I think it will be difficult to get the same impact from Fatalities as we used to. When MK1 and MK2 did it, they were the only big, successful games doing the whole blood+guts thing. Now there are many games on the market which make MK look tame. It doesn't help that many of the recent Fatalities are too cartoonish, where sometimes it feels more like a Tom and Jerry cartoon. I know Midway don't want realistic looking deaths, but there has to be a balance, so they don't just look like a weird cartoon.

Some of the more elaborate, complex ones are trying too hard, and look more weird/stupid than cool. The best ones mix style with simplicity, like Sub Zero's spine rip or Kung Lao's vertical hat slice. A good comparison is Shang Tsung's soul steal, which I thought was much better in MK2 than MKDA. In MK2, the Shang Man just turns them into a withered corpse straight away. By MKDA they made him slam the enemy into the ground first then jump on him, with no withered body at the end, why?

This isn't to say all new/recent Fatalities suck, there were some good ones in MKDA/MKD. I loved Johnny Cage's brain rip, because it was simple, and also it was something we had never seen in MK before. Just wish the brain looked more like a brain, but there you go. Others I liked were more about the build up than the actual death, like Kung Lao's MKDA hat in the head, or Kira's torso rip, those were really cool, imo. OK, we've all seen torso rips many times, but the knives in the feet and the begging for mercy before she killed them made it great.

It's also good if the Fatality suits the character doing it, though this part's not always essential What I mean is, it would make perfect sense for Stryker to use explosives/guns to finish someone, but it would just be wrong if, say, Jade did it, these are part of his character, not hers.

One idea of a fatality would be like, tearing out an internal organ, and shoving it down the victim's throat, or into other bodily entrances I dare not even make mention of. At first, I thought Kobra's variation of Kano's infamous Heart Rip fatality included such a thing, but was disappointed when I learned that all he did was smear the enemy's face with his/her own heart.

More things I'd like to see with fatalities are fractured bones sticking out of their skin (and I want to hear sounds of bones crunching with those fatalities, too), actually showing blood vessels, or even showing organs fall out of the body, like for instance, with an explosion fatality, you could see their liver, kidneys, heart, lungs, brain, intestines, etc. along with their bones, blood, and torn flesh.

The closest to realistic fire fatalities have been as of late is MK3's fire fatalities. With those fatalities, I'd like to see the victim somewhat like he/she was in Scorpion's Toasty Fatality from MK4 first, then start to see his/her flesh start blistering, turning red, etc, until his/her flesh is finally reduced to a pile of ash, and his/her skeleton is exposed. I was VERY disappointed with the lack of realism Bo Rai Cho's fatalities had in MKD (not to mention the fact that they were soured by the fact that they looked too comical).

Although there are too many decapitation fatalities in this game, I don't see them going anytime soon.

I'd like to see the camera zoom inside the opponents body whilst we watch organs being ripped out or bones being broken. Kinda like Romeo Must Die.

Fatalities need greater variety and style. Make each one unique in terms of overall execution, rarther than just "this guy rips heads off, this one smashes skulls" - fatalities could use certain stylised camera angles and zoom effects. Liu Kang could launch a flurry of fast blows('brutality') at the opponent, kicking the crap out of them, before the final blow, a roundhouse kick which brakes the victim's neck - importantly, in slow motion!
I'm not asking for The Mortal Matrix, but a few stylised effects wouldn't go amiss.

As for new Fatality ideas, Joes 04's thread had some good ones.
A good idea would be to have new Fatalities that reflect the Classic ones; MkDa has an example of this: - The Brain Rip is Johnny's new head attack, the follow-up to the decapitation. In this vein, A Fatality where Johnny ripped the entire ribcage out of someone's chest, would be a nice tribute to the Torso Rip.

Fatalities which use the walls of the arena; smash an opponent's skull into the wall, complete with shattering stone( and bone!)
Bring back the oldies! Toasty!, Dragon Morph, and Vertical Hat Slice.
There have been many body slicers, but interestingly, there hasn't been a vertical, slide apart Fatality since Kung Lao's affore-mentioned Death Move;
it's time it was brought back.

Less 'cartoony' graphics may also be a worthwhile answer.
Ideas for all things, including Fatalities, sound better on paper. It takes practise, good programming, and lots of coffee to get the desired result!

Some of what I'm going to say has already been mentioned but I felt it wouldn't hurt to mention it again. Some of the key elements of good fatalities, in my opinion, are....

1. Keep it in character. Raiden has his lighting powered fatalities, Scorpion uses hellfire, Subby freezes them to death, etc.

