What the fuck? Having four legs is what made Motaro. I don't care about graphical errors. This is fucking 2006, what kind of lame ass excuse is "it wouldn't work with the engine"? Christ, they should be able to do this and THEN some. You guys won't accept the fact that Midway and the MK team are so goddamn lazy.

No way. People better not start comin and making threads about how you didn't want Motaro because that's been arguably the biggest thing MK fans wanted ever since E3. I don't think he looks that bad. Some of you think he looks good, but the majority don't seem to like the new look and prefer the classic look.

However, like some others have said already, in this current fighting engine, Motaro four-legged wouldn't have worked. Is there the slightest possibility that it could've worked? Maybe, I'm not completely sure, but for the most part, it probably wouldn't have.

Not tryin to bash anybody here, but please don't start coming with the "we really didn't want Motaro in the game" card now, even when most of you already knew about the possibility and rumors of Motaro being two-legged for a long time.

-Apocalypse27

Motaro looks good to me. Btw, there's a new pic up at the mka site.

from a game design stand point yeah, this is the only it could've worked on this generation of consoles to make him play like the other characters
but like someone said earlier if they we going to half ass him(literally) they should've kept in out of the game.
what made him unique from the 60+ characters was his centaur features and he really doesn't have it. he's more of a satyr.
i would have really prefered to have him with four legs and no air combat.

well if what you say is true then i huess theres always the alt

Well it's about f*&%^g time we got some screenshots! and they're sweet as hell, shang looks excellent as always.


Motaro? wtf! LOL what have they done! this is a wierd surprise, but none the less he looks tight.

My idea? Centaurs are only a sub-species in a race that's obviously modeled after Greek mythological creatures. "Motaro" is a title, as opposed to an actual name. At least, that'd make the MOST sense to me (from a story standpoint).

And those pictures are painful. Not because of Motaro or anything but those graphics. I knew they weren't going to be great (this is MK) but holy shit! It actually looks WORSE than Deadly Alliance and Deception. This is supposed to be a last-gen PS2/Xbox game? It looks like a last-gen Dreamcast game. At best.

Good question.

Motaro - I never cared about him. Now that he's (literally) half the man he used to be I care about him even less.

What has me kind of awe-struck though is how bad the graphics look. I mean damn that's like late Dreamcast/early PS2 looking to me.

screenshot often look like crap. we saw the game in motion at E3 and thats what it'll look like.
but yeah they need to have some kind of story to explain this crap, motaro being a title i guess works well(like sub-zero) and this could be an entirely different character.

Honey, those are SSBM-quality graphics. At best.

I knew this would happen from the start, people said motaro would be in the game and I said he wouldn't because they're too lazy to make a 4 legged character, they've gone ever further then that. it's NOT about keeping things balanced. it's about them still using mkda's engine and not wanting to have to edit anything. MKD should have been a damn expantion pack to mkda and this game isn't looking any better. I loved mkda, but I didn't want mkda 2 and 3.

Midway will never satisfy all of its fans... but at least we might have some new possiblities with KAK. Maybe motaro's look will be possible in KAK and other animal/ mythology blends. Also, most centaurs in games used bow and arrows so motaro lucked out in mk3.

I respect the fact that a horse can't sidestep properly, they weren't made that way. But I think eventaully this new motaro will be appreciated regardless of being nick-named the amputee. He still looks fierce and reminds me a little of the minotaurs in god of war.
Also, don't judge a game by it's screen shots. I think the company just spits out updates here and there to maintain fan attention. It's not like they have time to make full rez renders, right? still counting the days till armageddon.

