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Right here is where the end gon' start at... Konflict, kontact 'n' kombat
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Group 1: Eastwind
Group 2: Neuros
Group 3: Ekimaru
Group 4: Persephone
Old rivals face off in Full-Kontact Character Beatdown!
EKIMARU
Name: Let's find out how this sounds coming from the announcer. Ahem....
KOMBATANTS! EKIMARU, THE GOD HUNTER, HAS ENTERED THE ARENA! ALL WILL SUFFER THE WRATH OF EKIMARU!
Hm. Not bad. "Ekimaru" doesn't have quite the same big, bold flavor that names like "Moloch" and "Kintaro" do, phonetically speaking, so the name doesn't bring to mind an unholy boss-level crusher of god skulls. Ekimaru sounds a bit more like a legendary Japanese swordsman who takes on gods just to see if he can do it.
Appearance: Ekimaru actually fits the legendary swordsman type very well, and truly looks like a mythological figure. His clothing looks traditional enough while still showing off some MK-appropriate flights of fancy, and his collection of orbs inscribed with the names of defeated gods makes a nice character touch. (Although to be fair, his battle with Kruor didn't go quite so much in his favor as we recall.) The flaming head blatantly trespasses in Scorpion's domain, but even so, it's easy to tell at a glance that this isn't Scorpion.
Ekimaru has a distinctive and well-fitting design for MK... but the flaming head and all that it stands for will still present a big challenge to come. MK has pretty much run the fire element into the ground and rendered it meaningless: Scorpion, Liu Kang, Shang Tsung, Kintaro, Sheeva, Tanya, Kai, Kobra, Hotaru, Onaga, Taven, and Daegon all have fire in their attacks, and Sektor has a flamethrower and fiery rockets. Oh yeah, and then there's Blaze, who is nothing but a big burning wad of sizzling bonfire. With almost a fourth of the MK roster already being fire elemental, with half of them using it as a signature element, Ekimaru's going to have to pitch in with some seriously delicious potato salad before we'll invite another hungry belly to the barbecue.
Story: Ah, Ekimaru... some of us remember a year ago when you were just an adorable little volcano Babality, and my stars, look how much you've grown! Since we have no links to his previous history in the character profile, we can only judge this character by the information given here -- after all, for some people this would be their very first look at Ekimaru, and in the game this would be his story. So... what is our impression?
"Ekimaru" is actually the mortal incarnation of the fire god Kojin, who was demoted by the Elder Gods for being arrogant and narcissistic. Okay, let's pause there for a second. The Elder Gods, as we've discussed before in Sphere's review, are a strictly hands-off bunch of do-nothing deities. They will absolutely not intervene in the affairs of the realms unless an illegal realm merger is imminent. Even when Shinnok, the god who angered them most of all, escaped from his punishment and went off invading worlds, the Elder Gods sat back and let it happen. When gods go bad, it's always up to mortals (and deities on a lesser pay scale like Raiden) to take care of that shit on their own time. So having the Elder gods waste their energy to punish Kojin just for being a mouthy prick of a fire god seems a little out of character.
So the former fire god is cast down and transformed into a mortal warrior, and for reasons unknown he shows up to the Mortal Kombat tournament. We find out that Kojin must have been a real flaming asshole in the past, because Raiden takes one look at him and thinks, "this man's existence was an unforgivable sin." Ow, that burns! Raiden is apparently so offended by his mere presence that he thinks the Elder Gods must be mad at him.
(By the way... why would the Elder Gods be mad at Raiden anyway? Throughout his history Raiden had never done anything to incite their wrath. In fact, he was a hero for originally defeating Shinnok for them, and he would soon become their hero again at the end of MK9.)
Stricken by an unfounded paranoid delusion, Raiden blasts Ekimaru into the Netherrealm. And now -- only just now, many years after his original creation -- the Elder Gods speak from on high and tell Ekimaru his purpose in life. Thanks, Elder Gods. Real helpful, as usual.
