[Poll] What did you think about MK11's story?

[Deleted member 57944]

After giving in to spoilers and watching the entire story mode on YouTube (which was around 4 hrs 30 mins), I couldn't believe what I just watched.

What just happened?

The major problem with the story mode is that there are so many useless characters that have no relevance to the story when they could have made a huge impact.
I only listed two examples of background characters, but there are painstakingly much more.
Frost had potential as a character they could have made more likable, but instead, is constantly whining about how the Sub-Zero and Raiden ignored her and didn't care about her enough so she joined Team Kronika.
Cetrion is an ELDER GOD who was supposed to be on the side of good, but she is mommy's little girl and can't see that her mom is not helping the world by changing the timeline?
There are certain characters that are meant to be a jobber in the story, but it gets repetitive when you have half the cast playing that same role in multiple different ways.

 

[Kindred]

I think the major problem with the story mode is that people expect a fighting games story to have no plotholes with 10+ characters flushed out with compelling story/character arcs. That aint happening.

My expectations werent high so I found it alright, it had its moments and a fair share of nonsensical occurrences as well.
But ultimately, I see it as an entertaining few hours and move on to the real fun, getting better with characters and kicking ass online

 

[NothingPersonal]

While I agree with you, that a bunch of characters got almost no development (Cetrion could've just not been in the story entirely, Frost had a lot more potential, Kollector started great but then just went into goon territory, Cyrax had a story, but went by in a flash etc.), if you take these out, the overall story is a pretty good write-up. There are three possible sollutions imo:

1. Take out these characters that don't have any significant roles in the story (but you are left with characters without any personality against others with story, which is bad).
2. Make the story longer and develop all characters as much as possible (which would consume a lot of time and effort).
3. Create a story mode without interruptions and chapters which will then give chance to develop all characters in a linear arc independent fo the mandatory presence in chapters (but this one will eliminate player interactivity altogether, again eliminating a level of bonding with characters).

I am content with the compromise we have at the moment: all characters are in, some are more developed than others, the story feels complete overall and the interactivity level is acceptable. Maybe they should've done more chapters with two characters and more endings, but I'm OK with what we have.

 

[Lt. Boxy Angelman]

I think the major problem with the story mode is that people expect a fighting games story to have no plotholes with 10+ characters flushed out with compelling story/character arcs. That aint happening.

My expectations werent high so I found it alright, it had its moments and a fair share of nonsensical occurrences as well.
But ultimately, I see it as an entertaining few hours and move on to the real fun, getting better with characters and kicking ass online

I agree. It's the thing you get under your belt to warm up and move on to what you're really there to do.
But I am curious, about you and others who've said it, why people have such low expectations for the stories in their fighting games.

 

[TaserFace007]

I thought that it was a really cool and interesting story. Kitana and Sonya were the best versions of those characters we've seen yet, the Johhnys and Kanos were fucking hilarious, the main plot with Raiden and Liu Kang was well done and the whole PTSD Jax thing was a cool addition.
The ending would have been better as a Liu Kang tower ending, though, as opposed to the actual canon for the series. MK9 and MKX ended with a lot of exciting and interesting plot threads which I looking forward to seeing the resolution of in the next game. Now, I guess we get another reboot?

 

[HeavyNorse]

I'll tell you my opinion once I've played it through tomorrow. ^^

 

[Shirakani]

Its ok. I have no expectations for this sorta thing so it kinda eh's me.

My favorite bits were the Johnny Cage bits, of course. There's just something totally frigging wrong with the ENTIRE scenario, yet so RIGHT at the same time

 

[Kindred]

I agree. It's the thing you get under your belt to warm up and move on to what you're really there to do.
But I am curious, about you and others who've said it, why people have such low expectations for the stories in their fighting games.

Heres the thing, the game has many characters in it and each one has its legion of fans. Game developers know this so they dont want to cheat them so they include them all in the story. That's cool but that also creates a problem, you can't flush out that many characters in a 3h story.

The result is that many of them will have to act out of character in order to move the plot forward and others will have shorter and less interesting story arcs. All fighting game stories have to do this, so you end up with weaker stories and plotholes. It's inevitable. Other games like shooters typically follow one main protagonist. Hell, some games dedicate an entire game for 1 protagonist and the sequel to another (Starcraft 2).

For MK, on paper, Liu Kang is the main character. But he is absent for many parts of the story, he is already well known by the fans and so the directions they take him usually follow the same plot thread. The merging of Liu and Raiden was actually one of the cooler aspects of the story this time around. But yea, people shouldnt be surprised if characters get put on the side or have minimal involvement. It's a necessity to warrant a place on the roster.

