Board 8 > ITT I Rank Mortal Kombat Kharacters

(+) Yeah! (+)

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Ermac
First Appearance: Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
Last Appearance: Mortal Kombat 11

Ermac is our first Mortal Kombat character created out of nothing, straight from the very first Mortal Kombat game! Meant to be Error Macro, there was a listing in an audit menu called ERMAC. And after that, people thought he was a secret fighter. He was teased in Mortal Kombat 2, and then finally made into a red ninja fella in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. And honestly? He's really only gotten better in every appearance.

It was a very interesting choice to make him a telekinetic ninja at first, with crazy TK moves to batter and throw around his opponents. To add to that, he's got swirling green soul energy that looks awesome and he uses it in blasts as well. Oh, and he flies! All of this lends to some of the coolest fatalities in the game though, because his powers are so diverse. Somehow he is extremely distinct in the series, and when the reboot trilogy came along, they made him even better.

He also stands out because he's a collection of souls, and he has a speech pattern of referring to himself as plural, rather than singular. Beyond that, he is legitimately menacing as well.

Ermac was created by Shao Kahn, through wizardry and soul magic, to be a living embodiment of souls in a husk. He was one of Shao Kahn's best warriors as well. Eventually, Kenshi rescued him from a life of servitude and they became besties, and Ermac showed him how to do TK stuff. He then wanted to repent for everything he did under Shao Kahn and helped out Zombie Liu Kang to go beat Onaga. And then he died in Armageddon. Too bad.

In the reboot, they gave him a complete glow up. Now he's not a confusing red ninja, and instead he's a straight of soul wizard that is creepy as hell. During a Special Forces attack on Shao Kahn, Ermac appears and tears off Jax's god damn arms, in one of the highlights of MK9. Absolutely awesome stuff with that. He continues to work with Shao Kahn's evil little club until MKX. In the prequel komics, he's hanging out with Mileena. He's part of a ritual to give Reiko ultimate power... and that doesn't go well. So Havik begins draining his souls into an amulet, only to be saved by Takeda. Mileena rescues Ermac and he says "Nah you suck as a leader, sorry." And then he goes to join Kotal.

MKX contradicts this (not an uncommon thing) by having Ermac betray her with others in an attempt to surprise assassinate her for Kotal. He kaptures the Kombat Kids with the rest of Kotal's gang but they break out. And he eventually loses to nobody's favorite kharacter, Jacqui Briggs, to beats him and gets revenge for him ripping off her father's arms.

And then in MK11, they give him this absolutely badass design before having him die for no reason in the Krypt.

So, a lot skews Ermac here. In the original timeline, he's kind of bleh. He's got enough cool stuff to stand out, but he's still not even remotely interesting despite his origin. When he got the glow up in the reboot trilogy, he is so many times better as a spooky soul wizard. They just completely nail him and make him a kharacter worth seeing. The problem is that he has one kool moment with the Jax arm tear, and then he is just the generic villain after that. Which, you know, it's fine. But Ermac stands out as far as the flunkies go.

What is the absolute worst part about Ermac is that he is so much wasted potential. His MK9 ending states that King Jerrod, Sindel's wife and Kitana's father, is one of the souls inhabiting him. It's a really cool direction they could have gone in, but they don't really do anything with it.

Another thing they missed out on was a Shang Tsung moment in Ermac's MKX ending where Shang Tsung just tears Ermac apart to resurrect himself, as the soul sorcerer OG.

There's things to do that make Ermac more than just a henchman, but they don't ever really pursue it. I like him a lot more as a henchman than whatever they tried doing with him in Deception, at least.

I rank him based mostly on his origin on how he's a secret and his general aesthetic and how damn cool he is in the reboot trilogy. He's got a ton of potential for more, and I hope when he's used next, they really improve on that.

Grade: B

Related Glitch Origin:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/2/1/AATFBfAAEkx1.png

I personally really liked his revamp in Deception, one of the highlights of that game in my opinion (and it's probably like my third or fourth favorite game of the series).

Ermac is dope.

Rain

Baraka

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Shang Tsung
First Appearance: Mortal Kombat (Klassic)
Last Appearance: Mortal Kombat 1

So Shang Tsung is legitimately awesome. Just everything about him is great, and I'm always happy to see him around. As a big bad, they really do a great job making him seem like a real intimidating force. He's a great villain.

Having various looks in these games, from an old man to a rejuvenated, sinister bastard, and sometimes somewhere in between. He just always looks like what you'd want in a villain in this franchise that is more down to Earth than your giant burley skull masked fellas or your pale-faced wizards.

He also stands out with his abilities that help him look like he's a real final boss. Firstly, he can shape shift into other characters. Fun Fact!: They did this because they had no more room to add a new moveset for Shang Tsung, so they just had him steal moves and forms from other characters. But it worked out and made him feel like he was really a step above the rest of the characters. He also has flaming skulls and volcano bursts and soul stealing and undead summoning. Like the dude feels like an honest to goodness dark sorcerer. And when you see him flex those skills, it always comes across as cool.

