Tag: mortal kombat

Mortal Kombat HD Continuation

TiberiusLeave a comment

The continuation of a legacy

The final part of this Legacy Video Game Trilogy concludes with a hard reboot that still has the sensibilities to pay homage to the most awkward yet charmingly nostalgic part of its existence. So to recap: MK Deadly Alliance gave us an ungodly pairing in the two sorcerers Quan Chi and Shang Tsung, whose combined strength and abilities gave them the leverage to revive the Dragon King’s Army and wreak havoc on all the realms, without Shao Kahn f[screams]king them over or Liu Kang stopping them.

Not without Raiden’s intervention and before I continue on that, I had time to watch some MK 4 endings and in both Raiden’s and Fujin’s endings, Raiden accepts ascension to the position of Elder God while Fujin replaces him as Protector of Earthrealm. Raiden chose him as a successor and Fujin accepted it. But in Deadly Alliance, Fujin doesn’t appear until 2006’s Armageddon. Plot-hole? Not so. On the production side of things, the devs didn’t think Fujin had the recognition and popularity as the Thunder God so they put him back in this game in arguably one of his better looks.

Canonically, 7 feet tall.

Lore-wise, the death of Liu Kang made all the difference. Fujin hasn’t been demoted by way of a performance review; it’s just that Raiden’s attachment to half of his Shaolin Monk disciples influenced his decision to step down and see the fall of the Deadly Alliance personally. I don’t completely see this as an official source, since it came from r/MortalKombat and I wasn’t there when they were developing the game for release in 2002, but I’m glad I did.

Anyway, Raiden saw to it personally to essentially raise a militia of Earth’s best allies and defenders to destroy the Deadly Alliance. They failed, so much so that nearly all of them had become sacrifices for the undead army. Come Deception time, Raiden stood as the final bastion between freedom and conquest. At his defeat, the partnership between Quan Chi and Shang Tsung effectively evaporated and with the holder of Shinnok’s amulet (namely Quan Chi) being the one who can control the army, the two fight in Shang Tsung’s palace… and are immediately greeted by Onaga himself, coming to reclaim his rightful army that he knew was in the hands of the sorcerers.

The wiki explains that the Amulet has control over the army somehow (Boon and Tobias must’ve skipped that step), but its power and influence are superseded by Onaga’s heart. So you know you’re f[metal clanking]ked when the undead soldiers you painstakingly spent so much time and effort to revive, bow to their original master and not you. That reminds me of a Martin Mystery episode where an evil wizard attempts to revive Qin Shi Huang and the terracotta army only to realize that Emperor Qin was the furthest thing from a stable ruler and that in the show the terracotta army was created to keep the old emperor from getting out.

Misplaced balance of power and all that, Quan Chi, Shang Tsung, and Raiden temporarily work together to destroy Onaga, but two sorcerers and a temporary Elder God aren’t enough to destroy Onaga. Raiden’s last ditch effort doesn’t even dent him and worse he has the Kamidogu and Shinnok’s Amulet. He doesn’t need that for the army, but he does need it to merge the Kamidogu into one and morph into the One Being from which the realms were created. Oof, heavy stuff, huh?

By Armageddon time, it’s become apparent that the warriors in the realms are too aware of the forces that created them, and the Elder Gods consult with Argus and Delia, the Protectors of Edenia, to seek a solution so that none can threaten existence again. Argus suggested death, Delia suggested annulment, and so millennia ago, they created the firespawn Blaze so that his death in Mortal Kombat could bring about one of these outcomes, but a cascading effect seen over the course of the games led to an unintended outcome: even distribution of power. Not to mention, part of this plan was a quest which would test which of Argus’ and Delia’s sons, Taven and Daegon, would handily succeed them. The rules of primogeniture determined Taven the successor as the older brother, but Blaze was kidnapped and enslaved by Onaga’s holy men to guard the last dragon egg.

Blaze kept constant mental contact with their guardian dragons, Orin and Caro, but when he was kidnapped, that contact was lost and Caro mistakenly revived Daegon earlier than expected, kicking off much of the plot of the 3D era of games. At this revelation, Taven’s quest morphed from competition to a race to become the successor of Argus, seeing as the alternative was the Edenian equivalent of Shao Kahn. And they already had that… in the form of Shao Kahn!

Some of the endings, once again, connect as Taven is rewarded while Daegon is punished in Daegon’s ending. Raiden’s is a culmination of what he endured from Deadly Alliance to this, and Shao Kahn’s ending flows nearly seamlessly into the intro for Mortal Kombat 9. Rather than Taven become a full-god and see the failure of the quest, Shao Kahn ascended to the top of the Pyramid of Argus to defeat Blaze. In Armageddon, it was shown that Dark Raiden struck a deal with Outworld to spare Earthrealm if Raiden stopped Taven and Daegon from completing their quest. Something Light Raiden would NEVER do, even in desperation.

The opening cinematic of MK9 shows that this didn’t pan out as he’d hoped, seeing as Shao Kahn unsurprisingly reneged on that deal and used his newfound godhood to pummel Raiden before Raiden used his last moments to relay a message to his past self. The overarching crux of the message being “don’t become me,” but the most important one being “He must win,” where Past Raiden spends the game finding out who “he” refers to.

Thus, this game in the HD timeline redoes the first three MK games. The first third of the game is a near-mirror of the previous 1992 one, even with Sub-Zero’s death at Scorpion’s hands. And like the original it ends with Liu Kang’s victory in Mortal Kombat, but the intended outcome worsens the damage in Raiden’s amulet. It cracked when Raiden received the original “he must win” message and the course of the game shows it getting worse and worse.

The second third of the game is essentially a different Mortal Kombat II, and much so. Shang Tsung still got reduced to that of a fighter like in the original, but rather than it being simply a punishment for failure, the sorcerer convinced Shao Kahn to move the tournament to Outworld and fight on their terms. Raiden obviously said no, but this was less of an agreement between equals and more of a demand from a tyrant who forced his hand by unleashing Baraka’s Tarkatan horde on the Wu Shi Academy.

And that game is fantastic if you ignore its writing.

Forced to compete now on Shao Kahn’s terms, Raiden and the gaggle of Earthrealm warriors he’s recruited go to Outworld but also to investigate the real source of the cracks in the amulet and discover why Raiden’s efforts are failing fate. One of several notable changes here is that instead of Smoke becoming a cyborg like before, that becomes the fate of the new Sub-Zero Kuai Liang. If you recall, in the old timeline, Noob and Sub-Zero were brothers. Noob the more ruthless of the two when he was Grandmaster seeing as he led the charge against the Shirai Ryu and slaughtered them wholesale, but was further blamed for the murder of Scorpion’s family.

This didn’t change in the new timeline and Noob (originally Bi-Han) is still brutal, and is still innocent of the death of Harumi and Satoshi Hasashi. Nevertheless, Quan Chi pulling the strings from the sidelines once again birthed Noob Saibot and, in this timeline, Cyber Sub-Zero. Meanwhile, the tournament in Outworld commences and if you’ve ever played the original MKII and made it that far, you’ll notice that Kano and Sonya Blade are shackled in the background of the arena. This time around, Kano has no reason to be Shao Kahn’s prisoner since he’d sold him the Black Dragon’s service and arsenal, and Sonya was freed by Johnny Cage, Raiden, and Jax. Kitana, though, getting ideas from the Thunder God, investigated Shang Tsung’s flesh pits to discover her hybrid clone Mileena. With Kitana being the last remnant of Edenia’s ruling family, Shao Kahn’s plan in this and the other timeline was to replace Kitana with a loyal daughter.

Shao Kahn loses his Outworld tournament, but the future remains unchanged largely because of Quan Chi and his hidden agenda seeing as he hastens Shao Kahn’s recovery, revives and essentially reprograms Sindel to be evil, and kicked off an invasion of Earthrealm itself. Previously, Shao Kahn could never do this due to Sindel’s ward keeping him from setting foot there, but her revival and Quan Chi’s spell over her psyche making her more receptive to Shao Kahn’s tactics, lifts that barrier.

Raiden recruits even more warriors to defend Earth and repel the invasion, but finds failure after failure in the last third of this game’s glorified HD remake of Mortal Kombat 3. Kabal joins up, Cyber Sub-Zero is reprogrammed, Noob Saibot is defeated, but Raiden’s attempts at repelling Shao Kahn’s advances fail each time. Finally, he goes straight to the Elder Gods themselves who prove equally worthless in this timeline, barely batting an eye at Shao Kahn’s atrocities quoting: “Invasion itself is not a transgression, it is the merger of realms that is proscribed.” A distinction without a difference fallacy that the almighty Elder Gods fail to see themselves. Sort of like granting rights based not on race but on wealth.

In the time it took for the Elder Gods to heroically sit it out until the eleventh hour, Sindel herself decimated the defenders in no time, even her daughter. Johnny and Sonya got through with only bruises and so Earth’s final defenders were reduced to a four-man team, very much to Liu Kang’s growing resentment at Raiden’s ad hoc decision making.

Remember how I said, Light Raiden would never strike a deal with Shao Kahn to spare Earth? Well, those words are looking mighty delicious right about now as it seems that he’s about to bargain for Quan Chi’s participation to stop Shao Kahn, offering his soul and those of the fallen. But Quan Chi being a necromancer, he already has their souls in possession and after battling their revenants, Raiden realizes once again at the apex of destruction that evil needs to get within a stone’s throw of victory before the Elder Gods show themselves. “He must win” meant Shao Kahn merging the realms illegally. Mortal Kombat being the magical arbitration to decide this, violating it through conquest finally gets the Elder Gods to pass judgment and punishment.

This comes with protest from Liu Kang, who falls for the same pitfalls, as the original Raiden and doggedly vows to stand against Shao Kahn even in futilely. It costs him his life and true to his vision, Raiden does allow Shao Kahn to enter Earthrealm undeterred, feigning submission in an effort to get the Elder Gods to act, though not without taking his hits. Fans have called out Raiden for this foolishness, but across the game it shows how much he’s being put to the test. You can’t pass malice onto him for trying so hard to keep everyone alive and Earthrealm undamaged by Shao Kahn’s poison.

The pyrrhic victory gives us a glimpse into what comes in the next game. Mortal Kombat X (technically Roman numeral for 10) immediately follows the post-invasion chaos of Shao Kahn’s entry into Earthrealm. With Shinnok and Quan Chi leading coordinated attacks, Johnny, Sonya, and Kenshi (who made a glorious comeback in the new timeline even for a guest appearance in the last game) lead the charge from the ground while Raiden and Fujin intercept Quan Chi and Shinnok at the Sky Tower, home of Earth’s energy forces in the form of the Jinsei chamber.

