They squeezed three games into one though.

Which is one of the problems, really. Damn thing's too rushed and condensed which is half the reason most of the cast completely lost their own stories and individuality and became silent filler members of Team Raiden or Team Kahn.

But I digress. My actual point here is, if you can judge MK1, 2, and 3 as a complete story, then you should be able to judge MK9 on the same merits, without waiting for another game or two to come out and see how the timeline grows.

And I've known that right from the start, what does that have to do with what I said?

People here are comparing this story to the previous games from Deadly Alliance-Armageddon. How so when the story is JUST beginning again?

To me, this game doesn't show off a lot to make me feel it's way better than the previous stories they have told. The second one will go off into the direction it's heading in, and until then, I can't compare this game to the last four games' stories.

I think he was saying since the story covered three games. MK 1,2, and 3. That you should be able to compare it to those games.

Did you feel the story of MK9 was as good as what those games portrayed it as?

It wasn't just the endings that changed though, most weren't canon.

The changes were actually a lot of major stuff, many pointless, like the Mileena retcons as one of the many examples.


I might like the story mode, but I'd be kiddding myself if I didn't like MK1-MK3 in the old canon a lot more and it for the most part made way more sense with only a few issues, most of which came later i.e. Armageddon, it wasn't at the beginning where everything was all over the place.


But if you like the new timeline better, more power to you though, but like I said I can enjoy it for what it is, specifically if I try to look ahead instead of back.

I think that a lot of credit has to be given to do a cinematic story mode like the one done in MK 2011 despite the character chapter format. It's really the whole gameplay experience that makes this game fun. However, I'm still in the group that feels the overall story of the new game is crap.

What I don't understand is what exactly is so confusing about the stories in the old timeline? Granted, the old timeline is not perfect by any means, but the main gist of each game's story wasn't exactly hard to understand. We get a sense of progression in danger, which leads up to Armageddon. The thing about the story of the new game is that it essentially pulls a Shaolin Monks by centering around an idiot plot while dumbing down most or all of the characters.

I don't mean making the characters stupid (well..except for Raiden), but the characters feel like they've been simplified. I don't feel as if any of the characters in the game are three-dimensional. The characters that are already one-dimensional (e.g. Baraka) are even less than that in this game. The key thing here is emphasizing the fact that the story of the game is an idiot plot. That's the kind of shit they need to get away from, because idiot plots will continue to kill the story and its characters.

I'm going to agree with you here Espio. I think maybe the MK team got it mixed up. They thought the story was taking a turn for the worse so they decided to rewrite some things, however, they redone the wrong part. It was during parts of Deception and Armageddon where the story started to go wrong.

Nothing was really wrong with MK 1-3 and most liked those stories, I'm not going to say all because obviously some will come in saying they didn't but for the most part it was the original story and when all else fails go back to the original.

That's where they got it right they knew things were going wrong and they needed to go back to the original games to get back on track, however, they decided to change the original which I feel is very risky for any company to mess with the original story which many hold to be the be all end all. That's with any franchise as well, not just MK. I think it's fair to say it's kind of blown up on them, maybe some people like it but some people don't as well. If they had just rebooted MK and showed the original story with cinematics, I feel fewer people would be complaining now, and most MK fans would be on the same page instead of at war like they are now. However, I could be wrong about that as well, guess we'll never know.

Some may argue that we would never see change that way, but things don't always need to change for them to be good. The only thing I would have adressed in this game different from the original story is I somehow would have made it so that Blaze awakening never happens.I feel that the Deadly Alliance, and Onaga plotlines could be redone so that people like it. Yes, I do believe Onaga could be liked. He just needs a new look perhaps a smaller, less bulkier version? LIke Reptile with wings.lol

I just threw out one of the various things that got changed, of course there were plenty of other stuff that got changed. We had an entire character's appearance change!!! I just stated the endings because that was the first thing that popped into my head.

But what exactly was pointless other than the thing you have with Mileena?

I'll answer that one. Quan Chi in general. Even though we know he had some small part in things going on it was never that major, and really took away from Shang Tsung in my opinion. I've always seen Shang as the sneaky weasily little bastard who can manipulate anyone. That was all given to Quan Chi in this game. Why not just wait for the next game with him since that would be when he was introduced anyway.

Also, let's not forget about Subz and Sonya watching Jax get his arms ripped off, or Raiden Johnny Cage, Kung Lao, and whoever else was at the tournament watching Sub-Zero getting taken away, you could make the excuse that well Kahn might not have allowed it, but Sektor was an intruder anyway so I doubt Kahn would have had a problem with someone stepping in and saying hey this ain't a part of the tournament.