It turns out Raiden wasn't so delusional after all, because Ekimaru truly was created to hunt down and kill a bunch of gods that the Elders didn't like. Ekimaru accepts his mission without much argument; instead of demanding an explanation for why they didn't give him this information sooner (like when his primary target Raiden was standing right there knowing more about his job than he did) Ekimaru just decides yeah, he'll definitely murder some gods if he can get away with it. And not only will he get away with it, but if he murders enough gods they'll reward him by making him an Elder God.
All right, so let's stop and go over the Elder Gods' master plan one more time: They took this fire god that they hated for his crappy attitude, and stripped him of his immortality and all his memories and left him with nothing but his crappy attitude. Then they order him to take his crappy attitude out for a joyride and rampantly slaughter all the other gods who had somehow fallen out of favor -- starting with their greatest hero of all time, Raiden. And then, this most despised and cursed of all gods will be elevated to the status of Elder God, so he can regale them with his crappy attitude and thirst for god-blood for all eternity. A bloody, godless eternity.
Somehow we find all this a little hard to believe. Seriously, the Elder Gods are worse than Batman when it comes to not killing people who need to die -- but if they're going to go and break their only clear and defining principle, they might as well do it hardcore.
Eventually Ekimaru's levels of arrogance and god-murder finally meet the Elder Gods' standards for destroying anything good that ever existed in the universe. Instead of congratulating him personally (since they're so busy doing loads of laundry to wash the terror-diarrhea out of their pants) they send a poor unfortunate prophet to deliver the reward instead. Predictably, the prophet dies, and now the Elder Gods are mad at Ekimaru again for killing him. It's almost enough to make us think this was their plan all along, just so they wouldn't have to bother making good on their promise.
Hey, come to think of it, does anyone remember the one other character who wound up getting this screwed by the sadistic idiocy of the Elder Gods? It was their other burning-headed rage-empowered fire-elemental enforcer, Scorpion. Coincidence? Maybe too much of one.
(And for all this, we never do find out who the heck Master Hitokaze is. Any importance he might have had gets swept aside in the very same sentence he's introduced.)
Gameplay: Ekimaru uses a two-sword style, which is unique for MK9. And also, in the half hour he spent in the Netherrealm he managed to "unlearn" his old hand-to-hand style and train himself in a completely new one, one that targets vital pressure points "thus disconnecting their 'power supply'" without inflicting very much damage. It actually makes more sense than it sounds -- he's basically choosing to disable opponents instead of slashing them to ribbons, except for the times when he's using two swords to slash them to ribbons.
His specials are modeled after volcanic blasts (in reference to a compelling origin story that is sadly not described in this profile) and solar flares (reflecting his new story as an instrument of divine wrath). It all comes together in a very unique and powerful fire theme that manages to stand apart from 14 others. The Igneous Larva to Dragonfly moves are an ingenious tactic never before seen in MK: a bomb-and-detonator combo that can trigger a popup at the player's convenience. We're kind of excited to see a move like this in action. Beware, though, that this might encourage Larva victims to spend a lot of time backing away and throwing projectiles, so that when Dragonfly goes off you can't get a juggle out of it. Maybe the Enhanced Dragonfly can launch the victim directly toward Ekimaru wherever he is on the screen, kind of like Sheeva's X-Ray stomp. This would make running away like a little pansy a far less effective defense.
For his X-ray attack he charges in with swords blazing, and his strike does internal damage to the kidneys. It sounds cool, but when you look at the actual format for X-ray attacks you'll see that this one's a little messed up. There are two key missing parts: First, every other X-ray in the game has two or sometimes three internal hits, while Ekimaru's only has one; it breaks the entire rhythm. Second, every X-ray also starts with a "setup" move before the internal damage starts. For example: Stryker shines his flashlight, Jax grabs you, Baraka catches you with his blades, Liu Kang does a cartwheel, Kitana throws her fans. If this initial setup-attack connects, then the X-ray starts happening. People don't just run up and X-ray you in the kidneys.