They even meet the remnant versions of friends long passed, under the service of Quan Chi. With Shinnok now freed from the Netherrealm and facing the Earthrealm forces personally, like the other games we reach the apex of near destruction, but in a deus ex machina twist, Johnny Cage follows up from his character arc in the last game and becomes the unlikely hero we didn’t know we needed.

Yeah, one thing you’ll notice over the course of just MK9 is that while Johnny understands the gravity of the situation before him, writing it off as but a simple competition, his tone and attitude changes with each chapter. Meanwhile, Liu Kang is the one who grows further disillusioned and rightfully so. Witnessed the death of his best friend, tended to his wounded comrades, saw the Elder Gods sit by and let s[neighs]t unfold in unflattering ways, and he was witness to Master Raiden reach desperate levels to save Earth. I can’t say whether he would’ve had the same reaction in the original timeline if he lived to see it all since Shang Tsung killed him in Deadly Alliance. But if Taven’s reaction in Armageddon’s Konquest mode is any indicator, Dark Raiden was brilliant in how unexpected it was at the time, and it was after the sixth main installment where Raiden went off the deep end. Does he show up again here outside of a flashback? We’re getting to that.

After his defeat at Johnny’s hands, Shinnok is sealed within his own talisman, begging the question somewhat of why he’d have it, but going by the rules of a gun, it’s not designed to have any loyalty. The amulet is also incapable of being destroyed, so the most they can do is closely guard it round the clock, which they continually do for the next 25 years, after which the remaining combatants have moved on with their lives and the like.

Trauma bonding pushed Johnny and Sonya close enough to marry, reproduce, and divorce in that time frame over which we learn that their daughter, Cassie, has felt stuck between two worlds: Hollywood brat or military brat? Which seems like a really unique childhood to have though not necessarily envy. One lifestyle has you hounded by paparazzi for room temperature IQ tabloids, and the other has you moving at the same time as your parents depending on the needs of the branch of service, provided the marriage is strong enough to get through the military.

Then again, Jax’s daughter may have the comparatively more enviable of these two. Jacqui Briggs isn’t explicitly stated to be a military brat herself, but she more than likely has the hallmarks of one if we dissect the finer details. Unlike Cassie, Jacqui’s mother is simply an unseen NPC who most likely passed away long before the start of the game. For Jax, he, Scorpion, and Sub-Zero were the revenants who helped to defend Quan Chi’s lair during a raid by the Special Forces. In that particular mission, Johnny nearly died, but Sonya beat the piss outta Quan Chi while Raiden reversed the spell that would’ve created remnant Johnny Cage. Quan Chi’s defeat brought Jax, Scorpion, and Sub-Zero back to life and already this quasi-Mortal Kombat 4 is markedly different from the original in more ways than simply graphics.

Kenshi himself had a son named Takeda, and from the Kung family comes Lao’s cousin, Kung Jin. The MK kids are meant to be the new bloods though the fan reception was mixed to put it lightly. They’re tasked with assuring all of Earthrealm’s bonds and alliances and aiding Kotal Kahn, the new ruler and admittedly usurper of Outworld causing a civil war between himself and those loyal to Mileena who was chosen to succeed Shao Kahn after the Elder Gods ate him.

I personally like his portrayal and physical appearance, being Aztec inspired. Character-wise, he’s not a conqueror like Shao Kahn or power-hungry like Onaga. To use real political terms, he gives me “populist, isolationist” vibes. That said, he doesn’t really do away with Shao Kahn’s old policies like the liberal use of execution. He also keeps his own cabinet of characters old and new. The civil war between him and Mileena revealed everyone’s true colors. Without his original masters, Ermac defected. As did Reptile, suggesting he never respected Mileena very much as a construct of Edenian flesh and Tarkatan blood. The ones willing to serve Mileena as Kahnum of Outworld boil down to Tanya, who returns (yay!), Baraka, who doesn’t (boo!), Rain who isn’t DLC this time around *throws controller into next week*, and Kano, who’s loyalty is for rent. He’s still a treacherous money-hungry thug, but I doubt he’s as foolish as last time, even after a quarter-century sending Black Dragon-brand brutality to both sides to come out on top regardless… like Simeon Weisz in Lord of War.

Maybe I should review movies again, I’ve been watching a handful of them as of late.

I like the intricacies of this civil war so far, but they’re better experienced than explained, especially seeing as Kotal wins out over Mileena and immediately turns on the Kombat Kids for the greater good in his words. Between scares and enemy espionage, Kotal Kahn concluded that Earthrealm can’t be trusted to safeguard the amulet so it’s in the best interest of Outworld and the rest of existence if Outworld held onto it until Raiden could set his priorities straight.

Meanwhile, one of Kotal’s most trusted, D’Vorah, a Kytinn bug woman is revealed to be a disciple of Quan Chi and servant of Shinnok. Sonya resorts to bringing Jax out of retirement as a means to get Earth’s defenders back into the light and out from Netherrealm’s influence. This goes on for the last quarter of the game, though with significant trouble in the way. Jax helps apprehend Quan Chi, but this is short-lived when Scorpion learns from Sub-Zero that the mastermind behind his agony came from within the Lin Kuei. Seeing as the original Sub-Zero was also a victim, the trend of “inside job conspiracies” reappears in this game to haunt Hanzo Hasashi ’til the end of days.

Ever played the GTA IV mission where you bust out one of Derrick’s old friends only to blow his brains out? Similar thing here, Scorpion breaks into a military prison to kill Quan Chi who uses his last breath to summon Shinnok behind enemy lines. With D’Vorah’s aid, they invade the sky temple again, trap Raiden and infect the Jinsei chamber, with less effort than the initial invasion 25 years ago. And since Shinnok is a petty little bitch, he imprisons Johnny too. As Dark Shinnok, the fallen Elder God becomes Raiden’s worst nightmare.

At this point, the Kombat Kids have broken out of imprisonment and returned to Earth right as this all unfolds and stand as the last beacon of hope for Earth, a role Raiden played in Deception before turning dark himself.

Every time Mortal Kombat gets Dark Raiden, they chicken out before they can use him. The most action he gets is his own ending in Armageddon where he obliterates all realms except Earth to destroy all outside threats to Earth. MK X teased him at the end with a stern warning to the Netherrealm under new leadership to not even think about trying anything or they’ll share Shinnok’s fate.

Dark Raiden is a major part of the first two chapters or so of MK 11, but thanks to time travel shenanigans, he’s written out before he can exercise the fullest extent of his wrath. The mission from MK X is more or less complete with Shinnok defeated though I doubt Raiden was forthcoming with his fate. Not to mention, the villain this time around is the titan Kronika who masters an hourglass that writes the fates of all. I’m pretty sure I’ve played this trope before.

Time travel shenanigans aside, MK 11 takes away the heavy lifting Raiden would’ve done to protect Earthrealm by simply bringing everyone back from when they were at their best. This game does have a DLC arc that’s best explored away from the main series even though it flows into 2023’s M1K soft reboot. Re-touched upon in this game, Kronika not only manipulated events, but claims responsibility for driving a wedge in between Raiden and Liu Kang. Timeline after timeline, their power combined has shown to be a threat to Kronika. Using this to his advantage, Raiden stops fighting Liu Kang and they merge to form Fire God Liu Kang who was last seen in that god-awful Mythologies spin-off. Depending on the player, the game can end with human Raiden aiding Liu Kang as he remakes reality, or with Kitana long after she wins big as the new Kahnum of Outworld when a career-ending injury removes Kotal Kahn from power.

I’m not certain on whether M1K is the beginning of a new arc in the Mortal Kombat franchise. It’s the first one for the 2020s and has a hell of a lot of callbacks which thoroughly entertained the legacy fan in me. I’ve seen full gameplay of it, but haven’t experienced the rest of the game for myself yet, so I’ll cap this long post with my thoughts on the HD continuation. It almost follows the beats of the original series but diverges beginning in the third arc of MK9 and doesn’t look back in the rearview mirror. Shinnok still makes his comeback in this timeline’s answer to MK4, but doesn’t fall victim to Quan Chi’s machinations. Quan Chi isn’t even acknowledged as the true mastermind and even when they do treat him as such, the focus goes toward Shinnok who manipulated events from the start. So he’s no different from Armageddon’s Konquest mode, the point of divergence being that Daegon is the one who serves him instead of Quan Chi… or rather he plays them both. Honestly, MK’s biggest flaw is having loyal characters serving untrustworthy villains. Say what you want about Deadly Alliance, but Quan Chi and Shang Tsung understand fully that the partnership is purely transactional.

The villains this time around are aware of this aspect though seem to be blind to Quan Chi’s reach and influence. Not that he’s the most powerful villain or remains so for long as Kronika beats him to the punch in MK 11. It ultimately screwed over the revenants still under Quan Chi’s influence at the time of his death, but I say its for the best that he wasn’t alive to witness Kronika emerge from her chamber. Besides, the revenants can be restored after consultation with the Elder Gods, as long as they don’t take it literally.

All in all, this era in Mortal Kombat history gets a lot of praise in the beginning followed by loads of critique over what should’ve been done by whom during XYZ. All well and good, but it suffers from the same problem exhibited by the God of War series in that the games of the past are written off as weird and off-putting. But as a defender of this era of Mortal Kombat, flawed or not, this was a necessary step toward greatness, and the only regret(s) are that Shaolin Monks hasn’t been rewritten and remastered and we haven’t seen anything in the form of Chess Kombat, Motor Kombat or Puzzle Kombat in the last 20 years. I would gladly do embarrassing things to see this in the modern day again.

Mortal Kombat 3D Legacy

TiberiusLeave a comment

Controversial, but for different reasons

In Part 2 of this 3D Video Game Lookback Series, I bring you to the Midway era of the Mortal Kombat franchise. For this post, I’m largely going to include the games I have played from this era being Deadly Alliance (2002), Deception (2004), and Armageddon (2006). For those seeing this lineup and wondering about the others, I will briefly touch up on MK4 (1997), bear in mind that my exposure to that game is limited as I’ve never been able to play it even emulated or remastered as the Midway library only ever mentions the three arcade games, most likely due to the little love it received for being a subpar transition to 3D from 2D, written well in this blog from February 2020 and explained by Ed Boon himself in this documentary video included in Deadly Alliance, most likely recorded prior to the game’s October 2002 release window:

Channel: Ro Sohryu

On YouTube, MK4 gets its spotlight about five minutes in.

Suffice it to say, MK4’s experiment with 3D showed the desire to follow a trend that would shape the future of the video game industry roughly indefinitely save for a few outliers calling for a simpler time.

Thinly-veiled marriage proposal to 2D platforming, I say.

