Mortal Kombat ultimately has one story, and nearly every character (outside of DLC special appearances) is tied into that story. Even as the bosses and threats change, every game continues the same story. Even as characters change between games, that change still feeds back into the singular story.
The singular story of MK rules that series even more than the stories of Soul Edge and Soul Calibur rule their series. At least Soul Calibur characters don’t feel like their lives are dominated by the main story of the weapons.
Even though Capcom keeps going back to Ryu and M. Bison as the centers of the SF universe, SF not only has multiple stories, but many of the characters have stories that are fairly separate from the “main” stories.
Even if SF2, Alpha, 4, and 5 were ultimately all M.Bison stories, SF1 was just a tournament and SF3 was the Illuminati. Sakura is just following Ryu. Mika is semi-following Zangief. Sean, Laura, and Rufus are all tied to Ken, while Ken is semi-tied to Ryu. The shoto family has its own overplayed dull-beyond-belief “epic” storyline outside of whatever the regular Big Bad is doing. The Final Fight characters have their own family stories outside of Bison’s story. Dhalsim’s sometimes just there, because Capcom doesn’t even seem to bother coming up for good reasons for him to appear anymore. SF1 Birdie was a street punk, SFA Birdie was involved with Shadaloo for power, SFV Birdie ends up working for Karin because he needed a job. G is a mystery. Cammy and the Dolls spawned out of Bison’s story, but have become something of their own thing.
Tbh i liked a lot some ideas on SFV Sim, too bad they never built anything on these good ideas
Him helping Ryu was cool, but did’nt followed
Him being one of the three ingredients Necalli needed was cool, but end up there
Him being able to stand his ground vs Necalli (when Nec still looked legit) was cool, but bad executed
Him being worthy of a converstaion with Oro was cool, but kinda pointless
For Sim i will have liked see him fight-off (backed by Ryu) Necalli throwing at him something gigantic… maybe have him throwing the CA to make Necalli flee angry as fuck, knowing he will not defeat both at same time
Then Sim being Ryu’s guide in that training (or at least the begin of it) to deal with SnH
If they did these two right, i will have been satisfied with his arc, just as they did good Gief one
Only part i found stupid was the interaction with Alex, felt random af
That was a perfect part for Menat if she was already in the game, but with Sim just looked like they wanted a random excuse to drop Alex in
At this point in ASF for Alex i will have preferred see his tag team match (vs Gief/MIka) or his escape from Fang’s labs
These are some of the reasons I feel A Shadow Falls was neither a well-constructed story nor well-executed specifically as a video game story mode.
Alex either should have been there for more or not been there at all. Why weren’t the wrestling matches playable? They seemed tailor-made for some of the more extraneous characters to have playable parts, but Capcom squandered the opportunity. They could also have broken up some of the longer story-heavy sections. If it was because Alex wasn’t ready, then Capcom could have gone a few steps extra and left the hooks in place to add more Alex stuff when he was ready, even if it came after the initial release of A Shadow Falls. (Similar to how characters and nostalgia costumes get added to Arcade.)
Why wasn’t there more explanation for why the chess piece recipients were picked in the first place? It isn’t hard for the viewer to come to their own opinion, the kid knew about Alex because Alex was in televised wrestling matches. But directly addressing it in the story would give a better chance to promote an otherwise poorly represented character like Alex. (Laura could have benefited from such a boost as well.)
I’d say Dhalsim suffered because the whole Necalli arc was so badly handled, but I don’t see him playing a bigger part even if Capcom had shown any interest in Necalli.
It is a shame that the individual stories appeared to try to weave the start of an encompassing tapestry, but A Shadow Falls largely ignored such stuff in order to tell a Bison story (with a bonus unnecessary Ryu power-up session). Necalli was made for SFV to be a Big Bad of some fashion, and he really didn’t even get a story. Nash has a story, but it fizzles out as if Capcom lost interest halfway through, which probably also wasn’t helped by Necalli being an almost immediately dumpstered idea. Laura was introduced in SFV, only to get Sean’s story. The Illuminati seem to get a visible story presence, but it ultimately doesn’t amount to much as it is still just the regular heroes against Bison.
Shadow falls has been discussed so much, Everyone has their own thoughts and opinions. I have also my own before.
That’s why I’m not into than another cinematic mode but preferred a director’s cut with several alternate endings, slight alteration on encounters, updated character model, used character alternate costumes, battle with ed and preview of different characters from other season(Zeku, Menat and etc) like how they included Alex, Urien, Laura and Gill in cinematic mode, So it won’t be disastrous including them
I think we should abandon already on making Necalli something else. Kage already fixes the job on the path which Ryu and Akuma should lead more into their SF3 counterparts which is the better of both of them.
Akuma can appear in a directors cut just by destroying Necali in the end like he did in his individual storymode.
Agree. That’s the problem nowadays some fans just wanted to written cool and appealing for a momentary trend or to be similar to other fictional and non-fictional character they find currently appealing but at the expense of losing there character identity.
Some fans wanted SF character to act or lived like anime characters in other popular media or fight like other fighters from either real life or another current popular fictional character, rather than the character to act, play and lived exactly to their original SF mythos.
MK now just look appealing to current trends that are ever-changing in design and character but they loss entirely the individual intended mythos.
