have beaten Reptile or Baraka in MK9. It just doesn’t make sense. Let us lose fights and let the story change a little bit because of it. Hell have fights we aren’t meant to win due to the power imbalance between characters. Give the enemy super charged moves or more health or whatever. Just make the story feel character driven for once instead of “wow all of a sudden a person with minimal fighting experience and strength just kicked a literal god’s ass”
I love that. You could even let some fights go either way - they're very hard, but winnable. That would make people scramble to figure out which bosses are beatable.
@@CynicalWarlock exactly. They could even put some secret achievements/rewards behind beating them. I’m tired of characters willing everything solely because we control them. It’d actually feel like a tournament instead of a one sided stomp
I literally just watched the SugarPunch videos on mortal kombat's animation issues last night before seeing this video lol.
Was waiting for you to watch em, so I could post this already.
@CynicalWarlock this vid is the sequel I've been waiting for for 4 years since SugarPunch made his mk11 video.
@@GamerTimeNinja Oooh, that's very generous, thanks. I don't have his expertise.
But yeah, I too kept searching through his videos to see if he addressed MK12 at all, but he's probably fed up with the series, at this point.
9:24 the thing I hated about MKX 11 was there so many setups. The reason why I didn't play Mortal Kombat X was because there was three characters to pick through and you're playing as one character I don't like that. And then mk11 you have all these movesets that you can choose from. Whatever happened to here's the character these are their moves and that's it do I think MK1 did a great job with having your own set moves that's it but then they added the freaking Cameo which I thought was stupid. I would much rather play with Cyrax and Sektor than them jumping out every 2 seconds
I guess that's a lesson. There is such a thing as too many options.
@@CynicalWarlock but when it comes to mk11 I do like the whole you can set up your character look not the moveset but the Skins the making your own mask or spear clothing I thought that was really cool I really wish they kept that in the game. And for a game they could have sold a lot more little things make more money be bigger scumbags
I really enjoyed this video. I have said before that I am haven't really played any of the Mortal Kombat games but I still love listening to what you have to say. And you said a lot of interesting stuff.
Art styles can make or break games. Especially when the art style in question doesn't fit the feel of the game. Mortal Kombat has always been more exaggerated. The characters aren't really real people nor are the fights "realistic". So, it's odd that they make each game more real. And as you said it makes it hard to make the gameplay look cool and feel fun without it coming across as weird. They could go into the direction of hyper-real but where realistic characters to unrealistic things but it seems they are uninterested in that. I also think them making it more realistic causes the designs to look more same-y. And not in a good way.
Stories with multiple characters can work but man is it hard to do. I like your suggestion of having a core story roster and then side stories.
A lot of developers have this tendency to not make "true" sequels. True meaning that the sequel is basically the same under the hood but is expanded. What this can do is allow the developers to actually master their tools. I remember that since BG2 is basically just BG1 that they could do so much more because they knew what worked and what didn't. It feels like Nether Realms just doesn't do that. You idea of having one base game that is expanded and master over tge course of two games and DLCs sounds really good.
Absolutely, the more 'real' something looks, the more it loses its distinctive style.
And yeah, I supposed I referenced that really old video of mine on iteration, and how franchises like Mass Effect and The Witcher used it to great effect. That's exactly what's lacking, in Mortal Kombat-land.
@@CynicalWarlock yeah, there is a lot to be gained by an art style that is distinctive. It can give the characters more personality and more leeway on how wacky the characters can look without being ridiculous.
I hope to see more games adapt a true sequel style. We are at a point in games where graphics aren't developing rapidly. So, we should expect more consistent sequels from game to game.
THE PERFECT GAME...