With MK4 designed as an arcade game like its original predecessors, it doesn’t necessarily follow a canon ending, though some individual characters’ endings flow into Deadly Alliance. The only one so far that I know does this is Scorpion’s ending. After defeating Sub-Zero, the Grandmaster of the Lin Kuei accepts responsibility for the destruction of the Shirai Ryu clan, but reveals that no Lin Kuei ever touched his family. Quan Chi reveals himself to be the mastermind behind Scorpion’s vengeance and attempts to trap him in the Netherrealm. Fruitless endeavor as Scorpion drags the sorcerer to hell with him for the torturing. This is consistent up until 2004 where Shujinko has a hand in helping to find Quan Chi in the Netherrealm while there for his own reasons, but we’re jumping forward a bit, let’s bring it back.

Deadly Alliance follows on from Scorpion’s MK4 ending, with Raiden as the narrator of Quan Chi’s escape through a portal. On the other side, he found a tomb housing the legendary undefeatable army of the long, deceased Dragon King, deciphered the ancient rune stone, and the one that disturbs Raiden the most, he’d formed an alliance (based on ignorance) with Shang Tsung of all people. Per this deal, Quan Chi will help Shang Tsung gather the souls necessary to revive the mummified army of budget samurai warriors.

Wonder if the inspiration came from the Chinese terracotta army design-wise…

Shang Tsung meanwhile will teach Quan Chi the soul transfer spells that achieve this mass revival. Evil as they are, you’d probably expect them to singlehandedly lay waste to some innocent village, and as either of the two that’d be my first suggestion… and one I’d personally shoot down considering the types of souls I’d like to inhabit these skeleton warriors. Any old soul would likely not make the cut–if I’m bringing an army back from the dead, I’d want the souls of trained fighters, warriors!

And going with that thought process, the sorcerers went to concoct a plan to lure them all into one place. Two great problems lie in the way however: Emperor Shao Kahn and Liu Kang. No, the Emperor of Outworld isn’t aligned with the Champion of Mortal Kombat. Just that the two know they’d face heavy resistance from these guys. Shao Kahn would want to take part in the tournament and Liu Kang won’t stop until all threats to Earthrealm are beaten fair and square, this last part biting him in the ass. Naturally, they feign loyalty to kill Shao Kahn and make a beeline for the Wu Shi Academy where the Mortal Kombat Champion trains extensively. Shang Tsung could still not hold a candle to Liu Kang, unassisted at least. Enter Quan Chi to put him in a vulnerable position allowing Shang Tsung to take the killing blow.

The body of Liu Kang is the first of several transported back to Shang Tsung’s palace (whose construction has an interesting story that unfolds in Deception’s Konquest mode). An undead soldier is voluntold to get the Shaolin monk’s soul, and the intro cinematic warns of impending doom should the Deadly Alliance succeed, bringing Raiden to his closing argument. He turned away from the realm of Elder Godhood to mount a resistance against the sorcerers.

Channel: merocch

Spoiler alert: it fails. And looking at how Deception starts, miserably. Raiden might as well have been feeding them soul after soul. Shang Tsung didn’t necessarily need them, but knowing his greed, there’s never enough souls. It’s never explained how many of the souls in the Soulnado in his palace are suitable for transplantation to the undead army, nor is it ever explained if there’s a purpose beyond prolonging death. The most we get out of his use of that Soulnado is to prop himself back up after a devastating blow from Raiden.

Deadly Alliance still suffers from the Arcade framework of all the other games before it, but its not like Midway couldn’t write a compelling story in the MK-Verse. Deception proves it with Shujinko’s narration of events that bring us up to speed on the results of Raiden’s impromptu militia. Needless to say, it got so bad, he had to face the Deadly Alliance himself. The final bastion against misery and terror.

Thunder god or not, the man couldn’t do much against the Deadly Alliance’s plans. And when they merged their own powers, they took him out of the fight for at least five minutes max. Naturally, treachery followed this short-lived victory. In either of their endings in Deadly Alliance, both have secret alliances with third parties: both used Kano in their respective endings, although Shang Tsung allied with the Oni that were about to feast on Quan Chi’s innards in the Netherrealm (which does happen in Drahmin’s ending); and Quan Chi with anyone who’s capable of putting the squeeze on Shang Tsung before he destroys the traitor he hired to carry out the initial betrayal. In the Deception intro, they simply betray each other for power, knowing that the command “Obey he who possesses the amulet,” depends on who he is. Quan Chi won out and kept the amulet on his belt.

In the distance, Quan Chi could hear a loud and approaching stomping, a crescendo of an even worse danger than even he or Shang Tsung could threaten to unleash on reality. The one-eyed man may be king in the land of the blind, but in this instance, the undead army would never bow to a pretender. They knelt in recognition of their one true ruler as he revealed himself to the lone sorcerer.

An ancient prophecy kept alive by the remaining holy men of the Dragon King, the last Dragon Egg had hatched, and had taken on a host in the form of the gradually devolving Reptile (further confirmed in his own ending). The true emperor of Outworld had returned to show everyone what a real monster is, stopped only by a duo of treacherous sorcerers and a thunder god in a desperate attempt to reverse course.

Even with their powers combined, Raiden realized it would take more to defeat Onaga, and so made a final sacrifice… that ultimately failed to even scratch Onaga. The blame falls largely on Shujinko for bringing this ungodly power to him. To take responsibility, he vows to right wrongs committed by his unknowing service to the Dragon King.

Channel: MKIceAndFire

To make sense of these dire straits, we go back forty years to Shujinko’s youth. A bright-eyed young man with a special place in his heart for the Great Kung Lao. Sadly, he lacks his idol’s martial arts’ skills and seeks to learn from one of his teachers, Bo’ Rai Cho, an Outworlder who has taught warriors for the last few Mortal Kombat tournaments to include the Shaolin Monks among others. Stuck in the confines of his village, Shujinko is essentially forbidden from venturing into the outside world until a strange entity called Damashi visits him in the street. With an offer of adventure and the chance to save reality from destruction, he gracefully accepts a quest that will take him throughout the Mortal Kombat universe (and expose players to some neat and interesting level design).

Over the years, he adopts the fighting styles of numerous warriors, is exposed to different rivalries between established characters of old and newer characters, and finds himself the star of several complicated overarching plots that resolve relatively quickly, to include one that involves a sorcerer and a ninja specter. Keep in mind, this is all for the sake of collecting six tools known as Kamidogu. Hiccups abound, but at the ripe old age of approximately 65, Shujinko concludes his quest in the Nexus.

…or so he thought. The last Kamidogu is in place, but not immediately taken to the Elder Gods. The final piece needed to achieve this is Shinnok’s amulet, attached to Quan Chi whom he found in the Netherrealm twenty years prior. The Kamidogu now sitting in Onaga’s palace, Shujinko’s ending suggests he uses the fighting abilities acquired over the decades to destroy Onaga. All’s well that ends–no, that’s not what happens either. He does redeem himself in his ending, but in Raiden’s ending, he’s tortured over this mistake. And this isn’t the same Raiden that narrated Deadly Alliance. Deception gives birth to Dark Raiden, ironically hellbent on protecting Earthrealm.

Channel: i’m playing it!

Unbeknownst to the rest of the cast, Raiden doesn’t die very easily. He came back heavily corrupted and negatively influenced by the doings of mortals. No longer content with playing defender, he’ll take a page from Shao Kahn and directly challenge his adversaries, and effectively press any fighter into defending Earthrealm to the death. This new thunder god was a force to be reckon with.

Channel: Kamidogu

Further explained in his Armageddon ending.

For Armageddon, it’s exactly as advertised. If you noticed over the course of this entry, numerous factors I mentioned specifically as well as those I couldn’t specify for brevity’s sake, have a grave impact on the health and future of the realms. The sorcerers were always a threat, though the original timeline shows that the Elder Gods’ hardline inaction was what would ultimately doom the realms.

Armageddon explains that their solution to this was to brainstorm ideas with the parents of Taven and Daegon, Argus the Protector God (read: Raiden) of Edenia, and his sorceress wife, Delia. Argus outright proposes extinction, but Delia, levelheadedly, asks to render them powerless in recognition of the heroes that sacrificed themselves to save the realms, even if it was only their own homes. Thus was given the Armageddon Konquest plot where it was passed off as a competition between the brothers to defeat the firespawn, Blaze. Taven and Daegon were told what their respective dragons, Orin and Caro, were told, in that the quest was intended to challenge the brothers to see who could succeed Argus as the Protector of Edenia. Defeating Blaze grants this as well as full godhood to the victor.

Over the course of the quest, however, Taven discovers numerous details that don’t add up. His parents have temples in Earthrealm, which I personally don’t find all that unheard of. It’d be the equivalent of a cult of Raiden in Outworld or Edenia, presumably in defiance of Shao Kahn or worse. MK lore does establish holy men responsible for the upkeep of these temples, and when they abandon it (or get killed), it inevitably falls into disrepair. So imagine how surprised Taven was to find that red-clad warriors bearing the mark of a Red Dragon occupying it.

It wouldn’t be the last time he finds the Red Dragon clan on his journey. They hide amongst the traps outside his mother’s temple, the same one commandeered by the Lin Kuei generations before, and the same one where Shujinko learns Lin Kuei martial arts at from Sub-Zero himself. After a confrontation with the same Grandmaster of the Lin Kuei and an impromptu offer of help when Noob and Smoke plan an infiltration on the grounds, Taven is led to the Red Dragon stronghold where he discovers a twist for the ages.

The founder of the Red Dragon clan was his own brother, Daegon.

Further exploring the Red Dragon stronghold, Taven is made aware of a sickening series of science experiments to physically alter the appearance of individual members into dragons themselves. Funny enough, Kano clues him in to all of this. He’s a Black Dragon member with no love for the Red Dragon and if spilling the secrets of a hated enemy means anything, who, besides Mavado, was gonna stop him?

Taven reunites with Daegon’s companion dragon, Caro, imprisoned and forced to scatter the Red Dragon clan throughout the realms. From Caro, Taven learns that the entire course of events that precede Armageddon relied on a mental connection to Blaze. However, he was kidnapped by Onaga’s holy men and enslaved to safeguard the last dragon egg. Since it hatched in Deception, his purpose there had concluded and a side quest in Deception resets his path to continue the quest.

Except the damage had been done. Daegon was awoken prematurely and pretty much singlehandedly set the course of events from Deadly Alliance onward. Blaze made cameos in earlier games, but didn’t come into prominence until Deadly Alliance as a secret playable character.

Caro had felt personally responsible for setting this course of events to occur, but Taven is right. The dragon was being too hard on himself. No victim plans their own kidnapping unless they’re in on it. As Daegon also knew the quest wasn’t all it was said to be, he sought the answers from the source and killed them where they stood. Taking responsibility for all of that, Caro sent Taven to follow Daegon and stop him while Caro stayed behind to destroy the Red Dragon Clan by himself.

