well first off im happy as hell that they got rid of that noobish sysem from the last 3 games... this "klose kombat" thing sounds interesting... the way boon describes it makes it sound like it should play like the cage vs scrop fight from the movie where they kept punchin each other for a good 2 mins... i think they just need to speed the game up

I don't think the boxing shit will last for two minutes lol. And yeah, the engine needs to be faster. Get rid of all the glitches, make it faster, have a great fighting engine, then the game will be golden

Ed Boon will give up his dial-a-combos when we pry them from his cold, dead hands.

Unfortunately you're probably right. From what I saw in the trailer it doesn't look like the fighting system has been significantly changed or revamped. It still looks extremely stiff just like always.

I'll reserve judgement until I see more though.

Given what the MK team has given us since MKII, I'm guessing badly.

Yeah. I think when we learned so far ahead of time that they were rebuilding the fight engine from the ground up, we maybe got a little bit carried away with imagining Tekken style attention to style and execution.

I think early glimpses in the video look like flash over substance in a pretty typical way for MK. Falling combat, and "klose quarters" all sound like more incrementalizations of the same sorts of systems. It might not be a stop-and-watch scenario, but it's all very blocky in concept.

Here's hoping we can at least see some sense of individuality and style in the fighting moves. Even the last crop of games seemed to abandon character in favour of just cramming a lot of vague representations of fighting disciplines in. MKDA seemed to be the only one that made an effort in that respect, and sadly, Batman certainly doesn't seem to have anything key to his identity. Some of that seems to the contrary.

Here's hoping personality is on the way, and differentiation beyond whatever special moves can be thrown in.

For a guy who claims to like Tekken as much as he does, Ed Boon doesn't really seem to grasp what makes its system so great.

To his credit, I really thought Deadly Alliance was a step toward giving MK a strong grounding in the fight mechanic, without distancing itself from what you expect of the game.

If Armageddon could've kept more of that personality and individuality in the fluidity and execution of the moves, but added elements of MKA's aerial kombat, I'd almost be convinced.

I think with MK having spent so long in the shadow of better and more diverse fighters like Street Fighter (in 2D), and Tekken (in 3D), it's such a shame that there'd be any complacency when conveying the sense of personality in each character's fighting style.
Although, that slowly bleeds toward my disappointment in seeing an MKSM style Sub-Zero showing up in previews, and what looks like a similarly palette swapped Scorpion in the Noob.com teaser.

I think the threat of homogenization continues to be the big villain of the beat 'em up reneissance presented in the latest wave of sequels.

I'd be pretty happy if the fighting mechanics were very similar to Tekken's. I'm used to the whole FRONT DOWN FRONT PUNCH/KICK and DOWN + FRONT PUNCH mechanic... and I'd love to see that in MK. Also, 2 button grapples, some chain grapples, ground grapples, side grapples, back grapples, and mid-air grapples would be pretty sick as well. Also, you can't go wrong with ALL of Tekken's opening cinematics. MK can learn a few things from the guys at Namco.

This will be the same crappy fighting system from the last few games. There's practically no doubt in my mind

The new additions look interesting (klose kombat and falling kombat) but so far the core engine looks very similar to the last 3 games. ANd judging by MK's history I'm not expecting anything ground-breaking. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

... or we could each chip in a few thousand bucks, buy the necessary software and hardware to make our own MK game and have Bleed lead the project ^_^
(not-for-profit of course, don't wanna get suuuuuued)

Klose Kombat actually kind of looks cool. I mean, it shouldn't be too bothersome, and it could be fun to fight in a boxing style mini game.

How will it work?

It won't.

I'm hoping of the return of the Special button from Deadly Alliance; a single button that depending on the character, it did something different, like a taunt, a power-up, a backdash... it gave each character a bit more variety.

freefall sounds pretty cool, however, I'm not too sure about this Klose Kombat thing. Ed was vague on how it's suppose to make the fighting better.

After seeing the trailer it looks like there will be 4 buttons for fighting rp,lp,lk,rk.
Im guessing you press two buttons to grab this will trigger klose combat mode,here it seems you can execute combos with the buttons and throw your opponents aswell,also you seem to turn your opponent around for back attacks.

Say, am I the only one who wants to see the MK:SM team have a go at a MK Fighter? I just don't think that the current team can deliver a decent fighting engine. Alone from that small teaser the fighting still looked as stiff as ever.

MK:SM was just an action adventure, but the gameplay was great for what it was. I think if they'd get the chance to make a pure fighter, they could give us something truly incredible. At the very least, fights would be fast and animations would be fluid.

The MK system hasn't always been "stiff" if some of you guys played the older games you'd know that. And as for the last few games, most fans with the exception of the gameplay fans really have no clue as to what they're talking about honestly....

Anyway, lol it's a first teaser trailer...LOTS of changes will happen since then.

Remember guys, the MKA vids and MKD vids early on were nothing like the finished product.

As for the new system, I'm hyped for it. It looks new, interesting and very movie like with actually.

I think people have to just give it a chance, THEN judge(ha, ha like that will happen with certain fans)

I'm looking forward to it, I also believe that ridding the multiple styles will automatically mean less glitches, OTG's, FT's etc

I'm sure there will be some kind of counter move, parry, rolling etc

Dial up combos who knows, we clearly didn't see any dial combos in that video....so who knows, it might not be in there remember, Boon and Midway totally scrapped the current system of the last 3 games...including no more weapons

My thoughts exactly!

Probably namco or tecmo based.
I hope there's still weapons and stuff though.

What fighting engine?

I was thinking about a way to get rid of dial-a-combos, and here is what I got. If a characters starts attacking another person, then the receiver of the attack should be able to block in the middle of the combo by pressing the block button right when the opponent is about to strike. This would cancel the attacker's combo, giving the receiver a quick chance to counter attack.

Now, for a way for the attacker to dodge this problem is by faking an attack. Yeah, faking. Like when they are about to strike the enemy, they can press a certain button to cancel the attack for a second, and then strike again. If they do this successfully, the opponent will be vulnerable for a second for trying to parry at the wrong time, giving the attacker the chance to continue the combo. Of course, during the fake, the opponent might not try to counter, giving them the chance to attack the attacker as they are in the middle of a fake.

No idea if this idea was used in VF or Tekken. I like it.

If you're going to have characters fighting on the way down, a comic book crossover probably isn't a bad place to do it. I actually think that looks fun, if entirely inconsequential. Hitting punch wouldn't have made DOA platform changes any more fun...

My guess, based on absolutely nothing at all, is that klose kombat is going to make things fiddly and constricted. Best guess is it's a variation on grappling that will let players maneuver closer to terrain hotspots, and/or exchange fiddly flurrys in a mini tug-of-war.

If MK vs DC provides an opportunity to experiment with the technical aspects of the game; I could see klose kombat going before the next core instalment of the series.

I severely doubt it, but if that were true then even that would be a huge step forward for MK's gameplay.

Honestly, I excpet it to be much like the last couple of MK games with a few aesthetic additions. I'll certainly give it a fair shot and reserve judgement until it can be judged, but I'm not expecting it to be a functional fighting game and I think anyone who does expect that is deluded.