2. Keep the joke factor down....unless you want it to be funny then go overboard. As much as some people moan and groan about the so-called 'joke' fatalities, you have to admit they are rememberable. Sometimes, they actually work.

3. It's not the gore, its the 'pain.' Which do you think would make you want to look away more, someone getting his head cut off with a bunch of blood spurting everywhere (yawn) or that same person getting his finger nails being slowly ripped off one by one?

Ok here are not key factors, but a few recommendations...

1. Bring back some of the classic 2D fatalities but in 3D and do them right. Sonya's flaming kiss of death, Liu Kang's dragon chomp, etc.

2. Give us more of a choice. As much as some of you may hate them, I happened to have liked some of the so-called Friendships, Mercys, Animalities, etc....(Not Babalities....*shivers*) MK may be a dark game, but it alway did have a little corny humor that you can't help but like. And if you don't like them, don't use them.

3. If Midway is reading this, don't waste your time trying to make everyone happy with the fatalities. It's never gonna happen. No matter what you do there is always going to be someone going to say this or that should have been or not been done. Unless I'm mistaken while making the first two MK games, you didn't even consider trying to make everyone happy. Of course, there were few if any such sites like this one where you could actually see what people wanted. And both of these games are still considered the best of the MK series by many. (Including myself)

The only way to get back that shock value is to add in the needed detail. You need blood actually pouring out of wounds, cracks, snaps, twists..

The blood needs to drip down the opponent and to the ground like realistic blood. I enjoyed a lot of Jaxs fatalities, demonstrating his brute force. The skull smash in MK2, the armrip from MK4 when he used his foot on the opponent for leverage. Details like that add to the shock value.

A new fatality for Jax could be grabbing the persons lower jaw and pushing up, tearing their neck and opening the front of their jugular. The blood would pour down their chest AND squirt out..

Simplicity makes for realism. If everyone had one fatality that used a special power and one that used primitive force, you would have a great balance of fatalities.

Realism, and nothing exaggerated to ridiculous limits. let me show you what I mean by listing the MK.D: fatalities and hara kiris.

BARAKA

Torso tear: the slice and dice opening is good, but is left without any show of bloodspray what is weird. The cutting up oprceeds smoothly untill the tarkatan slams his blade into the torso and tears it out? Nah. Now if he would use his hands to taerr out the torso with a dangling head and ap-pendages, it would have been so much better. 2/5

Trophy Puncher: dumb animation, the head punch is good. A muscle man like Mr. B can do such things I suppose when pumped up, but the head falling down without movement, and the fact that barakas movement is inconsisten with the heads fall akes this a horrbile fatality 1.5/5

Hara Kiri: good, but stabbing himself in the head from down under the jaw would have been better. 2.5/5

BO' RAI CHO

Alcoholism hell: I guessed it right when I saw the torch+liquor pulled out. The only weird thing was Bo's breath being strong enough to break the tissue of the body off with a mere blow of his stomach. Weird. I guess Bo' has the uncanny ability to propel enormous pressured bolts of air out of his stomach> I also guess this works both ways, hehehe 2/5

Gas-man: well, the opponents doesn't fell to pieces. It was however then obvious when I first saw only the torch pulled out. Actually this fatality is so grotesque it has a certain charm to it (especially Bo's acting after it). Well, I guess it could have been more detailed. 2/5

Hara Kiri: well, since he can propel the air out of his stomach, he can move and inhale large amounts of it. Despite this "unmentioned special power", the hara kiri looks dumb. 1/5

DAIROU

Bone bender: the fatality starts off good, putting the pressure upon the spine, but ends horribly having the upper parts to explode. A good concept ruined by needless amounts of brutality. If the spine would have cracked, and the opponent would have began to scream horridly, it would have been unforgivably good (Dairou should have then stomped on the head then in my version to kill the victim) 2/5

Rib stab poke: very brutal and very well designed fatality. My hats off to the idea although it was already mentioned million times in other fictions and media. 4/5\

Hara Kiri: despite the messed up animation and graphic engine, this is so gruesome. Actually possible to happen, it gives me the creeps everytime.
4.5/5

DARRIUS

Arm-Head smasher: seen it two previous times, only with little variability and with the combined effort of both Jax's MK2/MK4 fatalities. Sorry, but it has lost it's charm. 1/5

Rearrangement: despite the effort, this fatality sucks. If the erarrangement would have been explained by something credible like a supernatural power or provess, it would have been better (example Darrius controlling human bones and flesh). The comic relief is good, but the character is not well fitting completely up to the task, though it could have been much worse. 2/5