Following Taven into the Netherrealm, he happens upon a weakened fallen Elder God, and here we learn how long Taven had been in slumber. The gap in his memory seems to begin with Mortal Kombat 3 and ends in this game. Oh, to fill him in on all the lore.

Shinnok offers to help Taven find and stop Daegon from corrupting the quest further, but he puts Taven through a series of trials first to reclaim his spire. When all is said and done, Taven had been delayed by an elaborate ruse orchestrated by Shinnok and Daegon to advance Daegon’s position as Protector and by extension, god. He also revealed the quest’s existence and prize to other combatants as a means to slow Taven down, from Sektor’s initial ambush at Argus’ temple in Earthrealm to Prince Rain challenging him outside Delia’s.

Taven goes back to Earthrealm where Orin was subject to fatal wounds by Quan Chi. In pursuit, he follows him to Outworld and fights his way through Shao Kahn’s fortress to learn that A. death is a bitch ass in the Mortal Kombat world since Shao Kahn’s fortress would’ve been reclaimed by Onaga and B. Onaga, Shao Kahn, and the former Deadly Alliance have all formed an alliance (still based on ignorance, they all betray each other in the intro cinematic) and fled to Edenia.

Dark Raiden rears his corrupted head once again, having struck an uneasy truce to stop Taven so long as Shao Kahn ignores Earthrealm. A desperate Raiden would definitely do this, but a smarter Raiden would incapacitate Shao Kahn and company. Finally in Edenia, Taven is ambushed by the last of Daegon’s impromptu agents, Scorpion himself. After his defeat in Edenia, Daegon shows up to finish the job but is interrupted by the firespawn himself. The quest didn’t have to and ultimately did not pan out how Argus and Delia foresaw, but by the Elder Gods, if Blaze had to make sure it ended a certain way than gods dammit he will!

Taven and Daegon were taken to the rim of the crater where Armageddon would begin. Finally able to confront Daegon over his corruption and evil, Daegon revealed that he would’ve been a potential victim of primogeniture. Taven earns a pyrrhic victory, and almost walks away from the quest being the sole survivor of his own family.

He finishes the quest after Blaze reveals the truth of the quest to him. If anything, Taven chose to do so because the role needed to be filled. As a result of the events of the other games, Armageddon’s stated mission purpose was to resolve the instability of the realms. It did nothing of the sort. The godlike power wound up empowering the rest of the combatants in Taven’s ending.

Channel: MKIceAndFire

If things went right, Argus and Delia would’ve annulled the combatants of their abilities and made Taven the successor. No Red Dragon, no atrocities, nothing.

Everything does connect in the long run, though. Dark Raiden shows what he’d do to save earth, Onaga shows himself the most treacherous and self-serving, and Blaze reappears to fulfill a greater role since 1993. But as I’ve said before in a prior post, if it wasn’t for the last-minute distractions, most of the plot would have more neat and tidy endings. Not that I’m asking for rewrites after twenty years since the HD Continuation is the rewrites, but more like there were a few areas of the 3D games that could’ve used some ironing out.

The hunt for lore and information is there, and it’s deliberately hidden so that the player can be challenged into finding it, but it’s an uphill battle of sorts when things don’t flow neatly from game to game. Some stuff is left too open to interpretation and while I maintain that Mortal Kombat is guilty of abandoning plot points, the ones they leave in place weren’t any better. Maybe this is a consequence of doing the same thing over the course of thirty years, the same story beats rhyme like an epic, but unfortunately Mortal Kombat ain’t no Beowulf. All in all, this all sounds like a job for The4thSnake on YouTube.

The 3D era of Mortal Kombat is, what I’d call, a conglomerate of rough gems. The beauty exists in the lore than in the visuals and I’m sick to death of this part of the franchise’s history being buried by many so-called fans.

Bring back Chess Kombat, and I’ll wear clothing too explicit, even for pornography.

Forgotten Mortal Kombat Plot Points that Had Potential

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With more time and care, these could’ve helped the old games

This post was originally supposed to be about different archetypes in anime, though I’m delaying that to sometime in December as I don’t yet have enough research to discuss those in full detail. This week, however, I’ll bring up something that has crossed my mind before, but not with enough frequency to expand upon: forgotten plot points from the 3D Mortal Kombat universe.

The original idea came from a MojoPlays video that I couldn’t f[head rip]king find until a few minutes before writing this because I misremembered the title. Abandoned Story Threads instead of Forgotten Plot Points; potato, potahto. Either way, the video can be viewed on the MojoPlays channel through the link below.

Credit: MojoPlays

The gist of the video is that throughout the series, the Mortal Kombat games have introduced plot points that were about to heat up only for the devs to go in a different direction. With over 30 years out on the market, you’ve got your pick of the litter to choose from. For this week, it’s the 3D games from MK Deadly Alliance to Armageddon. Here’s the f[scream of pain]king short version: starting with Deadly Alliance, Quan Chi escaped from a fiery ass-whoopin’ at Scorpion’s hands, discovering the Dragon King’s “undefeatable” army in the process and bringing these mummified warriors to Shang Tsung where they formed a bond based on ignorance.

Context:

Channel: Kamidogu

After the Deadly Alliance is formed, they remove all obstacles that would block them from ruling all existence. Not happy sucking up to Shao Kahn for millennia, they kill him in his throne room then make their way to the Wu Shi Academy where Shang Tsung finally gets to consume the soul of the greatest warrior in Mortal Kombat History: The Great Kung Lao I mean, Liu Kang!

OGs can’t be beat!

So with Liu Kang and Shao Kahn dead, they operate a tournament under false pretenses in Outworld and use the defeated to return the mummified army to life with the goal of marching on Earthrealm with malicious intent. Raiden saw this from the heavens and organized the remaining warriors across the realms to stop them. Fun fact, you can find archived websites and forums debating the plot points of then-upcoming games, like this website MKSecrets.net, which for some reason still looks like it was made in 2001 even though it has details on MK1 (2023)… I thought that was most Japanese websites…?

Anyway, MK: Deception picks up from the premise of Deadly Alliance only the sorcerers were too powerful for all of the warriors (could’ve probably sent them all as a group, but MK9 proves that that wouldn’t have helped much) and so at his wits end, Raiden challenges them himself. Not even a thunder god could defeat the sorcerers and realizing that their goals were nearly complete, what was left was the amulet Quan Chi stole from Shinnok in MK4. He hangs onto it defeating Shang Tsung in the process, only to have Onaga reborn (hinted at from Reptile’s ending in the last game) and return to reclaim the army that the sorcerers so generously returned to life with the souls of conquered fighters.

All three men realize that danger was marching towards them and while they managed to temporarily hold them back, Raiden uses a last ditch attack on the Dragon King. It failed to even scratch him and he grabs a hold of the amulet which will be needed to form the six Kamidogu into a single entity.

Channel: MKIceAndFire

As for how Onaga acquired the Kamidogu, well it involved tricking a young boy named Shujinko and leading him across reality by the nose for 40 years. If this game were canon, that would’ve come back to bite Onaga in the ass, only for Shujinko’s efforts to go unrecognized as redemption and still get punished by a Dark Raiden. This will become important later.

Shaolin Monks was a bit of a beat ’em up remake of MKII (kinda) and I’d already talked about that before, so we’re skipping it considering it has nothing to do with the 3D trilogy anyway.

Armageddon was supposed to cap it all off and the more I’ve thought about it, the more it felt like a final send off before Midway got the crappy ideas out of the way in time to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2010.

Let’s not be too harsh though, it did help pave the way for the Injustice line.

Story-wise, the protector god of Edenia, Argus, is made aware that between the actions of the sorcerers and Shujinko being duped for that long, the warriors of the realms were learning more about the construction of the realms than the Elder Gods would be comfortable with and proposed to Argus to come up with a solution. He suggested total annihilation to protect the realms from their own residents, but his wife Delia suggested depowering them all since there were many heroes who fought tooth and nail to defend the realms from evil, not the least of which was Shao Kahn and Shinnok (whom we learn later was banished to the Netherrealm for eternity for treachery, leaving Quan Chi to do the heavy lifting through the Brotherhood of Shadow).

They’re granted the power to do this and choose to do so by making a competition of things for their sons Taven and Daegon. If things went to plan, the two men would engage in a friendly competition, grab their weapons and armor and race to defeat their mother’s firespawn (half-brother?) Blaze to achieve full godhood as both of them are demigods. In reality, the two brothers, under the watchful eye of a pair of dragons, Orin and Caro, are set on a different path. Caro, who was the guardian dragon of Daegon, lost contact with Blaze believing it to be an early sign to set him on his path. Instead, Daegon forms the Red Dragon clan in Caro’s name and signs off on unethical science experiments for the purpose of choking existence into coughing Blaze up. The way its presented makes me think of Unit 731 in Manchuria and its surgeon general Shiro Ishii. If you don’t know, look it up at your own peril.

This makes Daegon the antagonist of the Konquest mode and through no fault of his own Taven loses sight of the purpose of his quest. And his frustration and confusion at this whole course of events is best reflected at the several times he’s questioned and even considered abandoning ship. The quest stopped being fun for him as he lost the things he cherished. Blaze appeared at the end to catch him up to at least what the true purpose of the quest was and Taven is a hero if we compare him to the Ancient Greek model similar to Perseus or Theseus. Self-serving at times, but the guy still knows the difference between good and evil. Daegon’s descent into evil seems random until he learned that he was supposed to lose the quest and decided to take matters into his own hands, hence the birth of the Red Dragon.

Dropped and abandoned plot points are still a problem for the series as it’s developed a reputation for introducing points and leaving them to collect dust. We barely get five minutes with the concept before the devs (read: Ed Boon and John Tobias) moved onto something else. You could say the fandom is also to blame for this as dedicated fans have asked (demanded) the team to release canonically deceased characters as DLC, but staying with the 3D games where the problem expanded, there’s more to say about it during this era than anywhere else in the series.

Starting with Deadly Alliance, Shao Kahn was established to be killed in the intro to this game, with Deception and Shujinko’s story acting as a prequel taking place some years before the events of Deadly Alliance where it all converges. Shujinko himself was invited twice by the White Lotus Society and later by Shang Tsung himself to represent Earthrealm in the tournament but couldn’t attend for different reasons. The White Lotus got tired of waiting for him to power up (never mind that the tournament is hosted every 50 years) and due to his cleansing journey with Nightwolf, he had to go back to the Netherrealm to gather more hatred, from none other than the ghost of Hanzo Hasashi.