1- MKX GAMEPLAY
2- MK ARMEGEDDON STAGE FINISHERS
3- MK1 BACKGROUND ART
4- MKX AND MK11 BACKGROUND INTERACTIONS
5- MK11 FATALITIES/ MKX
6- MK11 CHARACTER DESIGNS
7- MKX/ MK11 COMBO SYSTEM
8 MK11/MKSHAOLIN MONKS KRYPT STYLE KONQUEST MODE
9 MK1 ENVIRONMENT FOR KONQUEST MODE
10 NO FUKING INVASION MODE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
11 MKTRILOGY 2vs2/3vs3
12 MK ARMEGEDDON "KREATE A FIGHTER"
13 MKX DARK PORTRAYAL OF A KOMBAT GAME
14 MK TRILOGY SHAO KAHN
15 MK 11 FUJIN DESIGN WITH MK MYTHOLOGIES POWER-lol
16 MK TRILOGY BRUTALITIES
17 MK11 MATCH FINISHERS
18 MK ARMEGEDDON CHARACTER LIST
19 MK TRILOGY WOMEN CHARACTER DESIGNS
20 MK TRILOGY SHEEVA DESIGN
21 MAKE ONAGA REIGN TERROR FOR TWO GAMES!!!!!!!!!!FFS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
22 AVOID FINAL BOSS ENDINGS LIKE ...MKX/MK1
23 ERMAC MK ARMEGEDDON DESIGN
I like how Invasions is *so* hated that it got its own warning spot on this list.
I think you didn't consider how greedy WB is, if they were to start with a smaller roster it would ended being more money for less kontent similarly to MK1 when compared with MK11.
Knew I forgot something..
Step #7: Change parent companies.
@@CynicalWarlockI sometimes think that this might be the fix of all problems.
This might be just me, but what I started to miss a lot are the exaggerated gibberish they used to yell out in the older MK games. Back then, they'd yell out during combat and it sounded silly, but given the context of being in a fight, it didn't matter as much and added to the absurdity of it all. In mk11, there wasn't as much gibberish, and now in mk1, the gibberish is only whispered or said in a normal tone, rather than a battle cry.
"AAI MOmmy!"
"Wha-nya-nya-NYA!"
"HOodhyedoyobodah!"
MK4 is the god of gibberish; and I'm glad you brought this up, because that's one of many things that made this series silly enough to warrant the violence. It was basically an over-the-top cartoon back then, so this ridiculous violence + silliness was a great recipe that fit it really well. But nowadays, the silliness slowly faded, and the violence and 'realism' got cranked to dangerous levels, so it just registers as gratuitous shock value.
@@CynicalWarlock think one of my faves is Cyrax when he does his air grab in mk9 "HOWBOUTAYOU" or Noob's "HITHIMONETIY" from his x-ray. Another worthy mention is Kung Lao's victory pose in mkx "IS THAT YO WIFE?!"
@@songlessnightingale Brilliant.
I think overall I wish NRS would just commit to a legacy system and they can improve upon each game so they don’t spend so much precious development time creating a brand new system each game. I just think about how much more content and quality they could deliver with this.
My sentiments exactly.
I wish more DLC space was dedicated to actual Mortal Kombat characters
Guest characters are cool because often times they’re unexpected, but MK has played the guest character card so much it stopped being special or exciting
Meanwhile characters that haven’t been used for years are being left behind or if they’re lucky, become a Kameo.
Precisely why I I mentioned the roster idea. If most of the DLC fighters were actual MK characters, you could pull off a smaller initial roster, cause you end up with a very large one, later on.
My question is there a need to make a new MK game every 2 to 4 years
Why not make a longer lasting game that gets updated regularly like Brawlhalla and 2XKO and make a story mode every 1 to 2 years and if a reboot is needed make a new game containing the universe in a single game
The one thing I'll disagree on is the sound design. I think the Netherrealm games have awesome punching and impact sounds. Other than that, this video is full of amazing ideas and great points. I miss tag team so freaking much...
Sound design is such a subjective thing, of course, and like I said, I do log it as a nitpick.
I'd still make the novelty argument, though. It's been roughly the same sounds for 4 games, now.
The Krypt had it's redeeming qualities; creepy atmosphere, free-roaming, and a sense of suspicion and uncertainty when you explore your way around the game's universe.
If it were up to me to revitalize it,it'd be:
1. Give the player more of things to do, give it more beat-em up mechanics like in Xiaolin Monks. Unlockable minigames like a chess minigame or hell, a racing minigame like in MK 9
2. Teleportation/fast-travel so it's less tedious
3. Character creation
4. have an actual side story to it, it doesn't even have to be canon, but it sure as hell needs to be interesting. Give us a reason to care about what is going on.