Hara Kiri: impossible, uninspired and dumb. 1/5

ERMAC

Tele crush-tear: tearing apart the opponent is gruesome as it is, though nothing exaggerated it is moderate at best. The extra addition of crushing the opponent into a bog first makes this look a little bit outstanding from telekinetic fatalities. 3/5

Multi-slam: gee, three times slammed and finally explodes. The fatality has a nice pace and camera angle flow. Too bad the fatality is uninspi-red, but the execution makes up a bit for it. 2/5

Hara kiri: first time I saw it, I laughed, second time I thought about it and found it gruesome. Third time it gets boring. The only problem with this hara kiri is that it is impossible by your own will and looks too B-rated movie gore-ish. Not bad though 2.5/5

HAVIK

Arm eater: extremely gruesome and morbid. just as a character defying normal laws of physics and life, this fatality is saved by the well-thought flashyness and charming impossibility. Havik's barfing and sudden engaging in victory pose has a good pace, and this makes it a 4/5

Leg Beat: i don't know why did they use it to slam the head off, but it looks dumb. Quan Chi's was waay better in MK4. Not completely hollow becou-se of the beheading happening so suddenly, but still not good enough af-ter we have seen a way better predecessor for this fatality. 1.5/5

Hara kiri: hahaha, one of my favourites, actually being half dead-half living, the hara kiri suits the immensely morbid joviality of Havik. 4/5

HOTARU (I'm not biased before anyone asks)

Neck twister: possible and gruesome. The theatrical moves of the head bender makes this look like an actual execution not just a simple murder. Hotarus sinking into the winning pose makes it even more perfect, as well with the leg break stomp to start the whole thing with. 4/5

Body slam: a very bad fatality, thought the half-circle drag around looks okay, and the tossing movement at the end looks good with the groa-ning, the body explosuion ruins most of it. Very uninspired btw. 1/5

Hara Kiri: fitting to have Sub-Zeros finisher as a hara kiri, but it's the actu-al impossibility doing it on yourself makes this look way more braindead than most of MK's finishers. 2/5

JADE

Head stab gymnastics: wow, looks completely unique to most of the fatali-ties, though the screaming while the head is pierced ruins the fun a little bit. The overthrowing movement is impossible though to achieve in reality, since the victim would fall instantly when pierced. Not very good, but def. not bad. 3/5

Slice dash: bad. Very bad! First: the rundown looks out of place. Second: you can't cut a man in half from a dash. The spinal chord can stop a katana with ease (if the body is straightened out and fixed to something, than a complete cut is possible. That however requires strong ties to something, see the samurai sword tests.) Third: Bojutsu has no edge.
Fourth: it's too damn cheezy and unispired and anime-ish. 1/5

Hara Kiri: average, and I don't like a boomerang as a weapon of that size. However it is carefuly thought out, and the camera cuts are good. It seems much like that Jade throws something to the audience, and some angry fan throws it back. 2 or 2.5/5

KABAL:

Spin cutdown: extremely out of place if you look at the spinning tempo and the ease with Kabal thrusting the blades edge downwards. It looks too corny and suddenly made. The starting kicks pace is good, from onward from there it should have looked different than this massacre of a fatality.
1.5/5

Upkick cutter: slightly better, but the unrealistic kick makes this soo bad. He should have used something else, like a run up backflip kick to send him upwards (not that much, just slightly into the air). Hard to say what makes this fatality so bad, but it's definitely bad. 2/5

Hara Kiri: sudden, gruesome, possible (don't try it with anything) and believable. One of my favourites. 4/5

KENSHI:

Tele strech: I guessed it when he levitated the ody horizontally. The animation is bad, and what does the screaming if there is no body to begin with? Echoes don't change tonality, and if I might add something, it looks way out of place.

Katana strike: the slice in two concept is good, even the combined action with the stab, but there is something amiss: the stab into the torso looks a bit out of place, but the spin around and slice move hides it's importance a bit. overall a good fatality and good to have it for Kenshi. 3/5

Seppuku: very good, and very thopughtfull to use it in conjuction with a ka-tana when there is no wakizashi or tanto at hand. The best athmospheric hara kiri, and the backshot of the camera builds up tension. Anyone thin-king otherwise has no idea.