This part doesn’t necessarily screw around with the timeline as egregiously as following plot points, but Armageddon is where it all breaks down. Canonically dead characters are resurrected off-screen and based on what we know we can connect the dots, but often the devs are a bit cagey when it comes to showing how, who and/or why characters are returned to life. The 2011 continuity shows that Quan Chi has brought Noob and Sindel back to life and claimed the souls of those killed by Sindel herself in the eleventh hour, but it’s not shown whether he brought Shao Kahn back to life or if he did why he’d do so, or even why the rest of the villains would agree to this arrangement.

Channel: BruskPoet

I’m not saying this moment in the story is bad, I like it a lot. But the nonexistent explanation for how all this can come to be is what sours me on it somewhat. I’d say there’s no care for a consistent timeline especially in a fighting game (something that doesn’t escape Tekken), but I think it’s more along the lines of the devs wanting their personal favorites to shine brighter than the others, which is why the franchise works better as video games and toy lines than it does movies.

Most of the time…

For what it’s worth, the characters have been mostly consistent with a few touch ups here and there, but if you ask people like The4thSnake, there’s a lot under the hood that could use some light to heavy rewiring from individual characters to whole ass f[swords clashing]king plot points, like what I’ve been writing about here. I’m a bit torn personally, because it brings a charm not found in other series, but this many plot holes treats the timeline like a redheaded step child. Doesn’t stop people from trying, as I’ve stated before, I rewrote MK: Shaolin Monks myself like it was Dragon Ball as that was what I was watching at the time.

Why bother with the 3D games, though? Well, of all the plot points introduced and left by the wayside, the 3D games did it the most and the worst of any other era, which seems to be the result of developmental inconsistencies prior to release on store shelves. It certainly hasn’t stopped people from trying though and it likely will keep going for as long as there is a Mortal Kombat to fix. Nothing too serious at this point, but it’s both fun to expand on what was and offer critique for one of the series most tumultuous times in its history.

The Mortal Kombat Game that Never Was

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Growing pains

Mortal Kombat 1 released on September 19, 2023 and continues with the new continuity left over from the last game MK11. For a recap, MK 2011 (MK9) retold the story of the first three arcade games but with twists. MK X can be considered a divergent timeline than what was seen in Mortal Kombat 4 and Deadly Alliance. MK 11 is what I personally consider a joining together of Deception and Armageddon, and the new game goes full circle.

I had the pleasure of watching the YouTube channel MKIceAndFire play the game from start to finish, I believe with a review copy. I won’t spoil too much for the game, but continuing the trend of reboots, rehashes, and retcons like a late 2010s Marvel or DC Comic there are some changes that I welcome and some I think could’ve been done better. Of those I won’t change: Fire God Liu Kang.

From 1992 to 2023, seeing this franchise evolve over the years is amazing as a fan, so in celebration, I thought today I’d take a look at the franchise’s attempts at spinoffs; and I exclusively mean spinoffs, so updates like Ultimate MK3, Mortal Kombat Gold, or MK vs DC don’t count as most of these are laid out the same as their main contemporaries and don’t do anything different from the others or if they do, not enough.

Video games spawning spinoffs and spiritual successors is a time-honored tradition. Sleeping Dogs succeeds True Crime, the BioShock series to System Shock, and several others. Generally focusing on individual characters or inventing something new comes easy to video games and Mortal Kombat does that in spades, many times over. The first success coming from 2004’s Deception.

By himself, Shujinko’s journey across the realms to gather the Kamidogu though (spoiler) under false pretenses is a solid and interesting story to follow. The boy who dreamt of great things. As an addition to the MK franchise, his story definitely stands out while also adhering to age-old kung fu cinema tropes like that of the wise old foolish master. A combining of the old and new, though he’s currently limited to the 3D era with few references beyond that.

Fortunately, there’s a spinoff that by all accounts is considered perfect. Fluidic combat, leveling abilities, a reimagining of the characters, and a great big tournament with traversable realms, along with a co-operative mode. It’s MK: Shaolin Monks.

With all that had occurred in the franchise’s history, I like to think of this game itself along with the Konquest modes of Deception and Armageddon as culminations of what worked in the past coupled with new ideas that carried these games in particular to new heights. Having said that and considering the title of this post, it’s not hard to see the struggles endured by the franchise.

With even some main games struggling at the first hurdle, some of the updated versions helped somewhat to pick up the slack and can thus be forgiven for their faults. Few games age as well as some others. For spinoffs, though, Ed Boon and John Tobias seemingly had a desire to branch out beyond the main Mortal Kombat tournament or reimagine it somehow. The ideas they had were interesting, but the execution wasn’t what it could’ve been.

Starting with the first of these, the 1997 spinoff featuring the failed Mythologies series.

The Development section of the game’s Wikipedia page states that John Tobias wanted Mythologies to be a separate series, not dissimilar from the multiple series within the Sonic or Mario franchises. The reason for this was to better flesh out and develop the individual stories of the characters far exceeding the limits of the character endings and bios. The people at Midway chose Sub-Zero as their candidate and went with a side-scrolling platformer, also not unlike the more family friendlier video games of the era, or even Castlevania.

Unfortunately for Midway, the results of these efforts were executed poorly. If they were perfect, then the shape of the Mortal Kombat franchise as of now would be different. For their efforts, Mythologies failed at what it set out to do. Awful graphics for the time (and even now), frustrating controls, confusing layout, and uninspired enemy designs, and a difficult loop instead of a curve put this game below the bottom of the barrel.

Probably would’ve been better to spend more time in the oven. That same development section of the Wikipedia article explained that the team working on this game was much smaller and the techniques used a whole bunch of green screen and overlays. Not saying that more cooks in the kitchen would’ve produced a better meal, but if the size of the dev team was the culprit than a few more hands would’ve helped. Or if not that, then the old ways that worked for the other games were still available.

Could Mythologies have been made better? Perhaps. Whatever the defining factor is that gave us the Mythologies of this timeline than whatever another timeline got, I can’t say with certainty. As a positive for that game though, the costumes and set design were true to the original character designs and it’s cool to see someone loved Quan Chi’s appearance in MK4 enough to make that his alternate costume going forward. Observe.

Not to be deterred by one failure, the alchemists of Midway sought to try again some three years later with a worse attempt at a spinoff: Mortal Kombat: Special Forces. The specter of video game development hell would have it out for Midway at this stage it seemed. The moderately-sized dev team behind MK Mythologies was unlucky, but according to this game’s Wikipedia article and this article by Gaming Bolt, the development of the game was way more trouble for subpar returns.

Comparing MK4 from 1997 to Deadly Alliance from 2002 shows that for the former, the transition to 3D was neither easy nor pretty while the latter made use of what was learned the first time around to produce a better looking product. But MK4 is a game the old heads of Midway are at least somewhat proud of for not breaking too much and experimenting with a new trend at the time. Special Forces is infamous for being so maligned that Ed Boon hasn’t acknowledged it since its 2000 release on the almost retired PlayStation and for good reasons.

The technology at the time was well outside the dev team’s scope and experience, given how much of a chore it was just to get MK4 and the subsequent Gold up and running. As for what gameplay consisted of, it was quite ambitious at the time. An action-adventure beat ’em up with a revolving door of abilities and even weapons at the player’s disposal sounded way too good to be true for a 2000 game and it unfortunately was. These difficulties mounted with distressed developers jumping ship and leaving new folks with a mess to sort through.

Of these departures was John Tobias himself. One of the two men who brought us this franchise needed to dip out and take a much needed breather, and with news of this during the dev cycle, rumors abound that Special Forces was set to be cancelled soon. But the remaining devs continued forth in this perilous journey to bring the game out and their efforts sadly did go to waste.

Never mind cooking with a missing number of cooks; this is what happens when some of the cooks leave and new cooks fill their shoes without filling them in on what they’re finishing. Needless to say, ugly graphics, bad controls, a convoluted story, and last-minute changes to who the protagonist was supposed to be, the wider MK community has little love for this game and those who are joining but don’t know about this game, take it from those who do, you’re not missing much. Deadly Alliance has more bang for your buck.

I’d already said above that Shaolin Monks was perfection as far as spinoffs go and for a while I didn’t realize that it was also supposed to have a sequel. I tried looking into this more and for games that get canned for XYZ, many of those that don’t see the light of day at least have footage for the public to gaze upon. Like Eight Days, or Sonic X-Treme or Scalebound to name a few. In my research, I’d found that a developer known as Paradox Studios (not the makers of Europa Universalis or Hearts of Iron) were supposed to spearhead a sequel focusing on Scorpion and Sub-Zero with the working subtitle of Fire & Ice.

It would’ve been loosely based on the Mortal Kombat II ending to Scorpion’s arcade run where to atone for killing Sub-Zero’s brother, he vows to protect him as a savior and guardian. If you’ve played any of the recent Mortal Kombat games, there are several nods to this in a few select endings. My personal favorite being guest character Spawn’s from MK11.

Credit: MKIceAndFire

All things considered, the great focus paid to Sub-Zero and Scorpion culminating in an almost game that was canned on the drawing board makes it seem as though Fire & Ice was the one that got away. The reasons behind the cancellation had to do with Paradox Studios suffering from financial woes, as explained in this article from Game Informer. The most they could do was a concept level and character design before the project was tossed out with the bath water.

Still, the concept resonated enough for Ed Boon et al to keep referencing it some 15 years after the project’s premature death and for fans to produce a bevy of fanart and fanfics over what the story could’ve been about. Perhaps it could’ve been something like what Mythologies would’ve been with the fleshing out of other character stories; maybe the two would combine to beat down on Quan Chi only for him to be saved by one of the Brothers of Shadow or even Shinnok himself. The sky was the limit back then, and it still is. For all its faults, Armageddon was onto something with the character customization, something that made a comeback in MK11 with the different loadouts for each character.

Since the reboot in 2011, NetherRealm Studios (probably with insistence from WB Games) has been focusing on the main plot with nothing to show for a side plot to explore aside from the associated comics that most folks probably won’t realize are being released until they do some more digging. I’m hesitant to say that WB Games won’t allow a new Fire & Ice; while backwards compatibility is off the table for them, it’d help me greatly if I knew what their game plans were before I say anything. And with studios so tightlipped about projects and pitches, speculation is the best we can do until a statement is made.

An Homage to My PS2 Library

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The humble beginning

I call this one a humble brag of sorts as I look back to the games I had available on my old PS2. From the day I got it (c. 2003) to the day I canned it (March 2013), I had a large library of games. Not exactly enough to fill a whole bookcase, but large enough to dedicate one of the shelves of the bookcase to them for storage. My ever reliable memory may fail me here, but I’ll go ahead with the ones that I remember dedicating the most time to, starting with this.