In his "Wrath" Fatality, why exactly does the screen go black for the interesting part of the sequence? Or for that matter, with all the fire flying around, why is the screen going dark at all? All we really get to experience from this finisher is Ekimaru laughing while he chucks fireballs. The "UV Radiation" Fatality has a lot more going for it, showing off some style and action-movie badassery. But in that one, it seems like Ekimaru has an awful long time to go through a series of drawn-out actions, while the near-decapitated and very patient opponent somehow manages to stay standing. The shrinking fireball phase alone, according to the description, would take a few seconds on its own -- so before he even got to the "simply blows it toward the enemy" phase, the enemy would have simply already died of two swords crisscrossed through his freaking neck.
Personality: "Stop praying, there are no gods left to hear you scream." This phrase signifies everything that's awesome about Ekimaru's attitude, and also everything that's broken about his story.
Ekimaru is pure rage. So is Scorpion, but admittedly, Ekimaru's burning hatred is different. With Scorpion, you know that underneath all the wrath is a poor tortured soul who lost his family and clan, who sold his soul to evil for a chance to make things right. Scorpion may be misguided and overly single-minded in his quest for vengeance, but there is nothing selfish in his motives. He fights for honor, not just personal satisfaction, and we can feel good about celebrating his victories.
With Ekimaru, you know that he's just an ungrateful, arrogant bastard who got demoted from godhood for being a jerk, and yet they still give him everything he wants out of life even though he doesn't show a scrap of gratitude for it. Basically he's that hotheaded douchebag you know from work or school, who gets all the breaks he doesn't deserve while being an emormous smoldering anus crater to everybody around him. This is the kind of guy that people want to see lose at life and have karma slap them in the face with their own dismembered arms.
When you think about it, this guy totally acts like Rain.
This isn't to say his attitude isn't fun. Everybody fantasizes about spitting in the face of common decency once in a while, which is why characters like the Joker are so compelling (and also why Ekimaru and so many other "maniac" characters in this contest borrow his constant crazy laughter). The thing is, Ekimaru can be so much more than that. Given his previous backstory from last year's contest, he was more than that but completely lost touch with his roots. What was once a deep, mysterious and personal character is now just another Joker who wants to watch the world burn. And we never understand how or why he got that way.
Conclusion: Ekimaru has a kickass style backed by some kickass artwork, with kickass specials and a real burning hell of a stage presence. There is no doubt that a character like this would be popular with fans, simply because he looks awesome and he's powerful and crazy and doesn't give a damn. People get excited over this stuff, and Ekimaru delivers with a vengeance.
But his story collapses on itself like an unsteady tower of Jenga blocks that is also on fire, and it commits arson to several crucial pillars of Mortal Kombat canon. Fixing his story would do wonders, not just to make him actually fit in the world of MK, but also to make his personality flaws more humanly relatable.
Beatdown Lineup: Gragtek
Group 2: Neuros
Group 3: Ekimaru
Group 4: Persephone
Ekimaru Wrote:
Hey umbrascitor sign me up for one of those beatdowns, since you beat me last year your opinion is very interesting for me!
Hey umbrascitor sign me up for one of those beatdowns, since you beat me last year your opinion is very interesting for me!
Old rivals face off in Full-Kontact Character Beatdown!
EKIMARU
Name: Let's find out how this sounds coming from the announcer. Ahem....
KOMBATANTS! EKIMARU, THE GOD HUNTER, HAS ENTERED THE ARENA! ALL WILL SUFFER THE WRATH OF EKIMARU!
Hm. Not bad. "Ekimaru" doesn't have quite the same big, bold flavor that names like "Moloch" and "Kintaro" do, phonetically speaking, so the name doesn't bring to mind an unholy boss-level crusher of god skulls. Ekimaru sounds a bit more like a legendary Japanese swordsman who takes on gods just to see if he can do it.
Appearance: Ekimaru actually fits the legendary swordsman type very well, and truly looks like a mythological figure. His clothing looks traditional enough while still showing off some MK-appropriate flights of fancy, and his collection of orbs inscribed with the names of defeated gods makes a nice character touch. (Although to be fair, his battle with Kruor didn't go quite so much in his favor as we recall.) The flaming head blatantly trespasses in Scorpion's domain, but even so, it's easy to tell at a glance that this isn't Scorpion.
