-I felt MK3's Run button was a cheesy and irritating addition to the series, so I played a lot of MK2 after MK3's release.

-Also, even though the added a couple of cool new characters like Kabal and Nightwolf, they took out my three favorites (Raiden, Johnny Cage, and Scorpion), two of which didn't even return until Trilogy. MK3 also introduced three characters I couldn't care less about (Sheeva, Sindel, and Stryker - the latter of which only got bonus points for being voiced by Ron Perlman in Defenders of the Realm).

-The combos in MK3 were more of the canned variety, which have plagued the series to the present. Even though MK2's combo system wasn't dedicated, it still allowed you to pull off combos that fit the player better.

-Atmosphere was also definately a big part of it. The urban feeling of MK3 really brought some distaste of the game for me. Also, MK3 was basically "Shao Kahn didn't get to take over the Earthrealm in MK2, so he hatches a really dumb plot to merge the two realms".

-Jade as a playable character in UMK3 was nearly as broken as Jade as a secret character in MK2. At least she was an optional fight there.

-Motaro is a cheap mofo... way cheaper than Kintaro.

As you can see, I have my reasons for preferring MK2. I don't hate MK3 though. I just don't like it as much as the second game.

But it has undeveloped gameplay. What you just described is a movie, or a TV show, not a fighting game. Also, I think people seem to feel that MK takes place back in time or something what they compare it to the MK3 modern feel. The storyline has to do with modern earth with humans that have special abilities vs an outside force. Outworld is a different place althogether.
As for the added elements in the games, they were necessary to become a more competitive game, and there are very, very few people who don't want a dash move or combos. MK was different, they couldn't have a tapping move for dash because if they did they'd have to change how to do all the moves and that's not what they wanted. A run button was genius and it works better than any dashing move in virtually any game, and I have a LOT of experience in fighting games. I don't like how people call them "canned" combos because just about all fighting games with ground chains are predetermined, even if you have to time the hits, there are always limits, and some games even have "canned" air combos. The combos add to the balance or imbalance, essentially like a special move, some are more useful than others. The juggle system however, was improved as well, MKII's cannot compare. As you take away things from UMK3, you eventually get MKII.

Because it was simple to play. no combos to memoriez, and lots of carrear starters and my favorite charecter, Smoke

LoL @ Jade being broken in UMK3. People that don't know the game too well seem to bring that up a lot. She's not a particularly good character definately not broken. If anything she is a little too weak considering how powerful she was in MK2. It doesn't do her justice.

There's nothing wrong with preferring MK2, but you should probably play UMK3 some before using things like Jade's myhtical brokenness as a reason for disliking it. At least in public.

My first MK game was MK3, which was given to me by my dad. My first, and favorite characters were Stryker and Cyrax.

How hard is it to believe that I don't like pallette swaps? Yes I know that Cyrax himself was a pallette swap, but at least that had reasoning behind it - they were all just prototype cyborgs. Of course they look the same.

So practically every day for a year isn't enough? At least ten times within the last month isn't enough either? All I'm saying, is of all of the normally player controlled characters, Jade can beat me in seconds flat. Even in Trilogy, one of the programmers once said that Jade was way too hard.

Are you talking about fighting against the computer? Have you tried just the normal CPU tactics?

For instance, if you pick Scorpion, even if she is high on the tallest ladder with difficult set to hardest, jump away and kick, she will throw her boomerang, teleport, spear, combo. Easy Flawless Victory every time.

It's actually funny because after the teleport, she could block the spear, and she will go for her projectile protection every time, and she will still get hit by the spear every time. You should be getting double flawlesses on her. She has one of the most predictable CPU patterns just because she doesn't have anything to really add variety.



Just to make sure I wasn't off base I set the difficulty to max and reset until I got jade on the tallest ladder. She got me with a combo the first round because I slipped up and didn't spear her after the teleport, but the second round the standard "Beat Jade Every Time" strategy worked.

She is weak.

when mortal kombat 4 was made they had this big news report saying mortal kombat was too blooding and ed boon did not doble any thing

Another reason I just recalled:

The Fatalities in MK3 have more cheese than all of Wisconsin and Switzerland combined.

And I suck with Scorpion. I tried that method and died.

You played practically every day for a year and still can't pull off jump away kick, teleport, spear, combo? Ohhh kay.

How about Sektor?