Shang Tsung's been there from the start though. He had lost to The Great Kung Lao (not to be confused with the mediocre Kung Lao in the present) in one Mortal Kombat tournament before getting fed up and bringing on Goro to massacre him in revenge so Shang could take his soul. From there, he had an iron grip on the Mortal Kombat tournaments and Goro remained undefeated in it for 500 years. Eventually, he ran into Liu Kang for the last Mortal Kombat tournament Shang needed to win so Shao Kahn could invade Earthrealm. Liu Kang beat Goro and stomped his ass and then Shang Tsung had to go back to Shao Kahn and beg for his life, and Shao allowed him a second chance and restored his youth!

And then Shang Tsung failed again and Liu Kang beat his ass once more. Whoops. But after that, Shang helps resurrect Sindel, Shao Kahn's wife, on Earth to exploit a loophole that allowed them to invade Earthrealm after all. During the invasion, Liu Kang beat his sorry ass AGAIN and then Shao Kahn decided he would just do a little torture on him for his failure. He then formed a DEADLY ALLIANCE with Quan Chi, in which he would help kill Shao Kahn in exchange for having a SOULNADO created to give Shang Tsung unlimited power. They team up and kill Shao Kahn. And then they go and kill Liu Kang.

And surprisingly, him and Quan Chi won and defeated all of the Earthrealm warriors! But they could not coexist and fought each other, with Quan Chi being victorious. But then they released Onaga, the Dragon King, who they tried to team up to fight, but Raiden used a kamikaze blast that killed Shang Tsung, releasing all of his souls. His soul goes to Outworld to a now-alive Shao Kahn who owns his soul, and he throws him in a host body and then Shang Tsung begrudgingly works for Shao again. Only he finds Quan Chi again and they concoct another evil plan, but not before they join the big super villains club for Armageddon. Canonically, he was about to achieve everything by getting to Blaze at the top of the pyramid, but Zombie Liu Kang stopped him from doing so. Perfect.

Then in the reboot trilogy things stay the same, but instead when they resurrect Sindel, Shao Kahn is sick of Shang Tsung's shit and takes all of his soul power and throws it into Sindel, killing Shang. And that's it for him. But he does come around in MK11: Aftermath, where he and a few others were locked away by Kronika for not playing ball. They return when she's defeated and Shang tells Liu Kang that he needs to send them in the past so they can get Kronika's Crown to allow Liu Kang to use the Hourglass to change things properly. Liu Kang does so because of course he does.

They go to take the crown, but Cetrion is watching it and is supposed to be super duper powerful, so Shang brings on Sindel to help. Eventually, they resurrect Sindel and go to grab the crown, only for Kronika to come try to get it, but he and Fujin work together to defeat her! And so Shang Tsung takes the crown, betrays everyone with Sindel's help, he betrays Sindel and Shao Kahn, and then kills Kronika, and then has a final showdown with Liu Kang over the crown. And then you can choose to have Liu Kang win and Shang Tsung disappears, or Shang Tsung wins and creates his own tyranny over the entire universe. Oh, and he's coming back to stir some shit in the new game to disrupt Liu Kang's perfect world.

So that's Shang Tsung. One thing I wanted to say is that even though Shang has been a follower of Shao Kahn a lot, and he's been dead a lot, he still comes across as a legitimate threat in the series. It's a testament that all of the main villains in Mortal Kombat can look legitimate. Shang Tsung is certainly one of them, and when he's in his element, making schemes and killing fools, he's awesome and maybe the most compelling main villain in MK.

Unfortunately, he does look like a punk ass when he's not looking awesome, which hurts. But I love seeing Shang Tsung more than I don't, and he's always a welcome addition. It's just hard for him to not take up space in the villain realm, so he's absent from many games. Give me more Shang Tsung than most other villains though. I love to see it. Because he stands out and is always memorable.

Grade: A-

Related Time He Was Used To Do Joker's Censored Fatality Uncensored:
https://youtu.be/UjfT4UuaUQg

as a casual mk fan i actually enjoy reading these. I didnt know there was so much to say about ermac

Is Shang Tsung still able to transform into arbitrary characters during gameplay? I think I recall hearing that wasn't done anymore. I'm not even sure if the game tech can handle that these days without loading issues.

TeamRocketElite posted...

Is Shang Tsung still able to transform into arbitrary characters during gameplay? I think I recall hearing that wasn't done anymore. I'm not even sure if the game tech can handle that these days without loading issues.

He's been given his own moveset now to make him more distinct nowadays, so it feels a lot less necessary now, but in MK11 he can turn into any of the Klassic ninjas to use one of their moves, which was pretty cool.