Ekimaru has a distinctive and well-fitting design for MK... but the flaming head and all that it stands for will still present a big challenge to come. MK has pretty much run the fire element into the ground and rendered it meaningless: Scorpion, Liu Kang, Shang Tsung, Kintaro, Sheeva, Tanya, Kai, Kobra, Hotaru, Onaga, Taven, and Daegon all have fire in their attacks, and Sektor has a flamethrower and fiery rockets. Oh yeah, and then there's Blaze, who is nothing but a big burning wad of sizzling bonfire. With almost a fourth of the MK roster already being fire elemental, with half of them using it as a signature element, Ekimaru's going to have to pitch in with some seriously delicious potato salad before we'll invite another hungry belly to the barbecue.
Story: Ah, Ekimaru... some of us remember a year ago when you were just an adorable little volcano Babality, and my stars, look how much you've grown! Since we have no links to his previous history in the character profile, we can only judge this character by the information given here -- after all, for some people this would be their very first look at Ekimaru, and in the game this would be his story. So... what is our impression?
"Ekimaru" is actually the mortal incarnation of the fire god Kojin, who was demoted by the Elder Gods for being arrogant and narcissistic. Okay, let's pause there for a second. The Elder Gods, as we've discussed before in Sphere's review, are a strictly hands-off bunch of do-nothing deities. They will absolutely not intervene in the affairs of the realms unless an illegal realm merger is imminent. Even when Shinnok, the god who angered them most of all, escaped from his punishment and went off invading worlds, the Elder Gods sat back and let it happen. When gods go bad, it's always up to mortals (and deities on a lesser pay scale like Raiden) to take care of that shit on their own time. So having the Elder gods waste their energy to punish Kojin just for being a mouthy prick of a fire god seems a little out of character.
So the former fire god is cast down and transformed into a mortal warrior, and for reasons unknown he shows up to the Mortal Kombat tournament. We find out that Kojin must have been a real flaming asshole in the past, because Raiden takes one look at him and thinks, "this man's existence was an unforgivable sin." Ow, that burns! Raiden is apparently so offended by his mere presence that he thinks the Elder Gods must be mad at him.
(By the way... why would the Elder Gods be mad at Raiden anyway? Throughout his history Raiden had never done anything to incite their wrath. In fact, he was a hero for originally defeating Shinnok for them, and he would soon become their hero again at the end of MK9.)
Stricken by an unfounded paranoid delusion, Raiden blasts Ekimaru into the Netherrealm. And now -- only just now, many years after his original creation -- the Elder Gods speak from on high and tell Ekimaru his purpose in life. Thanks, Elder Gods. Real helpful, as usual.
It turns out Raiden wasn't so delusional after all, because Ekimaru truly was created to hunt down and kill a bunch of gods that the Elders didn't like. Ekimaru accepts his mission without much argument; instead of demanding an explanation for why they didn't give him this information sooner (like when his primary target Raiden was standing right there knowing more about his job than he did) Ekimaru just decides yeah, he'll definitely murder some gods if he can get away with it. And not only will he get away with it, but if he murders enough gods they'll reward him by making him an Elder God.
All right, so let's stop and go over the Elder Gods' master plan one more time: They took this fire god that they hated for his crappy attitude, and stripped him of his immortality and all his memories and left him with nothing but his crappy attitude. Then they order him to take his crappy attitude out for a joyride and rampantly slaughter all the other gods who had somehow fallen out of favor -- starting with their greatest hero of all time, Raiden. And then, this most despised and cursed of all gods will be elevated to the status of Elder God, so he can regale them with his crappy attitude and thirst for god-blood for all eternity. A bloody, godless eternity.
Somehow we find all this a little hard to believe. Seriously, the Elder Gods are worse than Batman when it comes to not killing people who need to die -- but if they're going to go and break their only clear and defining principle, they might as well do it hardcore.