KIRA

Naildown +torso tear: starts off very good. The "nailing" and the cries of the victim allow this fatality to have a good amience, especially Kira's walkup. the torso tearing is impossible though, but at least half of this fatality is good. Could have ended more gruesome though. 2.5/5

Throat slash: very fast and believable, though the weapon holds not enough weight to sewere the neck so much. Very good and realistic, one of my favourite fatalities in MK history. 4/5

Hara Kiri: good God, the chick just stabbed her stomach and stuff...left me stunned for a second what was enough to give this a moderate and believable rating. 2.5/5

KOBRA

Heart rip: done tomo many times, but this is the best one of them all. Ben Kobra's articulation during the killing is good, and his moves are well coreographed. Hats off, made the classic look new and had a MK1 feel what i greatly missed ever since MK3. 3/5

Head looser: a lot of people don't udnerstand this fatality but this is one of the most gruesome ones. The two kicks I think thrust the Adam apple or the vertical muscles inward, what bends the air tubes and other critical stuff in the neck. An actual killing method leaves the victim to suffocate while retaining conciousness for a few seconds, just before the internal bleeding starts. This fatality is made more MK'ish by Kobra loosing his patience and kicking the head off. Very good. One of the more phylosophi-cal finishers in MK history. 3/5

Hara Kiri: self-heart rip? While it looks okay on others, this is just dumb, especially if Ben Kobra rip's the heart out of his right part of his chest. Maybe it can be considered a lung rip, though a lung would dissolve or explode when grasped so hard. 1.5 or 2/5

LI MEI

Death touch combo: while the concept is overusedit may have looked at least moderately good in MK, however the body exploding end of the sequence makes this downright dumb. Count an extra point if you are listening to SlipKnots Duality while doing this, it has almost the same rythm. 1.5/5

Soccer: my theory is that since Li Mei looks quite collected and formed, an increased strenght could be her trademark. The head punch is ok, and while the soccer kick looks funny, the exploding head AND body makes this to have exaggerated and unneeded violence. 2/5

Hara Kiri: looks good but improbable. The decapitation sounds grisly and the stagering body s realistic. Too bad the blade spins too much, but then again as i have figured this, Li mei may have extra strenght we don't know about.

LIU KANG:

Fire Takeout: haven't seen this one, but I was pleased to have a reasonab-le and interesting fatality. Byurned by the on inner fire now that part is origi-nal, and I don't mind the explosion too. A good runner up for his MK3 Immo-lator fatality no doubt. 3.5/5

Possession: this is sick, especialy on Sindel or Ashrah. Truly disturbing, it reminded me instantly of the first glympse I've got on boons sewered head in the Pit Bottom the first time I saw a character fall down there. Very despi-cable. Too bad the character is overall dry as hell and should have ermai-ned dead. 4/5

Hara Kiri: being both spirit and body separated, this fatality looks very nice and the decomposing has a good pace with the flaming pillar effect on Lius body and remnants.

MILEENA

Neck Devourer: while a traditional cannibal fatality and something a bit unique to the touch, the fatality can get old despite the psychotic laughter at the end. Seducing, but don't do this often to loose it's charm. 3.5/5

Sai kick: I wonder who read my mind when doing MKD? A good concept what I was glad to see, but it can get slow soon if you know what I mean.
Despite all of this, this is a prime example for an average and resonable fatality. 2.5/5

Hara Kiri: looks good, but impossible to have the sais perfectly thrusted inot the head symmetrically. nonetheless an average but universal hara kiri for laughs and seriousness alike. 2.5/5

NIGHTWOLF

Tomahawk Throw: real, and the devastating thud into the head makes this especialy gruesome. A very good example how simplicity can subdue the "kamehameha flashy" style of most super moves and finishers. The victim actually feels to stay truly dead after this. 3.5/5

Decapitation: very good, same as above, thought the head pops a bit too high for my liking. The blood flow and squirting is allright here, should have used that effect more often in Deception. 3/5

Hara Kiri: take the soccerball down with your chest, eh? Well, real again and possible (don't even try it) so suprisingly one of the lesser character of MK gets back with such an improvement on the fatality theatre. 3/5

RAIDEN

Self destruction lightning: I actually thought this to be horrid and fitting. it gave me the impression of Raiden being zealous enough to sacrifice his own body to channel as much as distrupting energy into his victim as he can. I foubnd it frightening, but it has an edge. many will consider this to be stupid. 2.5 or 3/5

Lightning channel: interestingly enough the most simple way Raiden suposed to kill someone was never seen untill MKD, but after the controversial MK1 head popper and other good fatalities (save for MK2's super uppercut - extremely uninspired) this seems and IS a stepback when paired with his bipolar destroyer fatality. 1.5/5

Hara Kiri: nothing as nearly theatrical as in the intro, and he explodes so-mewhat too soon. sorry that minor delay ruins the overall feel of the hara kiri. 1.5/5

more will come...

