sorry, there is no official news, but if you jump from mk3 to mk5, it is safe to say that Ermac was under brain control by Shao Kha in mk4

and in MK5, Kenshi felt real bad for him and gave him his mind back

Besides, where the you think Kenshi got his telepathic powers from?

No, Ermac never made an appearance in any revision of MK4. You may have seen a pic of Scorpion in his red outfit.

Noob was not only planned to be in the arcade version...he actually WAS for a short period of time. In fact he was even playable in early versions, like on the road tour. He was in the game up until rev 2 when he was replaced by Reiko.

Sakura Wrote: No, Ermac never made an appearance in any revision of MK4. You may have seen a pic of Scorpion in his red outfit.

Hmm, well, the mag did have a picture of Ermac (not game, but drawn) next to the screenshot, but it does make sense that it could've been Scorpion Vs. Scorpion. Oh well, I'll live.

I think you could be thinking about Noob Saibot. He was the only ninja that was removed from the earliest versions of MK4 arcade. I think the MK team took Noob out and put Reiko in. As you may know Noob is in the home versions of MK4.

I remember seeing Noob Saibot on the selection screen in some early magazine shots of the arcade, he reminded me of Snake Eyes from GI Joe. I was at work (grocery store) looking through the magazine and I thought "Wow MK4 looks so awesome", then I played it and said, "Wow MK4 is so bad." I'm glad Noob wasn't a full character because he probably would have been so broken that just being on the screen would drain energy from his opponent.

Matt

Yeah, Noob was on the selection screen(and actually playable) for quite some time.

He was one of the first 9 characters revealed and playable in the first Road Tour version and remained playable throughout all of that.

He was fully playable until the beta testing for the first nationwide release, revision 1, where he was removed from the selection screen and replaced with Jarek. He was still in the game(you could see him in the demo) but wasn't playable. The plan was to have him be playable via UKK in Revision 2.

But sometime inbetween revision 1 and 2 they decided it was too hard to see Noob and they wanted another new character, so Noob was completely removed in favor of Reiko. They scrapped the idea of hidden characters and just had Reiko be normally playable.

Noob's days in MK4 ended...until the home ports.


Here's a pic from TRMK from before he was taken away and Jarek was added. So this would be right before the nationwide release.

http://www.trmk.org/pictures/mk4psel.jpg


The Noob in MK4 arcade thing really shows just how rushed and halfassed MK4 was. The fact that Cage, Jax and Reiko weren't even in the game until it was already out is just pathetic.

I have been playing MK4 a little bit for the past few days. Words cannot describe how much I hate it. It's just so completely bad that sometimes I want to vomit. The fact that every character has the exact same combos is mind boggling. Everything that could have been done with this game that wasn't done...it is WAY too fast, the juggling system is pathetically limited, it confuses hits in combos a lot and adds to the meter, sorta like MK3-MKT, but a lot more loosely. It's something you would have thought they would have fixed, but they made it worse. I look at the game and think about what they could have done, and then play it, and it's just a constant reminder of how terrible it is. It really destroyed the franchise, and luckily MKDA sparked some interest, now they have the chance to make up for it again with MK6 since they've got people's attention. They need some better graphics and a more solid engine with better collision boxes, wake up moves and such.

Matt

Frost4584 Wrote: I think you could be thinking about Noob Saibot. He was the only ninja that was removed from the earliest versions of MK4 arcade.

It's hard to confuse a red ninja with black ninja, but chances are it was just Scorpion in his redder costume in the picture. The person who took it and wrote the article said that it was Ermac in the screenshot, but I guess that he/she was wrong.

MK2KungBroken Wrote: I have been playing MK4 a little bit for the past few days. Words cannot describe how much I hate it. It's just so completely bad that sometimes I want to vomit. The fact that every character has the exact same combos is mind boggling. Everything that could have been done with this game that wasn't done...it is WAY too fast, the juggling system is pathetically limited, it confuses hits in combos a lot and adds to the meter, sorta like MK3-MKT, but a lot more loosely. It's something you would have thought they would have fixed, but they made it worse. I look at the game and think about what they could have done, and then play it, and it's just a constant reminder of how terrible it is. It really destroyed the franchise, and luckily MKDA sparked some interest, now they have the chance to make up for it again with MK6 since they've got people's attention. They need some better graphics and a more solid engine with better collision boxes, wake up moves and such. Matt

My thoughts exactly. I really wanted to like MK4, but I just can't. The only thing good about it are some of the fatalities, which overall really redeemed the more horrible ones in MKT.