Vulgar
Kombatant
This MF'er was spittin'.Hi! I haven't posted here in ages but I read the threads sometimes because they're still a trip. This one has been interesting! Interesting enough that I'm going to write a very long comment here, so please bear with me.
First of all, I just feel the need to note amid all the MCU debate in here that Agatha All Along was not a 'bomb' at all. It was a critical hit, was nominated for major industry awards (it's likely to be in contention in a few categories at the Emmys, even), and wildly outperformed Disney's expectations, especially given its low budget versus previous Disney+ Marvel shows. They seem to be flirting with the idea of renewing it, even though it was intended as a one-off miniseries. It's basically the definition of a success, especially in the age of streaming where it's hard to make money on anything in television anymore. This show about women that changed the races of a few minor Marvel characters and features a lesbian romance? It was good, and people liked it.
Point is, this is a great example of why the idea that diversity or 'wokeness' or whatever dogwhistle one wants to use is what makes a story unsuccessful is a childish notion. Somehow the same people who always bang that drum don't seem to have a problem with a genderswap or a race change or whatever else if it's in a piece of media they otherwise happen to like. It's just an easy scapegoat for something you didn't like to begin with.
If someone doesn't like MK1, it's not because Cyrax is a woman in it. They already didn't like MK1, and female Cyrax is a convenient thing for them to meme about -- because, frankly, online fandoms are full of losers who can't wait to dogpile on a woman for no reason, especially a Black one.
I understand people feeling an attachment to fictional characters and not wanting them to change too much, but I find the complete devotion to nostalgia a bit strange. Like, I don't really like how Sindel plays in MK1, so I play Tanya. In MK11 Sindel wasn't in the game at launch, so I mostly played Jade. There's always someone interesting to play. I can't imagine rejecting a game entirely because 'my character' is in it, but not in the way I prefer.
For instance, I was initially bummed about the evil Sindel retcon in MK11, because I am the type of weirdo who cares about story in a fighting game. But it was still Sindel, and I still had a ton of fun with her -- and after I gave it a chance, I came to find the evil version of Sindel really hilarious! I also realized that making her a bad guy probably gave her more of a unique lane in the franchise than having her be a royal heroine from Edenia when Kitana, Mileena, and Jade are always going to be more popular characters. (Case in point: she was good again in this game... and so they immediately killed her off to make room for Mileena's future story.)
If MK1 is a failure, it isn't because superfans of Mortal Kombat lore staged a protest on behalf of Hanzo Hasashi or boy Sektor. It's because WB wanted the game out in 2024, and the game clearly was not finished.
It's because casual fans -- casual meaning non-competitive; I read this forum, but I'm not very good at video games and I've never attempted to play them competitively -- expect things from Mortal Kombat as a franchise at this point that simply were not present in this release. We expect lots of fun stuff to unlock. We expect all the bells and whistles. We expect heavy customization in an NRS game at this point. I spent hours dressing up my silly little characters in IJ2 and MK11. I spent eons playing the stupid Towers of Time mode in MK11 because I enjoyed unlocking little widgets that barely even changed anything about the character's appearance. It was just fun to unlock things and feel like I was making the character really my own. It was fun to show off my version of the character online even if I was just going to get my ass beat.
MK1 is a failure for the same reason SFV was a failure: because it launched in an incomplete state and in today's market the first impression is everything. Like SFV did, I would argue MK1 has eventually become a very good game. I have had fun playing it, though I'm particularly bad at assist fighters and feel worse at this game than I have at any previous MK. But I still haven't played the Khaos Reigns story, which is frankly crazy to me when I used to champ at the bit for a new NRS game. The bad launch for MK1 really left a sour taste in my mouth on this one, and I don't think I'm alone in that.
Unfortunately, I think the only real move is for NRS to keep their head down and focus on making MK2/MK13/whatever a really complete package that wows on first impression. No matter how good SFV became over time, nobody was willing to say Street Fighter was 'back' until SF6 had a strong launch.
It's a shame, because I think MK1, as a total reboot with really beautiful graphics on a nextgen console, had real potential to be a big wow moment for this franchise. It just needed about six months to a year longer in the oven, and WB would not let that happen. I sympathize with Boon and company, who clearly cared a lot about making this work and ended up sabotaged because they aren't their own publisher.
Hope all is well! (Vulgar, you've been cracking me up in here ngl. Never stop.)
Also Agatha All Along was fucking fantastic.
I'm almost positive that most people that hate it didn't actually watch it.