4th one's the most ambitious, I think. Sort of goes with my ARPG idea - you could have this creepy vibe, and an ominous, minimalistic Dark Souls-type story, that's printed in the background.
I feel like a way to combine 2 of your ideas would be to have story dlc based on the now canon tower endings. Give Scorpion his own dlc or Subzero. They dont have to be crazy long or anything and can just be cheap too. It would make money with the large amount of characters too.
You'd have to pick and choose whose ending gets expanded on, cause you definitely can't do em all, but if you're clever, you can weave more characters around some of these stories.
@CynicalWarlock Probably would be able to make dlc for the different groups in the game like the Monks or the Royal family. I agree doing a whole story for each character would be difficult
@@yeolelad888 Yeah that's what I'm thinkin, tackle groups, or even if it's just one person, try to include as many side characters in that short story as possible.
Never thought a game could make me miss MK11.
Daaaaamn..
@CynicalWarlock bro say what you want I had mad combos with Shao Kahn
@@ItsOfficiaI MK11 Shao was higher tier than M1K Shao, I gather..
@@CynicalWarlock I don't know what tier M1K Shao is, but MK11 Kahn was actually bottom tier.
@@ItsOfficiaI That's what I hear about M1K Shao, as well.
I still think that Konquest could work,but instead of making it a single character,make a RPG like party and bring tag team battles back,so you could explore the world and face diferent battles as team,since most of the time its just Good guys team vs bad guys, you could even bring back the side selection from DCvsMK,and make only two endings depending on which side you picked
RPG party is interesting. Dunno how well they'd do it, since they have 0 experience making that sort of game, but it would be interesting to see.
The flip stance button is used as a pump fake button. You actually use it to trick your opponents into thinking your going to do a move or make them think your attempting to do combo
I've played MK9, MKX, and MK11, online, extensively.
They all had a flip stance button.
Never once have I seen anyone use that tactic; not in my matches, nor in high-level tournaments.
One of the things that I’ve heard is that NRS tried making a team game without the brokenness. Take something like Skullgirls or MvC. They’re fun because they’re broken and because they’re so free with how you can play the game. With Mk1, it’s exactly how you put it where each thing is made an intended way.
Yes, they overreacted to MKX, first with MK11, and MK1 isn't much different.
It's funny cause, in every other respect, MK games seem to cater to the casual fanbase first and foremost, yet when it comes to balance, they're so incredibly sensitive to it, despite the fact that not much is being invested in the tournament scene.
I had to pause the video on 1:25 because indeed the animation and the whole look of SF and Tekken (and every other fighting game except maybe Soul Calibur) make less sense to me and I find them much more unrealistic and like they're made for children. So in terms of visuals MK is actually 100% the best for me!
Glad you like it.
On Fatal Blows, they like X-Rays were meant to be the Get Out of Jail Freen Card for the game. The FBs in 11 were there and almost often unavoidable and nearly every time it was used you knew it was coming. Problem was it was just unsafe on block and once hit you were done.
In 1 they have more strategic value IMO, you get only one use of it, unless its blocked or whiffs, whoever this time its better used when you know its gonna kill, other wise you wasted it and now if it hits, its breakable with a Kombo Breaker, making it even more of a risk to use.
I feel like MK1 takes a collaboration of what worked in the 3 games and made a single game with those.
That was definitely MK1's goal, and in some respects, it succeeded. I may very well be biased, cause I see too much of MK11's DNA in it, but I sincerely think that there are better alternatives out there than Fatal Blows.
Every fighting game has its flashy 'cutscene' super-move, so it's never gonna go away, but even visually, these moves have gotten longer and more elaborate, to the point where I feel like something shorter and punchier would be more impactful. How many times can you sit through Kenshi's Fatal Blow animation, before you mentally tune out?
Oh I agree there as well they make these things too long now, I feel the same about fatalities too. After so many sets, I don't care to even do them, 99% of the time I don't even do them. This BC they are long and after you see them a couple times you seen enough of them. I like the Brutalities BC they are fast straight to the point and done. @@CynicalWarlock
@@innocenceUnknown Exactly, Brutalities were such a good idea (again, MKX, not that I'm keeping score). They make for better Fatalities than Fatalities.
