I actually thought about making a mayo style video talking about why I love Quan so much. I'll just explain it here instead.
I'm an MK veteran from 7 years old. I never had a favorite character until MK3 where I thought Kabal was the coolest. I loved his dash and the ground saw. Then MK4 came out when I was 13, and I was quickly drawn to Quan. One reason, the leg rip fatality. It was so over the top. And he also seemed so different from the rest of the MK series cast visually, and as a character.
I skipped DA, but played Deception. Sadly he wasn't in it. As soon as MK9 was announced, my friend Jonathan and I were both saying the same thing. "If Quan Chi is in it, I'm playing him."
After playing through the single player, I don't think anyone could walk away unimpressed by Quan Chi. He has the coolest voice, the best dialogue, and he's just so deceptive, evil, and charismatic. He steals every scene he's in. And he's not real.
He's behind every evil plan in the whole MK1-4 story. He's there. If you're not working for Quan, Quan is working against you. If you ARE working with him, he's fucking you over behind your back for someone else who he's also fucking over.
We all remember the first thing we were thinking, even
screaming at the TV the first time we found against the AI Quan Chi in story mode. Getting hit by random skydrops. Just holding the block button like a noob and SOMEHOW getting hit by every thing he was doing! Know about the mixups, we did not... You know you were thinking it. "What the FUCK is going on???". Until you finally beat him out of random luck.
We knew he was special, and probably strange to learn. I didn't start him immediately. I played Ermac, like so many others. I soon got to Quan and had so much fun. But then I didn't know what to do with him once my mixups were being blocked by my friends. I joined the MK community that June and after following a little-known-at-the-time Quan player named Shujinkydink, I found out about the Rune Trap. I couldn't believe it! Suddenly favorite character had some really really interesting and bad ass to stand up to the big boys with.
And it just made so much sense, right? Quan Chi DOES NOT FOLLOW ANY RULES. And the rune trap is one big rule breaker. It's a move that fit the character so well. It's as character perfect of a move as Sub Zero's ice clone. Why would Quan behave like other characters? That would not be Quan. So Quan gets to cheat, because that's what he does? If it was any other character, they couldn't get away with the bullshit he gets away with. It would be universally protested against. But instead, something seemingly broken, gets a large part (even a majority maybe?) supporting it's existence and even thinking it's bad ass even though they don't play him.
Just watch anytime a Dink or Soup make it into big matches in tournaments. They STEAL matches from people with rune traps. People don't sit there like "well...ok next round," like they do when Cyrax's reset people to death. They cheer! We've heard the rooms standing up with "WOOLAY!" whenever one of our boys @Shujinkydink or
Insuperable rune someone to death. The stream chat explodes with woolays everytime. People love Quan. He's just too cool not to love. If he was a strong character overall, we'd have to do something about the rune trap. But we all feel that he's different than everyone else. It just...feels right for him to have something so
evil.
If you gave Jade or Stryker or Baraka a rune trap, it wouldn't be supported. We'd say we didn't support it because it would make them overpowered (even though Quan's overall design may even still be better than there's without trap). But what we'd be feeling deep down would be that they don't deserve it. It wouldn't make sense for who they are and how they play. And I hope...I HOPE that Evo Grand Finals comes down to a rune trap.
So, there's my love letter to Quan.