3D Mortal Kombat Games (2002-06): Starting with a classic series, you might be surprised to learn how I got into Mortal Kombat. My mother actually was a fan during the 90s’ 2D era Mortal Kombat games.

Considering the steps the franchise has taken since and now with a new game debuting in the middle of September, it’s nostalgic to look back at these 2D sprites of digitized martial artist-actors and think that this was the first of a phenomenal and influential video game series. The blood, the characters, the story, the moves, and best of all the fatalities; something this popular and this controversial — so much so that it helped birth the ESRB — was not lacking in graphic content, nor even imitators for that matter.

There were always fighting games before, during, and after MK’s big debut, but I’m not sure if any other fighting franchise can boast about having as many imitators as MK did at the time, and probably still does. Then again, a few come to mind…

https://www.cbr.com/mortal-kombat-rip-offs-good-bad/

MK’s transition to 3D in 1997 wasn’t without its missteps however. It tried its best, but Ed Boon even admitted that Mortal Kombat 4’s quality wasn’t up to snuff, and this isn’t even mentioning the media getting in on the then-hyper realistic graphics and their supposed influence on the impressionable and possible contribution to real-world violence–an accusation that video games couldn’t seem to shake off for years. But nevertheless, Midway trudged on and met the 2000s swinging at the fences.

Although Deadly Alliance came first in 2002, the first MK game I had was 2004’s Deception. The simple numbering system for sequels isn’t concrete giving way to creativity most of the time, but an average consumer without even a bit of knowledge in what they’re buying may not notice until after they buy the game. Fortunately for us, Blockbuster Video was a popular rental store for those who wanted to test an entertainment medium before committing or just didn’t see themselves owning it for good.

This was how I found out about Deadly Alliance. Being a bit older than Deception, most of the features in Deception aren’t in Deadly Alliance. It did have the 3D animations, fighting styles, and arenas that followed it into Armageddon and MK vs DC Universe (I personally don’t count this as an MK game), but what it was lacking in is what makes Deception look like an upgrade by comparison. This doesn’t mean Deadly Alliance was barebones, far from it. It’s Konquest mode was a great big tutorial for how to move and maneuver the characters and their combos, the endings were all unique with some connecting to others, the krypt had loads of secrets and collectibles to find, and the soundtrack stands as one of my favorites in video gaming.

On the later end of the 3D era, Armageddon had the same fighting mechanics of the last two games with several more added features, several mini-games and an in-depth plot about the fate of existence like that of Deception, and has possibly featured nearly every character ever introduced in Mortal Kombat since its inception 14 years earlier, but seems more than a little bit barebones compared to its predecessors. The previous two games gave the characters two fighting styles and a weapon, an arsenal of special moves, one fatality in Deadly Alliance and two in Deception including a Hara-Kiri/suicide move. Deception and Armageddon fixed the error that Deadly Alliance committed by omitting the stage fatalities, but committed some of its own cardinal sins.

Technically, it’s possible to have mastery over two or more martial arts styles. I was never the biggest fan of the old style-branching combos with so many of them being so difficult to pull off in rapid succession, but for the most part, the variety they added to a fight by chaining multiple combos between styles and sometimes ending with a strong weapon attack was the definition of a power move, or dare I say, a pro gamer move.

So while they might be gone from Armageddon, at least the characters feel and play differently: males apart from females apart from creature-types like Motaro or Baraka apart from the literal beasts like Goro, Onaga or even Blaze himself after the glow up from his addition as a secret character from MK Deadly Alliance.

The other cardinal sin committed, one that’s less forgivable or defendable is that of the fatalities. If you’ve played these older games, you’ll know that the window of opportunity was notoriously unforgiving and the combos so precise that one slip-up could turn a head ripper into a slap in the face which some would say added to the reward. I actually discovered Armageddon’s fatality system by accident after trying to finish a character off by way of special move only to unintentionally dismember them and squeeze his head. Yeah, Armageddon got lazy with the fatalities.

No room for practicing something difficult anymore, everyone regardless of physicality is capable of committing many of the same fatalities and input combos, with different tiers depending on what’s done to the victim. Single moves aren’t anything special where as a full-on prolonged dismemberment and maiming before the big finish creates what the game calls an “Ultimate Fatality.”

I can call this a lot of things, but part of me used to believe the titling of Armageddon was a glimpse into what was going on behind the scenes. Just now, a Google search revealed that there was more going on under the hood that resulted in Midway shutting down in 2009, not the least of which was an overdependence on Mortal Kombat along with financial mishandling, so while I wasn’t off the mark, I wasn’t entirely accurate either.

3D Grand Theft Auto Games (2001-2006): This brings me back to an arguable bygone era of RockStar Games, a time when the next game was literally a few years or even months away than a full-on decade and change. Think about it: the last GTA game will turn ten years old in less than a month as of writing this. Also, the most recent release was an ambitious project that lived up to its purported hype if not beyond and RockStar is seeking to abandon it.

But we’re getting off track. The most iconic games of the GTA era were released seemingly back to back between October 2001 and October 2004 and have set the precedent for 3D gaming ever since, finding the solution to a complex problem. For GTA III, full 3D graphics have been realized and helped struggling developers hit the ground running when they eventually tried it in their own IPs (though I argue this was also perfected in another game published that year, Max Payne). For 2002’s Vice City, while admittedly an asset flip that has helped with the influence of future methods of lazy rip-offs and asset flips (arguable again, I can’t put fault for all of that on one game), it added more to the GTA franchise and gaming in general with the setting, plot, characters, star studded voice actors and features. Finally, for 2004’s San Andreas, the features present in that game got an even bigger boost across a much larger open-world game. It incorporated several RPG-like elements regarding character customization, had expanded on bonuses featured in prior entries, expanded on the ownership of assets from Vice City and many more features that are too numerous to name.

Additionally, there were spin-offs set in between these games like Vice City Stories and Liberty City Stories, both of which I’ve covered on this blog earlier this year. From GTA III to 2006’s VCS, the 3D era games show the most innovation and imagination to me. GTA III walked so the succeeding games could sprint, to the point that in lists describing games that have aged poorly, GTA III consistently places in the middle for what the succeeding games have that it didn’t.

It’s hard to say when silent protagonists lost their favor with developers with them becoming more rare as personable protagonists became more commonplace, but Claude having no voiced lines would make him forgettable if it wasn’t for his attire. Green cargos, a leather jacket, and what looks like navy blue Nikes or Vans; at least he’s recognizable. But without a voice, players are left with his actions to characterize him. The Professional makes a case for him being a textbook psychopath. Although the game is majority player-driven, Claude not even second guessing his own actions before nodding and blasting sounds like a worry spot for criminal profilers to watch out for.

His successor, Tommy Vercetti, was much more animated and well-acted, which may have something to do with his voice actor.

An ambitious move on RockStar’s part, hiring A-list actors for main roles was an ingenious move that continued well into the 2010s to help shape the numerous protagonists going forward. Tommy Vercetti is an embittered ex-mobster who was given all the freedom to screw over a boss who wronged him ages ago. To this end, he’s mostly stuck working with a hapless, cocaine-addled lawyer whose voice lines whenever you get busted by the cops are some of the most humorous in the game.

He was initially supposed to go down to Vice City, Florida to make money for the mob and send the earnings back to the Forelli family, but with all that’s happening in VC thus far, coupled with a complicated past of betrayal, Tommy’s choices are clearer than they were. Forget the mob, Vercetti’s the big boss of this neon-lit city, and the ownership of assets from a cab company to a print shop to a cocaine distributor masquerading as an ice cream factory reflects this. It all comes to a head when the news and not the money reaches the mob’s ears and thus comes the final mission paying homage to the 1983 remake of Scarface.

I’m not kidding, this is a remake of a 1930s movie.

Anyway, GTA: San Andreas’s use of RPG elements was peak customization. VC allowed you to change your clothing, but SA gives you way more freedom. Whole outfits can be created by changing a simple article of clothing, the player can ink themselves up, and get any haircut they desire. There’s also a sort of leveling system based on how often you perform such an action. From my own experience, I’ve employed what some could consider a Call of Duty method to shooting. What I mean is, most of the time, my accuracy in shooting got a boost each time I crouched down and took aim. So I started on the AK firing at the hip and ended the game firing it from the shoulder as God intended.

Relationships also got an upgrade. The protagonists of the last games had more business partners than personal friendships, but CJ sets this apart since he’s a native San Andrean coming back to settle debts with friends and old gang members, especially when corrupt LSPD officers Frank Tenpenny and Eddie Pulaski (voiced by legends Samuel L. Jackson and Chris Penn respectively) instruct (read: coerce) them to do their dirty work. Interestingly, the inspiration for much of SA’s plot comes from the 1992 L.A. Rodney King riots and the Rampart scandal in the LAPD. There’s a chance an Angeleno who witnessed either or even both of these personally got an ugly reminder of these events while playing the game.

Of all the games from the 3D era, due to them being released before the internet and multiplayer games caught up with each other, these were the ones that got remastered more than the other games between their respective ten-year anniversaries and GTA III’s 20th anniversary culminating in the largely reviled Grove Street Games definitive edition.

Take my opinion for what it’s worth as this section of this week’s entry as well as opinions made earlier this year have made it quite clear where I stand on games this old, but not only was this a black eye to the image of a company that might be doing too much with one franchise while neglecting another and moving too slowly to get a long-awaited sequel out, it was also somewhat unnecessary. In the lead up to the Definitive Edition’s release, the originals were all delisted on Steam. Fortunately for me, I managed to blaze through the originals on PC. I bought and beat VC on Steam before that happened, I pirated and beat GTA III and I managed to snag San Andreas for free from the RockStar Games Launcher. So, have at it RockStar.

Naruto: Ultimate Ninja and Uzumaki Chronicles Games (2002-07): The influence and spread of the Naruto franchise at the outset is not to be understated. It did not take long for cartoon distributors to air it soon after getting the green light. Naturally, this lead to widespread marketing across the western world, even with western toymakers like Mattel, some of which I owned myself. The video games themselves each centered around different arcs from the series. 1-3 covered the whole of Part 1, 4 and 5 covered about a fifth or so of Shippuden, though only Japan and Europe got a hold of the fifth installment of the Ultimate Ninja series before it got another chance as the Storm series, finishing all of Naruto and adapting the Boruto movie in the game.

As for the rest of the game, with the entirety of the main arc being relatively easy to clear, there were game exclusive arcs that could be boiled down to an OVA. In UN2, after Tsunade returns to the village to become the Fifth Hokage, Orochimaru returns to again coerce her into healing his arms after getting his sealed during his fight with the Third, even going as far as using forbidden jutsu like the the Gedo Mark and Reanimation to destroy the Leaf Village until she capitulates. Interesting from a plot perspective but ignorant of established lore with its own set of plot holes.