 

[Prateek Shekhar]

Cetrion to Raiden: "Wanna stop Kronika? Find her time keep and get the hourglass"
Also Cetrion, 10 mins later: "Fuck you raiden. Mommy knows best"

Wtf why tell him about the hourglass in the first place then?

 

[Krankk]

I voted for "It's alright". After watching the story, I was slightly underwhelmed. I mean, the story had great production value and so on, but it just didn't pull me in as much as the MK9 story did. Or even the MKX story to a lesser extent than the MK9 story.

In MK9 there was a looot of stuff going on. There was tons and tons of fan service and an ever evolving plot. In MK11 it was more like one simple plot point, which was known from the very beginning until the very end and then pretty much mostly overall meh-stuff in between. There were like only 1-3 moments, which sparked my interest. And none of those moments had anything to do with deaths... since the deaths in MK11... kiiindaaa don't even matter due to the time travel stuff (except for one death).

IMO, when it comes to story modes in modern NRS fighting games it's like this:

MK9 > Injustice 1 > Injustice 2 > MKX > MK11

 

[RothVI]

It alright. It not subtle or nuanced. It tasteless and lukewarm... but it alright.

 

[mattteo]

It was so bad it's almost like a comedy.

But it's not even funny anymore after the fuck-ups with MK9 and MKX.

Just go back to the adventure story like Shujinko's and Taven's and renounce this chapter based story if they can't give chapters to the bad guys

 

[RYX]

It ain’t easy building a narrative centered around 20+ characters. Something’s gonna get lost along the way.

would be easier if the entire storyline wasn't you getting to play the GOOD GUYS and the GOOD GUYS ALWAYS WINNING huh?

 

[Consagrado]

It was better than MKX imo, I found some chapters to be pretty interesting (like Jade's fro exemple) but overall, it's alright;

I think Noob, Skarlet and Cetrion should have more development...

 

[Blizer]

It ain’t easy building a narrative centered around 20+ characters. Something’s gonna get lost along the way.

I mean, yea pretty much

After watching the story fully, and thinking about it, its good tbh


There are definite flaws, and pretty bad usage of some characters (Cetrion, and the only chapter appearance of Dark Raiden)

It could have been alot worse aswell, but time travel is a hard thing to write about. The Ending may not have been the best, but it ends on a note that is quite positive, and it allows the writers to comeback to it later, and draft new ideas, as they have a blank canvas for them (Again)

 

[Dankster Morgan]

It was okay, there was some stuff I liked. Sub/Scorpion's chapter, Johnny's chapter, and Sonya's chapter were all really good. To me, almost every character seemed cool, except Frost, Noob Saibot, and Cetrion were all lame jobbers.

They made both Kahns so lame though. Kotal spent the entire game either beating down jobbers or getting his nutsack kicked in. Dude gets crippled and loses to Jade, its pathetic. He legit gets rendered disabled in a universe where Johnny and Cassie Cage beat up Shinnok and Jax/Jacqui beat up Cetrion. Pretty sad. Shao Kahn gets KILLED by Kitana. Kitana is no joke but looking at her wins/losses(and this is MK2 era Kitana), she has lost to several characters who are certainly nowhere near Shao Kahn.

Hanzo getting killed by D'Vorah sneaking up on him was infuriating, but damn NRS did a great job making D'Vorah an effective and hateable villain. Made no sense why Kuai Liang would leave Hanzo there by himself, he had no reason to leave early.

Of course there was a few inconsistencies with the time stuff. Old Johnny beats the shit out of young Johnny and is fine, but when Sonya is beating down young Kano, old Kano is flinching.

Coulda been worse though. I'm calling bullshit on "fighting games stories are destined to be bad" because both Injustice games have fairly good stories. MK9 isn't too bad either in all honesty.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

Oh and to make matters worse for Kotal, first he gets cucked out of his throne, then Kitana just becomes the keeper of time anyways. Dude is gonna spend the next millennia getting wheeled around by Jade lol, I woulda rather him just died.

 

[Blizer]

Oh and to make matters worse for Kotal, first he gets cucked out of his throne, then Kitana just becomes the keeper of time anyways. Dude is gonna spend the next millennia getting wheeled around by Jade lol, I woulda rather him just died.