Top 5 Raiden botches in Mortal Kombat 9

So as we're all aware, Raiden is a idiot in Mortal Kombat 9. This fool can't do anything right. It's hilarious. I love it. He's the elder god and a complete fuck up. It's almost a comedy of errors. Here's the top five botches he made trying to save the world from Armageddon.

5. Convincing Kitana to rebel against Shao Kahn early.

So Kitana always turns on Shao Kahn reasonably early. However, because of this, she turns on Shao Kahn early and tries to sabotage him. However, she discovers her clone, Mileena, early and is captured earlier than expected, meaning that Mileena survives their encounter, instead of Kitana killing Mileena early and being captured prior to the Earthrealm invasion.

4. Letting Kuai Liang be captured and turned into a cyborg

Originally, Smoke is captured by the Lin Kuei and turned into a cyborg. We all know this. He was dope in MK3. But Raiden saw this and decided, arbitrarily, that this needed to change. He protected Smoke from being captured and turned into a cyborg, forcing Kuai Liang, then Sub-Zero, to be captured instead. Cyber Sub-Zero does good, sure. But... this changes nothing, really. Smoke isn't a factor. Cyber Sub-Zero is a little bit of a factor, but ultimately things go a lot worse anyway. So this is just irrelevant.

3. Failing to get help from Quan Chi

So Raiden is screwed. Almost everyone is dead. He has no chance to beat Shao Kahn at this point. And he goes to the one dude who might be able to help: Quan Chi, and Netherrealm. He goes to Quan Chi and says Quan Chi can have the souls of all of the warriors he was aligned with that got murdered, as well as his own if he doesn't make it, if Quan Chi helps with his Netherrealm army. Quan Chi tells him he already struck up a deal with Shao Kahn and he already has the souls of the fallen warriors, and then he forces Raiden to fight every single one of them to escape.

2. Frying Liu Kang

Alright, so if you picked the most important character in the franchise, chances are it's probably Liu Kang. He always beats everyone (until he doesn't, but I digress). But Raiden fucked up so bad that Liu Kang said that was enough and fought Raiden. And then Raiden ACCIDENTALLY kills Liu Kang with lightning mixed with Liu Kang's fire. lolwhoops There goes the greatest warrior in Earthrealm.

1. Sending back a vague message of "He must win" to his past self with no context.

Truly, the screw ups began at the start, BEFORE we even get to reboot timeline Raiden. When he could deliver a single message to his past self and decides to go with "He must win" and somehow Raiden is supposed to think that means Shao Kahn of all people must win. Like dude just said "Shao Kahn must win" in that case. You're just confusing your past self! Instead he thinks it's a number of people, including Liu Kang and Kung Lao. You got everyone massacred over this. And you just needed to concede Earthrealm to Shao Kahn at the start of this and then the Elder Gods would zap him. Great job, Raiden.

Top 5 Raiden successes in Mortal Kombat 9 (that lead to everyone dying a terrible death still)

1-5. Killing Motaro (and saving Johnny Cage)

So Raiden sees Motaro, that dopey loser minotaur, killing Johnny Cage in his vision. So he just murks this dude on sight. So yay! Johnny Cage lives and we all love Johnny Cage! But they bring back just ugly mofo to Shao Kahn and he's just like "Aight fuck it" and then puts all of Shang Tsung's power inside of Sindel, and she KILLS EVERYONE. Not a tremendous trade off.

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

Motaro, that dopey loser minotaur

This is surely a positive sign for my main man Motaro's ranking.

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

He's been given his own moveset now to make him more distinct nowadays, so it feels a lot less necessary now, but in MK11 he can turn into any of the Klassic ninjas to use one of their moves, which was pretty cool.

He's also able to use the ability to steal his current opponents moveset for a limited time as well. I was so hyped for him in MK11: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV0H1bIa_kY

Probably like the most excited I had been for anything MK in a long time. Obviously he is my favorite character, and I always favored his Deadly Alliance look because it was sleek and regal looking while still coming across as a sinister sorcerer. I never thought they'd get Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa to perform the role in the game though, which was just master class. Fun fact: When I worked for a MK website back in the late 2000s I had his phone number and spoke to him at length on several different occasions while he was filming various different projects. He even shared his own ideas for how he'd continue the story of Shang Tsung that he had in his own mind. To see his likeness and hear his voice in MK11 was just superb stuff, and I feel like MK11 also really re-invigorated the character's importance and how threatening he is. He'll always be Mortal Kombat true main and best antagonist, in my opinion. I hope he'll be interesting once again in the new game.

Top 5 kharacters with more than 2 arms

I'll pick someone normal for today, Kung Lao

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

Ermac is our first Mortal Kombat character created out of nothing, straight from the very first Mortal Kombat game! Meant to be Error Macro, there was a listing in an audit menu called ERMAC. And after that, people thought he was a secret fighter. He was teased in Mortal Kombat 2, and then finally made into a red ninja fella in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.

