MK1 Story Spoilers Discussion

[MateoFoShizzle]

So I liked the story mostly cause it was new..

The only problem I had with it is this…

This is MORTAL KOMBAT… where’s all the psychopaths and killing and gore?! Felt like this game was wayyyy toned down and everyone was either trying to be a good guy or, if you’re a villain, you were a way less evil/powerful version than the ones were used to. I get the idea behind this timeline is Liu Kangs vision of “peace” but come on, we need a little more violence and straight up attempted murder in these games. For Liu kang to even joke that he would never send his champions into “mortal kombat” I thought was kind of weak. I wanna see baraka going HAM on people, Shao being a boss man, scorpion battling his rage, gangs and factions trying to kill each other, etc.

Two odd things I thought too… did NRS take a hard stance against guns this game? no Cassie and Jaqui, jax and Sonya are their pre-special forces gun toting selves, and the only “gun shooting” character is Stryker and even he only uses his taser, grenades and baton.

also, NRS… you need to give us a boss fight. Felt kinda empty just fighting a totally normal Shang and Quan at the end.

overall I did like it but just saying. Also, chick Quan-li had me dying

 

[NeonGroovyGator]

I really liked it. It was stupid as fuck, but that's a breath of fresh air after X and 11 took themselves waayyyyy too seriously. It was a fun ride, and I appreciate it for that.

That's exactly why I liked it way more than X or 11. The tone is just way better and more fitting for a story that's very hard to take seriously, especially the last third or so. That alone makes it much more fun than X or 11 could ever hope to be imo.

 

[iNoScopedJFK]

Seeing my boy Baraka kick ass all the way up that tower at the end to become savior of the timeline just about brought a damn tear to my eye. Thank you for giving me that option NRS.

 

[Law Hero]

Don't have much to say that hasn't been said already. Bad writing throughout, but the first 2/3rds or so of Dom's fanfiction was pretty charming.

Although I liked all of the playable characters, I think this game's story is another victim of the chapter system. Like, Raiden is Earthrealm's champion, and then he just leaves for the rest of the story (until the ending cutscenes). I really wanted to see more of team Earthrealm (Johnny, Raiden, Lao, and Kenshi). I think they actually had really good chemistry, and I found them all likeable.

The job squad though. What is there to say? I guess I would be annoyed at how extremely weak they all are, but considering Liu Kang purposefully made all of the villains bitches in his timeline, I guess it makes sense that they all get wrecked nostop. Anyway, I'd be lying if I didn't say I had a good time despite my complaints.

 

[-PVL93-]

It would have been better had it actually been Kronika, because once you have two Shangs, you stop giving a shit about either of them. Multiple versions make them all less essential.

No, fuck kronika, she was the worst addition to the mortal Kombat universe in this franchise's entire history

 

[-PVL93-]

The job squad though. What is there to say? I guess I would be annoyed at how extremely weak they all are, but considering Liu Kang purposefully made all of the villains bitches in his timeline, I guess it makes sense that they all get wrecked nostop.

NRS continues committing the biggest sin since MK9 - villains get absolutely shat on and don't have a chapter of their own, which makes them look like useless stupid idiots and completely eradicates the fact they're supposed to be a menace

And when we do get to play as villains (baraka, Shang), well this time around they're on the good guys side so they can't job as much anymore

Even Capcom and Namco let us play as villains for a few scenes

 

[Mr.Khen]

Nitara voice acting.....fucking lol

I have a ton of appreciation for Rhonda Rousey now lol

 

[Law Hero]

NRS continues committing the biggest sin since MK9 - villains get absolutely shat on and don't have a chapter of their own, which makes them look like useless stupid idiots and completely eradicates the fact they're supposed to be a menace

And when we do get to play as villains (baraka, Shang), well this time around they're on the good guys side so they can't job as much anymore

Even Capcom and Namco let us play as villains for a few scenes

Honestly, I wish they would just do away with the gameplay in storymode and just make it a movie instead. I really don't need to mash with 17 different characters every five minutes to have a good time in story mode. At least that way they could craft a story that doesn't depend on jobbers getting beat up every other scene just so the player can do something.

 

[Law Hero]

I have a ton of appreciation for Rhonda Rousey now lol

Okay, let's not get too crazy now.

 

[Juggs]

I still don’t understand why Titan Shang would even care about Liu Kang’s timeline after he “magically figured it out”. Like, you have control over an entire universe of your own. Why even risk trying to destroy Liu Kangs timeline/universe?

Also, they didn’t even really show Liu Kang getting his time keeper powers back to I guess become a titan again? Like, they made an emphasis on it maybe not even working, and didn’t even really show the procees.