I agree with the first portion for sure, I won't say it's a bad thing necessarily, because come back mechanics can be a good thing.
X rays at least came with a choice though, either use your bar completely for a big move, or sparingly and enhance everything else, I didn't mind that too much because you didn't completely rely on it and it wasn't always the best option.
I wish they stuck with X-rays and made them shorter or krushing blows could work if they didn't have the stupid requirements and it was tied to a meter, similar to X-rays.
So for an example if you see someone has built their meter to the max, you know they have a crushing blow they can use (with a specific move), so you'll be looking out for it as an opponent, the only thing I might do some tweaking to is, maybe they don't do AS MUCH damage, and possibly work slightly different for each character, like some work as a knock down, some work as a bounce, and for some characters maybe it just does a good chunk of damage or opens the opponent up for a nice combo.
18:40 I do agree if you could figure out the buttons of your opponent's Fatality and it canceled it out that would be hilarious cuz I'm sick of seeing fatalities at least for me it takes up too much time but if there was Babalities I could steal their fatality with a harakiri then hell yeah
Yeah, it's just torture to have to sit through the same cutscene a thousand times, because all your opponents happen to be functioning psychopaths.
Easy fix invasions
-third person over the shoulder camera
-create a fifgter
Aka bring back the Krypt..
They need to mix konquest with crypt mode, and it will be amazing
Yeah, that sounds like common sense.
5:52 Regarding MK9, the soundtrack for that game was still solid because it remixed tracks from the original trilogy using the orchestral resources WB gave NRS to work with. Unfortunately, the sound has taken the wrong lessons from that by emphasizing these cinematic, orchestral tracks that sound so generic and lack the same hook that Midway era audio took advantage of.
Correct. Again, it started with MK9, but yeah, MKX is where it really fell off.
Those flying knees are in injustice as well
It's the root of all evil, it seems.
Finally someone say it I really hate the injustice sounds from the punching to the blood and gore sounds
Finally, someone who doesn't think I'm crazy.
Just go back to the good old days of tyrannical ruler poses threat or outworld champion wins 9 times something simple like that became memorable. I think the reason they seem to keep upping the stakes is because of two things
1. Culture trends like Marvel pushing the multiverse they see it as a trendy thing to do that will gain attention
2. The last time they tried to avoid great multiversal timey wimey plots they made MKX’s story which most people thought sucked
People keep asking me how I'd fix characters like Kronika, but there's nothing to fix; MK11's entire plotline only exists because of what you wrote - they wanted to ride the multiverse wave, despite arriving too late to the party. There's nothing to salvage.
Regarding lowering the stakes, just hire an anime writer to create tension from normal every day situations! Or you know, a neurotic woman. 😂 😂😂😂
Ah, my nemesis: slice of life.
Hei, death note is not slice of life, but taking a chip from the bag.....and eating it......
Now that was tension 😂😂😂😂
@@moldovanandrada-timea9943 Or writing names in a notebook, after you've overdosed on cocaine.
thats what im saying, no disrespect to raiden whatever but theoughout mk1-x he had triubles with shiet that wasnt just universal destruction. Liu kang can have shit challenge him
Or you could try sitcom writers, Liu Kang scores a date with Kitana only to later realize he asked the wrong twin out! The player has to navigate him through the night in one piece, hijinks ensue.
23:38 To be honest, I think they should just make movies for us to watch and leave a specific cutscene for each character in solo mode
16:04 Today on "Cooking with Scorpion": chopping! 😂
I've always told my friends this MORTAL KOMBAT NEEDS MORE PUSHBACK ON ATTACKS.
It's like when I hit someone or get it and block the attack I don't even slide, this has been the case since mk9.
When you hit a blocking opponent in street fighter the opponent slides back smoothly and different distances depending on the strength of the attack
I've noticed that about Street Fighter. I think it's a deliberate choice, in order to maintain some neutral. It's a fun detail you mentioned, cause this shows how rushdown-oriented MK is, as a series; characters are meant to stay in your face and mix or pressure. I bet they didn't even think of the pushback aspect much.
