What Happened, NRS?!

[YagamiFire]

Cinema Sins tier media analysis. DING!

We get it. You're desperately in need of attention. I'm sorry you didn't have a dad in your life. Get over it. He clearly did.

 

[Law Hero]

To write yourself in such a corner to the point you had to self reboot even though we basically just freshly rebooted in mk 9 just shows how trash it was.

I remember an interview with Boon before MKX was released where he was asked about where the story would go after MKX since it was 30 years in the future and everyone was old, and his response was something like, "Haha, we actually haven't thought that far ahead yet, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there." I think it's pretty safe to say that the story and its quality comes second to most everything else in the game, which I should mention isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is the reality of the MK franchise.

When it comes to story, whether it's in a game, movie, or novel, I believe it's never a good idea to take it more seriously than the writer(s) takes it. If you're more invested in something than the people that actually made it, you're just setting yourself up for disappointment.

 

[YagamiFire]

I believe it's never a good idea to take it more seriously than the writer(s) takes it.

I agree with this and think it's good advice but I think there's something to be said for when people come onto a project for something that has a long history and proceed to half-ass the job. As a comic reader, they're obviously superheroic stuff where some things are not going to be perfect or 1:1 to reality by their very nature BUT they are also a serial form of story-telling where it's incumbent on an incoming writer to do their best to respect what has come before and integrate it into what they present because people do get invested in things they enjoy.

 

[PrinceGoro]

My suggestion is stick to the comics. TBH I think the bulk of people couldn't give a shit about power dynamics - they just want a dumb, fun story.

I do not mean this in a disrespectful way, but the narritive you are looking for is alligned with comic books rather than ensemble video games.

i dont exactly know what you mean when you say stick to the comics,uhhhm i dont read comics,and as for thr mkx ones yeah i saw them and though it was better then the joke that is the mk x game story,the mkx pre release comics were not that great either.

it doesnt matter if its a movie or a game,power levels matter in a story,its part of establishing the actual setting and the world of a particular fictional story.and when it comes to already established franchises it is equally important to respect the established rules and lore of the univers,if lets say in star wars a random b1 battle droid suddenly comes and bitch slaps a jedi master all by himself, in a straight up fight,people in the audiance would scratch their heads and ask themselves wft is this.

like whats your point even,that you like horrible writting and when writters shit on source material?
well good for you i guess.

 

[PrinceGoro]

I remember an interview with Boon before MKX was released where he was asked about where the story would go after MKX since it was 30 years in the future and everyone was old, and his response was something like, "Haha, we actually haven't thought that far ahead yet, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there." I think it's pretty safe to say that the story and its quality comes second to most everything else in the game, which I should mention isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is the reality of the MK franchise.

When it comes to story, whether it's in a game, movie, or novel, I believe it's never a good idea to take it more seriously than the writer(s) takes it. If you're more invested in something than the people that actually made it, you're just setting yourself up for disappointment.

you dont need to plan super far ahead in order to have a good or a decent story,the story in mk was never something mega spectacular that people take super seriouse,but it was interesting and it had unique charm,and mk x and 11 pretty much ruined the 30 years of established lore.

Me being displeased with that doesnt mean i take it super seriouse.Nowadays the devs seem to be more interested on how to be an ally to the ultra left agenda and worry about how many references to it can they cram in their games then making good stories.

also if a hired writter doesnt give a damn about the thing he is writting for and doesnt care how it impacts the franchise he is working for,then he shouldnt write and be payed for that in the first place,but again esoecially in the modern day of enterteiment in the USA writers get jobs based on poltical affiliation,specifically ultra left,shitting on the franchises they get to work on and just looking to spew their agenda.

 

[Juxtapose]

yes they are.

No.

Why bother caring about power differentials in a fighting game with ensemble cast? It is not a comic and is meant to be fun and simple narritive where anything can happen. Cassie beating Shinnok with some mysterious green power was somewhat fun and much more interesting than Liu beating him yet again.

If you are wanting outcomes to be based on true power rankings only, each game would come down to something like Liu Kang (or whoever you think has the right power differential) beating <insert whatever boss is the big bad> every time. All of the other characters would be just farting around doing some sort of irrelevant shit. That is fine for a comic or an adventure game, but for a fighting game with a cast of characters, it really isnt. That was about the only good thing about MKDA is it stopped that boring arse cycle of Liu Kang wins again!

Well written.

Another thing I do these days when sitting down to a story is looking at the creative's/writer's intentions. Are they trying to create a story masterpiece? Are they trying to create a good story? A b-tier story? Or a "summer blockbuster" filled with cheese and fun?

Not every story in media need to be revolutionary, and silly/fun stories absolutely have their place. I'm not going to hold Mortal Kombat to the same standard, as say, The Elder Scrolls or even Halo, because the type of story trying to be created here is completely different.