Also, Sindel killing, Everyone? or what about Cyber Sub-Zero having people in his system that hadn't even appeared yet? I understand that it was an "Easter Egg" or that's how some took it, but really it didn't make sense. He couldn't have even been cyber for long when he ran into Kabal. Also if frost was in his system what happened to the argument that shed be a child at this point in time?

What about people being in Mk1 that weren't supposed to even be in Mk1?

How come Raiden could heal others, I think it was somewhere in the MK1 portion, but couldn't heal someone like Kitana dying at the end?

A lot of stuff just didn't make any sense. I'm sure there are many other mistakes as well. The thing is it's like Boon and others just completely forgot their own history or just didn't care enough, which is why they shouldn't have went this route anyway. Tobias isn't a godly writer or anything but it was his story and he got it mostly right, so they shouldn' have messed with this portion(MK1-3) of the story.

@Icebaby Tomorrow when I get home from school, I will write out my laundry list of issues with pointless stuff or stuff that made zero sense.

I would write it out tonight, but I gotta head off to bed.

Stay tuned

This is just a guess, but they probably gave Quan Chi a bigger role just because they wanted to show how much he was in during these first three stories. Granted that I feel that some of the parts dragged on and Quan Chi really shouldn't have been a participant in the tournament itself, he though, could have just had a lot of part behind the tournament scenes.



With Sub-Zero getting automated, Raiden stopped Smoke from interfering because he believed that Sub-Zero changing would be one of the causes to prevent Armageddon. And if you were in the shoes of those surrounding the incident, you would be stunned and not try to interfere when several robots are electrocuting in a circle.

I'll admit, Jax's arm ripping scene could have been dealt with better, as where Ermac could have beaten down Sub-Zero and Sonya first before Jax came intruding in.



If it's an Easter Egg, it doesn't need to make sense. Why would Frost and all of them be in the background then? Are they participating in the tournament as well? If Frost was to be a child during this time, why does she look like what she did during Deadly Alliance in the background?

They don't need to make sense, and I really don't see anything pointless about Easter Eggs either.



They could have been here during MK1...



So if he were to heal or resurrect one, he would have to do all of them... And no offense, but that would be kind of a stupid way to somewhat end the story.



This is kind of a foolish thing to say. No developer would be this dumb to forget their own material. They're re-creating the story, which means there are things that have to be changed. A lot of stuff that you were talking about didn't seem to be a mistake or a foolish thing to put in. There were reasons why people had to die, there were things that people had to do.

And this wasn't Tobias' story, what "he got it mostly right," are you talking about? That there was something about MK before the game came out that Tobias portrayed a game on? That doesn't really make a whole lot of sense.

MK's 1-3 story belongs with Netherrealm Studios, just because Tobias left, doesn't mean that the stuff that he worked on cannot be worked on anymore. Because if Tobais said, "Everything I worked on belongs with me and you can't work on it anymore," then that means a hell of a lot of shit in MK wouldn't be existing anymore. Besides, Tobias and Boon are still friends, they just don't work together anymore.

I don't think you understood my point though. He watched Kitana die, he wasn't there when the others were killed. It's like he was just standing there saying well, you're dying Kitana.... Kitana: Aren't you going to you know heal me?

Raiden's response: Nah Imma let you die for lolz.

Also, others could have been there in Mk1 but if the story holds true they weren't. This should have been the original characters time to shine.

What about Sub-Zero being sent to kill Shang Tsung in the second tournament? That was a part of Mk2 but was left out in this game.

I didn't say easter eggs were pointless, it just didn't make any sense and since we are talking about things being coherent, that was one thing that wasn't.

Frost is in the background in an arena were she plays no direct part of the story, that I would consider a true easter egg. The one were she shows up in Cyber Subz database would imply that he has met her before, but like many have said or believed anyway she would be very young at this point in time. Since she was young when she met Kuai Liang in the orginal timeline anyway.

Also, I'm simply saying since Tobias wrote most of Mk 1-3 he knows the story the best and would probably be the best person to work with if re-writing something like this. I know Boon and Tobias are still friends as well, I'm simply stating I don't think they should have messed with the original 3 stories because he did well writing them the first time so why screw with that?