Jump away, kick. If she throws a projectile, teleport uppercut, missile.

If she just runs straight in when you jump away, kick her, then teleport uppercut, missile.

I'll probably add that to the CPU squash thread later.

On a lot of the characters you can also do the less guaranteed but still entertaining to watch jump away kick, teleport, aa.hp, smart missile. Wait for the smart missile to hit, if it does, teleport uppercut again.

I've had more fun playing Time Killers than I have playing Virtua Figher 4. However I know for a fact that VF4 is a better fighting game. Just sayin'.

There is nothing wrong with that game ... atall .. period ... Still my fav ...

But the should redo MK and MK II and add combos ... but keep the graphics and design the same ... just sayin

But they're much more entertaining.

What would you rather see?:

A man uppercutting someones head off?

or...

A robot chopping some guy into a million pieces with his helicopter dredlocks?

Well, I sort of do like Cyrax's Helicopter Head, but appreciate the classics, man. The Uppercut Decapitation is actually one of my alltime favorites.

I'm talking about ones like both of Jax's, or Kabal's Inflation (using a respirator to inflate their head to such a proportion that they levitate off the ground?) Most of the Animalities, epecially the UMK3 ones, are totally wrong.

Jax's T2 Arm Slice happens to be one of my favorite fatalities of all time.

The thing is, MK2 has dedicated Fatalitys, like Kung Lao,s Cut into half Fatality, they made a cutting half animation for everyone just for that Fatality, that was actually some work they made.
In MK3 and upward it was more a copy&paste job.
But I like some Fatalitys in MK3 of course too.

Because Fatalities were no longer the focus.

Well... Again, what's more entertaining?:

A girl chopping off someone's head with a fan (That looks like paper?)

or...

A woman screaming so loud that someone's skin peels off?

IMO The more ridiculous and funny they are, the better. Half of the fatalities in MK2 were just head decapitations.

P.S. But you're right about Jax's and Kabal's fatalities. Those were just plain strange.

I'd have less of a problem with it if it made effing sense. If you look closely, you can clearly see Jax is chopping them vertically. However, when they fall apart, it's horizontally. Jax is one of my favorite characters (or at least was before Deadly Alliance made him a stereotype), so that and that ultra-goofy Giant Stomp Fatality kind of bugged me.

I still like the goofiness of a lot of the MK3 fatalities where they seemed to be making fun of fatalities in general. Cyrax's helicopter fatality and animality were two of my favs and are extremely ridiculous.

And it is really sad what they did to Jax :( He was a very cool character in MK2 and MK3, great to use in both, and then he was turned into, as you said, a stereotype. A major let down.

Liu Kang's MK1 Arcade Machine Drop is the greatest Fatality of all time. I am *not* joking.

MK2 is not really overrated. At the time of its released, it was hailed as the technical equivalent of the Street Fighter 2 behemoth. The graphics were vastly improved, the gameplay fine tuned, the cast of characters more diverse, detailed, and original, the moves easy to perform, and the fatalities brutal and memorable (the "Jax arm rip" is still a personal favorite of mine.) It was darker, faster, smoother, flashier... it was just the perfect sequel and before the convoluted control set-up of the following installments. It's a classic for a reason, especially the arcade version.

ehh, the gameplay aspect just isn't there. MK2 definately had a lot of popularity, but to compare it to the SF2s is just silly. ST and HF were popular because of gameplay, not all the reasons that MK2 was popular. Thats why SF2 games are still around and played quite a bit. And MK2 is just a novelty. The gameplay is bad, that's why the game died out and why UMK3 is still played, because its gameplay is good. And its goodness is greatly caused by that 1 button that caused the controls to be "convoluted." Run really killed the turtlers that dominated MK2.

Indeed. In MK2, 3, 4, and even in Special Forces, he was like this all-American hero. His skin color had nothing to do with his character; he was just a great guy, supposedly the world's strongest man, and a really tough fighter doing his job.

Starting in MK Annihilation, he was sort of stereotyped. In that movie, he spouted all sorts of urban lingo. Then in Deadly Alliance, his primary costume looked like Huey Newton (though I liked his metal arms in that one), and his alternate looked like a rapper or street thug, complete with dragon symbol "bling". All of his in-battle quotes seemed to be taken from blaxplotation movies.

But I'm going off on a bit of a tangent. Bleh.

MKA Jax is actually my favorite.