MKF30
Fujin and Ermac for MK 11
I also played it religiously as I do every MK game, while I can't afford something like Evo like ever I did play in a bunch of locals in that game as well as TYM's hosted online tourneys and yes you're correct I did play the 3D MK's including the most broken ones(not just the ones Evo worthy like a lot of players out there) as well as every MK that came before from MK 1-current. Though they have made solid games like UMK3 and MK 2. Hell, even MK 4 while it may not be the most popular in the series, is a viable game that can easily be played at tournaments. MK vs DC was fun in it's own right had they only fixed Superman, Flash infinites and the DLC that was planned for it with Quan Chi and Harley, but Midway had already died by that time. At any rate, I did play the 3D games but I also played the older games a ton as well. I play/played every and all MK's. Where as most people fall into one genre of MK, I play them all even to this day. As someone who grew up as a kid playing MK, I can easily tell you MK is their best when 2D as oppose to 3D for sure. Like I said earlier, no franchise is perfect and they all at times have had flops and hits. MK is no different. It's what most of us here prefer but obviously nothing is flawless.Mortal Kombat 9 was special in the sense that the game was NRS's first attempt at a competitive fighting game after a succession of embarrassingly broken fighting games. You played the 3D Mortal Kombat games and you know exactly what they were like. Mortal Kombat 9 will always be remembered as giving birth to the modern NRS community, as forming local scenes and friendships that continue to last to this day. The game itself, however, is degenerate, a catastrophically unbalanced piece of mess that is plagued with bugs, glitches, and irregularities. Mortal Kombat 9 was beyond repair in its coding and no "one more patch please" or "remastered version" could have saved the game. Mortal Kombat 11 is objectively better in every single way. As were the finished versions of Mortal Kombat X and Injustice 2. I say so as someone who played Mortal Kombat 9 religiously and placed top 8 at EVO.
I can be here all day getting into why with numerous elements but I'll just use this one example as one of many reasons why MK 11 isn't as good as people think. From REO himself btw, and I happen to agree.
FTR, I'm not saying MK 9 is perfect by any means, but then neither is MK 11. There are lots of things in this game that are dumb, unbalanced, glitchy, inconsistent and just not good. Now, to be fair MK 11 has a lot more support and money than MK 9 did, MK 9 could have used a patch or two more and would have been nearly perfect along with a redone netcode. That being said, the game was still a lot more fun to me at least than MK X and MK 11. Not saying they're bad, I don't think any NRS game is "bad" per-se but it's obvious not everyone who plays NRS games thinks MK 11 is their best game ever. I've read a lot of people on here and elsewhere say they prefer different NRS games. Some like MK 9, others MK X, some I2 and others MK 11. They're all good in their own right, but honestly we don't really know that MK 9 is "beyond repair" there's people out there who literally do their own patch up versions of FG's including UMK3, MKT and MK 9. If they can do it, I have no doubt NRS can if they hired the right people with WB's money. Question is do they and would they.