What's the beef with MK?

Current Fighting Games Fighting Game Discussion
41

As for the “beef” with Mortal Kombat, I dont really have any beef with it. Its just something that for me was really cool in the day when Mortal Kombat II was in the arcades. Back then, that game was flat out awesome. The graphics at the time in the arcade were like nothing I had ever seen. I just remember it in a time where arcades were still big. Everyone would gather around the Mortal Kombat II cabinet and hoped that someone would do a fatality.

I really remember being impressed with it. It just seemed so graphically colorful, and very “dark,” which amazed me even more because Nintendo had a firm grasp on the industry in its golden era of video games, almost all of which were “family friendly” at the time (yes, they did have the “play it loud” era that wasnt entirely squeaky clean, and yes, they did end up releasing MKII uncensored on SNES, but recall MK I with its grey blood). So to see something so blatantly counter to this was simply fascinating to me. Shang Tsung morphing into Kintaro and punching your torso off; Jax’s gotcha grab and his fatality where he pulls your arm off; Kung Lao splitting you in half with his hat. It was something I had never seen before (ok, yes, MK I had fatalities, but I didnt really get into Mortal Kombat until MK II came out, so not being exposed to MK I, MKII was revolutionary to me).

Its interesting to see that there are still people dedicated to playing Mortal Kombat, but its just not for me anymore. Still, I’ll always have fond memories of MKII.

42

In answer to the OP:

It’s a bit gay.

43

You know a fighting game series sucks if he only good game (Shaolin Monks) in it is not a fighting game.

actually it is more like Street Fighter:Mortal Kombat::Martin Scorsese:Godfrey Ho but that is an insult to Ho. A better analogy is SF : MK :: Raiders of the Lost Ark : Batman and Robin.

44

Touch.

In closing:

Mortal Kombat was a gimmick-based game. “OH SHIT, look what that guy just did! He totally just ripped that other guy’s heart out!”

It was never designed to be “deep and technical” or even well-thought-out. ((Paraphrased) Actual quote from Ed Boon in an issue of GamePro “One thing I don’t like about Street Fighter is that two projectiles cancel each other out. It’s more fun to see the two projectiles pass through each other and both hit.” WTF?)

And yes, far too many young kids are playing the game that have no business playing it. Nothing beats a 12-year-old telling you that Street Fighter sucks because there’s no blood, whether it’s when you were actually 12 or when you’re 26…

45

Ironically, somebody who was on the Deadly Alliance team who suggested various things to really polish up the MK series to make it a lot deeper than it is was unceremoniously fired afterwards. Among his suggestions:

  • THE WAKE UP GAME (Eventually put in Armageddon)
  • Cancelling of normals into special moves
  • The use of 4 buttons instead of 8 when designing this game
  • Throw Escapes

On that last note, guess what virtually dominates Deception? That’s right. Unavoidable Throw Infinites.

All of these things and more could have made Mortal Kombat really take off and earn respect.

46

MVC2 isnt deep at all and people still play the hell out of it.

47

Mortal Kombat is a mixed bag. There’s some interesting things going on, but once the shine wears off, your left with just a broken game. Personally I only play MK: Deception, but what gets me is why can’t I button map the throw button?

I have a friend that swears by MK, “If it doesn’t have fatalities or blood, then it sucks”.

48

what about Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero

I always wanted to played that

49

You summed it up great, I seem to remember some writings from that guy meeting with unsuccess when trying to suggest new stuff for MK, as I said before, MK’s biggest problem from being accepted as substances over flash is Ed Boon. Boon’s stupidity is just fucking amazing, and the fact he keeps MK dumbed down intentionally is more stupefying, I’m not sure if he’s aware of the UMK3 sentiment, he can’t be as he keeps churning out crap. MK will always be a bigger joke with each installment as long as Boon stays at the helm.

50

If I recall I think that one was the worst of the bunch. Well that or MK4/Gold…

51

I’m not a professional fighting player by any means. I can pick up a fighting game and be good on it against my friends, but I’m not the type of person who looks up strategies and tiers and stuff to try to be the absolutely best player. I like the idea of finding my own style in a fighting game. Of course all of that probably falls apart when playing against the best players in an arcade (RIP) or xbox live.

I think the pull of MK1 was that every character was gimmicky and memorable. While fatalities had NO effect on gameplay, it did give a better definition of their attitude. The story lines/bios were emphasized more heavily than any fighting game before it, and (at least for the first 3 games) it had some great music to go along with it. I think personally at the time I was able to enjoy MK more because it only used 4 buttons instead of 6, and it was easier for a novice to distinguish between high attacks and low attacks (plus the regular attacks were standard for all characters) and therefore it was easier to understand which attack to use in any situation. The separate block button was little more strategic because there was a penalty to going in and out of the block.

