I must've played MK9 story mode AT LEAST 5 times, even on max difficulty. That story was perfect.
Only did MKX story once and don't plan on doing it ever again.
Seconded.
MK9 was better because it was the entire almost 20 year spectrum of Kombat summed up, repackaged and next-gen'ified for multiple generations of regular gamers, fighting gamers, and fans of the lore to bask in. Its damning flaws were matched only by how amazing an all around experience it was.
MKX is just another MK title in comparison.
Gorgeous? Yes. Diverse? Incredibly so. Fixed the two biggest previous problems by upping the netcode and avoiding Kabal level broken tiers? Check aaaand check.
But that's it.
There's no pizazz. No hook. No atmosphere. The 50/50 meta and reckless fast pace makes zoning and/or strategy almost obsolete. Literally almost every fight is a race, either to the corner or to beat each other's skulls in in minimal guess rotations. That invalidates damn near half the old MK9 playbook.
None of the dirt has room to breathe or be interesting like stuff like Cyrax's resets or the Rune Trap were. It always ends up coming down to the same mundane guesses.
And the ambience is just...meh. The story jumped the shark in how it made half the OG's of the roster look like shit for the sake of putting over the new kids. Quan fell off a fucking horse. Kotal Kahn gave up like a bitch and was ready to just let Shinnok rule. Ermac and Reptile got the shit kicked out of them for countless chapters, again. It was Armageddon all over again; slivers of brilliance and awesome were lost in a sea of tragic could-have-beens.
I could go on, but now I'm sad.