It is funny when weird rumors like this eventually lead to a creation of an actual character. Like how Sheng Long in Street Fighter II lead to Akuma and Gouken being created.

Shao Kahn

Great write-ups so far.

Top 5 character designs

Top 5 non-ninjas

Character of the Day: Khameleon

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Motaro
First Appearance: Mortal Kombat 3
Last Appearance: Mortal Kombat 9

I gotta keep it real. Motaro sucks and I'm not sorry about it. He was an attempt to make a new and fresh boss character for the franchise, in which we had Goro and Kintaro that ruled, and then you have a literal centaur fella with boring moves and is just even more frustrating to fight. They just throw this random jackass at us with his weird projectile throwing, metal tail, trampling mid-boss, and he's just not interesting.

Oh and he killed Johnny Cage so fuck him.

His story is that he belongs to the Centaurian race that feuds with the Shokan, and Shao Kahn was on the Centaurian side and he helped them out. Motaro is the leader of the Centaurians and kills Johnny Cage in the Earthrealm invasion. He also saves Kano's life so that Shao Kahn can punish him later during this battle. Sheeva ends up fighting Motaro for the Shokan honor and kills him.

PAUSE

Mortal Kombat Armageddon, for anyone who doesn't know, boasted that they would be bringing literally every Mortal Kombat kharacter into the game. And that included Motaro. Problem is, he's the only kharacter with four legs, instead of two. And when they were including a stupid amount of characters in their supposed swan song game, they weren't going to break their entire game so they could add a character with four legs for freaking Motaro of all kharacters. But they wanted to include him still. Let's get back to his story.

Motaro actually doesn't get killed by Sheeva, but the Shokan somehow curse Motaro and the Centaurians and now they only have two legs! Wow what a development. Now Motaro wants to defeat Blaze so he can give his people their second set of legs back. And then he dies.

But don't worry, he gets another shot in the reboot trilogy! Where they also boasted every kharacter from the first three games would be there, including Motaro! But they once again did not want to kreate an entire new way for freaking Motaro to play with four legs. So they did the simplest solution.

Raiden has a vision that Motaro killed Johnny Cage in the previous timeline. So Raiden does not even flinch and just murders the everloving hell out of Motaro, sending him through a bridge. They didn't even want to waste time doing anything with Motaro in this game. Not even giving him a cool moment. He appears and DIES. It rules. Because Motaro died unceremoniously, Shao Kahn lost his fiercest fighter and decided to power up Sindel by sacrificing Shang Tsung.

What can I say? Motaro isn't fun, nobody really particularly likes him, and he doesn't have the staying power of the Shokan kharacters. And he's unlikely to ever appear in MK again due to the amount of work it would take to make him playable. That said, there's a chance he ends up a kameo, and I think Ed Boon actually hinted at it for Mortal Kombat 1. So all of Motaro's biggest fan can be happy for that. For the rest of us, Motaro is not missed. He gets points for a new idea though.

Grade: D-

Relevant Terrible Fatality:
https://youtu.be/oJsp7Wjcod8

Without your weapons, you are no match for Motaro!!

Top 5 fight sequences in the live action MK movies
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Motaro has had a hard life. I have fond memories of screwing around with him a lot in Mortal Kombat Trilogy. But, I guess I understand how it can be a pain to bring him back.

Motaro could be cool, but he's always been held back because of technical limitations. I do prefer him slightly to Kintaro, who is just super boring to me and I've always found very, very overrated.

Hotaru

Sareena

Meat

Kintaro looks badass Motaro is just a bog standard centaur

I never really liked Kintaro. Goro's not much more interesting either in my opinion, but he's historically important to the franchise, so I have to give him that. Sheeva is clearly the best of the Shokan.

Certainly, there's no doubt all three of them are cooler than Motaro.

Kintaro looks like a tiger and I have fond memories of how hard of a fight he is in MK2

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Kratos
Only Appearance: Mortal Kombat 9

So I'm going to do guest kharacters a little different. There's a ton of them, but they aren't a part of the greater Mortal Kombat universe, so I'm not going to grade them, but in terms of them being guest kharacters only, not against the regular kast.

We all know OG Kratos from the God of War franchise. His backstory for his appearance is that Raiden and Fujin summon him through a spell to defend Earthrealm. In his story he does so, and he finds these Gods who are grateful, rather than wishing him dead. This gives him a lot to think about now. I imagine this is canonically what leads up to the sequel series of games.

So I mean, Kratos looks like Kratos here. He fits in pretty well appearance-wise. He's cool. I never got to actually play as him before though since I only had MK9 on Xbox 360. Alas! I've seen enough of him though. But because of his exclusivity, he's one of the few banned kharacters in competitive play.

