Juxtapose
Master
You might be right, and it might indeed be convoluted; we;ll know in three weeks!This too, I was thinking more along the lines of there was no 'TOASTY' and the fatalities felt lame and things like that. MK9 managed to Ooze personality on a lot of different stuff, even the Challenger tower had a lot of charm and fun.
I wholeheartedly agree on the story trying to cover too much, and with the komics trying to do so much as well for the 25 year gap. I played MKXs story recently and noticed that too about Kano's 'snare' that disrupted Raiden and made him visit 'many strange realms.' I think one of the endings mentioned it, or it was mentioned in some MK11 thing (intro or trailer.)r
I've got faith in the team and komic writer being involved with this games story but honestly there's been so much going on with the story I don't think it can be anything but convoluted.
For Mortal Kombat (2011), keep in mind it was _all_ nostalgia and fan service, and was revitalizing the franchise after the original developer went under and after the disappointment that Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe was. They kept everything safe there, and it worked out fantastically.
One thing I've always loved about the franchise though is that they never make the same game twice. The development team always experiments and tried to do different things with each title, and that adds great variety. The downer is it also means sometimes the things they implement, or an entire title, isn't so great after all.
With Mortal Kombat X, they were definitely trying new things. Originally, Mortal Kombat: Armageddon was meant to kill everyone off and Midway was going to continue the franchise with all new characters. That didn't happen, of course, but it was clear with Mortal Kombat X that they were looking at replacing lots of characters with new characters. Cassie replaces either Cage or Sonya, Jacquie replaces Jax, etc., and they were testing the waters.
They also changed the overall flow and feel of the game by bringing back Running and putting a huge emphasis on offence.
In terms of in-game stuff poking fun at itself though, keep in mind there was Cassie's Selfie Fatality, some very comical intro dialogue, all of those crazy modifers in Towers and the rotating Living Towers. Test Your Luck was also finally brought Online!
I think it still was pretty good at keeping the lack of serious feel.
The comics though, while good, were all over the place, honestly. Look at Ermac, for example. We see in-game he rebels against Mileena and sides with Kotal right when Kotal usurps here, yet in the comics, long after her resistance movement is going, Ermac's back with her!!! He then leaves her at the end of the series. So did he flip flop, or was that a major plothole?
Shao Kahn's Wrath Hammer was with Quan Chi during the NetherRealm War, yet in the comics Kotal had it.
There's other wonky lore stuff in the comics, and again while enjoyable, I found it was so disjointed from the actual game story that it muddled some stuff up a lot more.