I think that MKSM is headed in the right direction with some of the ways you kill you opponent. I love it when you slice an Oni in half and it zooms in, does it in slow motion, and you hear in the background something Classic such as "Outstanding" or "Superb" Also I saw some of the fatalities that were done in MKSM and they do look shocking, realistic, and "cool". The most shocking, unexpected, unruly, and just plain treaturess Fatality I saw was done by Kung Lao, He They need to start thinking of more creative and thought out Fatalities like that which make us all say "OH SHIT!!" or "Damn, Thats fucked up".

Chrome, you seem to be very serious about realism in games, but Mk has a lack of it. This makes me wonder how with such a mindset, you would get into these games in the first place? Just asking...



I agree that realism is appreciable, but lets not let Mk lose its flashy side, too. Have the realistic throat crushers alongside spine rips and body splits, that's a good balance to have.

On the subject of realism in Fatalities...


Here's a macarbe Fatality realism analysis(I don't really care about realism in Fatalities, I'm just doing this for fun!):



SPINE RIP:
Impossible for any human, no matter the strength. Even the strongest person in the world couldn't achieve this morbid feat, the best he/she could do would be disslocation of the vertebre and ripping of the cartliginous discs. A machine or robot could easily rip someone's head off, but it would not be certain to tear off the head with attached spine; the discs between the vertebre may be too weak to hold the spine to the skull.
Off course, in the fantastical world of Mk, the warriors all possess vast physical strength. If a human could actually be that strong, then it could be a bizzare possibility. Great Classic Fatality, though.

REALISM: (normal numeric ascension)

Score: 5/10


UPPERCUT DECAPITATION:
Strength would not matter here. Even if, yet again, a machine was inexplicably built for this purpose, its power would be entirely inconsequential.
The force of the blunt metal fist of the machine hitting the lower jaw in a replicated Johnny Cage uppercut punch would completely shatter the jaw apart, drive through the mouth roof, into the brain and through the top of the skull... Very messy and what is essentially Head Impalement, rarther than Decapitation. That's not to say that the head wouldn't be decapitated, but what's left of its exploded remains.
It certainly would never achieve the clean, 'head-popping' effect of Mortal Kombat, where the head is undamaged apart from the ripped neck portion.
Clean decapitation with a sharp sword? 75% likely. Clean decapitation with an uppercut punch? No! And that's even if you possessed unnatural strength... You just couldn't do it cleanly enough to match the Mk style - fists are too blunt!

Score: 0/10


HEART RIP:
Oh yeah, I forgot! The Rock's finishing move is a heart rip...
No, a proffessional wrestler could not rip your heart out. Possible, but again the strength required for an unsharp hand to penetrate ribs and muscle layers is beyond human power. Yeah, punch you in the chest and brake your ribs easily, but no heart rip.
With mechanical assistance this would be easy,(and of course, pointless and sadistical!) therefore justifying its rating.

Score: 8/10

TORSO RIP:
Errrrr, no! Even with Cage's strength, how did he stop the opponent from being lifted up? Did he nail their feet to the ground? Superglue?

Score:0/10


NECK SNAP:
100% possible and providing you're an evil b*st*rd, very easy(Also, providing victim doesn't struggle) Don't try this at home!

Score: 10/10


NUT PUNCH:
Not to go into unacceptable detail, but a male's groin houses a deadly pressure point. How many times have you been kicked in the groin? You may have thought it was a hard hit, but this is exaggeration due to pain.
According to a martial arts chart of pressure points, A light blow equals intense pain, a medium hit equals possible unconsciousness, but a hard blow? You can die.
This would make a horrible yet great Fatality for Johnny Cage - it suits his cruel streak.
Wholly possible.

Score: 10/10


DEATH BY FIRE:
Well, duh, it's possible, but there's little chance of turning into an instant flaming skeleton!

Score: 10/10

Chance of turning into a spontaneous Fire Skeleton? 0/10




Back On Topic...

Good ideas, so far.

LOL, it wasn't as hard as you might think. NOw, I'm trying to get MK to have seriousness becouse flashyness will not enbody the reason of fatalities so far from now on. MK weas about it's gruesomeness, but since the sudden emergence of video game violence, MK has lost it's true shock factor.

Stay true to realism, but stay true to the basis of the game realism.

Oh, about the spine rip and Quan Chi's neck stretch. It may be possible. The himalayan areas of Nepal were once populated by the Bon priests (religious groups prior to buddhism's asrrival, accoutned as sorcerers) who frequently made offerings, not so often, but it happened that people were ritually killed at some part of the ceremonies.

