Do you want NRS to take the story mode out of the game too? I mean, after all, it's a fighting game. There's no need for anything other than pure fighting game 1v1 mechanics, right?
Pretty much every genre on the planet has been dipping into RPG territory since the early 2000s, this is neither new nor remarkable, unless you play literally nothing but fighting games. In which case welcome to gaming in the 2000's, everything is an RPG now, and the vast majority of games are better for it.
And once again? Nah man, I think you're heavily tripping.
Games are doing this RPG shit and usually it's in a very tedious manner because here's a fun fact: some people find RPG's TO be tedious. You're looking at one of them. That's right, I'd rather actually have fun and play a game rather than do some tedious grind to unlock "Woah! A good armor!" so, at least in RPG fashion, ab better one with a new tedious way of getting it gets added in, and all I do is grind for the shit instead of enjoy myself. If that's your thing, COOL. I'm fine with it. Keep it out of shit like this. It. Doesn't. Belong.
And maybe it's because I'm tripping but I feel like once again, MKX at least had it in a better way than this did. I think the proper thing is a more simplistic, search a bigger Krypt for a cosmetic or something of that sort. Sure, have your unlockable goals. You know, maybe win
__ fights with a character, you can earn something. Maybe win this tower on __ difficulty, you unlock something. I'm all about unlockables.
This is definition of a shady ass mechanic. It's very eye brow raising.
As for the your comment earlier on "should fighting games not have story?" Honestly, going off NRS definition of what makes a good story, maybe they'd be better off too, yeah.