Animation: completely agree, they REALLY need to hand animate more moves
Fun trumps balance: YES, actually, with post launch patch being a thing, they can always make a fun game first, balance later
Story/ conquest: honestly, a single character focused story(with interruption from play others) could work, Mortal Kombat even have the advantage of shapeshifters that by lore can switch moveset so you can unlock characters and change playstyle at will while still being that one character in story, and we have FOUR candidates for that: Shang Tsung, Shujinko, Shinnok, Reptile. I would pay for a cool Shang Tsung redemption story or a remaster of Shujinko vs. Onaga.
Netcode and Online: the fact that they don't even have crossplay multiple months after release is unacceptable.
Extra modes: PLEASE, DON'T MAKE UNLOCKING THINGS SO GRINDY
Predatory monetory practice: no, just no
Shujinko comeback - heart
Shang Tsung redemption story - mega-heart
Reptile - ...I mean I'm a biased piece of shit. I'm down for anything involving ol' lizzie.
They need tag teams WITH the Kameos. That would be amazing!
Damn, I had that thought, as I was editing the video, and quickly shoved it back in my brain.
That would be insane.
Would look like a full-on gang fight, which is kinda cool, I guess.
@@CynicalWarlock It would hopefully be similar to the tag in concept; like the Marvel vs. Capcom series, but still have its own MK flare added to the mix. MK 9 showed how awesome the tag feature would be in the first place, but I always liked the Noob/Smoke concept from MKD. Kombinations would be endless, but imagine Lui Kang and Kung Lao tagging with Johnny as a Kameo providing a finish to a combo or a finisher? It'd reference MK Shaolin Monks and would look awesome! Might even be my main; unless I use Scorpion and Sub-Zero with Smoke as a Kameo.
@@Nick-up5wv Absolute insanity. At the very least, they could experiment with that in some tower mode.
@@CynicalWarlock Do you think they could add it to MK1 or do you think they'd have to start in the next installment? 🤔 Either way they need more content for MK1 to keep it going. I personally have NO interest in their guest characters; save the MK characters. NRS is getting out of hand with their special guests. They can be fun editions, but they shouldn't rely on them. Granted Peacemaker will serve as NY fatality practice because John Cena is dumb, but we need more MK KHARACTERS added to the roster. How is this "MK 1" and you don't even have Sonya on the roster; except as a Kameo? Than they're adding Takeda? That's cool and all, but Sonya is OG. It's like NOT having Chun Li in a Street Fighter remake. Why would you make such a decision as a studio developer? I know fans were vocal; TOO vocal, when Mileena wasn't in MK 11, but where is the support for Sonya? Not just for MK Sonya is one of gaming's FIRST ladies!
Ms. Pac-Man
Peach
Zelda
Samus
Chun Li
Sonya
Laura
Of course I'm missing VERY key ladies to the industry as a whole, but I think MOST would agree these ladies are the stand outs and Sonya is IN that ranking. So disappointing NRS. 😞
20:16 I love having a big roster so again agree to disagree but when they added Freddy Krueger to MK9 I was so freaking happy I probably would have played MKX if it had one character not three different characters to pick from
Cool.
0:04 what I would like is a defense bar I don't know how they could change that or at least it would only cost one bar to break because if you don't have a full bar against the very good player you are dead when someone does two combos you're dead
They tried the defensive bar in MK11. Didn't work.
The 1-bar breaker is interesting; depends on the overall speed and dps of the characters.
It sort of goes with an idea that I had, which is involving the meter more heavily in combos. For instance, if you do a meterless combo, it's around 20%, in most cases. One bar increases it to 28-30%, 2 bars to 35%-38%, and the truly spectacular stuff happens with a full stick of butter.
In M1K, people can pull off 40+% combos with like 1 bar, which is kinda swingy and one-sided.
31:09 Not only is it boring, but you're ignoring how dumb it is. Capcom has been trying to make its own game a service for a long time, which isn't a problem if it's good, but when it's something WEAK, it's bad
Didn't know about that.
