Seems to be an unpopular opinion, but I personally never got into any of the minigames. I dabbled with all of them (who wouldn't?) but I didn't play any of them extensively. I think I devoted the most time to Puzzle Kombat, of the 3.
A big motivator for me (in these or any other games) has always been unlockables. I'm a person who likes to work toward a goal, be it endings, achievements, costumes, characters. And Mortal Kombat always kept unlockables away from the side games, so as not to force anyone to play them I believe. Which is smart. But also had the side effect of making a person like me lose interest in devoting long-term focus to them quickly.
I think puzzle kombat was a mildly fun diversion (as most puzzle games are), Motor Kombat was a cool idea, but never executed as well as Mario Kart... it's hard for a side mode to live up to that standard. It was always more a dumbed down Mario Kart. Understandable, but... I'd rather play Mario Kart. ... I never got Chess Kombat. The fact that Chess Kombat incorporated the actual fighting side of the game to determine who won a square just made it feel like versus mode with the illusion of a chess game built around it to me. There was no... chess-like strategy to it. It was more about winning fights. And we have a fighting game for that. I'd have preferred ACTUAL Chess, using Mortal Kombat characters (and violent animations) but leaving out the vs. kombat, honestly. (But then, I used to spend hours playing Liars Dice online in Red Dead Redemption... so... *Shrug*)
I also never liked that they featured a limited selection of characters. I understand that it would be difficult and time consuming to add ALL characters to these modes (especially Armageddon) but... just made them feel more limited I guess. That the full roster wasn't available. *shrug*
All that said, I absolutely wouldn't object to bringing any of them back... just saying, they were never really for me in the old games.