Ultimate Ninja 3 had its exclusive arc adapted into an OVA to promote the game. In it, Tsunade hosts a battle royale featuring Leaf and Sand shinobi with the promise that the winner can put up a regulation of their own choosing for a week. You don’t know what everyone’s is, but the biggest one is the one that eventually becomes canon and sits in the background while Naruto’s son does the plot things. Rather than precede or even succeed any of the adapted arcs, it’s its own separate thing altogether.

Ultimate Ninja 4, has its OVA-like arc before Naruto and Jiraiya returns to the village. Arguably, one of my favorites, Naruto and Jiraiya are wrapping up their training with a final lesson. Naruto wears weighted beads on his wrists and ankles for an extended period of time. They change color as he goes on. Meanwhile, he and Jiraiya stumble on a village that made use of its mining industry at the expense of safety. An ancient spirit from within dwells within and takes regular sacrifices, one of them being a little girl that Naruto tries to Talk no Jutsu into coming back to her village. As he learns more about her and her motives, he eventually comes through to her, aids in her predicament and makes a new friend. However, due to her being non-canon and this being Naruto, he got used to not being able to keep her as a friend. Then the rest of Shippuden happens all the way up until Gaara is taken back to the Akatsuki hideout.

The fifth game includes that and the Tenchi Bridge arc but North America wouldn’t be able to witness that through conventional means, culminating in this:

For the gameplay, it was on a pair of 2D planes with one acting as the background and the other the fore ground allowing players to transition between them whenever they desired. As for move sets, unlike Mortal Kombat, the same buttons do the same things across the games: there’s one attack, one charge, one ultimate move button, a jump, and a throwables button. This sounds like the games are one note, but most of the move sets are unique to the characters and true to their depictions in the series.

It was a working formula for the games, but according to the Naruto Wiki they were pumped out at a breakneck pace which may explain the issues with continuing it past Number 5 and getting it to the rest of the world. Fortunately, Ultimate Ninja Storm fixed what was broken and gets to a proper, more complete adaptation instead of simply cutting corners.

I think it was for the best that Ultimate Ninja got the boot. Rapid adaptations before the series is even finished is good for marketing, but if the game catches up to the series, it tends to force the devs to get creative. Unlike original IPs like GTA or MK or even Mario for that matter, adapting something that exists isn’t always easy. In the case of Naruto, it allegedly made things easy by way of all the fillers it has separating the canon from the actual plot, but for something that was still in serialization, Bandai Namco seemed to have struggled in some areas.

Earlier when I mentioned the UN2 exclusive arc about reanimation and forbidden jutsu, if you don’t know, powerful jutsu often demand large chakra reserves and a critically crippled Orochimaru trying this even through Kabuto shows his desperation but there’s a fine line between desperation and suicide. According to the lore, it should’ve killed him. Then again, Kishimoto’s method of storytelling was by way of drip feed then downpour, so are the devs still at fault for that arc? Well, I don’t think so. It’s all fiction anyway.

Racing Games (2000-07): I’ll close off with the racing games I played with. Back in April (time surely flies), I made a post about my top 3 racing games from best to worst and in that order mine were Midnight Club 3, Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 and L.A. Rush. Thanks to a video by the YouTuber BlueTag, I was reminded of how much I hated the last of those three. But just because those three were the most memorable doesn’t mean those were the only games I engaged in regarding racing. I vaguely remember the Gran Turismo series though I don’t remember engaging that much with it. L.A. Rush definitely turned me off of that game for reasons expressed many moons before.

Midnight Club however motivated me to check out the earlier entries and while they weren’t bad, they reminded me of what I wrote about GTA in this post. The succeeding games got better and better and better and as a result the older games aged so badly that you have to get used to a whole new set of rules, like transitioning from horses to cars but backwards in this case. Also, a feature that is underappreciated is the freedom to cruise around a given city. I remember Midnight Club 2 incessantly reminding you to race other racers, whereas in MC3, you could do what you want in the world. The racers and races and tournaments were there, but there was almost no pressure to knock them all off the streets as fast as possible. Above all, the series always harped praise and reward on you the player to be the best racer ever and get 1st place all the time. MC3 to me was the easiest game to 100% complete.

On the other end of the spectrum, skill and learning have almost always been a cornerstone of EA games as I found out playing Battlefield 1. It takes some getting used to but once you get the hang of an EA game, you’ll feel like a master in no time. NFS: Hot Pursuit 2 had a noticeable difficulty curve and didn’t always drive you (get it?) to be number 1 all the time. By working on a points system, it carries over from race to race, so there’s no pressure to be 1st all the time, but it does help. Tournaments and knockouts also make a difference regarding the rules of the race, so few races played the same.

The downside though was that the customization wasn’t as extensive as MC3. If you’re a creative or artsy type of person, the cosmetics in Midnight Club make it feel as though you’ve walked into God’s personal workshop ready to design your greatest fleet of dream cars. As part of an experiment, I played MC3 last winter on PCSX2 without a controller. Thanks to my abnormally long fingers I was able to 100% the game and unlock all the collectibles on the keyboard. But it was so tedious that I resorted to using a program that tricks Windows into thinking my PS3 controller was an Xbox controller and haven’t really looked back since. Even now that I got Flight Simulator working I used the controller for that among others. So the game and whichever program I’m running will depend on what control scheme I need.

As far as my library goes, I mentioned all these games on this nostalgia trip but it’s not an exhaustive list. I didn’t even mention the Dragon Ball Z games, Ribbit King, Max Payne, other anime-esque games and puzzle games that my mom really liked, some of the arcade collections; as I said, my memory is unreliable and bound to fail me once again. I might do this for other game systems I had, though I’ve gotta reach deep. Some are iconic, others are weird and obscure.

Looking at this now reminds me of most of the anime from the early 2000s just by the art style. Oh, how the times change before our giant anime eyes.

The last recommendation for the month of August is DashieGames a.k.a. DashieXP.

https://www.youtube.com/@DashieGames/about

This is a throwback for me. I was introduced to DashieXP through a friend while we were looking for gameplay of the new Tomb Raider reboot and after pushing me to check out the rest of his content, I was momentarily obsessed with catching everything he put out, truth be told. I don’t watch everything he puts out and occasionally go back to select videos and gameplays for old time’s sake. DashieXP actually has his start as a rapper and skit actor of sorts online. His skit channel DashieXP was where he started with a bunch of different parodies and whatnot. After a year on that channel, he started DashieGames in 2011 and gradually turned that channel into his main one with all the time it steals from him.

The comedy style is a bit of an acquired taste. When I was in high school, his schtick would glue me to the computer but as I got older, I found other channels and my tastes have matured a bit. I do still have a soft spot for the guy, but thankfully he’s not the only YouTuber I watch anymore. If you’re interested, give him a watch.

Mortal Kombat 1

TiberiusLeave a comment

Another entry to the king of blood and guts

About two weeks ago, a teaser was released for the next installment in the Mortal Kombat franchise slated for released in September of this year. The gist of the teaser was that post MK 11 Aftermath, there’s a new timeline and therefore a new god because Kronika and her merry band of lackeys have been defeated or written out of history as to not muck anything up like they did the first time.

In spite of what I wrote above, the announcement doesn’t reveal much, though it still requires a general knowledge of the plot line of the games from 1992 to the 3D era of the 2000s for why it was soundly rebooted in 2011 and the timeline post-2011, both of which I think I can safely say I have knowledge in.

To set a primer, Ed Boon and John Tobias began working on a fighting video game with digitized sprites for the actors in 1991 for arcades. A small team of programmers, actors with an intermediate or advanced knowledge of martial arts, and a marketing team brought the dream to light, but with a twist: blood. Unlike other video games like Final Fight or Streets of Rage or more appropriately Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat got grizzlier with the inclusion of blood and the option to kill the opponent in the ring by dismemberment

In the era where video games were the same as children’s toys, Mortal Kombat and Night Trap, a video game released the same year as MK, were the subject of intense political debate over what is appropriate for a child to see in fictional media. You and I both know that try as one may, there’s no realistic way to imitate the exaggerated violence seen in a video game, but nevertheless the extremeness in the game led to the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board or ESRB.

The ESRB is responsible for the guidelines for parents when it comes to purchasing video games for their kids. When it was created, most adults rarely played video games, or aged out of it with time (not including parents), and were likely to be unaware of what was in the game. But with a specific letter marking on the cover of the box, a parent can best determine what their child can play on paper. In my experience, it takes a trusting or admittedly negligent adult to let their child get away with playing something like GTA or Call of Duty, a problem that persists even now.

Still, whatever would come out of these government hearings on interactive entertainment wouldn’t matter much to gamers and arcade goers of the time. The controversy and the marketing worked wonders that Ed Boon and Midway Games could make more sequels in the 1990s and eventually get the games on home consoles when Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance was given its’ own spotlight during E3 2002.

As for the plot of the Midway Games, the evil emperor of Outworld Shao Kahn has absorbed another realm into his empire and has his sights trained on Earthrealm. The Elder Gods put their foot down and give the realm a chance to fight back through a tournament. Over the course of a millennium, 10 consecutive tournaments are meant to take place with the last one determining the fate of the realm. Shao Kahn’s representative on earth is a sorcerer named Shang Tsung who has the power to take souls and replenish his youth. Basically, he’s immortal, and every time a fighter dies in the tournament he takes their souls, though he has different methods of stealing souls if he wants to (and he always does). The tournaments are spread out over the course of fifty years, which means theoretically someone can fight in two tournaments if they’re healthy and lucky enough to live to be that old.

MK 1992 begins at the 10th tournament, and the final boss of the game is Shang Tsung who additionally can shapeshift. I have fond memories of this levitating old man transforming into the sub-boss Goro while I was playing the game in the Midway Arcade Treasures collection.

But when he does lose, the character Ed Boon et al determines to be the default protagonist, Bruce Lee clone number 1009 Liu Kang is chosen to be the champion of Mortal Kombat. At the same time, Shang Tsung is reprimanded and demoted by Shao Kahn who decides to take matters into his own hands and becomes the final boss of 1993’s Mortal Kombat II, complete with a larger cadre of characters representing Outworld and Earthrealm.

History repeats itself and the heroes soundly defeat Shao Kahn, but the power hungry emperor isn’t done yet. By 1995’s Mortal Kombat 3, the man is desperate to have Earthrealm in his expansion pack, and at the risk of sounding like a cheerleader for several historical conquerors, Shao Kahn could’ve studied the techniques of Alexander the Great, Napoleon, and militarily Adolf Hitler to learn why throwing your men at the frontlines like this doesn’t work or what worked for the defenders at the expense of the invaders, but then again, Shao Kahn has almost always been a one-track conqueror. Even a little bit of credit is too much for a character like him.