Eventually Ekimaru's levels of arrogance and god-murder finally meet the Elder Gods' standards for destroying anything good that ever existed in the universe. Instead of congratulating him personally (since they're so busy doing loads of laundry to wash the terror-diarrhea out of their pants) they send a poor unfortunate prophet to deliver the reward instead. Predictably, the prophet dies, and now the Elder Gods are mad at Ekimaru again for killing him. It's almost enough to make us think this was their plan all along, just so they wouldn't have to bother making good on their promise.
Hey, come to think of it, does anyone remember the one other character who wound up getting this screwed by the sadistic idiocy of the Elder Gods? It was their other burning-headed rage-empowered fire-elemental enforcer, Scorpion. Coincidence? Maybe too much of one.
(And for all this, we never do find out who the heck Master Hitokaze is. Any importance he might have had gets swept aside in the very same sentence he's introduced.)
Gameplay: Ekimaru uses a two-sword style, which is unique for MK9. And also, in the half hour he spent in the Netherrealm he managed to "unlearn" his old hand-to-hand style and train himself in a completely new one, one that targets vital pressure points "thus disconnecting their 'power supply'" without inflicting very much damage. It actually makes more sense than it sounds -- he's basically choosing to disable opponents instead of slashing them to ribbons, except for the times when he's using two swords to slash them to ribbons.
His specials are modeled after volcanic blasts (in reference to a compelling origin story that is sadly not described in this profile) and solar flares (reflecting his new story as an instrument of divine wrath). It all comes together in a very unique and powerful fire theme that manages to stand apart from 14 others. The Igneous Larva to Dragonfly moves are an ingenious tactic never before seen in MK: a bomb-and-detonator combo that can trigger a popup at the player's convenience. We're kind of excited to see a move like this in action. Beware, though, that this might encourage Larva victims to spend a lot of time backing away and throwing projectiles, so that when Dragonfly goes off you can't get a juggle out of it. Maybe the Enhanced Dragonfly can launch the victim directly toward Ekimaru wherever he is on the screen, kind of like Sheeva's X-Ray stomp. This would make running away like a little pansy a far less effective defense.
For his X-ray attack he charges in with swords blazing, and his strike does internal damage to the kidneys. It sounds cool, but when you look at the actual format for X-ray attacks you'll see that this one's a little messed up. There are two key missing parts: First, every other X-ray in the game has two or sometimes three internal hits, while Ekimaru's only has one; it breaks the entire rhythm. Second, every X-ray also starts with a "setup" move before the internal damage starts. For example: Stryker shines his flashlight, Jax grabs you, Baraka catches you with his blades, Liu Kang does a cartwheel, Kitana throws her fans. If this initial setup-attack connects, then the X-ray starts happening. People don't just run up and X-ray you in the kidneys.
In his "Wrath" Fatality, why exactly does the screen go black for the interesting part of the sequence? Or for that matter, with all the fire flying around, why is the screen going dark at all? All we really get to experience from this finisher is Ekimaru laughing while he chucks fireballs. The "UV Radiation" Fatality has a lot more going for it, showing off some style and action-movie badassery. But in that one, it seems like Ekimaru has an awful long time to go through a series of drawn-out actions, while the near-decapitated and very patient opponent somehow manages to stay standing. The shrinking fireball phase alone, according to the description, would take a few seconds on its own -- so before he even got to the "simply blows it toward the enemy" phase, the enemy would have simply already died of two swords crisscrossed through his freaking neck.
Personality: "Stop praying, there are no gods left to hear you scream." This phrase signifies everything that's awesome about Ekimaru's attitude, and also everything that's broken about his story.
Ekimaru is pure rage. So is Scorpion, but admittedly, Ekimaru's burning hatred is different. With Scorpion, you know that underneath all the wrath is a poor tortured soul who lost his family and clan, who sold his soul to evil for a chance to make things right. Scorpion may be misguided and overly single-minded in his quest for vengeance, but there is nothing selfish in his motives. He fights for honor, not just personal satisfaction, and we can feel good about celebrating his victories.
