Why can’t Capcom make a good lore/storyline like the mortal kombat franchise…
They focus more on making better characters instead, and they’re quite successful at that too! 
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To say MK has good lore and storylines is quite a stretch. At most they’re fine C-movie quality. The first 3 games are good but redundant, MK4 is a nice change of pace, but ultimately all the new characters are clones of old ones, Deadly Alliance was a nice surprise but as a stand alone it goes nowhere, Deception has a nice payoff to that, but it’s original stuff with Shujinko is terrible, Armageddon is a clusterfuck, 2011 is fine but the landing aka reMK3 sucks balls and X is full of wasted potential. 11 gives me no hope it will change the pace, since time travel is usually the bane of every story…
What they have is great presentation and knowing how to hype up their stories. Even with my lack of interest in anything MK post 2011, that story tease with Raiden and Shinnok got me giggling, even tho I know it will probably suck.
And let’s not get into the shitty comics that make Udon look like Balzac.
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I hope that yo-yo guy isn’t one of the new characters in s4.
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What better with MK storymode is the gameplay it has same with Tekken 7. SF storymode gameplay is just the generic round battle.
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The comics were bad? I only glanced at them, but they looked decent visually at least.
Some are better than others, as expected, but they usually end up being gorefests with little to no weight. They are nothing else but an excuse the hardcores find for why some characters aren’t in the game. The art ranges from fine to… terrible (tho I hate how most american comics look these days, so you might find I’m not the most objective judge here. If you like the modern style you’ll find enough there to like).
And honestly, for tie-in comics, they’re doing their job well enough. Plenty of gore which you expect from MK, some nice fleshing out of the new characters and taking out old characters which again, is more finding an out for why characters aren’t in the game than driven by logic. But as stories? They’re pretty bad…
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Wow! Just like the games themselves! 
/s
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I mean its not like they can be lazy and just copy his design from another char.
I’m expecting a few dolls, Violent Ken, Oni and Shadow Lady for S4…
The only thing MK lore has over SF is the fact thier canon is established consistently. As far as the characters that make up MK story that quality just isn’t there. I almost think your not even supposed to care that much about thier characters because thier so non relatable. That and the fact why would you want to care about a group of character who are made to die a crazily explicit gorey death.
At least with SF characters you can find something human to relate to. Whether you just want to be the best, or be considered a normal girl, or going home to be a family man. Those themes are supposed to help you relate and care about what happens to the characters to an extent.
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Yeah, I always relate much to El Fuerte and Hakan, I want to be a crazy broken English speaking guy obsessed with Mexican antojitos and bathe in oil and shoot people from my ass.
Gotta say, SF characters have gone much more to the goofy cartoonish side lately and not much of a human background/storyline.
Mortal Kombat maybe not much depth to their characters but I think they’ve done a good job with the recent additions like D’Vorah or Erron Black as well as re-inventing guys like Noob Saibot.
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Yeah, exactly. Even the most outrageous Capcom’s designs are still funny and charming. Some people might dislike the cartoony elements but the characters are still meant to be likable (the joke can fall flat, like with El Fuerte, but Hakan has already a bunch of people who genuinely liked him due to to his weirdness and his human side).
All Mortal Kombat characters are somewhat disposable due to the fact that the games make them disposable due to fatalities being a thing.
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Well the relatable fact with Fuerte is that he’s a horrible cook who thinks he’s awesome at it. Hakan loves his daughters because they are so pretty and he has a hot wife.
Those are completely relatable human qualities to the characters even if they do come off as goofy and cartoonish.
Ryu left foot have more personality (and kicked more things) than entire MK cast combined
They put some serious effort at make a story for them, will never deny it, but turd characters still turd
SF ever been goofy in some way
Elf was’nt much worse than Mika, he get just less free pass due lack of boobs
As pure SF character design Elf was actually underrated af, a good SF concept with few marginal errors
I’m missing totally the problem with Hakan, he was 100% SF as a character can be
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Netherrealm doesn’t create characters. They create character designs. All those guys look cool on paper, fit the universe well, they’re always unique in some ways… but try to put them into a story and they lose all steam. Just look how bad the reception to MKX originals was: none of those guys are terrible, but the moment you see them in the story you just kinda feel sorry for them. And that’s just the most recent example… when you throw in the mix guys like Mavado, Hotaru, Darrius from the PS2 era things get even messier. As soon as Tobias left Midway everything took a nose dive in that department.
While not SF level, most of the early designs where great and had personality: Liu Kang is obviously the hero, Scorpion and Sub-Zero are obviously in somekind of rivalry, Johnny Cage is a cocky asshole with a heart of gold, Kano is a bad guy, Kitana and Mileena are clearly related, Baraka is a dangerous threat etc. All those things can be seen from the first glimpse.
Erron Black is the only one from the modern MK days that follows suit, since he gives off the mercenary vibe in an instant. The others? Don’t know what they’re supposed to convey even AFTER seeing their stories.
It also doesn’t help the character redesigns of the fan faves don’t usually advance their story in any way, like Sagat’s scarring, Ryu’s headband changing, Akuma’s growing demonic look, Bison’s body-hopping and even recently Guile’s promotion, Nash’s zombie look… MKers are just wearing what’s cool in the moment. It’s the reason the gear and variation systems suck ass… they promote character costumization in way that assumes players have any taste or talent… which the majority don’t. So instead of creating unique iconic designs, they just slap plaques all over and call it a day.
The PS2 era, ironically, didn’t suffer from this. Zombie Liu Kang, evil Raiden, tattoo Quan Chi (retardedly retconed)… those designs always evolved nicely from where those guys are in the story.
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The new MK9-X-11 for the most part do have a personality. It’s just one very low-key.
MK has always had their HUGE share of “mysterious badass ninjas” and monsters (Baraka, Reptile). But in characters like Cassie Cage, Kung Jin, Takeda, Jacqui you clearly can see their different attitudes and where they come from.
It’s only, for obvious reasons MK is something more akin to American superhero comics than manga/anime like Street Fighter. Their characters tend to be more gritty, serious and realistic in personality.
I agree the vibe of “cheesiness” and color from the original trilogy has faded maybe a little too much. But that’s just how the times change.
I don’t know, I would welcome something similar to Friendships to be back, to be able to showcase more of the character’s personalities and unique quirks. But the series seem to be doing fine. It’s just how it is and I don’t think there’s much reason to complain or compare with SF; they’re different natures, each one its style.
As for the designs, too many loincloths. Sometimes I feel the series should be renamed “Loinkloth Kombat”. Not practical at all in combat, BTW.
“the early designs were great”?
THE NAMES, dude. Kung Lao. Shang Tsung. You can’t get any better than that _
But later. What’s a “Geras”? 
“Mavado”? “Taven”? “Havik”?
John Tobias’s departure was such a huge blow…
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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.
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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
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