Board 8 > Mortal Kombat 1 reveal tomorrow morning

(+) Yeah! (+)

TomNook posted...

Are there people who care about storyline in fighting games?

yes. Since MK9, story modes have been a very strong element of Netherrealms games

TomNook posted...

Are there people who care about storyline in fighting games?

Fighting game stories are awesome in all the most ridiculous ways

TomNook posted...

Are there people who care about storyline in fighting games?

My experience every time with a fighting game:
1. Scan the select screen and pick the coolest looking or hottest character.
2. Try them out. If I like their playstyle, I stick with them. If not, I try out the next coolest looking or hottest.
3. After I find a playstyle I like from doing that, I consider them to be my favorite character.

Yes, if a fighting game makes a story mode with actual attempts to make a meaningful narrative, people tend to care about those.

If this were just Arcade mode, then sure. Who cares about the storyline. But they actually tried to make a meaningful narrative out of everything with diminishing returns since MK9.

Yeah MK story has always been interesting in a silly way but they definitely do squander characters.

I mean Erron Black is just a guy from Texas who ended up in Outworld and became a mercenary for immortal gods.

Yeah he was generic cowboy man but that's because they couldn't spend 10 minutes diving into his ridiculous backstory or how he ended up here.

TomNook posted...

Are there people who care about storyline in fighting games?

My experience every time with a fighting game:
1. Scan the select screen and pick the coolest looking or hottest character.
2. Try them out. If I like their playstyle, I stick with them. If not, I try out the next coolest looking or hottest.
3. After I find a playstyle I like from doing that, I consider them to be my favorite character.

Yes. Story mode is what drives engagement. People get serious about the game after they fall in love with characters and good story makes it a lot easier.

There's no reason not to enjoy the story in a fighting game, but objecting that not all the characters get enough limelight is a bit silly. MK story mode is pretty much a linear movie. To say "They did Reptile dirty! He did nothing but get beat up by the good guys!" Well yeah, that was his role in the story as a lower-level enforcer bad guy. Is he fun to play? You can make him win fights if you play as him.

Literally every fighting game series has some lore to them that people enjoy no matter how convoluted they may be.

Even if the general FGC cares more about play-style, a lot of the community won't ignore the characters' backstories.

paperwarior posted...

There's no reason not to enjoy the story in a fighting game, but objecting that not all the characters get enough limelight is a bit silly. MK story mode is pretty much a linear movie. To say "They did Reptile dirty! He did nothing but get beat up by the good guys!" Well yeah, that was his role in the story as a lower-level enforcer bad guy. Is he fun to play? You can make him win fights if you play as him.

I think you're missing the point.

People want to see something out of Reptile. A little more personality, some kind of meaningful scene to showcase him even briefly. Show off his character a little. They don't really get that.

Erron Black was in two games and there is nothing meaningful he's ever done and his character is beyond generic. Let's see him do some hardcore assassinating or something. Let's see him actually have a conversation with someone that isn't just base level.

Noob Saibot was in a game with his killer and brother, with history between them, and he was in one scene in the game and didn't interact with either of them once, when just having one scene with them would have been incredibly interesting and flesh them all out.

It's not difficult to give characters a little more to work with in these games. NetherRealm are just poor storytellers.

I don't think I'm missing the point so much as we're addressing two different points. I agree that it would be better to get more development for each of these characters, since they're meant to be characters that can stand on their own and be liked, and NRS could have done a better job with that.

And Kotal Kahn, for instance, getting described as a lame loser because he avoids fights or loses some of them, I don't agree. His character starts out interesting in the first place because he's a ruler of Outworld who's pragmatic instead of just plain evil. Did he need a romance subplot with Jade? Eh, I dunno, I barely remember the plot of that game.

paperwarior posted...