And once again, why can’t we ever just have a Mortal Kombat story just be a martial arts tournament? I mean, they had one in this game, but it didn’t even feel like a tournament. I honestly thought they were just warming up or testing one another, I didn’t know even realize it was the actual tournament, lol. Martial arts tournaments, especially in universes where people have powers like in DBS, HxH, Baki, etc etc are always so damn cool. Like even the movies can’t stick to just the “Mortal Kombat” tournament. You don’t need there to be all this crazy random shit. And it’s not like they can use the excuse of it being too boring or predictable or anything. Because they’ve written the same story just in 3 slightly different ways now. They keep telling the same exact story. Earthrealms protector gathers fighters for the Mortal Kombat tournament. None of the fighters have any idea about the tournament and the protector has to inform them and get them ready on a super short notice when he could have told them years prior so they could actually get ready. Then the tournament happens and at some point during it, something “unforseen” happens that makes the tournament pointless. And uh oh, turns out the bad guys were planning to conquer all the realms again for really no reason at all other than they just are basically bored. Then the “good guys” try to stop them, and the entire crazy fiasco leads to an Armageddon. Then somehow the timeline gets reset in some way, only to do the same shit all over again.

This is why I never paid attention to MK’s story, always ended up leading to the same inevitability.

I realize this is a fighting game storyline so it’s probably never gonna be some masterpiece storytelling, but still. I could come up with a better storyline by myself than the same exact shit they keep throwing at us.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

I don’t like that Bi Han just fucked off for the rest of the game. Like he was allied with his Shang Tsung, who was opposing Titan Shang with Liu Kang.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

I still don’t understand why Titan Shang would even care about Liu Kang’s timeline after he “magically figured it out”. Like, you have control over an entire universe of your own. Why even risk trying to destroy Liu Kangs timeline/universe?

Also, they didn’t even really show Liu Kang getting his time keeper powers back to I guess become a titan again? Like, they made an emphasis on it maybe not even working, and didn’t even really show the procees.

And once again, why can’t we ever just have a Mortal Kombat story just be a martial arts tournament? I mean, they had one in this game, but it didn’t even feel like a tournament. I honestly thought they were just warming up or testing one another, I didn’t know even realize it was the actual tournament, lol. Martial arts tournaments, especially in universes where people have powers like in DBS, HxH, Baki, etc etc are always so damn cool. Like even the movies can’t stick to just the “Mortal Kombat” tournament. You don’t need there to be all this crazy random shit. And it’s not like they can use the excuse of it being too boring or predictable or anything. Because they’ve written the same story just in 3 slightly different ways now. They keep telling the same exact story. Earthrealms protector gathers fighters for the Mortal Kombat tournament. None of the fighters have any idea about the tournament and the protector has to inform them and get them ready on a super short notice when he could have told them years prior so they could actually get ready. Then the tournament happens and at some point during it, something “unforseen” happens that makes the tournament pointless. And uh oh, turns out the bad guys were planning to conquer all the realms again for really no reason at all other than they just are basically bored. Then the “good guys” try to stop them, and the entire crazy fiasco leads to an Armageddon. Then somehow the timeline gets reset in some way, only to do the same shit all over again.

This is why I never paid attention to MK’s story, always ended up leading to the same inevitability.

I realize this is a fighting game storyline so it’s probably never gonna be some masterpiece storytelling, but still. I could come up with a better storyline by myself than the same exact shit they keep throwing at us.

I’d rather have a grounded game just about a tournament with maybe some attempted assassinations and intrigue on the side like the first 2/3 of MK9.

I think Titan Shang had a bone to pick with this Liu because he is 1:1 the same as the Liu that Titan Shang defeated, other than the fact that Liu won in his timeline. He just hates him I guess.

 

[ZeroBG82]

I still don’t understand why Titan Shang would even care about Liu Kang’s timeline after he “magically figured it out”. Like, you have control over an entire universe of your own. Why even risk trying to destroy Liu Kangs timeline/universe?

Because Shang is a petty fucker who absolutely hates Liu Kang? Just knowing there's a Liu Kang out there with his own timeline is probably enough to drive him to distraction.

 

[Juggs]

I don’t like that Bi Han just fucked off for the rest of the game. Like he was allied with his Shang Tsung, who was opposing Titan Shang with Liu Kang.

Yeah idk why they do that with their story modes. It’s like if a character isn’t apart of a chapter, they’re just fucking off somewhere I suppose. I honestly think they either need to get rid of the chapter structure entirely, or severely alter it. Like I understand they want to force you to use a bunch of the characters, I’m fine with that. But instead of having each chapter be the same character fighting like 4-5 fights, it’d be better to have more chapters with 2 fights per character. And go through the entire roster including the bad guys as someone else mentioned and see it from their side or point of view. And if you don’t want to ruin a surprise or a twist, have the player play as the good guys until the twist, and then after that, either go back in time and have us play the bad guys up until that same point, or have us play the bad guys after the twist or whatever and then switch back at the end.