Hard words, but true words in my opinion.If they wanted they would have done it. They have done greater things in the past than to add 2 more legs. I believe they are a bit lazy. See mkda for example. The only thing I accept is that they put away the 2 legs for aerial combat. It would be ridiculous to have a horseman in the air doing combos. but it is also ridiculous to kill a legend that you created.

dude i totally agree, i mean i am dissapointed that he doesnt have 4 legs but o well this look is sweet and i cant wait to play as him

I guess I'm gonna have to say this yet again BOTH Chameleon AND Khameleon are gonna be in MKA. Adding both of them in the roster would actually 62 (add the 1st and 2nd player KAK and there's 64 but I'm not counting KAKs in this though). And how many characters were confirmed? 62. Seriously, Khammy did not get bumped off so no need to be pissed Evanji Other than that, I am disappointed about Motaro but meh, I can deal with it. Hopefully there's some explanation on this. It probably has to do with Centaurian magic (yes apparently the centaurians in the MK universe do use magic). Maybe Sheeva fucked him up to the point where h had to use magic to get rid of his back legs to survive his life threatening injuries. Also, I wonder what moves will he have.

I have a feeling that Motaro's weapon will be his tail,which he will take off of him and use like a lance.

If midway does that,ill lose all interest in MK.

i doubt they would do something that silly, but hey who knows.

Motaro looks downright awful! thanks for another disapointment Midway...

I knew from the first time someone ever mentioned Motaro being bipedal it was going to be true. But I think this is the best way they could have done it and I'm sure there will a explantion for it so just sit back and enjoy that hes is the game.

lol... he's still kool

wow, midway sure do know to fuck things up. Its bad enough i wont be able to play it on my xbox but know this too There are ways they could have put him in properly, it just is midway really is too lazy.
Also would people stop insulting the dreamcast, go play soul calibur and then come back and tell me which has the worse graphics. Maybe when it comes to them putting games on the 360 and ps3 we may get doa3 quality graphics and hey a decent fighting engine would help too.

I was shocked, but now I'm accepting it.

My main question is: What will they do with his story to explain this?

1) A retroactive change. Motaro's race are now Minotaurs.
2) Kahn transformed & humilliated centaurs, because Goro asked him after MKD.
3) No explanation.
I prefer the 2nd one.

Graphics seem to look crappier than in MKD, but I can deal with.

BUT! I don't think I can deal with Motaro's new look. Midway totaly butchered him. Way to go! My initial response was: What.... the.... fuck!?!?

As an animator and 3d modeler in a game developing studio I can tell everyone that in Motaro's case the game engine is not a problem. They should model him with 4 legs and as a low polygon character, it would cost 200 or maybe 400 more polygons. PS2 can handle 2 million polygons/sec easily and more. So when they make the model, they have to make new rigging for him, because they can't simply copy-paste the ordinary character rigs from other characters. It's a bit more time and money but not as much. When they make the new riging for him, now coms the keyframe animation, because they cannot use motion capture for him. This is also a bit more work but it really isn'T so hard. Because he is a sub boss, he don't need aerial combo. In MK2 Shao Kahn can't jump but it is not a problem because he is balanced elsewhere. In MK3/UMK/Trilogy all the bosses like Shao Kahn, Motaro, Kintaro, Goro. All of them can'T do combos which is main part of this series but they are still playable. In MKDA Moloch can'T do combos neither jump-kick or stuff like that but he is also ok. As for the side moving, I saw in lot of movies when centaurs turned around and it could be also done easily. So all in all it could be done with a little more money and time. But as I see, this new MK team on the top with Ed Boon has a strategy like this:"Try to make an MK for those stupid fans with the lowest amount of money and make big profit with cheap ideas." This is why I like Japanese games more, because for japanese, honor and quality is on the first and second place, money is only the third. MK team has no honor neither quality. For MK team money is on the first, second and third place. I'm a classic MK fan and I liked the game tll it was developed with the old MK team with Tobias on the top. Now it is all about money without quality. It's not about lazynes, the guys who work there are payd to make everything what is needed. The decision is in Boon's hands who choose always the cheaper way. Of course this is only my personal opinion but everybody try to judge himself. I'm just an old, disapointed MK fan. Peace!

ps: sorry for my bad english