We can all agree that SF has heavily influenced by other anime in visuals, especially in SF2 and SF1 but they are not intended to lived and written the same way, because SF character mythos was established and well written already in SFZ, where everyone is flesh out not in SF2 and SF1.
SF characters should never be undergo radical change far away from it’s current. Characters individuality should reconcile with their SF3 counterparts.
I’ve always liked Street Fighter better than MK, but at the same time, I always had fun with it. I liked some of what MK did with 9 and then on and feel they could improve on things lorewise, while Capcom could improve presentationwise.
I will always appreciate ASF, but I feel that, with SFV in general there’s been an element of rushing towards a goal. I had fun and loved a ton of character moments, but I feel that the next SF should continue on with a storymode, but, do some deep soul searching for their general approach to story and aesthetics.
I’ve said this time and time again, they need to have either a mode or an intro movie that catches players up to the latest story and fills in the blanks. MK X’s opening narration by Johnny Cage worked great. The beauty of SF is you have a variety of ways that this could be done;
Random, omnipotent narrator that runs down the plot, but not actually a character
Rose, easy and probably the best choice, running down the known and unknown history of the SF universe and dishing on her and Bison’s role in the series
Ken doing the narration, accompanying footage, and it nicely fades into modern day and it turns out he’s either doing an interview or, he’s talking to Mel. You could launch this as him moving towards whatever role in the game he’s doing, etc.
Another thing that should be worked on is the playable sections. I like the different roster options we could choose, but I’d like to see special conditions as well.
I think that overall, Capcom should plan SF6’s as being an important piece of the game, a tool to transmit the lore and storytelling to the audience and not rush through as dlc. They’ve got the pieces available, they just need to properly string them together.
Yeah, special conditions will have spiced up things a lot
Some random easy things i ever thought they could have added to ASF on that vibe
FANG
Ever thought they could have done a “boss” version of his final fight, where he fight in a lab (one of these ASF stages) full of purple gas (poison), and you fight that handicap match while poisoned the entire time.
This will have made it a crazy fight without make him more powerful than his “canon level”
Mini survivals
AlexLaura vs GiefMika could have been played like that, you got 2 chars, they too, with survival rules
Shin Bison
Last 2 fights with Bison should have been vs an OP version, even crazier than extra battle Shin Bison as abilities (but less hard of course)
Mortal Kombat… it is such an antithesis to SF imo and everything that SF does so well and has kept me a fan over the years it does so badly.
The gameplay, animation, style and characters are just awful. But I can enjoy playing it casually for the gore and a laugh. Cant deny the appeal of it for others and Boon seems to be a pretty good guy. Not my cup of tea at all but its good for the genre.
I hope the two franchises never cross over but I would love to see SF take on a MK esq character instead. One of the SFV new character concepts was a guy in a grab suit. I wish they would develop this further into a Scorpion parody. That could be a lot of fun.
SF’s idea of parody is Dan, who mechanically was an interesting twist of SF’s shoto design, but that potential was largely wasted because the devs were so insistent on trying to make him a bottom tier character.
I notice that Kage has a lot in common with Dan in the manner in how he executes his techniques. This may be a coincidence.
They both use one palm to create a short-ranged surge of energy in front of them (not so different from how Ryo from Art of Fighting would, which was also used as a reference at certain points).
They use the outermost arm to conduct the lethal Shoryuken technique (or a variation of it)…
Realistically I don’t think you can crossover any FG universe with MK. MK vs DC had to compromise with fatalities which is the only distinguished thing about MK. They had to soften everything because the DC heroes are reputable characters who everyone has grown to love so no one wants to see Supes or Batsie get their spine ripped out or dismembered. Even though realistically people from DC universe are capable of such gruesome things. Batman has killed in the past and Supes could literally kill anyone the way he wanted if pushed to such lengths. You might be able to crossover KI with MK if you want a relevant FG universal to merge with but other than that if you take away fatalities in MK you basically get neutered MK characters, which are in turn generic FG characters. It would be like if the SF universe didn’t have special attacks or supers or if SC didn’t have weapons because the fatalities are what make MK.
Exactly! Even if you were to take a semi edgy violence game like SC and merge it with MK. Sure everyone in SC has a weapon and some of the characters have attacks which push the envelope of violence. Taki slits throats with her throws, Ivy has an attack which pummels the opponents body with shards of shrapnel from her sword, and Cervantes stabs people in the gut.
The thing is most people know what to expect from SC and SF and MK.
Fighting using swords and melee weapons, Fighting stlyes from around the world, Fighting which ends in gruesome violence.
KI originally had ties to Midway which are the originators of MK. It’s only natural that they would have a crossover. One of the reasons why CvS works aesthetically is because one of the originators of SF had gone over to SnK to develop FF and AoF which eventually assimilated with KOF. The universes works well because they both incorporate an idea from a single group of originators and you can see that relation through the characters.
What ever happened to TvC? Sure it was released for a console not reputable for FG but the characters designs kinda clash as well even though it’s a great fighter.
What if you had the Power Rangers vs Tatsunoko instead of the SF v PR? Would they have worked visually better than TVC? They both have those sort of henshin heroes like Viewtiful Joe so they not only fit the aesthetics but maybe they could incorporate a fighting game system on top of that?
