Was there anyway for Midway to unfuck themselves after Mortal Kombat Armageddon? Even without hindsight they wrote themselves into a pretty big hole.

>>11838760 (OP)
not retro but mk9 was about as good of a reboot as you could expect though they fucked it up in no time. The biggest problem is they failed at and continue to fail at developing stuff beyond Kahn, Shang, and unexpected favorite Quan Chi. Shinnok was a decent concept but the execution blows. Onaga is interesting but they never really completed his story, and nothing else is really on the radar unless you promote one of the lesser factions

>>11838810
I agree with this. 9 was a pretty good reboot but then they immediately put themselves in a hole by killing off most of the cast and having them become revenants. MKX had a good story but I feel like they were pushing the new Kombat kids way too hard and way too quickly.
Like the final fight shouldn't have been Cassie vs Corrupted Shinnok. That made Shinnok look like a puss and made Cassie into a Mary Sue. Instead they should've had Johnny Cage fight Shinnok again but this time he dies in the process. Raiden goes dark, Liu Kang and Kitana rule the netherrealm and oh shit here comes Onaga. Then you spend the next game or 2 properly building the new characters while slowly getting the OG kharacters to have their redemption arcs. No time travel bullshit. No timeline reset. Just stick to your guns.
"But this character is dead!"
MK kills off characters and brings them back all of the time. It's okay.

>>11838810
MK9 worked out because not only the reboot plot worked out decently well but it was also a competent 2D fighting game after the 3D era (while somewhat successful) wasn't as well received as the arcade games and the absolute trainwreck that was MKvsDC.
I have no idea what else they could do besides "this good guy reverts the realms back to normal they defeat Blaze."

>>11838917
MK vs DC was critically panned and disliked by the hardcore fans, but it sold well and pretty much led into Netherrealm/MK9 being financed

>>11838810
>Shinnok was a decent concept but the execution blows
It's kinda funny that Shinnok was meant to be the big bad of MK4 yet was so forgettable in his own debut game.

>>11838883
MK9 is one of the most smooth reboots ever. It didn’t hurt that the concept of a reboot was still fairly fresh.

>>11838991
The main problem is that his story and character were completely unoriginal. He was basically a lamer version of Shang Tsung who is also an elder god somehow. He is even ugly to look at, like the green goblin mixed with one of h to r Chinese trade federation dudes from Star Wars

>>11839064
Hes supposed to be basically the devil but he looks like a lame old guy, like he looks like the book keeper of satan not satan himself, he's too much of a jafar, like he looks like a schemer not a fighter

>>11838810
fpbp
My idea was that after Shao Kahn conquered the realms during Armageddon that eventually dozens of slightly differently colored ninjas would form the next era of MK. Imagine Ed Boon saying in an interview, "Fuck it. We give up. Ninjas for days. That's what the fans want so that's what they get."

>>11838760 (OP)
I just got a copy for the OG Xbox. Is literally every character from the series in this game or is it missing someone? I feel like they just went all out w this one (from the marketing at the time and people who played it) and didn’t give a thought to the future is what it seemed like at the time. Unfortunately my friend group had moved onto other multiplayer and party games after we had a blast w deception and deadly alliance. I was probably obsessed w WoW at this point and that’s why I missed out.

>>11839531
Fem Khameleon is missing which is present on gc version
brown ninja (trevor?) from that ps1 adventure game
hornbuckle (considering they added blaze)

>>11839537
I was going to ask how is it the GameCube version got an extra character when they had the smallest storage disc but I see it was a Wii release not a cube one so they had more time to throw stuff in there I guess. Wouldn’t want to play this on the Wii tho…

>>11839559
You can simply plugin in a classic controller or a GameCube controller and play the normally. It really is the definitive version of Armageddon.

>>11838991
I don't think he would have lived up to that expectation if he's just a regular character in the roster

>>11838810
Onaga should’ve won and you have to fight to save Nether Realm in a twist of fate or some shit in the next game. I didn’t like Armageddon because 1 fighting stance and 1 weapon per character felt like a cop out and I wasn’t sold on the gimmick of ALL THE CHARACTERS while fighting a shitty version of Cinder from Killer Instinct

>>11841327
Blaze is from before Cinder. He's a half assed character but he's literally just giving life to a fan rumor that the burning guy in a mk2 background was a secret character

>>11838760 (OP)
>>11838917
3D era MK is the star wars prequels of MK at this point. they weren't as well received by hardcore fans at the time but the kids who grew up on them are way more vocal about them now while the older hardcore fans either moved on or are just sticking to 1, 2, 3, trilogy or 9.

>>11841574
Kinda true but they also weren't as poorly received as hardcores online made it seem for years. Like I'm in between, I played the 90s games my whole waking childhood but I was a teen during the 3D era and lots of casual FG fans still bought these games, them and Tekken were the most common ln that era for me where like only true nerds cared about much else as FPS took over the normies brains for couch multiplayer

That’s fair as my friend group only played mk because we weren’t supposed to as kids. By the time I could afford games, yea MK 3d were quickly established as party games alongside Mario party and soul calibur. However, I think the key difference is MK has always been cheesy and the pros are a niche especially at that point and given the absolute train of great games constantly coming out MK stayed relevant at the time for being a party game. Without the casual to lap it up, doubtful the series would’ve survived. Also the OG trilogy is the pinnacle of adventure movie where as the prequels were always hot trash. I have no idea from a hardcore point of view if the actual meat and bones of the game is trash because everyone in my friend group only played it when we… well had our group together.