If NetherRealm was going on about how their story was a new standard of immersive narrative, yadda, yadda, yadda, that would be different and then I'd criticize more. They're clearly going for a comic book styled summer block buster feel with their stories. While that won't be everyone's cup of tea, I'm going to judge it based on those merits.

 

[chrisisnice]

it doesnt matter if its a movie or a game,power levels matter in a story,its part of establishing the actual setting and the world of a particular fictional story.and when it comes to already established franchises it is equally important to respect the established rules and lore of the univers,if lets say in star wars a random b1 battle droid suddenly comes and bitch slaps a jedi master all by himself, in a straight up fight,people in the audiance would scratch their heads and ask themselves wft is this.

I would hardly say Cassie Cage was comparable to a random battle droid. Not only was she the main character in the whole story, she was the daughter of two main characters in the previous game.

It is pretty normal in a movie or game to follow the main character in their journey to doing something extraordinary. That is what happened. Do you have to like it? No. But that is how movies work.

 

[Rude]

you dont need to plan super far ahead in order to have a good or a decent story,the story in mk was never something mega spectacular that people take super seriouse,but it was interesting and it had unique charm,and mk x and 11 pretty much ruined the 30 years of established lore.

Me being displeased with that doesnt mean i take it super seriouse.Nowadays the devs seem to be more interested on how to be an ally to the ultra left agenda and worry about how many references to it can they cram in their games then making good stories.

also if a hired writter doesnt give a damn about the thing he is writting for and doesnt care how it impacts the franchise he is working for,then he shouldnt write and be payed for that in the first place,but again esoecially in the modern day of enterteiment in the USA writers get jobs based on poltical affiliation,specifically ultra left,shitting on the franchises they get to work on and just looking to spew their agenda.

This is pretty unhinged and it shows severe ignorance on how...anything works, really.

 

[Rude]

i dont exactly know what you mean when you say stick to the comics,uhhhm i dont read comics,and as for thr mkx ones yeah i saw them and though it was better then the joke that is the mk x game story,the mkx pre release comics were not that great either.

it doesnt matter if its a movie or a game,power levels matter in a story,its part of establishing the actual setting and the world of a particular fictional story.and when it comes to already established franchises it is equally important to respect the established rules and lore of the univers,if lets say in star wars a random b1 battle droid suddenly comes and bitch slaps a jedi master all by himself, in a straight up fight,people in the audiance would scratch their heads and ask themselves wft is this.

like whats your point even,that you like horrible writting and when writters shit on source material?
well good for you i guess.

When has MK ever had established "power levels?"

Bear in mind, Liu Kang wasn't "the chosen one" in the original MK. He was just a well trained shaolin monk and he beat up an actual God in Raiden.

Suffice it to say, there have never been "power levels" in MK, and if there ever actually were, they absolutely were never consistent.

Anime brain rot.

 

[YagamiFire]

it doesnt matter if its a movie or a game,power levels matter in a story,its part of establishing the actual setting and the world of a particular fictional story

I would point out that it's actually most important for stakes. I think some people kind of struggle with voicing how and why things feel weird with 'power levels' or whatnot in stories because what they are actually being bothered by are the inconsistent stakes and the undermining of those stakes. When, for instance, we see that Shao Kahn has been ruler of Outworld for thousands of years and is established as stronger than a god, the most powerful evil sorcerer around, a warrior par excellence, and a physical powerhouse, it establishes stakes that this guy is a major threat and that overcoming him is difficult/unlikely.

When we then are presented Shao Kahn as someone that is nothing but a brute who seems to be, frankly, pretty stupid and who is easily outwitted by people around him, has no capability beyond physicality and doesn't seem like he could manage a lemonade stand while losing to a character that has taken nothing but Ls in her entire existence (Kitana), the problem is not really power levels for why this feels weird...it's because the stakes have been undermined. Suddenly this character that was a huge threat is easily dispatched in a straight-up fight by someone that has been under his heel with no hope of resisting him for thousands of years...supposedly because of his unassailable power. It makes everything that came before feel like pantomime. Like it was totally artificial and just at the whims of the writer.

It'd be similar to Pippin crushing the One Ring when it became inconvenient to the Fellowship (though not as severe). Stakes were established then were thrown out.

This is similarly why "the green glow" feels bad dramatically in the opening of MKX with Johnny. JC is a total bum in MK9. He starts out the story and gets a couple wins (against the worst jobbers in game history) and then proceeds to eat L after L after L after embarrassing L. Nonstop. Then we get a cliffhanger with Shinnok. A couple fights into MKX we then get "Oh actually we're going to suddenly acknowledge the green effect on Johnny's attacks and now say that this makes him strong enough to SPECIFICALLY defeat Shinnok...the guy we just used as a huge cliffhanger stinger for the previous game to set up this one". It comes off as an asspull. It was not set-up and it was not foreshadowed and it feels totally hollow. It just serves as a silver bullet to beat Shinnok to get us to where the story wants to go.