They give him a bunch of gimmicks from his game, and those are cool for a what they are. But they certainly do feel like gimmicks, and not something that fits in the MK universe. The problem is that his fatalities are very, very dull. The first one is that he just stabs someone and tears them upwards. The second one is where he just uses a medusa head to turn them into stone and gives them a big ol' bop to make them shatter. Also not great. His best part is honestly his Babality, where he steps on a Medusa plushy tail and rips its head off. Baby Kratos is great.

So. He'd be a fine guest otherwise, right? Absolutely wrong. There was a mandate that Kratos has to be cool and strong and fearless at all times, along with other weird restrictions. So when fatalities are done on him, he's the only one who gets to look fearless in the face of these horrific murders he's about to be subjected to. There's also weird restrictions on him like Johnny Cage can't put the trophy on where his head used to be, or Mileena can't eat his face, and he even does t-poses in some of them. Sony requested this, and it's a shame because it really stands out and feels more lame than anything.

Kratos was one of the first major guest kharacters, and he's one of the ones that made Nether Realm Studios seriously reconsider how they do them in the future. Every other guest hasn't had any of these restrictions, be them console exclusive or weird exceptions made for them. But I honestly can't grade Kratos too high entirely because of this. Adding to that he feels like a full on gimmick and none of his fatalities are really impressive, he ranks low.

Guest Grade: E

Relevant Babality:
https://youtu.be/h6aOhPFV0Ns

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

What can I say? Motaro isn't fun, nobody really particularly likes him, and he doesn't have the staying power of the Shokan kharacters. And he's unlikely to ever appear in MK again due to the amount of work it would take to make him playable. That said, there's a chance he ends up a kameo, and I think Ed Boon actually hinted at it for Mortal Kombat 1.

Motaro to be finally banished from Kombat forever and sent to the realm of Thems Fightn Herds.

I started the Sub-Zero write up but Sub-Zero has so much LORE to him that I needed to take a break.

in related news, theres a maybe legitimate partial roster leak (19 of the probably 24 characters)

if its real, its interesting.

Cassie Cage

And Top 5 MK Games for Beginners

Shujinko

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Sub-Zero (Kuai Liang)
First Appearance: Mortal Kombat 2
Last Appearance: Mortal Kombat 1 (?) God it looks so stupid now that 2 comes before 1)

So to preface, this is Kuai Liang we're talking about today, the second Sub-Zero and the one most closely associated with Sub-Zero now, and not Bi-Han, the original Sub-Zero. If you're confused, keep reading.

But first, Sub-Zero is so damn iconic. It's impossible to imagine a game without him. He's a martial artist that can manipulate ice. That's so god damn cool (pun not intended) and it's one of the main draws that get eyes on this franchise. You have all of these regular martial artists with these moves. You even have Scorpion with fire stuff. But a ninja with ice? That stands out. And they become so creative with it all too. It's fun to see how he's used. Oh, and he rips guys' heads off with their spine intact. That was a game changer that really showed how grisly this series could be from the start.

But there's plenty more to Sub-Zero as well past just being an iconic kharacter with a great presentation. Onto his story!

Kuai Liang is a part of the Lin Kuei, a Chinese tribe of ninjas, under the code name Tundra. His brother, Bi-Han, was designated as the original Sub-Zero. After Bi-Han was killed by Scorpion, Kuai Liang took up the mantle of Sub-Zero from Mortal Kombat 2 onward. Kuai Liang would then take up Bi-Han's mission and try to kill Shang Tsung. He doesn't get the opportunity to, because during the tournament he faces an opponent and spares his life. Scorpion, who was ready to kill the hell out of Sub-Zero again, realized that this was not his sworn enemy after all, and was just his younger brother. Because Bi-Han is a complete dick, and Kuai Liang is a good dude.

From here on, I'll be referring to Kuai Liang as Sub-Zero. So Sub-Zero returns to the Lin Kuei, only to realize they were starting a cyber ninja division. He was horrified by it and left the Lin Kuei, who branded him a traitor and sent the new cyber ninjas, Smoke, Sektor, and Cyrax to kill him. While he fought against Shao Kahn's invasion, Sub-Zero ran into his bestie, Smoke, and was able to talk him into overriding his programming to be a good guy. He would also reprogram Cyrax with Smoke.

And then we get to MK4, where Quan Chi convinced Scorpion that Kuai Liang had something to do with his family and tribe's death. After Scorpion nearly kills him, Kuai Liang explains that he had nothing to do with it and that Quan Chi was playing him. Quan Chi admits this in front of them and Scorpion just takes him to the Netherrealm. Sub-Zero is fine after that. Yeah.