And Kotal Kahn, for instance, getting described as a lame loser because he avoids fights or loses some of them, I don't agree. His character starts out interesting in the first place because he's a ruler of Outworld who's pragmatic instead of just plain evil. Did he need a romance subplot with Jade? Eh, I dunno, I barely remember the plot of that game.

Well Kotal was billed as the guy who disarmed Goro and took over Outworld.

The first time we see him, Kung Jin of all people beats him in a fight and he goes "Kill me pls you were the victor." Absolute loser behavior. Impossible to take him seriously.

And then in the following game he gets into weird drama because he wants to genocide the Tarkatans and his girlfriend beats his ass over it, and then the former ruler of Outworld breaks his god damn back and he can no longer fight and gives up his crown to Kitana, and then disappears for the rest of the game.

Kotal Kahn sucks. Lol

MoogleKupo141 posted...

yes. Since MK9, story modes have been a very strong element of Netherrealms games

Even before that, Deception and Armageddon both had fairly substantial story modes that you had to play through to unlock and/or power up the main character of that mode, and then MK vs. DC Universe introduced their version of the chapter-based story mode where you switch between characters that MK9 would become famous for.

So it is about him losing fights in story mode. Maybe story mode isn't that good. This affects absolutely nothing when I play as him in any other mode.

paperwarior posted...

So it is about him losing fights in story mode. Maybe story mode isn't that good. This affects absolutely nothing when I play as him in any other mode.

No?

It's clearly about how he's presented as a complete goober all the time. Maybe don't have his first loss to a literal who and he begs for death?

Maybe don't have him get his back broken by Shao Khan and be completely outclassed?

There are ways to have him lose that don't make him look bad.

Maybe he wanted to die because he lost to a dumbass Kombat Kid and knew everyone in the audience would think he's a total goober. How embarrassing.

He wanted to die because it's a requirement for an achievement/trophy, only he didn't realize that he has to kill himself for it.

who got it worse kotal kahn or necalli

Does Necali even have fun move animations like the backbreaker into solar beam?

I mean, definitely Necalli. Lol He's such a shit character in general.

The Street Fighter V story is actually the worst though. Just a complete failure to replicate what Mortal Kombat did.

The only thing I really remember about SFV's story was Zombie Charlie, and I thought they made him pretty cool, at least.

man what even was Necalli

that dude struck me as a total dud. off brand feral Akuma

I thought he was a Pillar Man, but with none of the good abilities.

mortal kombone

MoogleKupo141 posted...

man what even was Necalli

that dude struck me as a total dud. off brand feral Akuma

Just some goop fella who wanted to devour(our our our our) Ryu because of his Satsui No Hado and failed epically every time until he was literally obliterated entirely.

But he somehow reformed and went after Akuma, devoured him, and Akuma exploded him from the inside.

What's so dumb is the goop stuff wasn't a part of Nicalli's moveset so it's just really weird it was such a huge part of his character in the story.

Too many reaction videos on YouTube of people who clearly never finished MK11's story and are confused by Liu Kang being a God now

It's probably a testament to how difficult it must be to create a new enduringly popular character in an established fighting game series that Street Fighter has only managed one since 2009.

That's Juri btw

I think I would go Erron Black > Takeda > Cassie > DVorah > Kotal > Jacqui > Kung Jin > Ferra/Tor for the X newcomers

I dont really care as much for the 11 ones but I guess Geras is ok

Hades posted...

It's probably a testament to how difficult it must be to create a new enduringly popular character in an established fighting game series that Street Fighter has only managed one since 2009.

That's Juri btw

also I thought Rashid was popular enough to maybe be sustainable? Hes DLC in 6 so we will see

Remember when they tried to push C. Viper? Put her in MVC3 and everything. Now she's gone.

Soul Calibur V was another disaster of trying to refresh a roster.

LiquidOshawott posted...

also I thought Rashid was popular enough to maybe be sustainable? Hes DLC in 6 so we will see

I did consider Rashid as I agree he's probably the most popular of 5's new intake, but yeah we'll have to see how well he's received in 6.