The same goes for Cassie doing the same thing even if we can say "oh but yeah now HER powers were foreshadowed by Johnny's in the opening"...but that's an issue because Johnny's set-up was poorly done...and because it's so painfully obvious and isn't tied to any kind of character arc really.

A lot of modern writing REALLY struggles with stakes. They either undermine villains and threats or overpower characters with very poorly defined/limited abilities. Sometimes both.

 

[PrinceGoro]

This is pretty unhinged and it shows severe ignorance on how...anything works, really.

whats unhinged about it lol,the fact that its true and you cant say anything else to try and minimize it haha.

lmao dude you are hilarious,you cant even get trolling right and thats supposed to be your strong point.How many more profile posts are you going to make referencing my post lmao,safe to say you are the triggerd one.

 

[Son ov Timett]

whats unhinged about it lol,the fact that its true and you cant say anything else to try and minimize it haha.

lmao dude you are hilarious,you cant even get trolling right and thats supposed to be your strong point.How many more profile posts are you going to make referencing my post lmao,safe to say you are the triggerd one.

Rude's only verbal tactic is quoting and stating "this is unhinged." Dude is insulated in his own one man bubble and has a very delusional opinion of himself. Idk where he came from, but cat is a joke. Dont take him serious bruh, he desperately wants to get a job working at NRS in the mail room over his current job mopping the floor at steak n shake.

 

[PrinceGoro]

When has MK ever had established "power levels?"

Bear in mind, Liu Kang wasn't "the chosen one" in the original MK. He was just a well trained shaolin monk and he beat up an actual God in Raiden.

Suffice it to say, there have never been "power levels" in MK, and if there ever actually were, they absolutely were never consistent.

Anime brain rot.

yeah,well since you mention the very first mortal kombat,we can clearly see a base power level esablished where goro is the champion of mk for 500 years,not just anyone can beat him.And as a franchise continues these type of things evolve and get more fleshed out and so on.As i said earlier yeah power levels shouldnt be all end all type of thing but they do matter and and consitstency of them is not totally irrelevant how you and some others try to portray,and they have definetly been esablished in mk over the years.

as for brain rot,stop projecting

 

[PrinceGoro]

Rude's only verbal tactic is quoting and stating "this is unhinged." Dude is insulated in his own one man bubble and has a very delusional opinion of himself. Idk where he came from, but cat is a joke. Dont take him serious bruh, he desperately wants to get a job working at NRS in the mail room over his current job mopping the floor at steak n shake.

yeah figured as much,kinda sad really yet amusing at the same time hahah

 

[Son ov Timett]

yeah figured as much,kinda sad really yet amusing at the same time hahah

Yea it is sad, cat thinks his opinion matters on this small ass forum. Probably grinds to reach champion level on KL with all his might. "Yea bruh teach me the ways of MK all mighty one." Fn comedian.

 

[PrinceGoro]

I would hardly say Cassie Cage was comparable to a random battle droid. Not only was she the main character in the whole story, she was the daughter of two main characters in the previous game.

It is pretty normal in a movie or game to follow the main character in their journey to doing something extraordinary. That is what happened. Do you have to like it? No. But that is how movies work.

i did not equate cassie to b1 droid,that was more in refernece to the mk9 shao vs mk9 kitana situation,and it was meant to illustrate how based on established lore of a franchise,its not good to have certain things happen that completly undermine the stakes,as @YagamiFire said and explained well in his post.

this is not about extraordinary things happening in movies,games etc,where against all odds someone prevails over a diffcult situation or whatever else,im not saying this cant happen ever,im saying its important how it happens,how its written and executed,and mkx did it in the most awful,cringe way imaginable,and thats not the only thing wrong with the mkx story.

 

[YagamiFire]

I like the idea of asking about when any kind of a pecking order was established...in a series that features gods, an emperor, and a goddamn elimination tournament with winners, losers and established champions (past & present).



Series literally hinges on the creation of a power structure through competition to eliminate weaker people

this is not about extraordinary things happening in movies,games etc,where against all odds someone prevails over a diffcult situation or whatever else,im not saying this cant happen ever,im saying its important how it happens,how its written and executed,and mkx did it in the most awful,cringe way imaginable,and thats not the only thing wrong with the mkx story.

A good example I would make regarding 'overcoming odds' is in the OT and ST of Star Wars.