After that, Sub-Zero returned to the Lin Kuei to discover that the Grandmaster was murdered by his son, Sektor. Sub-Zero took the Dragon Medallion, which is given to the Grandmaster of the Lin Kuei, so Sub-Zero runs the Lin Kuei now. He took them to the Arctic and the Dragon Medallion granted him much stronger ice abilities and altered his appearance. He also recruited new ninjas, which included a girl named Frost! When Raiden asked him to fight the Deadly Alliance, Sub-Zero agreed so he could show everyone the Lin Kuei was back and good again. Frost tried to take Sub-Zero's Dragon Medallion during the battles though and accidentally froze herself. lolwhoops

Onward, he went to bury Frost in Outworld and found a group of folks named Cryomancers who he thinks he descended from. As such, they gave him a fun little Shredder outfit to wear. He eventually ran into Noob Saibot, formerly his brother Bi-Han and the former Sub-Zero, and his old bestie Smoke, and he got his ass kicked until Sareena, friend of Bi-Han, rescued him. They went back to the Lin Kuei and discovered that Frost was alive after all and she murdered most of the folks there. He froze her in a way she couldn't come back. lolwhoops

Prior to Armaggedon, he helped Taven on his journey, and he and Taven stopped an invading Noob Saibot and Smoke. Sub-Zero attempted to cleanse his brother's soul... and we don't get a conclusion. Because everyone died in Armageddon.

But our boy Kuai Liang gets another chance to have a good life in the reboot series! All goes exactly as it does before, except instead of Smoke getting captured and turned into a cyber ninja, Sub-Zero does instead! Pretty much because Raiden thought it would make a difference. gg raiden. So now he was Cyber Sub-Zero with a cool new cyber look that made him OP in competitive play, and he attacks Kabal. He is then reprogrammed by apparent engineer Jax to be a good fella and retain his consciousness. He then saves a bunch of soldiers and runs into Noob Saibot again, and they both emancipate one another. And then Sub-Zero is murdered by Sindel. And now Quan Chi owns his soul.

In the MKX Komic, Sub-Zero has his body reborn by Quan Chi while he makes him a Revenant in his army. Sub-Zero is rescued and revived by Raiden during the Netherrealm War, and he is back with the living! And he starts out by retrieving a part of the Kamidogu, getting a scar over his eye from Kano in the process. He fights an army of cyber ninjas from the Lin Kuei after and stops them and realizes he's the only Lin Kuei left, and in his grief is possessed by the Kamidogu he retrieved, and he eventually battles Scorpion once more. He becomes un-possessed but Scorpion is now too far gone and fries Sub-Zero, but spares his life.

Bo Rai Cho heals Sub-Zero and then trains him so he can go destroy the cyber ninjas. He then converts Cyrax and convinces him to fight with him again, and they defeat Sektor, who was leading the Lin Kuei cyber ninjas now. Cyrax then detonates himself and the rest of the cyber ninjas and tells Sub-Zero to restore the Lin Kuei to their former glory. Sub-Zero does just that, building a new temple in Arctika and Frost is sent there with a bunch of warriors from Raiden to join the Lin Kuei, with Sub-Zero as the Grandmaster once more!

This finally brings us to MKX, where he has his Lin Kuei running, and he invites Scorpion to the temple to show him that Quan Chi was, in fact, behind the murder of his family and his people and that it wasn't the Lin Kuei or Bi-Han. He would later help the good guys fight back Kotal Kahn's Outworld army towards the end of the game.

And then we get to the mess with is MK11, so bear with me. Kronika brings the cyber Lin Kuei to take over the Lin Kuei again with Sektor at the helm. In a surprise, Sub-Zero and Scorpion work together to fight them and they fix Cyrax's programming and sacrifices himself to shut down the production of more Lin Kuei cyber ninjas (again). He would go on to keep helping the heroes fight Kronika.

So there we go. That's Kuai Liang aka Sub-Zero.

Aside from his expansive backstory though... I find Sub-Zero kind of boring as a character. He comes across as generic protagonist fella most of the time, carried by the Lin Kuei story and Scorpion. Basically, I find all of the elements of Sub-Zero more interesting than the man himself. Which is fine! He has a role in the story often, adds to the world, and is just so iconic and awesome. And that all makes up for what is an otherwise decent personality. I actually can't imagine Mortal Kombat without Sub-Zero. So for that alone, Sub-Zero ranks high.

In terms of the future... we actually don't know if Kuai Liang is in Mortal Kombat 1. So far, we know Bi-Han is Sub-Zero in the new game (and I am so unreasonably excited for that). Some people are speculating Scorpion is actually Kuai Liang, not Hanzo Hasashi in the new one, since they're called "brothers" be it by blood or just as fellow Lin Kuei members.

Grade: A

Relevant Song:
https://youtu.be/WVIpnoptwSQ

The Joker

Top 5 Armageddon kharacter endings

Top 5 Cheese Strats Against Mortal Kombat Final Bosses

Generally speaking, I'm thinking of Shao Kahn as the final boss in arcade mode, but I'm willing to open it up to any final boss. The ones that are designed to eat up quarters.