By 1997, Mortal Kombat 4 played with 3D graphics to give us another cast of ne’er-do-wells to fight. Shinnok, and his protégé Quan Chi. I admit that my exposure to MK4 is limited with the exception of some of the character endings making it to MK: Deadly Alliance’s krypt as unlockables, but one that I remember was that if playing as Quan Chi, the sorcerer betrays Shinnok and everyone else to hold infinite power. In another ending, the character Baraka takes serious issue with this and attempts to kill the sorcerer who just so happens to have necromantic powers and becomes another skeleton in Quan Chi’s graveyard, funny enough.

Quan Chi himself was written as the source of Scorpion’s woes. For the longest time, it was believed that the rivalry between himself and Sub-Zero was due to Sub-Zero’s clan of Lin Kuei warriors exterminating him, his clan the Shirai Ryu, and his family, when in MK4 it was revealed that the Lin Kuei never went after Scorpion’s wife and son. That was Quan Chi’s doing, and when the dunderhead revealed his hand in an attempt to be rid of his lapdog by transporting him to the Netherrealm, Scorpion grabbed the sorcerer at the last minute to exercise his misdirected vengeance on the sorcerer, leading into Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance.

Released in November 2002, Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance did 3D much better than its predecessor and had more room to expand on existing mythology thanks to cutscenes and extra content in the game’s krypt. With a payment of a specific amount of koins, different stuff can be unlocked from pre-production art to full characters and their alternate costumes to movies and interviews with the staff and many more.

Plot-wise, the game includes an introductory movie narrated by the thunder god Raiden to a gaggle of Earthrealm warriors whom he plans to lead in a coming battle. Quan Chi survived Scorpion’s onslaught in the Netherrealm and escaped into a hidden tomb containing the mummified remains of Outworld’s ancient dragon king. To make matters worse, he teamed up with Shang Tsung and the two sought to remove the obstacles in their way to power.

By Mortal Kombat’s rules, Shao Kahn was revived which teaches you all you need to know about how seriously death is taken in this universe. It’s not like in Naruto where a reanimation jutsu can revive a character by way of a sacrifice; most of the time, characters tend to Kratos their way back into the world of the living because “I decide when I die!”

Anyway, the Deadly Alliance takes out Shao Kahn and in a ballsy move for a creative in any industry, they take out Liu Kang himself. The champion of Mortal Kombat is killed and his and other dead warriors’ souls are used to revive the mummifed army of the dragon king. If they succeed, Outworld and eventually Earthrealm will fall at their hands.

Raiden had previously ascended to the position of Elder God, but the chaos and peril unfolding in the realms coupled with the Elder Gods’ inaction to it all motivated him to relinquish this position and take charge personally. Almost every warrior died or defected to the side of evil and 2004’s Mortal Kombat: Deception begins with a new narrator.

In Deception, the Konquest mode takes the player through the past of Shujinko and his journey to recover the Kamidogu, or godly tools, to be transported to the Elder Gods. This lifelong journey introduces Shujinko and puts him at different points in the Mortal Kombat timeline. As a matter of fact, he helped Scorpion find Quan Chi in the Netherrealm and was one of the first to learn of Liu Kang’s death with further developments pulling the two in different directions with a significant point of divergence. I wrote above that most of the warriors representing the good guys died or defected, but in Shujinko’s case, spoiler alert, he’d been an unknowing tool of a greater evil, worse than anything the Deadly Alliance could ever conceive and had been hard at work performing this evil for decades until the big reveal at the end of MK: Deception’s Konquest mode.

Before Shujinko defeated his enigmatic puppeteer, Onaga had marched into Outworld to take back his army and empire by force. Raiden and the Deadly Alliance knew the dangers that would come with an Onaga victory and sought to stop it, even to the point of self-destruction (which happens to be one of Raiden’s fatalities in Deception), but it proved fruitless when Onaga was revealed to be the sole survivor when the blast eliminated everything… or so it would seem. Raiden also lived, but was so corrupted by mortals messing with reality that he set out on a new mission to strike back pre-emptively.

Following Shujinko’s victory against the dragon king, Raiden appeared before him as punishment for allowing Onaga to even get as far as he did. The intentions of either didn’t matter to the immediate consequences, nor was it important to the corrupted thunder god that he rectified his mistake. Raiden wanted blood reparations and Shujinko wouldn’t be the only one to face this wrath.

Speaking of messing with reality, Mortal Kombat: Armageddon was the first time that it would happen in the MK universe and owing to its name, Armageddon was what was at stake at the time. Every fighter in Mortal Kombat history (including maligned characters) fought each other in the realm of Edenia, in a large crater where a pyramid dedicated the realm’s protector god Argus would later rise housing a fire spawn creature named Blaze. At Blaze’s death, the victor would set off a reaction with one of two outcomes: annulment of all abilities or total extermination.

In this game’s Konquest mode, the creators of the quest Argus and his wife, sorceress Delia, designed the quest with a winner in mind, their eldest son Taven. If things went right, he and his brother Daegon would engage in a quest sold to them as a friendly competition where they’d acquire weapons and armor to defeat Blaze and become full gods instead of the demigods they are now. Thing is, they intended for Taven to win it all, but when Daegon was awoken earlier than expected, he found out about this and went on a third, unpredictable path; he founded the Red Dragon clan and spent the last few centuries finding Blaze who it’s revealed was kidnapped and hypnotized to watch over the last dragon egg in MK: Deception. Bad sense of direction? Incompetence? Bull manure? Well, it’s convenient either way that in Armageddon’s Konquest mode Daegon’s clan had better luck ambushing his own brother than he did in finding the main element in the quest.

I made this meme just now. I’m probably wrong about Daegon’s efforts here, but with what I learned this late into the 3D era, it’s still a bit weird that he put more of his time in trying to kill his brother than in finding Blaze first. It makes it even weirder knowing how technologically advance the Red Dragon clan was to perform human experiments on their own members attempting to turn them into hybrid dragons like Reptile.

Anyway, Taven fights his way to Edenia intending to defeat Daegon out of necessity before being persuaded by Blaze himself to finish the quest. At the end of this, we can conclude that Taven became a god as intended and one of the adverse affects of the quest was that instead of death or depowering, everyone got stronger and the realms remained in peril, for which Taven would have to serve as the bulwark against extinction. And so the 3D era ends in a bit of a whimper.

The developer side had several troubles to deal with themselves. Mortal Kombat successfully franchised to get an animation and toy line ups and comics, but spin-off games were Midway’s Achilles’ heel. 2000 saw the release of Mortal Kombat: Special Forces, a game that Ed Boon wants everyone to forget.

If the co-creator won’t aid the game, why would anyone else, right? Before that, 1997 also saw the release of Mortal Kombat: Mythologies which was meant to tell the stories of individual characters beginning with the one who appears in every installment: Sub Zero, but the controls, graphics, and full AMV cutscenes saw hardly any returns on investment and so they didn’t bother with another spin-off until Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks in 2005, a game with excellent beat ’em up mechanics even if the roster is quite small. A sequel to this called Mortal Kombat: Fire and Ice was in pre-production, but the only traces of its existence come in the form of concept art before the project was canned between 2006 and 2010 when Midway’s assets were sold to Warner Bros. following a Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

By 2011, Ed Boon and co. started again under the new studio NetherRealm Studios and redid much of the story of the first three games in Mortal Kombat 2011, colloquially known as MK9. By the end of the game, Shao Kahn was soundly defeated and in the immediate aftermath, Quan Chi and Shinnok redo this timeline’s events of MK4, but with a twist. 25 years and the old generation of characters had had children of their own, many of whom joined in the fight to not only defeat evil but to contain it.

The connecting element this time around is Shinnok’s amulet which can’t be destroyed and thus needs to be heavily guarded around the clock. The problem here is that there are saboteurs around and the new leader of Outworld, Kotal Kahn, doesn’t easily trust Earthrealm. Things don’t go as bad for them until halfway through when Earthrealm chooses not to eliminate immediate threats and dangers where they spring up, even when they would all make sense.

The saboteur in question is a character named D’Vorah, who went down in history as one of the less welcome additions to the roster in recent memory. The point of divergence here is that Shang Tsung and Quan Chi don’t form the Deadly Alliance (though there’s a neat reference in MK9’s story mode). There’s also no Onaga and Blaze despite there also being references to them both. So no Deadly Alliance, and no Quan Chi to betray Shinnok. Instead, Shinnok is summoned behind enemy lines and finally for a necromancer, Quan Chi’s ability to command the dead is explored in this timeline when he has the souls of fallen heroes who dream of taking their revenge on Raiden, who still goes dark in this timeline.

The shoe’s on the other foot now with Dark Raiden taking the plunge against evil like how Shao Kahn opted to be the final boss in the other games. This time, Shinnok’s mother Kronika and his sister Cetrion rearrange the timeline to maintain the balance between light and dark, one of the most important instances being the fallout between Liu Kang and Raiden. Once they realize this on their way to stop Kronika herself with a new cadre of friends and an army to command, Raiden and Liu Kang combined to form Fire God Liu Kang which, fun fact is how MK: Mythologies ends.

This time, their fighting chances have gotten better and with Kronika’s defeat, Liu Kang has a new timeline to oversee, which is where we are. Based on what I wrote and what I know I have a few ideas of what to expect based on what happened, but there’s no guarantee everything will live up to my predictions even slightly. The Aftermath DLC in MK 11 ended with Shang Tsung’s defeat and Liu Kang starting with the ancestor of Kung Lao, the fabled Great Kung Lao who lost favor when he was defeated by Goro in the old timeline. My first and so far only prediction is that this time, Liu Kang cheers this one on and Kung Lao’s bloodline becomes venerated instead.

After that, remains to be seen. Ed Boon’s been doing this for 30 years and has a great love and respect for his own series, often dropping hints and teasers for fans on Twitter, so we can expect further updates from him in the lead up to MK 12 or Mortal Kombat 1 as it’s going to be known as.

I have opinions on sequels named the same as the original that can best be summarized in this episode of You Know What’s Bullsh-t?!

This week, I’m recommending the YouTube channel h0ser, recently rebranded as hoser.

https://www.youtube.com/@h0ser/about

The channel talks about history and geopolitics in a comedic manner, often with insert country’s most common animal here as a stand in for the nation in question, painted in the country’s flag. A buffalo for the US, a bulldog for the UK, a bear for Russia and the Soviet Union, etc. An old approach to when the channel did this through countryballs method.

Those of you who want to learn more about the world, hoser is one of many sources for that knowledge.