The ending of ROTJ is satisfying because, against all odds, Luke Skywalker prevails over the Emperor because of failings on the Emperor's part. Palpatine considers himself invincible and his control absolute so he does not countenance the possibility of Vader ever betraying him. Against all odds, Luke gets through to the 2nd most evil man in the world, his father, and gets him to sacrifice himself in a last heroic act for his son. This is satisfying because we see that the seeds planted through the previous story beats are paid off and good triumphs due to the arrogance of evil. Luke does not win by superior power. Nor does Vader. Because neither could. The outcome respects the established pecking order of power in the setting while reaching a conclusion that is satisfying within the narrative.

In the ST, Rey wins because she wins. It's just that simple. Palpatine is blasting her with lightning (which can apparently take out fleets, mind you...) and because she grabs a second lightsaber (how this is relevant, I have no idea...) and says "I am all the Jedi" (which might as well be "I win now") and just wins. She overwhelms her enemy because the script says she wins now. This isn't particularly satisfying because it draws on nothing really established, it does not pay off any real story beats relevant to the characters involved and is due in no part to Palpatine's own failure as a figure of evil. Might just makes right.

This is similar to Cassie where she beats an even-stronger powered-up Demon Shinnok...because the narrative says she does. The author gives her uber-unbeatable god-powers...and now Cassie wins. It's not particularly satisfying. Nothing clever was done. No failing of Shinnok's was exploited. We just repeated what happened in the beginning of the story....except now Shinnok is even stronger and then just loses.

Okay so...going forward, why can't Cassie roflstomp anyone weaker than Demon Shinnok? The only real answer is that she doesn't particularly want to as compared to that battle. That is deeply unsatisfying because we know if things get real bad Cassie should just be able to flip the win-switch right? And...if not...why not? No idea. Bad storytelling.

 

[Rude]

whats unhinged about it lol,the fact that its true and you cant say anything else to try and minimize it haha.

lmao dude you are hilarious,you cant even get trolling right and thats supposed to be your strong point.How many more profile posts are you going to make referencing my post lmao,safe to say you are the triggerd one.

Is it? Who said that? And where in any of my statuses was your name mentioned? You really gotta get a life, sir.

 

[Rude]

yeah,well since you mention the very first mortal kombat,we can clearly see a base power level esablished where goro is the champion of mk for 500 years,not just anyone can beat him.And as a franchise continues these type of things evolve and get more fleshed out and so on.As i said earlier yeah power levels shouldnt be all end all type of thing but they do matter and and consitstency of them is not totally irrelevant how you and some others try to portray,and they have definetly been esablished in mk over the years.

as for brain rot,stop projecting

Uhh...Goro was beaten by a guy. Liu Kang did some fireballs, sure, but he wasn't super humanly strong. He was just a guy what did martial arts good.

That's not a power level, that's the conceit of a fighting game. Shang Tsung didn't bust out the scouter during MK1.

Let me clue you in on something: the main protagonist overcoming overwhelming odds is kind of the point of this kind of story telling.

You really gotta watch something other than DBZ, sir. It's rotting your brain.

 

[Rude]

Rude's only verbal tactic is quoting and stating "this is unhinged." Dude is insulated in his own one man bubble and has a very delusional opinion of himself. Idk where he came from, but cat is a joke. Dont take him serious bruh, he desperately wants to get a job working at NRS in the mail room over his current job mopping the floor at steak n shake.

Aww. You love me. You REALLY love me.

It's funny, cause I don't think about any of you when I'm not shitposting here.

 

[Rude]

Yea it is sad, cat thinks his opinion matters on this small ass forum. Probably grinds to reach champion level on KL with all his might. "Yea bruh teach me the ways of MK all mighty one." Fn comedian.

You're ranting about a guy you don't know and what they do on Kombat League at 2 AM. Who is the sad one?

 

[Juxtapose]

Saw this clip this morning, and it reminded me of the story discussion here. Good for a laugh:

 

[Lord Snotty]

I'm not sure what happens next for MK2, other than joining MK1 in the bargain bin. In theory, NRS could reboot the reboot, or just ignore the last few entries. I expect a back to basics approach without Skameos.

 

[haketh]

DBZ Style Power Scaling has destroyed peoples ability to analyze and talk about media & themes lol

 

[PrinceGoro]

Uhh...Goro was beaten by a guy. Liu Kang did some fireballs, sure, but he wasn't super humanly strong. He was just a guy what did martial arts good.

That's not a power level, that's the conceit of a fighting game. Shang Tsung didn't bust out the scouter during MK1.

Let me clue you in on something: the main protagonist overcoming overwhelming odds is kind of the point of this kind of story telling.

You really gotta watch something other than DBZ, sir. It's rotting your brain.

You continue to push boundaries on stupidity and awfull arguments,truely remarkable and hilarious.

also yeah i never watched dbz so yet another miss on your childish attempts at insults,you really need to work on your material,good luck.