My eyes.

No he did not. The MKA Raiden fucked up the moment he did not replace He with Kahn. Same syllable amount, same time spent to pronounce it.

But Raidens stupidity comes as a laser guided missile, he electrocutes Kang for WHY exactly? Cannot he control his powers at whim? Is Liu Kang made of supervolatile particles that ignite on electrical charge?

And Raiden: techincaility without distinction? Raiden does NOT KNOW the rules of Mortal Kombat? That was one serious plothole, the protector god not knowing the technicalities of the tournament, DESPITE having knowledge that the same thing went down in at least one other realm (Edenia). Shang won 9 tournaments because Raiden was a buffoon it seems.

Seriously, aside the almost wondrous acting and good dramaturgy, the plots compact nature really hurt some of the consistencies, in this case, Raidens competence.

Also, is it me, or is Raiden too fast to judge: he dismisses Sub-Zero's humanity once automated when Smoke yells out. As if he already wanted to convince Smoke he was beyond redemption. HE HAD foreknowledge of automation (talking to Cyrax in MK1), though, but that does not excuse his words....

Did the best he can with limited information?

Really?

You think that was his best? You think he couldn't possibly have made any smarter decisions?

Tell me, where in the phrase "He must win" does it say "The he is definitely Johnny Cage, Liu, or Kung Lao, so let Jax just walk off and leave Outworld instead of trying to win MK2"?

Or "Stand around and do nothing like a dick while Sub-Zero is being captured even though one quick blast of lightning would work just fine like it did for Smoke"?

Or "Take Liu with you to chat with the Elder Gods, then don't have him say a single word while he's there"?

Or "Try to sell your friends' souls to the fucking devil"?! That one's my favorite.

I think Raiden suffered as a main character because there was an incentive on the game developers part to change the MK universe and to do that they needed him to be incredibly (almost stupidly) fallible. Than again, Raiden was never the brightest bulb in the universe. Pun intended.

I take it you're still a little upset about the story mode

Of course. We all are. Nothing we can do it about except vent. (I made a review of it on YouTube which I hope NRS saw and took notes)

If you are talking about the story, I am not apart of those who hated it. I liked it, even if I didn't appreciate what they did to Raiden. I still thought that the story was good.

I liked the story.

Well, there's no accounting for taste. That's how things like Twilight get popular, after all.

I liked story mode too, there were certainly parts I didn't like about it (but that's the case with anything in life), but it was a fresh new mode and fighters have never done anything like it on such a grand scale, the more they do stuff like this, the better the mode will be in my view.


MKv.DCU had a rather lackluster story mode in terms of writing, fight transitions, voice acting etc.

Mortal Kombat 2011 improved dramatically in all these areas and I believe that next game, the story mode will truly blow us away with its quality because I'm optimistic like that



Raiden's godlike hairstyle manipulation


My favorite part was mortal Raiden with his spiked hair and stuff, only gods are worthy of that mane

Please tell me you are not comparing people that like this story also like crap like Twilight... Because if you are, I would love to smack you across the face.

That book promotes teenagers encountering necrophilia and beastiality all in one book... How anyone is all right that the book does so is beyond me.

MK just have dull writers... That's literally the problem this series has.

Wow. That was possibly the biggest pile of incoherent shit I've ever attempted to read.

I don't see the shades of gray as particularly important, you either like smart writing in your stories or you like shit full of plotholes. MK used to be one and then it became the other, and the people that aren't at all bothered by this are holding the franchise back from being better by telling the writers "Hey, this is good enough, you don't need to try any harder" when we know they can do much better because they have before.

I thought it was a fun and interesting story. Plot holes or not. Everything has a plot hole. Nothing's perfect.

It was one of the best story modes I have ever played in a fighting game to tell you the truth. I just couldn't wait to get through a fight to see what happened next. This is what I think though.

Story mode sucked balls,but Johnny's portrayal was very good and I liked how they did Jade,I always imagined her as kind of older sister of Kitana who swore to take care of her no matter what. Smoke was good too(except that stupid Jade fight and his "stealthy" appearance before Shang Tsung,oh,and he could just smoke away when Sindel got him tight by neck),but again,any portrayal would be good for Smoke,because he didn't have any.

As for the Raiden question,I still prefer him as the mentor figure,he kinda took the success and light from Liu Kang as the series' protagonist first in MKvsDC.then here.