The point is that certain Bon priests possessed abilities legendary like the creation of a duplicate of yourself, called Tulpa, and so on...but the really interesting fact is that tyhey had a method of torture, killing, where the necks msucles were to be relaxed at the gentle manipulation of the Bon priests fingers, alowing them to go into a state of extreme flexibility and thus, allow the Bon priest to elongate the muscles in a relaxed state, so that the victim would have to hold his head against having it dangle down and break his spinal collumn. Myth or reality? Who knows.

BIZZARRE!

Back to the note of your penultimate post, how would you rate Scorpion's and Sub-zero's Fatalities and Hara Kiris(If you haven't already?)?


I think...

SCORPION:
SPEAR FUN:
A Kata spin, two spear assisted limb rips and a neck snap. I like this one; it's stylish and gives us something we've wanted to see Scorpion do for a long time. However, there are some problems with it;
The sounds; not brutal enough;
The way the spear dissapears so fast, instead of sliding back;
When the opponent is pleading; "No, no, Nooo!", Scorpion should have laughed evilly.
Otherwise, good stuff, apart from the blood effects, but these are standard to Mk:D.
Very different from other Fatalities and the Neck Break is a nice finish.

4/5

SPINE RIP:
"He stole it off Sub-Zero! *whine*" Oh, come on! It suits Scorpion just as well. I like the throat grip and the look of the meaty spine. The way the spine flicks around when he rips it looks a bit glitchy, but I think the jerkiness of the rip adds to its power. The way the body falls. The way the victim seems about to scream, but is cut off by the grab. The way Scorpion's beginning hand position reminds me of the Kombat Pavillion's numerous Mk2 Sub-Zero Spine rip creations, the way those people used Sub-Zero's Ice Grenade cupped hand for their Spine Rips, looks very similar to Scorpion's 3d Klaw hand. Because of this it has added retro value for me.
The holding aloft of the spine, too.
Great.

5/5

HARA-KIRI: NECK SNAP:
Authentic and honourable. The nerves required to brake your own neck... Sheesh.

4/5



SUB-ZERO:
HEAD GRENADE:
Flashy, but the good kind of flashy. Seems kind of like a 'sports' Fatality...
Needs better effects, however.

4/5

KOLD FEET:
Inventive and brutal. Needs more realistic meat for when the legs explode, though. The timing of it is perfect as well and it never seems to get too boring. Speaks for its self, really.

4/5

HARA-KIRI:
KOLD KROSS:
Nice idea, but rubbish execution with bad glitches. Sub-Zero seems to half glitch into the floor and the debris looks poor. Could be better.

1/5


BEST HARA-KIRI IN THE GAME:

Tanya's Hara Kiri, I think, is a good example of a great Hara Kiri. Illogical and impossible, but it's the most brutal Hara-Kiri, IMO. They even got the effects right by giving her wounds where she rips the bones out.
Then, she shoves the bones in her eyes.
Completely dumb, cause you can't stand with half your femurs left, but still suprisingly shocking and brutal, despite me having little regard to the character.
5/5

If its realism you want, then the Neck Snap and Seppukku are far better, though.



It seems an important element of the Fatality may be realism, but I think thoroughly of a graphical kind over execution, although both need implementing.

Sure, the fatalities need to be a bit more graphic and gory, creative even. That's a blatant given. But that's not the primary step that needs to be taken when fixing its problems.

Fatalities have always been part of Mortal Kombat, and they were a nice aspect of Deadly Alliance and Deception. But no matter how 'awesome' the fatality may seem, after repeated use, it loses its appeal.

Maybe one could avoid using certain favorite fatalities often to help 'preserve' it, but I'm one of many who don't do that because I like to use them often, especially when trying to prove a point to a shit-talking opponent.

What we really need is a reason to use them, other than for a gory aspect of the game. Fatalities need a real purpose..

Note: Thread ought to be stickied.

Maybe it's my sadistic side typing this, but I agree with that comment. I think that some of the fatalities need to be slower, adding more to the pain and suffering of an opponent. For example, Kenshi's Telekinetic Crush in MKDA was interesting, and looked very painful, and is a decent example of a torturous fatality. Maybe they could expand on this to other characters, like...