MK2 really tightened things up, it gave an even better character cast and the stage fatalities added character to some of the stages that you fought in. I thought it was balanced pretty well. It also was enjoyable as a single player game because the AI was tough as nails on certain machines.

MK3 is where things did start to go hyper and get broken. That being said, it still did require some skill to use a great combo character like Kabal properly. Even though I never looked at any strategy guides or played anyone except my friends, even I found an infinite with Cyrax (web-bomb). I’m not sure about UMK3 in the arcade, but the home versions (MKT) was by far the most broken game out of all of them. Noob Saibot and Rain had some of the stupidest/easiest infinites to pull off ever. I think the cast of new characters sucked compared to before, most of the arenas had a generic look because a lot of them used similar art, and the onslaught of -alities got a lot of people to start hating on MK even more than the reasons mentioned above.

MK4 was just a terrible attempt at a 3D game. It was basically MK3 with goofy sound effects and music, and a combo breaker system to ensure any combo didn’t go over 25%.

A lot of the original MK fans who gave up on the series had given up on it by MK4. However, MK:Deadly Alliance was a sort of revival of the series. They made it play more like a 3D fighter should, and the game was balanced a lot better than before. I think MK:Deception was the peak of the 3D games as it brought to the table what MK2 did for the 2D games. It had two really fun mini-games. The arenas did have an effect on fighting strategy. If you had a character who could throw characters long distances with a blow, you would have an upper hand on the arenas with a death trap.

MK:Armageddon just took all of the fighters from the first two games with very little modification, added in the remaining missing characters, and I think they actually removed a fighting style per character so that they could reuse them on some of the new characters. I guess they wanted to make sure they didn’t make the new characters broke ass, but I think they really rushed the game to make sure it was out before people stopped buying PS2/Xbox1 games. The Konquest adventure mode was also pretty lame compared to what they tried to emulate from Shaolin Monks. They omitted a ton of arenas from the previous two games which was disappointing. They did manage to make the aerial part of the game less floaty and more like a 2D fighter, which I think was a positive step for the series.

And of course, there was MK: Shaolin Monks which was probably the best beat-em up I remember playing. If they can bump the sequel up to 4 player co-op and put it online as well, it would easily be the best thing to come out of MK.

IMO I don’t think you can truly hate on MK without:

  • having played both the best of the 2D and the best of the 3D games… I think a lot of people remember MK for MK3 & MK4 but haven’t tried the newer games
  • hating on MvC2 as well… that game was all about the same things that MK3/UMK3 was about
  • giving props to Shaolin Monks for one-upping all of the other beat-em up games out there
52

bcrt2000 - some FYI, MK3 improved the gameplay beyond MKII and actually made it less broken, there’s no way to argue that MKII is a more balanced game than MK3. MKII is terribly broken and limited. UMK3 improved MK3’s engine and is the best, most balanced, most competitive game in the entire MK series. PSX Trilogy isn’t a broken game, but it has broken characters added to it. N64 MKT is a broken game because the engine is different, and incomplete. Recovery times are cut everywhere, it has hacked animation and poor collision detection in some places.

53

Like I said, I’m not coming from a tournament background. I don’t think me or any of my friends knew how to do combos in MK2 that were more than a couple of hits, let alone infinites. MKT PSX/PC had so many characters with easy to pull off infinites that you didn’t have to go to a competitive level to know that the game had broken characters.

54

The fact that you even use the term “broken” as a con to the gameplay means you are looking at it beyond a friendly level.

55

thought MK3 was only about Kabal. Heard people saying he was like a god in that game

56

And? That doesn’t change the fact that it will indeed work on the vast majority of opponents.

57

What is your point? That most people that play any game are just lambs who don’t even know how to break the most basic shit? I sure hope so.

58

That’s like saying “MVC2 is trash heres MVC2 in a nut shell”

Also, one of the good things about the Mortal Kombat franchise is the in depth storyline that ties MK1 all the way up to MK Armageddon together!!!

Great storyline

[media=youtube]r640Acq-Dx8[/media]

Also, that Sub Zero in MK Mythologies is really Noob Saibot

59

I’ve never really played any of the new 3d ones (except Shaolin Monks, which is awesome), but I never liked the stiff controls. Especially when it came down do just blocking and jumping, I always felt like I needed to press down harder on the buttons or something to get my character to move.

60

That is actually interesting. But why is Sub-Zero breathing so hard? Is he angry or something?