Only bad stories with bad editors have plot holes.
With that being said, if this wasn't a fighting game, would you still say the story was good? MK's always had an awesome story when it's compared to Street Fighter or King of Fighters, but when you compare it to so many other games with a thick plot and strong character development, it sort of falls flat, and the latest incarnation does so very quickly. Characters don't change very much, aside from going from alive to dead, and evil characters are all grouped into evil regardless of them all having different goals;
-Sektor originally deemed Outworld a threat to the Lin Kuei and fought against Shao Kahn's forces, but this time he and the rest of the Lin Kuei help Shao Kahn take over.
-Kano originally fought alongside Sonya and Johnny against Goro, and became a prisoner of Shao Kahn later before bargaining with him for asylum, while in this game he just moseys on into Outworld after Shang loses to Liu. The Outworld folks just accept him into their ranks despite the fact that he fought FOR Earth.
-Bi-Han, working for Shinnok, never winds up betraying Kahn, and just goes from being bad guy douche to dead bad guy douche.
What happened to their independent motivations? Surely the people who like the story look at these changes as being terrible faults in what was once a pretty good story.

Honestly I would have still enjoyed it if it wasn't a fighting game. It was just something done differently to the fighting genre. When you get stories in a fighting game, you just have to play the arcade mode and view a simple ending with a character you beat it with. For this game they take it to a different level. They made a separate mode for a full length story to now follow up to another story for the new game. I thought it was really cool how they did that.

Sure a lot of areas of the story are a bit confusing as to why they chose this route to take, but that's the power of the reset button I guess.

Oh, and the deaths are probably to set up for something even bigger. Who knows though. Just my thoughts.

Raiden isn't typically inept, but in this game he appeared to be. There could have been ways to make his visions falter, and not have him come across as a bumbling idiot, but that's the depiction NRS decided to go with. And now we have an unrelatable, idiot who can't seem to do anything right. And he doesn't even do it in an endearing way that makes us sympathize with him.
Ultimately, I think a main character should be someone we can relate to (which would be a +1 for everyone who thinks that a mortal should be the main character). I think Raiden fails as a main character in this installment, not because he's a God, but because playing story mode was like playing Burn Out 3 or something. Just watching your character crash and burn.

This. Is. Hilarious. You. Are. The. Best.

So if you saw someone eat poop, you'd not go "Oh god, that's disgusting, how can they do that?", you'd go "Oh, okay...well maybe he just enjoys the taste of poop. To each their own"?

Plotholes and bad writing aside, that scenario is not even moderately comparable to the story detractors versus the story supporters.

I don't see why not.

I think it's completely comparable.

Putting down other people opinions as comparable to shit is rather petulant to be honest....as someone whose neutral on the subject in the sense that I heavily dislike the retcons and omissions, while still accepting that I enjoyed many partts of story mode and the grand scale and freshness of the mode, that's my stance.

You think it's "petulant" because you think comparing the story to shit is an extreme exaggeration. But I do NOT think it's an exaggeration. I genuinely do feel like I'm watching people eat a shit sandwich and then smile at the taste.
That's how I've felt since May and that's how I'll feel when I'm 80 years old. Sure, maybe they'll re-reboot or there'll be better sequels or I don't know, Mortal Kombat as a franchise won't always be shit, I'm certain of that, and maybe I'll be a fan of whatever they're doing in the present when I'm 80. But when I look back at MK9 in specific, I'll always think of a game whose story was an utter failure in EVERY category and criteria I judge writing by.

You're disrespecting other people's opinions, you not liking it is fine and understandable and your opinion is NOT shit, so why would someone else's be shit because it's divergent? When you tell people that their opinion is shit, it's tantamount to saying their opinion has no value and no relevance, just saying.

And that's fine, I'm a writer(or I used to be myself) and like I said I do not like a lot of retcons such as Mileena and Kitana's backstories being shifted, which ended up hurting intriguing character development for Jade, Reptile, Mileena and Kitana. I'm not saying that you don't have a valid point I found a lot of faulty logic and dreadful plot points in the storyline. I also don't like how they've put plot ahead of suitable character development, but that doesn't mean that we should diss on people for getting enjoyment out of something. I liked and disliked parts of the story mode.