-Have Kano, Baraka, or any other blade-using character hacking and slashing at the opponenet until the entire front of their body's nothing but torn muscles and bone;

-Have Scorpion slowly burn the opponent limb-by-limb;

-Have Stryker or Jax shoot their opponent in the legs first, making them kneel/tumble to the ground, then blast off their hands, then go for the shoulders, then blast their heads point-blank;

-Have the super-power characters like the machines and bosses crush a character's head, but doing it nice and slow. They would start by grabbing a person by the head with two hands, lifting the person off the ground (forcing them to squirm and panic), start crushing the head, move in for a close-up shot of how the character looks (including the screams of pain, their eyes bulging out, their bones cracking as they're squeezed together) and instead of making the pieces just explode everywhere, just in the spaces where the face and the back of the head wouldn't be covered by the hands.

-Maybe showing more manual bone-breaks instead of relying on super-powers constantly.

Perhaps the only catch with these though is that irresponsible parents will probably complain that the fatalities look too real and will contaminate their "perfect-angels" minds and "force" them to be violent.



Yeah, I kind of liked having the option of using Friendships, I thought that those were pretty neat and a relief from the same-old blood and gore.

IMO i think the fatalies have kinda went from being shocking and cool to just plain "out there" where i think the developers just sat around and thought to themselves "What kind of fatalities can can we create that makes most gore" as oppose to adding a thinking about once that really made your skin crawl when you see them. To me, the latest MK fatalities, (though still pretty bloody and only a handfull are actually unique-ly cool) ttheyve have more "humor" to them where most of the time the common reaction amongst players are normally a type reaction where as back in the day with the originals the fatalies though somewhat simplistic left the player looking at the screen in a type manner. I miss those days... but im my opion the last MK game that feeling was Mk2 becuase to me fatalities had the perfect balance with 1)the gore factor without going over top, 2) each of the fatalies fit the characters "character". 3) The "2-part" fatalies when you actually had do a part of the fatality before the "finish him/her" came up, like raidens super uppercut or shangs kintaro-morph or how you had to deep freeze an opponent with subzero and "then" perform the fatality. I hope they think of those elments like that in MK7 but time will only tell.

I do agree with having more 'sadistic' fatalities, but they need to be able to manage time and creativity.

That 'fingernails getting ripped off' fataltity sounds like it would make for a nice one, but something like that would probably run about 40 seconds. They should be able to make them gratuitious like we want, but they also need to be reasonable on the time.

I'd just like to see more realism in the deaths.

Boon says "reality is boring, no one pays for reality" yet in terms of the fatalities, I don't think it could be further from the truth - because we've been subjected to some very unrealistic (i.e. bland and boring) deaths since the release of MK3.

Abandon the joke atmosphere, for me MK4 was a breath of fresh air (in terms of fatalities and the aura surrounding the setting - nothing else) because they reverted back to the dark side of MK. Just the two serious fatalites per character, along with a couple of very nice stage fatalities, and one cool 'continue screen' death.

And if they can't help themselves with the 'humour', then please be clever with it, and add it subtly... I'm pretty sure every MK fan cracked a wry smile when Scorpion explodes in the 1st MK movie - and we see Johnny Cage's MK2 Friendship autographed pic. Subtle humour is far more entertaining in the long run than crude 'toilet humour'.

Hara Kiri's too, were a source of subtle entertainment (for me anyways) as I took a kind of sadistic pleasure in the humour of some of the suicide kills (would have been even better had they kept the DK's maniacal laugh after he says "Hara Kiri"...)

So for fatalities in MK7 I say go for the realistic; sickening bone breaks, defeated foes begging for mercy, horrifying screams, just return Mortal Kombat to it's dark and the sinister roots...

Remember the note they played in MK2 when the fatality letters started to drip? If the music was just really good and dramatic again too.. ahh the nostalgia, if it isn't broken, don't fix it..

All visual aspects aside, I also think the combinations for fatalities should be touched up.

In MK:DA, and MK:D, the basic procedure for doing a fatality: 4 directional button inputs, followed by an attack button.

Example
One of Jade's fatalities in MKD: B, F, F, F, 2 (close)
One of Kenshi's fatalities in MKD: F, F, B, B, 2 (sweep)

They all follow the same formula with distance modifiers (a lot of which are BS in MK:D anyways).

What happened to the times of MK2, where you actually had to try a little harder to do the more awesome fatalities.

Konqrr recently showed me Shang Tsung's Kintaro morph in MK2. I had never seen it before, it was pure ownage. He also told me he had to hold LP for 25 seconds during the round, without using no specials just to be able to do that (he's a cool guy, and a pro at this game, he still owned my ass like it was nothing with those restrictions). I'm sure the same shock and awe was felt through arcades in 1995 when teens owned their friends with a big Kintaro wallop to the torso.

