Not in nearly the same way, and most people had lots of fun with it because it was significantly better gameplay than the 3D era.
I also don't have an issue with Chess Kombat or other mini-games returning. Marlow was asking if it was fun, and the answer was the chess part was goal, but the actual fighting mechanics of the 3D era were not enjoyable at all and thus the mode was not fun for what it was.
Yeah, except we didnt have MK11 to compare to MKD's mechanics back then, so not sure what your argument is?
It seems to me that you didn't enjoy MKD gameplay itself, which is a perfectly valid opinion and, therefore, didn't enjoy chess kombat (because it, well, had MKD gameplay intertwined with it). That is all fine and dandy but it is significantly different than chess kombat not being fun itself, which was your original argument.
Chess Kombat was fun.
Trying to dodge infinte homing missiles in MK11's Towers of Time was not.
Both had their respective game's core base gameplay at its foundation.
I loved it and it got me to try multiple different character and strategize more effectively. Characters had different health pools too so you'd have like your pawns with lower health than your queen or knight(different names like sorcerer was one of I recall). I would gladly play it again in a new game....it would probably be phenomenal now.
You could also not use offensive/defensive spells if your offensive/defensive sorcerer was killed! I thought that was very neat.