KamikazePotato posted...

Remember when they tried to push C. Viper? Put her in MVC3 and everything. Now she's gone.

Soul Calibur V was another disaster of trying to refresh a roster.

Well that was a rushed mess in general. But nobody would have cared about those characters because they were all really terrible and annoying too.

lol Nothing leaked in this game for the entire time, but in 24 hours the DLC Kombat Pack 1 characters have already leaked.

Very NetherRealm to happen.

lmoa

not a fan of those characters tbh

Kombat Pack 1 Spoilers

6 playable characters:
Quan Chi, Omni Man, Ermac, Peacemaker, Takeda, Homelander

5 Kameo characters:
Tremor, Johnny Cage (likely stunt double version?), Khameleon, Mavado, Ferra and Jean Claude Van Damme skin

I mean, cool guest characters I guess. Although two of them feel a bit same-y. I love the one MK character they listed though and look forward to playing him again!

KamikazePotato posted...

Remember when they tried to push C. Viper? Put her in MVC3 and everything. Now she's gone.

Soul Calibur V was another disaster of trying to refresh a roster.

she got ousted by Juri

aside from Abel, I actually really liked the SFIV newcomers. I wish theyd bring them back.

especially Rufus

Abel was my favorite of the SF4 newcomers and I played him a ton. I was disappointed he never made a comeback because I loved his grappling style.

Rufus probably deserves a return too. I feel like with a redux of his moves, El Fuerte could be a good one as well.

And of course, Hakan.

of course Hakan

I legitimately love that weirdo

Give another decade of people feeling nostalgic for SFIV characters and we will get them

https://www.gematsu.com/2023/05/mortal-kombat-1-dlc-kombat-pack-1-characters-listed-by-amazon-italy

so we already knew about Peacemaker

but oh man Homelander

I was kinda surprised Rufus never came back. He felt like a good fit.

yeah itd be great if they brought back good characters instead of the same shit from sf2 for the millionth time but oh well

The SF2 people are literally the most popular characters

its like how the MK games keep everyone from 1 and almost everyone from 2.

SFV only saw the return of Seth, Juri, and Poison (counting it as her first playable appearance) from SFIV if I'm recalling right.

SFIII had a lot more than that for returning characters in subsequent Street Fighter games.

Poison was definitely playable in SF4 though! And SFxTekken!

I'm pretty sure everyone playable in SFxT was playable on SF4 since it was more or less on the same rig.

Yeah Ultra was literally just them adding the remaining SFxT characters to 4

Bring back CViper

Didn't some of the 3D MK games have a sort of action RPG mode for their story? With SF6 doing World Tour, I'd love to see something similar in an MK setting.

And while we're talking about newer SF characters, what's the general opinion on Menat? I love her design, but I've heard she's really hard to play as, so was curious how popular she is.

BlackMageJawa posted...

Didn't some of the 3D MK games have a sort of action RPG mode for their story? With SF6 doing World Tour, I'd love to see something similar in an MK setting.

And while we're talking about newer SF characters, what's the general opinion on Menat? I love her design, but I've heard she's really hard to play as, so was curious how popular she is.

Yup! Deception and Armageddon had a more open world kind of deal. Honestly, Street Fighter 6 seems pretty inspired from it from Deception, since you would go around chatting to masters and learning their moves in that game.

https://twitter.com/khscar12/status/1659254232996872192?t=srRqQmnyDzzwDIij_-x1Cg&s=19

Since there are two evil Superman counterparts in the DLC, I'm hoping Brandon Breyer from Brightburn will be added in future to take it up to 3.

Now that I think of it, all three of the guests are from superhero media this time, after X had horror villains and 11 had 80s action heroes. I wonder if this game was initially meant to be Injustice 3, but Warner Bros told Netherealm to make another Mortal Kombat instead because it sells better?