Also, if you're saying that Cage, Kung Lao, Smoke, Raiden, etc.. couldn't help Sub-Zero because they were scared then i would have just rather had my mind left erased if I was sub-zero because my allies were too big of pussies to do anything about it. I get Raiden thought hey maybe this will stop Armageddon ,but that's another thing that didn't make sense entirely. Would it not have made sense to have both Sub-Zero and Smoke saved? I mean they are both helpful allies, and as many have pointed out, how did he know that it wasn't Sub-Zero who should be the one to win the tournament?

Raiden, hypothetically, then could have screwed everything up by letting Sub-Zero be taken. It was just things like that just didn't make sense.

I know people want to advocate this story because it's a first for fighting games period to do these cinematic scenes and people want to take up for MK because they didn't have to give us this game at all. Like I said, I'm greatful they did. However, if the weren't going to give us a good story that at least partly stayed true to the old story then I would have rather just had the endings. Which were my favorite part of the game by the way. They also could have saved millions apparently since this story cost them a lot of money to make.

if they went the story direction of some of the endings then I would mark out cuz a lot of them were amazing. Jade's, Sub-Zero's, Noob's, Smoke's, Rain's, hell nearly all of them. I love them. Story just disappoints me. On a lot of levels.

Also as you pointed out they did a lot of things to make the story work, like Raiden not healing Kitana for example, and that's the problem. They had to force so many things just to make this story work and it didn't let the characters personalities shine through at all, killing two of thems personalities completely, Shang and Mileena. A lot of things just didn't seem natural.

I've read things where writers forgot what they wrote in a previous book, comic, or video game and got their own flashbacks wrong without deliberately meaning to retcon it lots of times. It's not foolish at all to believe this could happen. If it did happen, though, it WOULD be foolish because all the goddamn bios, the Mythologies backstory, and both canon comics are easily found on the internet, so they could easily re-read their own goddamn story and remember what it's supposed to be.
I wouldn't say Vogel "forgot" though, I would say the other writers on the team don't know as much as he does but were more hands on than he was with the writing. He seems to be largely a supervisor these days, and I suspect he has his hands tied by a LOT of restrictions like time and money and storytelling format. "We can't have Sonya and Kano fight in MK3 because she already had a chapter in MK1" or "well we can't make a Lin Kuei HQ stage, so I guess Sektor and Cyrax will have to go after them while they're still in Outworld instead of when they return home, and have all the robot surgeries happen off-screen instead." or "We can't make Motaro anything more than a cameo so I guess Sheeva will just have to do something else...like be a generic henchman." or "We can't afford to do this" or "We don't have time to fit all of that in." and so on. I suspect like half the changes they made were just because of that shit. That's probably why the island doesn't quake when Shang loses MK1 too, they didn't have the time and money to animate a cutscene of the palace collapsing with dust and debris and shit and people running for the boats home.
Personally, my feeling is if you can't do something justice, you shouldn't do it until you can. MK9 should've been about something else and they should've saved their "retell MK1 thru 3" idea until they had the time and money to show every location and event possible. But since this was their first game with WB and they had to prove themselves a potential success somewhat, and 1 thru 3 were the most popular games, of course they would lead with the reboot even though they couldn't get it all right...meh. Maybe knowing they'd never be able to match the old canon precisely was why they decided to say "fuck it, we'll change history on purpose with time travel and shock-kill almost everybody, that'll distract 'em from our limited resources!" Kind of a No-Win Scenario for us story fans.
Stuff like changing Mileena's backstory though, that's just plain making a poor choice, it had nothing to do with limited resources since they could've easily put Mileena into more scenes, and they couldn't possibly have forgotten her and Kitana were supposed to be raised like sisters, it's too well known. So they must have made the conscious decision to alter her origin even though Raiden changing history wouldn't work as an excuse for why it's different...which is just poor decision making on their parts because not only does it do Kitana, Mileena, and Shao Kahn's personalities and character development no favors, it creates a giant hole in the whole "the new timeline is the old timeline being altered by Raiden" concept for the game.
You can't just throw the word "reboot" around as an excuse for everything when the game is a time travel story, not a true start-from-scratch reboot. It just doesn't work like that. You can have one or the other, not both. They contradict each other.

and yet it failed!! i have had more fun with the konquest modes in the previous games.


well said!

fine isn't good enough. and liking changes for the sake of changes doesn't make this story better or equal to their previous time-line

*Come home from school after a good day, start reading the responses before I post my own, notice Scar Subby is on the ball posting some of the many things I wanted to say.