Yeah, NRS has not used him well tbh, and has been shafted this game for sure

Also, yes i do see Jade being the Dominant one in that relationship lul

 

[RYX]

NRS cucks half of their roster into jobber turf again and every bad guy is just comically incompetent at being bad. There's no tension in the story at all when there's not a single bad guy who actually has a victory and the best they do is just stall the story out for Kronika to do her thing (which she also fails)

Noob jobs it up, Kano gives Sonya an eternity to fuck him over and keep her family too, Shao Kahn goes from requiring Elder Gods supercharging Raiden to getting solo'd by his fake daughter who got HER ass beat by complete randoms like Smoke in MK9. Kotal gets fucked like eight different ways and I'm especially salty about that because they hyped him up so hard just for him to lose his throne and his legs. D'Vorah jobs except she gets a free pass to cheap-shot kill Scorpion in a cutscene, which is bullshit. Every single villain is used poorly.

Just give me some bad-guy chapters so they can actually do stuff and contribute to the plot. Jesus, it's not hard. Why even include half these guys in the story if all they're gonna do is say like one or two cool lines and then lose every fight they appear in?

For how obvious the girl power pandering is in this game starting from chapter 1 where NRS tries its hardest to make you think Cassie and Jacqui are cool characters, it's honestly insulting to elevate them by making everyone they come up against a complete pushover. It'd be far more helpful to Kitana, Jade and the Kombat Girls if they actually had some hardships to go through in the conflict and all of their big bads (Shao, Kano etc) didn't go out like complete wimps.

And holy god, FUCK OFF WITH THE SPECIAL FORCES. MK9 is still the most aesthetic MK reboot game because it doesn't muddy down the formula with fucking gunplay. Why is half the story mode watching Jacqui/Cassie/Johnny run around with rifles doing action-thriller bullshit? Give me martial arts and monster dudes. That's the formula. Stop fucking it up; Special Forces is garbage and the worst faction in new-MK continuity and I'm god damn sick of it being the focus.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

Yeah, NRS has not used him well tbh, and has been shafted this game for sure

Also, yes i do see Jade being the Dominant one in that relationship lul

Honestly how could she not be? Outside of Goro (in the comics that is), I can't think of one powerful character that Kotal beat. It's a total mindfuck how he was Kahn for as long as he was tbh. Shao Kahn beats his ass in HIS OWN chapter, Jade makes him look like a bitch in her chapter, and then of course in Kitana's chapter. Even she was mindfucked at how willing he was to give up his throne. Also fuck Jade for not liking Kotal because he had a "bad heart" for wanting to kill Baraka and the Tarkatans. This is MK2 Jade who just a second ago was fighting for outworld for Shang Tsung with the intention of allowing Shao Kahn to conquer earth, and has been one of Shao Kahn's guards for fuck knows how long. But Kotal is too cruel for wanting to kill these canibals who have been trying to kill him for a while. Even his own girlfriend beats the shit out of him with the most terrible logic ever leading to him almost getting executed, then getting crippled. Niceeeeee

 

[DragonofDadashov24]

It was shit. Look up my rant to see more

 

[mattteo]

MK9 isn't too bad either in all honesty.

I'm sorry but MK9 was a travesty as well. Ever since these new writers have taken over from John Vogel, Jon Greenberg and Alexander Barrentine, the stories have been horrible.

MK9's additions to the MK1-3 lore were:
-Sub gets turned into a cyborg instead of Smoke
-Kung Lao gets his neck snapped in the Arena
-Sindel kills half the cast in 1 scene
-an ending in which Liu Kang dies from Raiden's incompetence

Everyone who ever had an issue with the 3D era writing: APOLOGIZE TO JOHN VOGEL AND BRING HIM BACK!!

We should do a petition or something

EDIT: Petition here for whoever agrees with me, resons explained the thread inside too

https://testyourmight.com/threads/petition-let-vogel-greenberg-and-barrentine-be-the-main-writers-for-mortal-kombat-again.69255/#post-2490390

 

[nfdsallwd]

i think it was awful but with some hilarious moments, though the funny stuff mostly wasn't intentional. didn't expect anything good so it didn't disappoint.

 

[Chints]

I agree. It's the thing you get under your belt to warm up and move on to what you're really there to do.
But I am curious, about you and others who've said it, why people have such low expectations for the stories in their fighting games.

Because it's guaranteed to be a 4-5 hour affair at maximum. If it were a 20 hour affair and it still sucked, then we'd be wondering why they even bothered spending so much time trying to write a story in the first place.

For 4 hours, I pretty much go in with the mindset of "this is going to be a silly but fun time. All I need to do is turn my brain off and enjoy the ridiculousness." Because of this mentality I loved the story. It was exactly what I wanted. Cheesy one liners, over the top plot, people beating the shit out of each other, explosions, cyborgs, saving the universe.

 

[Quantus]

I was liking it just fine until the ending. Felt incredibly "whatever" and kinda fell flat for an ending.