So, I agree generally with every other point you made, but this one caught my attention: when was this NOT the case with NRS MK games? Everyone at the competitive level has used characters the exact same way since MK9. You saw cage doing frame traps into restands. You saw Sonya using armored reversals into safe pressure into armored reversals. Kenshi zoned, then occasionaly did a combo that pushed you fullscreen. Cyrax was reset into 80% combos. Kabal was NDC pressure inbetween gas blast zoning.
Same with Rekkas Tanya, Acidic Alien, Bat and Sorcerer Quan Chi, Demo Sonya, Grandmaster sub, Flash Parry into Pressure Tremor in MKX.
Same thing with Cetrion. Same thing with Jade, Kang, Air Kabal.
Every single one of the past MK games, characters would play the exact same game at high levels.
There wasnt a zoning cage in MK9 or a stagger into mixup Kenshi. There wasnt a non-reset Cyrax. Every character eventually boiled down to their respective most effective tactic available gameplay, and different people playing the same character did not differ significantly in style at all.
This is a hard thing to discuss because its one of those "I know it when I see it" things, but basically, the "what do they do" for mk9 was pretty wide.
Yes. Cage blendered the fuck out of you once he got in, but if you watched the pace/spacing/etc of a match with cage, and then watched a match with kenshi, it felt totally different. In part because now instead of being knee deep in their opponent he wants to leave room for jesus the entire fucking match.
You had strong rushdown, strong zoning, strong chip, strong jank, etc. Variety. A game where you've got a decent TOD character, a do everything monster, 2 zoners from hell, several glitchy as fuck characters, and a low tier who can rip off half your HP on block.
MK1 feels like everyone has roughly the same "pattern" to their style. There is no mk9 kenshi/freddy. There is no mk9 cyrax. They almost feel like johnnys.
It's not awful, but as someone who always likes the oddballs of fight game casts, seeing characters like sub and quan struggle to be remotely unique in their play patterns while half the cast has you hold ambush pressure until you crack is disheartening.
Its extra frustrating because its soooooo close to having that identity. The tools are there, its just odd that only a few characters really get to have that identity. Cage, Raiden, Smoke, Kenshi, Shao off the top of my head have some really neat stuff.
But then you watch Rain and like....what does rain DO? He sorta kinda zones, he sorta kinda sets up, but its so fucking weird to have a character with 2 full screen projectiles who will MAYBE throw out 2 in a row, and probably want sub zero armor if he's vs anyone else who has a projectile. Forget what some kombat kast said about him, he just feels weird when half his move list isn't used that much. Bubble is meh, portals are mostly a gimmick, his two projectiles are situational as hell, etc. Its lots of "here's your 3 good normals, use them"
Compare this to mk9 kenshi where you saw CLASSIC zoner patterns of someone just dying to get in as they played bullet hell from across the screen and then hoped to god they could blow him up before he got out.
There's nothing near that unique in mk1. There's zoning, but it's conditional/tepid, not a gameplan. There's setups, but rather than neat shit like ice clone into ex slide its all mostly just combo into low/high setup.
Anyways I can ramble about this all day, and i'm certainly not the only one to feel this way. For all the potential one could see in kameos and characters, MK1 feels like some characters just aren't allowed to rock. Kenshi is fucking great. Absolute bullshit with neat mehanics and holy hell how is that fair vibes, so why do reptile, scorp, sub, quan, and others im forgetting feel like they're at the kiddy table.
One thing doesn't negate the other. I do feel the characters still need buffs, I even said so in that thread.