Instead of just pressing a few direction buttons, and an attack button, some should be mixed up a little. Hold a certain button and do a combination, rotate the joystick in a circular manner, things like that. You should have to be able to work to do the more awesome fatalities.

BTW, I thought Sub-Zero had the best fatalities in MKD.

To me, all the fatalities both normal and stage related are just so... Repetitive. One could argue that there are only so many ways to kill a person but that's not really true. Take Eternal Champions: Challenge for the Darkside for example. The game had a lot of similar ideas for a lot of the death moves but they were all implemented in very gruesome and unique ways. There were so many variations on just the simple impalement idea. A character could be impaled through the chest on a horned statue in Rax's stage and in Dawson's stage they could be ripped into two pieces by a sharpened tree trunk. In Deception in particular a lot of the impalement deaths were just cookie cutter copies. Hell, the Pit, Onaga's Chamber, and the Falling Cliffs ALL used the same death animation.

Then there were just lame design choices on a lot of fatalites. Explosions when there didn't need to be explosions. The tower stage's falling death trap would have looked a lot cooler if the body stayed in one piece. In the Mines the rock crusher bit off the victim's legs rather than the entire lower half which would have made it seem deadlier.

Dunno if this has been mentioned, but Boon has said he tries to steer clear of fatalities that are too gruesome. With that in mind I don't think we're never going to be shocked again. And if we are, then what? 3 years later they get more gory? Then more gory after that? We could have somebody getting raped with a knife and it would eventually get old when we become desensitized to it.

From a logical standpoint, if Midway did make the deaths more graphic in the next game then it'd wind up with an "AO" rating which would effectively sheer the sales of the game back because a large part of the game's audience would be too young to buy it, and i'm sure that's not something Midway want.

I don't think what's wrong with them is the level of violence, I think it's the difficulty. They're too easy so they don't mean anything when you actually do pull one off. Think back to your first few fatality attempts in MK3 - if you're like me and everyone I know, you'd have messed them up quite a bit at first, and thought you were the bee's knee's when you finally nailed them. I'd like to have a short time to do them in, more difficult button combinations, and more varied and specific distances. When I use one I should feel at least somewhat skilled, not bored that i've seen it 500 times.

Actually, the sales would be sheered because almost all gaming stores have a policy that basically says, "We refuse to carry AO-rated games on our shelves." Same with other retailers that sell video games (Best Buy, Circuit City, Wal-Mart, etc.) or rent them out (ie, Blockbuster).

There's only so many ways to kill someone?

What ways haven't been used in Mk, so far?

Well, Deception was the first game with a rib rip and also a femur bone rip.
DA had a Skeleton rip, but like I said before, we've yet to see a ribcage being pulled out and the organs inside tumbling to the floor.
There has never been a dissembowelment, nor an intestine strangulation.

Quick count of the numbers of known death moves:

How many Organ rips has there been?

Mk1:
Kano Heart Rip

Mk2:
none

Mk3:
none

Mk4:
Jarek Heart Rip

Mk: DA:
Kano Multi Organ Rip

Mk: D:
Kobra Heart Rip

Amount: 4

How many Spine/Skeleton removals?

Mk1:
Sub-Zero's Spine Rip

Mk2:
none

Mk3:
Kano Skeleton Trick

Mk4:
Sub-Zero's Spine Rip( In 3D! )

Mk: DA:
Sub-Zero Skeleton Rip

Mk: D:
Scorpion Spine Rip

= 5

Decapitations? (This will be alot - I'm not counting head exploders, though.)

Mk1:
Johnny Cage

Mk2:
Johnny Cage, Kitana, Reptile, Kung Lao, and Baraka.

Mk3:
none singular, but you could count Kung Lao's multi slice.

Mk4:
Johnny Cage.

Mk: DA:
Reptile(a skull rip, really), I can think of, but I don't own this game, so I'm unsure about others.

Mk: D:
Baraka, Darrius, Havik, Jade, Kira(watch the head fly off!), Kobra, Mileena, Nightwolf, Shujinko, Noob-Smoke, Sub-Zero's 2 and Liu Kang.

=22(More in DA, probably.)



I've only done Organ, Spine Rips and Decaps and already we can see how many more heads have been knocked off, as opposed to the other two types I've so far counted.

Decapitations are boring because they are overused?






Question:
In relation to the thread's Fatality elements question:- Which game has better Finishers, DA or Deception?

I say MKD. Not all of them were great but because there were more fatalities in that game than in MKDA there had to be some good ones and I think that MKD has more good fatalities than MKDA does.

mkd of course because the fatalities are more original in there