>>11838760 (OP)
>all this discussion about lore
>literally nothing about gameplay mentioned

>>11841619
for me mortal kombat is trilogy, armageddon & MK9

the rosters in other MK games either feel too small or unfinished imo. i still kinda wish the reboot era had that "everyone is here" game like the 2D & 3D eras had instead of gimmicky shit like variations or cameos.

>but they also weren't as poorly received as hardcores online made it seem for years.
they probably weren't but considering that it took NRS 4 games to really start fully embracing those games again i do think there was at least some pushback on the 3D era newcomers.

like i don't think you'd have hype for characters like li mei, ashura, havik, reiko, nirata or even tanya, fujin, kenshi and bo rai cho 14 years ago like you do with classics like scorpion, mileena or raiden.

>>11841574
>>11841826
Yeah, for most casual MK fans(i.e. most fans), the 3d games seemed like a return to form after the garbage of the MK4/spinoff era where nearly everyone lost interest in the series.
They brought back the dark kung-fu aesthetic and they were legitimately fun to play.
Haters are definitely a vocal minority. It doesn't matter to most people that they aren't good "competitive" games, because no one in the world except like 50 people play MK that way. MK and MK2 are also godawful competitive games.

>>11842056
MK lore has always been as much of a draw as the gameplay, you can discuss either but the 3D era gameplay was weird
>3d movement was pretty much fine
>multiple fighting styles per character were awkwardly implemented and lead to more unintentional(?) comedy
>weapons is a cool idea, but as like animalities, gets stretched thin and leads to some....odd choices for the sake of variety

>>11842870
>like i don't think you'd have hype for characters like li mei, ashura, havik, reiko, nirata or even tanya, fujin, kenshi and bo rai cho 14 years ago like you do with classics like scorpion, mileena or raiden.
Nah but I remember some always being kinda liked, such as Fujin, Kenshi, and Nitara.

Tanya is only notable to me because of a psycho fangirl of hers on an MK message board, and Reiko has had meme status on his side. Admittedly I kind of like the newer designs they've given him, he kind of looks like a definitive "Outworld kombatant" character now, but character wise he's still pretty empty

>>11842880
MK4 was also effected by, I feel, the whopper of a shit show MK Annihilation was and also similar to SF oversaturation. By then MK had become a TMNT like entity, live action tv shows, theater performances etc

>>11841574
Back then I hated 6th gen Kombat games besides Shaolin Monks but now I do enjoy them, the gameplay isn't as polished as other 3D fighters of the era and most of the characters were very shitty but it was still enjoyable, tons of single player content too which is always a good thing in fighting games (seriously, modern fighting games could learn a few things from it, not everyone wants to play online against sweatlords grinding ranked all day).
>MK1 and 2 are godwaful competitive games
Funny enough I enjoy watching competitive MK2, besides shit like that gay jab jail thing (thats also in umk3), its fun to watch.

>>11843857
Competitive classic MK is something else literally, just crazy juggling and special spamming. It's nothing like SF but round housing people to the other side of the screen and being able to teleport attack opens a lot of fun bullshit even if it's not based on meticulously practicing combos

>>11844159
It's a missed opportunity imo. UMK3 is an objectively good competitive game but with Trilogy they threw balance out of the window and never tried again. They should've made a separate 2D mortal kombat sub series. There WAS a market, considering how many ppl were into MvsC2.

>>11838760 (OP)
If only the story was the only problem.

If they kept the cool, or at least the charmingly funny, sexy aspects,
the bad story could've been tolerated.

But if to the bad story, you add the ugly women,
the forcing themselves to cover, or censor, or tone down,
or force ugly stuff into the visuals.

And you add the uninteresting music with no emotion put into it.

The unfinished game at lunch with many DLC characters that come in "packs"
but you have to wait for each to come out one at the time across months.

It's not just one problem, and those things fuse and become the biggest problem.

>>11842880
Legitimately don’t know, but do the MK 3d games have a decent tournament scene? I’ve watched only a little bit of evo (I think that’s what it was called) tournaments but I have never seen MK 3d played at a super high level. Also, how does MK 1 compare to the 3d era? I want to get decent at the 6th gen era but it doesn’t seem like it would be as rewarding or fun as say a street fighter 3, alpha 3, or a few other capcom titles. Before Armageddon it’s like 3 fighting styles and 3 weapons for each character if iirc that seems like a lot to learn just to be halfway decent and not button mashing.

>>11838810
Is MK9 really a reboot? It continues the events of MKA and faithfully recreates the first three games. Come to think of it, Mortal Kombat has never had a true reboot. Even MK1 is technically a sequel to MK12. In fact, the original Raiden retains all the memories associated with every game in the franchise.

>>11838810
>>11838883
>tryhard mainstream street fighter sellout crap
>***good***

>>11844490
>Even MK1 is technically a sequel to MK12
no MK12 was a hard reboot until they pulled the multiversal bullshit in the end to have "muh canon mirror matches" like the time travel bullshit from MK11.

basically every arcade ending, every adaptation, every reboot and every retelling is canon now. the lore & story is pretty much dead.

>>11844896
Some endings will be canon

>>11844516
>MK9 is a mainstream street fighter sellout
>because it went back to 2d, the thing the series began as, and only became 3d to fit in with the tekken/soul calibur trend
weird argument

once you're cucked you can't be uncucked, you're cucked forever