How about bringing back 3D combat, revamping the system to make it feel less restricting. My fav fighting game atm is SC6 and while it may not be as well known, it’s combat system is unparalleled to me with it being 8 way run system. I think it’ll be interesting to see how they’d implemented it if they did
Yeah I think I talk in one of these about reimplementing some kind of sidestep mechanic with a cooldown, at least. Make it 2.5D.
At this point why can’t mk games make like a sholin monk type game mode in the main games
Something something resource allocation, probably.
I feel validated watching this. I agree with pretty much all of your points and I've been feeling crazy praising MKX while everyone plays these inferior projects imo.
I also think the “run” button should be as staple to MK games as the block button at this point. (though I would be curious to see netherrealm experiment with back to block in mainline mk games or at least a game mode that does it)
I really don't understand why the devs have tried everything to get a way from mkx rather than refine it.
It's because of that 'blank slate' mentality I mentioned. Once a game is released, throw everything out and start from scratch. It's incredibly tiring for both the fans and the devs, and you end up throwing the baby with the bathwater a lot, like in MKX's case.
And yeah, the run button *is* a staple of MK, as far as I'm concerned.
Help me understand the back-to-block thing. I know most other fighting games have it, but apart from discouraging turtling, I don't see the point of it.
@@CynicalWarlock just adding in an option for actual cross ups in Mk. I remember laughing hilariously when the devs did mileena ethereal reveal in mkx and said her going back and forth was a cross up and that literally can’t exist with a dedicated block button lmao. So now people would have to consider if high, lows and if the jump in hitbox actually hits the back of their head lol
@@Duke_ofGames So you have to react in time and switch directions to block it. Makes sense.
Personally, I'm a bit iffy about jump attacks, in general, in MK, because anti-airs are so inconsistent in these games, and the shitty netcode makes it that much harder to consistently punish air attacks, making them a bit overpowered, for 90% of the player base.
@@CynicalWarlock well yes, I guess my curiosity could only be fed if those design flaws were remedied. Personally my biggest gripe in netherealm games was zoning being way too good for many characters and even character’s answers to zoning like Kitana reflect in mkx was way too slow where the animation played but the effect didn’t work till seconds later. Even when they patched it, it seems more like you have to guess projectiles are coming rather than react to it.
@@Duke_ofGames yeah, the startup is deliberately slow. The actual answer to zoning, in NRS games, is teleports, for the most part. Which breeds another problem, cause everyone ends up having a super-fast, tracking teleport attack that can be done on reaction, and the entire gameplay devolves into abusing jump attacks and teleports - or jump attacks *into* teleports, even.
As much as I love MKX, this was one of its biggest problems.
i really wish they would make new old school mks like 1,2,umk3 and trilogy. they were so innovative, fun, bright, new characters, etc. there are a slew of mk fans making 2Ds online that are really fun.
What's your favourite MK game and character of all time?
These 2:
ua-cam.com/video/XdAf8G8Ke4o/v-deo.html
@CynicalWarlock Oh, yeah, these 2 are peak, so as that video of yours, tho who would be your #2 character from those pesky inferior named characters?
Also favourite MK game?
@@vaggos2003 Well, the most popular current theory in my Discord is that I'm either Reptile or Chameleon, so let's go with that.
As for MK games, obviously, different MK games do different things well, but if we're talking about picking one, it's no competition: MKX. Best gameplay, lots of creativity and player expression, run mechanic, ingenious variations, good roster, great character reimaginings like Tremor and Tanya, a couple actual new characters that are decent like Erron and perhaps Cassie, guest fighters are done the most justice, it's impossible to compete with it. Story is crap, of course, but all MK stories are crap.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks MK's art style and soundtrack hasn't been good in a long time, the photo realistic art style is boring and doesn't fit MK and the soundtrack is super generic. Me personally I wish they'd go back to the art style of MK9 and the 3D Era games and I think Mick Gordon should make the OST in the next game given that he expressed interest in composing for MK and he has written music for both Modern Doom and Modern Killer Instinct, 2 series with similar energy
Duuuude! Imagine Mick Gordon composing Scorpion's theme, for the next game. MK flirted with rock and industrial before, but to have it let its hair down and commit to this vibe would be fuckin epic.