With Ekimaru, you know that he's just an ungrateful, arrogant bastard who got demoted from godhood for being a jerk, and yet they still give him everything he wants out of life even though he doesn't show a scrap of gratitude for it. Basically he's that hotheaded douchebag you know from work or school, who gets all the breaks he doesn't deserve while being an emormous smoldering anus crater to everybody around him. This is the kind of guy that people want to see lose at life and have karma slap them in the face with their own dismembered arms.
When you think about it, this guy totally acts like Rain.
This isn't to say his attitude isn't fun. Everybody fantasizes about spitting in the face of common decency once in a while, which is why characters like the Joker are so compelling (and also why Ekimaru and so many other "maniac" characters in this contest borrow his constant crazy laughter). The thing is, Ekimaru can be so much more than that. Given his previous backstory from last year's contest, he was more than that but completely lost touch with his roots. What was once a deep, mysterious and personal character is now just another Joker who wants to watch the world burn. And we never understand how or why he got that way.
Conclusion: Ekimaru has a kickass style backed by some kickass artwork, with kickass specials and a real burning hell of a stage presence. There is no doubt that a character like this would be popular with fans, simply because he looks awesome and he's powerful and crazy and doesn't give a damn. People get excited over this stuff, and Ekimaru delivers with a vengeance.
But his story collapses on itself like an unsteady tower of Jenga blocks that is also on fire, and it commits arson to several crucial pillars of Mortal Kombat canon. Fixing his story would do wonders, not just to make him actually fit in the world of MK, but also to make his personality flaws more humanly relatable.
Beatdown Lineup: Gragtek
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Hey, umbrascitor thank you for that!
I just wanted to make it clear that this is a CONTINUATION from his previous story that is why he is going to the Mortal Kombat tournament.
As you probably remeber at the end of last time he was headed towards the tournament to seek the secrets known by the thunder god.
http://www.mortalkombatonline.com/content/fansub/kak/ekimaru.cds
And another thing Ekimaru and Kojin are two seperate identeties. Ekimaru is the mortal loyal respectful samurai that got Kojin's essence. If i had more space I would love to expand the idea of an internal conflict between these two personalities.
Also Ekimaru is not evil, he simply doesn't give a F#$k .
I totally refuse to accept that he is similar to Scorpion in any way,(except for the fire elements, which as you said alot of people share) The idea about the flaming head came to me when i first layed my eyes on frost almost 10 years ago
Anyyyyway here are my votes:
Group A: Eastwind
Group B: Neuros
Group C: x
Group D: Persephone
I just wanted to make it clear that this is a CONTINUATION from his previous story that is why he is going to the Mortal Kombat tournament.
As you probably remeber at the end of last time he was headed towards the tournament to seek the secrets known by the thunder god.
http://www.mortalkombatonline.com/content/fansub/kak/ekimaru.cds
And another thing Ekimaru and Kojin are two seperate identeties. Ekimaru is the mortal loyal respectful samurai that got Kojin's essence. If i had more space I would love to expand the idea of an internal conflict between these two personalities.
Also Ekimaru is not evil, he simply doesn't give a F#$k .
I totally refuse to accept that he is similar to Scorpion in any way,(except for the fire elements, which as you said alot of people share) The idea about the flaming head came to me when i first layed my eyes on frost almost 10 years ago
Anyyyyway here are my votes:
Group A: Eastwind
Group B: Neuros
Group C: x
Group D: Persephone
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Ekimaru Wrote:
The idea about the flaming head came to me when i first layed my eyes on frost almost 10 years ago
The idea about the flaming head came to me when i first layed my eyes on frost almost 10 years ago
What about this?
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About Me
Never shake hands with a man who wears his heart on his sleeve.
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<img src=http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb424/astro407/Baraka407---Baraka-Sig---GIF1.gif?t=1302751589
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art by fear-sAs 0
About Me
I am a Lurker for Rapture. My lord Cthulhu will see you all conquered. JOIN THE CULT OF CTHULHU TODAY!!!
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About Me
What do you like? Hit the Toasty thumbs up on articles and forum posts for a quick response!
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What do you like? Hit the Toasty thumbs up on articles and forum posts for a quick response!
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About Me
art by fear-sAs 0
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