My reaction:

*Scroll down and read the reply of this opinion is stupid*

My reaction:

*I sigh and decide not to bother posting on the subject and going back to not caring*

Fine isn't good enough for you but it is for me. So you don't like the story, okay, that's great, but I do and I can believe that the changes were a great touch to the story even if you don't. I don't mind that you and so many others dislike the story, but at least let me, as well as those who like this story, actually like this story without telling me that no it wasn't.



You stated that you don't see Tobias as a Godly figure in MK's team, but the way you're talking about him makes me think otherwise. Tobias wasn't even that great as many seem he was, that's how I see him and I've read other opinions saying that as well. Tobias isn't the only person from the MK team that knows the story best. Sure, some people have issues with Vogel and his storytelling, but Tobias isn't the only person on this team that worked on the story.



Who said that your opinions were stupid?

I'll say this Icebaby. Vogel did very well with Deadly alliance, which I've stated before is my favorite game. He also had elements with Deception that were good. So I feel he is truly capable of writing a good story and can do well with Mk. I just feel that he shouldn't delve into a story that isn't his. Razor may be right though, it may not even be him that's doing a lot of the writing these days but a bunch of new guys. So maybe that's why all of these mistakes happened.

I realize that you liked Story , and I respect your opinion. I however, will always feel it didn't live up to what it could have been.

A lot of characters just didn't get done justice to me. At this point with storymode, I'm just not liking how it comes off in the game, not with MKvsDC really either. I'm questioning whether there should be a story mode at all and just leave endings and bios and maybe some unlockables in the krypt to detail what happened to each character in each game. I just don't know if I like storymode at this point though, especially with the chapters they have now.

Deadly Alliance.

Except that time, they did things right.

I meant like with the Story Mode. As Scar was suggesting that they should probably just scrap that out, I just said that because this is like one of the first they did something like that.

It's not the first time, it's the second. They had the exact same kind of story mode in MKvsDCU as they do in 9.

And they had a kind of story mode in MKD and MKA, except possibly more ambitious because of the adventure game element added in...though maybe not as successful. Personally though, I preferred running around as Taven to MK9 because at least only Scorpion and maaaaybe Reptile and Fujin got fucked by their roles in that game. Everyone else's events actually made sense once the bios came out to explain them.

And I still say the closest they ever got to doing it right was Deadly Alliance's Konquest training mode 'cause even though the training missions were boring and unnecessary, you could PICK your character and everyone's individual stories got told as you went along. They could do the same thing in a new game but just replace the text telling you stuff that happened to the characters with cutscenes SHOWING what happens to them, and replace the ten missions per char. with ten real fights.

The only thing guys from DC did was help write the script to make sure Superman, Batman, etc.'s dialogue sounded in-character.

If we're talking about the script, MK9's isn't special in any way, this isn't even close to the first time they've ever had cutscenes and dialogue in an MK game, so I don't see how that could be what you're talking about when you say "this is the first time they did something like that."

If we're talking about what a "technical achievement" story mode was, which is what I THOUGHT the conversation was about, the elaborate format of cutscenes with fights in between and all the loading done in the background so there's no waiting, and the money it cost to accomplish and all that, that's not something the writers really have anything to do with, that's all programmers and animators. And like I said, they did that for the first time in the last game, it's not new to MK9.

I'm honestly very divided.

I can't deny I really enjoyed and loved playing through story-mode. It was probably my favorite thing about my experience with this game. It's always been my dream to see the game feature a cinematic mode like this one, where the story plays like a movie.

On the other hand, as much as I enjoyed it, I can't deny my huge disappointment with certain very specific things and retcons that pretty much ruined a lot of the greatness from the past (Mileena+Kitana, for example).

Also, I'm one of those who really feels, smells, and frets the danger of "Character Chapters" in storymode. It truly limits everything and its actually a negative and pretty bad idea. It doesn't work as well as it could work if story mode was not build around "character chapters".

Storymode should not be a "training" or "tutorial" mode. That's what practice mode is for. Storymode should not be sacrificed for something like that, its stupid.

And finally, yes, as much as I enjoyed storymode and seeing all my characters come to life, most of them where, sadly, simplified.

They should have used flashbacks, time elapses, etc in order to make the story deeper and more emotional if they were really not planning to spend more money on it. Feature a few pictures and text telling us about certain events that took place or where taking place that lead the characters from point a to point b.

The way the story "progressed" was just, well, disappointing knowing how amazing it could have been if they did not feature those "character chapters" and focused more on writing a story than creating a character tutorial.

I hope they go in a new direction for the next game.