Regardless, I think forcing you to use every character just with fewer fights per character would be great. It’d allow you to try out every character, it’d be more fun since you’re using someone different a lot, and the fights wouldn’t feel as pointless imo. Like for a lot of the chapters it felt like some of the fights were just random opponents.

Idk, again, I realize this is a story mode in a fighting game, and I typically don’t really care about single player mode stuff in FG’s aside from training mode and what not, but MK has a lot of potential with their story mode.

Also as others mentioned, it definitely felt like they toned down the killing (and the gore in genera) for the story mode in this game. Like, how many people actually died before the end other than Sindel? Which was also near the end as well. Obviously they have to keep a lot of them alive for the actual story, but it just makes all the fights you do feel even more pointless than they already do. Because every time it’s the same thing. Let me beat up this person and then they’ll either run away or we’ll literally knock some sense into them. Oh when someone DOES die, it never seems to be the result of any of your fights. It’d be awesome if some of the deaths were caused directly by you doing a Fatality on the opponent. Or maybe make it a “choose your own adventure” type of scenario where you get to decide if you kill them or let them live. And what you decide determines how some of the story goes.

idk, just rambling. Like I said, there’s just so much potential there. Anyway, that’s all I got ¯\(ツ)/¯

 

[molambo]

I found the story entertaining, not sure what some of you expected in a time where movies like the flash, meg2 etc exist.

I wouldn't be susprised if a aftermath like expansion is going to follow where the focus is again more on the villain side of things.

 

[fr stack]

Did anyone get to fight against quantum chi or was it just me , he looked like a brutish ghoul from fallout 4 lol

 

[ZeroBG82]

Did anyone get to fight against quantum chi or was it just me , he looked like a brutish ghoul from fallout 4 lol

Didn't get that one.

I got Cyber Smoke, Ninja Mime, Quan Li (Quan and Li Mei mashup), ReptiLi (Reptile and LI Mei mashup), Warlord (Raiden/Reiko), Kitana Khan (Kitana with Shao's mask and NASTY charge attack), Screen Demon (Ashrah/Cage) and Frostbite (Nitara/SubZero).

 

[Swindle]

Yeah, I don’t know why it couldn’t have been Quan Chi as Damashi.

 

[Marinjuana]

Dope Storymode. They brought it back to a good place, managed to go crazy over the top with the timeline stuff but still pulled it back. I thought most of what they did was well done, characters were cool. But the final boss fight was super weak they should have thrown in some x factor like they did with Brainiac in Injustice 2, where it was the same character but with extra specials that were very cheap.

I just finished it a minute ago, probably enjoyed it as much as any other story mode NRS has done

 

[kingjolly]

I’m a bit surprised they didn’t go with a much simpler story and instead went for another cosmic level threat involving timelines for a reboot title. It was still entertaining though.

I liked that you could choose whoever you wanted in the final chapter and your character fits seamlessly with the cutscenes and have dialogue. Makes me want to replay the chapter with multiple characters eventually.

 

[zerosebaz]

I’m a bit surprised they didn’t go with a much simpler story and instead went for another cosmic level threat involving timelines for a reboot title. It was still entertaining though.

They should have left the multiverse threat for MK13. Just hint at it in the post credits scene. But yeah, that's not how they work. Next game they are probably even gonna try to top this, with a super titan coming and trying to erase the multiverse or something.

 

[Kiss the Missile]

Liu was easily the MVP of the story. I knew people were tripping when they were trying to say he was a tyrant, turns out he was extra noble and even gave up his power

And then people tried to say he was a "cuck" because he let Johnny go after Kitana. Turns out he didn't want a replication that he created (which would have been hella weird) he wanted the REAL Kitana.

Shoutout to Geras too. Truly holding it down

 

[Dankster Morgan]

Liu was easily the MVP of the story. I knew people were tripping when they were trying to say he was a tyrant, turns out he was extra noble and even gave up his power

And then people tried to say he was a "cuck" because he let Johnny go after Kitana. Turns out he didn't want a replication that he created (which would have been hella weird) he wanted the REAL Kitana.

Shoutout to Geras too. Truly holding it down

Liu and Scorpion were my favorites in the story

 

[ItsYaBoi]

They should have left the multiverse threat for MK13. Just hint at it in the post credits scene. But yeah, that's not how they work. Next game they are probably even gonna try to top this, with a super titan coming and trying to erase the multiverse or something.

The pessimist in me thinks that timelines, Titans etc will always play somewhat of a role in the story from now on.

Which is a damn fucking shame, but I really can see it. Dominic has a hard on for it too much, it won’t change.

 

[Law Hero]

The pessimist in me thinks that timelines, Titans etc will always play somewhat of a role in the story from now on.

Which is a damn fucking shame, but I really can see it. Dominic has a hard on for it too much, it won’t change.

Look, creating meaningful and interesting character conflict takes time and effort. Why do that when you can just create a universe of pure evil people to fight a universe of (mostly) pure good people?