So, I have MK9 on PS3, but I didn't use Kratos much. I do agree that his fatalities were pretty lame.

Top 5 Mortal Kombat 4 Endings

Alright so... I don't know how the fuck to do this. lol Because all endings are terrible in this game. Some are just... less terrible? I'm going to try and pick the actual best ones though. If anyone wants the Top 5 Worst MK4 Endings they can request that.

5. Raiden
Raiden's ending is basically him having beaten Shinnok and then one of the Elder Gods making him an Elder God himself. He then choose Fujin as his successor as Guardian of Earthrealm. What stands out here is that it has some pretty cool stuff in it. Good location, Raiden floating in front of a giant Elder God head, and in general, it's simple and makes sense for Raiden.

https://youtu.be/ne7jyEuBVug

4. Quan Chi
Shinnok tells Quan Chi that for helping him defeat Earthrealm that he will give him the gift of life, letting him exist. But Quan Chi has Shinnok's amulet the whole time and tells him that he gave Shinnok a fake. Then he kills Shinnok and takes over. Good character moment for Quan Chi to show he's a crafty little bastard.

https://youtu.be/wSacKtNrsWo

3. Scorpion
Scorpion is about to kill Sub-Zero (Kuai Liang) for his part in killing his family and tribe, seemingly fatally wounding him. But Quan Chi appears and tells Scorpion he's an idiot and that he orchestrated the whole thing and says he's banishing Scorpion to the Netherrealm. However, Scorpion grabs him as the teleports both him and Quan Chi to the Netherrealm, where he proceeds to torture Quan Chi in revenge. Good because it lets Scorpion come out on top and finally get some revenge, wraps up his story, but it's also uh, not tremendously put together, otherwise it would probably be higher.

https://youtu.be/wSEg_kUUL6s

2. Kung Lao
Kitana talks about having peace with Goro and the Shokan when out of nowhere, Kung Lao attacks Goro with his sharp hat. Kitana is shocked because they had found peace finally and asks that Kung Lao cease. Goro stands up, a scar on his chest now, and Kung Lao tells him that he wanted to avenge Goro for killing his ancestor, The Great Kung Lao. Goro asks if he intends to battle him now, and Kung Lao says that the scar is enough and they shake hands, finding peace. I like this because it adds a little bit more to Kung Lao and shows off his character, as well as Goro's.

https://youtu.be/OibtnGQLFZ4

1. Sektor
So Jax and Sonya are helping de-program Cyrax in a Special Forces base so he can have his humanity back. Cyrax states that despite the risk of it failing and killing him forever, he thinks it's worth it and would rather die otherwise. So Sonya and Jax start the process and Sektor walks in and fucking blasts the entire lab, murdering Sonya, Jax, and Cyrax. And then he just walks away, leaving them all a bloody mess. It's easily the best and coolest ending in the game and it's part of the reason Sektor is so underrated. It's also one of the best put together endings to boot. He's a cold mother fucker.

https://youtu.be/O_CBdflcLAY

Honestly the only two MK4 endings I remember are Scorpion's and Jarek falling to his death

I always thought Reptile's MK4 ending was hilarious

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKjYDNMS65c

I love the contrast between the Quan Chi and Scorpion ones though. Quan Chi's ending shows off his cunning as you said . But in Scorpion's ending he's a fucking idiot.

Don't think I ever saw the Kung Lao one till now. I enjoyed that.

I like Baraka's ending because, he honestly brings up a good point. What does he get out of working for Quan Chi?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCz9aNezwyw

Are there any interesting developer interviews about MK4? It feels like they would have much to share.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/5/3/AATFBfAAElX1.png
Kabal
First Appearance: Mortal Kombat 3
Last Appearance: Mortal Kombat 11

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WE ARE NOW KABALLIN'!

I'll start by saying that Kabal is absolutely rad. But that Kabal is just completely confusing. Arbitrarily, he is super fast, and he has awesome hook blades, but he's also former Black Dragon, but also a police officer, and then he's also a good dude but did bad things, but then he's also always been a bad dude doing bad things. Yeah, he just doesn't make sense sometimes, and there's plenty to make up for that.

Like I said, hook swords rule. That was the first time I ever saw them before was when Kabal was busting them out in MK3. It also helps that he was probably the first ever interpretation of a super speed kharacter in fighting games? And that was fucking cool. Of course, being top tier in MK3 probably helped too with his initial popularity too. But when you put his moveset together with his speed and hook swords, he makes for an extremely kool kharacter.

And the rest of his appearance... kind of works? I like his most modern interpretation in MK11, but earlier on he stood out by looking extremely grudge with his outfit, and bizarre looking with his mask. He just stood out entirely from the rest of the kast in that aspect too.

Let's take a look at his history though, to try and make sense of it.

