Before I post my complaints, let me start by saying that I am enjoying the core gameplay, which is the most important aspect of the game. Everything below is secondary. So far, I think it's a solid 8/10 game, and there will be much fun to be had with it.
All of my complaints:
-Tower of Time and Krypt - Enough has been said about this. Unforgivably time-consuming to complete everything.
-Having to be online to enjoy the single player content. I honestly have no idea what they were thinking; this is a horrible design choice and the first time I've actually come across something like it. If this was just 4-5 years back, I literally wouldn't even be able to play this game because I wouldn't have had the money to have a decent online connection. Those days are behind me, but this is just bad, especially considering there's a Switch version of the game, in which the main novelty is playing on the go. How can you play on the go when everything relies on online play?
-Revenant skins being the default. Another bad design choice. Why wouldn't you put the main human designs as AT LEAST separate variations at the start? Seeing so much gray on the character select screen is an aesthetic eye sore.
-I'm not a fan of the interface and title screen. A nitpick, but I remember when you started up MK9. The first thing you saw was Scorpion vs Sub-Zero on the title screen, and when you clicked start, BOOM, Scorpion uppercuts him in the face, and you can proceed to whatever mode you wanted to play. In MK11, everything looks so lazily designed, like the front of a web page.
-Not a fan of the character designs. I don't like the photorealistic style. The original MK titles had humans motion-captured for the characters, but the props and costumes gave the games a very American comic book-esque aesthetic. MK9 followed that art style, which I loved. The characters in MK11 just look ugly to me, like they want them to look more like the Mortal Kombat Legacy counterparts. Give me back the comic book style, please.
-Why is Kitana Chinese? I have no issues with her actual design--she's actually one of the better-looking characters. However, it's jarring when you have the character look Hispanic or middle eastern for so many games, and then, out of nowhere, she's... Chinese. Imagine the reactions if Jax turned out to be a white guy, with no explanation given.
-Why is Shao Kahn just a brute? Shao Kahn is supposed to be one of the most powerful and feared characters in the entire franchise, but his presence in the story here was underwhelming. He just came across as a guy who's only strong because he's big--even his voice sounds like that of a mindless brute compared to MK9. To put it in perspective, when he gave Sindel Shang Tsung's souls in MK9, she single-handedly killed almost every Earthrealm warrior at once, including Kitana. You have to assume Shao Kahn has absorbed millions of souls throughout his conquest, considering he's able to readily grant Shang Tsung youth as well, making him far stronger than this Sindel. When he invaded Earthrealm, he effortlessly shoved Sonya and Cage to the side with magic. So how the fizzity-uck does Kitana effortlessly beat him in MK11? Where are all his magical abilities in the cutscenes? He's just some mindless guy with a giant hammer. When a story is centered around fighting, I hate inconsistencies in power scaling so badly. It's poor writing at its core. This is worse than Stryker beating Kintaro and Ermac in MK9.
-Kronika sucks. Aside from not looking imposing in the slightest, there's just no rhyme or reason with this character. She wants to start a new age just because she's butthurt Raiden changed the timeline. But why? Clearly she knows Shao Kahn causes Armageddon in the original timeline, right? Is she also being manipulated by the One Being? Her boring presence and (lack of) goals made the story uninteresting. Also, introducing time travel when this was already done in MK9 is just silly, imo. I feel Kronika should have actually been a SUPPORTING character, while Dark Raiden should have been the main villain. There, it would have made sense for her to stop him, especially if he went on a rampage, killing the Elder Gods. In fact, when I saw the trailers, I figured Dark Raiden would play a pivotal role in the story, but he's killed off at the very f'ing beginning.
-Why do in-game battles influence the cutscenes so much, anyways? My final Story Mode gripe. When you beat a character in-game, they're immediately shown KO'd on the floor in the following cutscene. Why does this need to be the case? We could have the conclusion of the battles shown in cutscenes. This would help with power scaling.