Also, it's so ironic that the more tame fighting games that don't even feature blood or over-the-top violence, like Street Fighter, have a bolder, more colorful, larger-than-life art style, while Mortal Kombat, which is so violent that it's for borderline psychopaths, insists on making everything look as real as possible.
Well done video! I agree with some and disagree with some. All of it has good logic behind it though. But also apparently the MK1 tower endings are indeed canon and an insight into the future story mode update and beyond
Of course.. Until the writers change their minds, by the time they start making the next one.
Glad you enjoyed the video.
Ive been saying this for months now! Its like MK lost its personality. Especially with the less creepy and dingy vibes
Yes! I was wondering if anyone else picked up on that.
28:01
I think this one sort off followed the in M1K most endings seem to fit well with each others. Well until we see next game.
Color me skeptical.
Flip stance is dumb but it actually has a use it's for defensive movement but it's useless still. Fatal blow is a damn crutch the way it's implemented x-ray worked because you had to build meter and you burn it and miss you couldn't wait it out to regain it back. MK11 was never really fixed and i expect the same with MK1 punishing pokes works sometimes some fatal blows hit from behind (Baraka and Kano) for sure but i remember even as far back as mk3 ultimate when has this never been broken
Exactly, exactly, exactly.
I thought you were going to focus on character rewrites, like how you did for Kung Lao. For instance, I know and love how tight-knit you made the Mortal Kombat elemental system and especially for Scorpion and Sub-Zero's rivalry, but could there be any way for Bi-Han and Hanzo Hasashi to avoid their respective tragedies, deaths, and Netherrealm fates? For that matter, in terms of Scorpion's rivalry with Sub-Zero, is Scorpion all there is to the fire elemental, or are there characters who represent other facets of fire like how Kuai Liang and Frost expand upon Bi-Han's ice powers (I know that some game before Mortal Kombat X stated that Hanzo Hasashi was meant to be Raiden's Earthrealm champion before Liu Kang received that honor, but I'm not sure that counts. Why does Liu Kang specifically use fire when he can "soul-manipulate" his own soul and thus gain fabulous secret powers? What about the new continuity where Kuai Liang has fire powers due to being the new Scorpion despite not having been to the Netherrealm? Where does Bi-Han's relationship with Sareena fit in to all of this? And who would be Noob Saibot if not Bi-Han?)?
Ok, lots of questions there.
First off, the whole reason I made this (more general) video was to buy more time for the character rewrites and such, cause those take a bit more time to make.
I'll definitely make more power system videos, like ones where I rank every Fire user, every Air user etc, and go into the little differences between them.
Scorpion was actually supposed to be the elder gods' champion, in Deception, but they scrapped that idea, unfortunately. Would've been one of the coolest things to see.
Every Shaolin monk uses Soul, in much the same way that a Jedi uses the Force, which is to say in a fairly defensive, limited manner (mostly). So that's not necessarily their specialization element, like Fire is for Liu and Air is for Lao.
As for the Sareena-Bi-Han relationship, I think that the whole point of it was to undermine the player/viewer's preconceptions and make them question the story, cause everyone keeps telling Bi-Han that his soul is corrupted and hinting that he's beyond redemption, when there's clearly enough evidence to the contrary, including him befriending Sareena - an actual demon who's tired of doing evil - so that's relationship serves to drive this theme home. The more I think about it, MK: Mythologies is pretty damn solid, on the story and symbolism front.
@@CynicalWarlock EDIT: Reviewing this video, I was thinking that MK1 even did Takeda dirty. And MKX put Takeda on the frickin' map in the first place.
EDIT: What do you think of the return of animalities? MK11's Friendship mechanic?
@@maddenboseroy4074 I think they're cool features that should probably be in most MK games. I don't necessarily think Animalities should be canon, cause that's too ridiculous to even try to explain, but it doesn't need to be; it's main attraction is associating the characters with a particular animal and letting them express themselves in a new way.
I think Friendships, in particular, should always be a thing - I think it's important to cater to a player's merciful side, not just their sadistic one. The more varied ways a player can express themselves, the better.
Mkx Best gameplay out of the nrs titles. It's just that d*** story, man.