Kabal was a member of the Black Dragon, alongside Kano, during the Shao Kahn invasion of Earthrealm. And then he got melted, and his throat was slit. Because of this trauma, Kabal decided to become a good guy. But then he got in a fight with Motaro and got bodied, and that douchebag Mavado took his hook swords after it for the Red Dragon, the Black Dragon's rivals.

But it turns out that Havik saved him from death and convinced him to bring back the glory of the Black Dragon, so Kabal became a bad guy again, but still wanted to help Earthrealm. But first, he kicked Mavado's stupid ass and took his hookswords back before recruiting two absolute winners to the Black Dragon named Kobra and Kira. And then he died in Armageddon, but not before failing to convince Taven to join the Black Dragon.

He would then be a formed Black Dragon member that became a cop during the Shao Kahn invasion of Earthrealm, and partners with Stryker, in the reboot timeline. And as a Regular Guy, he got fried by Kintaro. The forces of evil took Kabal's body and then Kano is the one who outfits Kabal with his respirator and other gimmicks. Kabal, still being a good guy now, took Kano and tried to use him to escape, and it was explained that Outworld magic gave him super speed too. I guess. And then Sindel eventually kills him with a stomp to the chest, and Quan Chi owns his soul now and turns him into a Revanent, helping out Quan Chi and Shinnok later on.

His Revanent self is then nuked by Dark Raiden before Kronika messes everything up and brings back Kabal from when he was in Black Dragon... and not scarred or injured? And he has super speed still? It makes no sense. And then Kano lies to Kabal and tells him that Sonya was the one who turned him into a freak and Kabal attacks Sonya, gets beat, and we never see Kabal again.

So yeah, Kabal makes little sense. And you know what else makes no sense? His terrible MK3 fatalities with his scary face and his respirator blowing air into his opponents? Fortunately, the rest of his fatalities make up for that in future games.

I really think that Nether Realm Studios missed a golden opportunity to kind of give Kabal a more grounded kharacter he desperately needs. They were close, but the retcons in MK11 just hurt him more than helped. To their credit, I really like his personality in the reboot trilogy. He's a snarky, cocky bastard that makes me chuckle a lot of times.

But in short, Kabal is another one of these characters who are just outright awesome in terms of presentation. It's when you look deeper into him that he's a problem. But man, his presentation? It's hard to top for a lot of kharacters, and it's no wonder that he's always wanted in future installments. I just wish they could figure something out for him though to make him less of a mess.

He's going to be, at best, a Kameo in the upcoming game, mostly because it seems like the Black Dragon isn't a thing. So we won't be seeing any fix for Kabal anytime soon.

Grade: B+

Related Clips From the 2022 Mortal Kombat Movie:

https://youtu.be/0bMLOauqrBs

Oh hey I get to post this old klassic

https://preview.redd.it/x7vw5wmlcqc21.jpg?width=894&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=c412535ce7d5e54c82c764cbf1207e1f8464f973

God bless Kabal, ruining the competitive integrity of every MK he's in, long may he reign

yeah Kabal in MK11s story was weird. I wasnt into it.

but he was pretty good in the movie

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

Sub-Zero (Kuai Liang)

*reads what starts off perfectly comprehensible, and devolves into a rapid series of bizarre plot verves, retcons, new superpowers, and people being turned into robots*

Man, Mortal Kombat lore really is just a bunch of canonical fanfiction, isn't it? Like, how do you read that and not assume this is based on somebody's AO3 work?

KanzarisKelshen posted...

Oh hey I get to post this old klassic

https://preview.redd.it/x7vw5wmlcqc21.jpg?width=894&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=c412535ce7d5e54c82c764cbf1207e1f8464f973

God bless Kabal, ruining the competitive integrity of every MK he's in, long may he reign

My enduring Kabal memory is watching tournament streams of MK... 9 I want to say? Where every top 8 was dominated by some Kabal doing instant air gas blast over and over again and invalidating the entire rest of the cast. NRS balance is something else.

Kabal will always be cool because hook swords are so fucking cool

MoogleKupo141 posted...

yeah Kabal in MK11s story was weird. I wasnt into it.

but he was pretty good in the movie

Yeah, I love him in the movie with what little they gave him. They need to channel that energy for the games.

azuarc posted...

*reads what starts off perfectly comprehensible, and devolves into a rapid series of bizarre plot verves, retcons, new superpowers, and people being turned into robots*

Man, Mortal Kombat lore really is just a bunch of canonical fanfiction, isn't it? Like, how do you read that and not assume this is based on somebody's AO3 work?

I left out a lot of irrelevant stuff too that I had to skip because Jesus it was so long. But it would only make it more confusing. Like there is so much more convoluted stuff in the MKX Komic that I just had to boil down to the simplest stuff.

And yes, somehow they always make Kabal completely broken in every game. Lol I don't know how they do it every time. Fortunately they are able to patch and nerf him nowadays.