Gran Turismo 5 effectively forces you to do an install. It doesn't explicitly tell you that you have to do it, but not doing so causes the game to have such long loading times that it's almost unplayable.

I really don't see the problem with forcing at least a partial install to nail down the morphing and anything else that would need to be loaded up quickly.

As I said before, I *know* at least Devil May Cry 4 flat out requires an install.
It's the first thing it does when you put the disc in (after you allow it, which you have no choice about if you want to play)

That is for PS3 only. You aren't forced to install any games on 360. I'm flummoxed as to how so many people think the morph is incredibly easy to program in. Its very nice to see that we have quite a few people that understand the difficulties with disc based mediums, and yeah you can say Trilogy on PS1 allowed morphing.

It also lagged up the game and caused mine to crash in some instances. Now that technology is so much more advanced, it makes it that much more difficult to accomplish such a feat. You guys gotta understand that now the fighters have modeled skeletons, muscle and internal organs which makes morphing capabilities become further far fetched. Not only would a morph have to load a character model, but the internal model, damage model, and outfit textures.

I don't recall anyone ever saying it was easy... certainly not me.
But I also believe that it's possible, and that it will show up in some form.
Yes, the characters are 3D models.
Yes, they have internal organs, muscles, skeleton, etc (though there are only a few sets- not one for each character)
Yes, they have animation data to drive the character.
But we aren't living in the days of PS1 anymore.
Modern systems can crunch *much* more data that.

Answer me this- if swapping out one fully textured, 3D model with another is so tough for a modern system to do,
*how on Earth* is there a game coming out *next week* which allows you to swap your character out for not just one other character, but two?
Oh, and it allows this for *both* players.
Swapping Shang out with at least one other character isn't so impossible.

Look, the fact that this game has a tag-team mode that allows for four players in-match PLUS the fact that MKDC had the Shang Tsung fatality where he morphed into his opponent proves that the morph can be done in some form. This form is certainly going different from the traditional phone book of Dial-a-morphs where you could become anybody in the game on the fly. That method is as dead and gone as the cartridge-based console.

Now, the fact remains that any character that Shang would want to morph into would need his/her model and move-set loaded before the match starts. We already have one character fully loaded into the match from the get-go, and thats the opponent. Just have the same model and moveset for the opponent put in a similar position as an unused tag-partner character during the match, and the morph should take no longer than a tag-match fighter exchange to execute. That's one morph that almost undeniably could be pulled off.

Here is were we enter the Land of Possibility (and Magic!). Can another morph be done? Well, a tag-match has four character models and movesets loaded into a fight, so it stands to reason that being able to morph into one(singular) more character won't be a stretch. For that, I would have the game randomly select one character that is not Shang Tsung or whoever the opponent is playing as while the match is loading. When this character is selected, the game would load his/her model and moveset and stick it in the same spot as the above mentioned opponent morph. This is highly possible, logically speaking.

That's two already fully loaded, ready-to-use characters that Shang Tsung should be able to morph into at match start. As I mentioned earlier, you could even have the opponent-morph be the regular morph and the random-morph be the super-move version of the morph. The only difference in the button combo at that point would be...umn...whatever you do to activate a super special. On a programming level, do I know that this will work? No, I don't because I'm not a programmer. However, going by pure logic, it not unreasonable to suggest a game that allows two characters per player in a tag-team mode without any complications should handle a character who can morph into two preloaded characters.

Regardless of it being in the realm of possibility or not.

Regardless of it being Shang Tsungs defining move, trait, characteristic or whatever.

Ever since he stopped morphing he began developing his own identity. Not someone that can transform into a character on command and steal their moves. I know a lot of people want to see his morph back, but I don't. This is a game about individuality and personality. Not about morphing and stealing other characters moves. That just turns him into Chameleon.

The only time Shang should ever be a morphing character is in cutscenes or if he's a boss character. The playable version should always lack that ability. I like him better as a character when your unable to morph. He can have his tranformations as a boss character and in cutscenes. Nothing more. That whole ability just made him feel cheap because he ripped off the other characters moves. He doesn't need a morph to be a popular character.

Regardless of possibility
Regardless of him having it in mk1-umk3
Regardless of it being a vintage Shang Tsung move.

A human controlled Shang should be a non morphing Shang.

I still contend that the next generation of gaming console should use solid state memory cartridges to eliminate the many disadvantages of disc-based media.

This comes up a lot but now, let's think about this for a second.

What do you mean when you say identity?

Shang Tsung has ALWAYS had a personality of his own, taking away his morphs never made a difference to that one way or another, especially since he could still do it in story, just not in gameplay.

So you mean his moveset, right? Well Shang's moveset in the 3D games isn't iconic at all! In Deadly Alliance/Armageddon, all he could do was shoot fire. He didn't even have flaming skulls anymore! Just boring, generic fire. In MKA he also got that teleport where he trips the opponent from behind, but does anyone care or think that move is so great it should come back? Doubtful.

He got the mini-soul steal that lets him regenerate health, and that's stuck with him ever since, so okay, that's ONE good move he gained since he lost morphing. Big deal.

In MKvsDCU, he got his skulls back and kept the soul suck, all good...but he also gained...a HUGE number of complete ripoff moves. He has Kai's air and ground fireball, Sektor's Teleport Uppercut, and Dairou's switch places teleport. And some sort of slide-kick thing I think used to belong to either Quan Chi or Nitara.

None of these are really worthy of Shang except maybe the ground-skull because it's a bit reminiscent of his MK3 Ground Skulls, but fuck, just bring back the REAL MK3 Ground Skulls!

So what identity are you looking for Shang to have in MK9? What special moves are you hoping for that replace the ability to morph? If we give him the flaming skulls, with the ability to throw up to three at once, the ground skulls, and the soul suck...that's only three moves. What else is he gonna do?

You're referring to MvC3 being a six-man-tag game, right?
Yeah, every match loads those six guys up at the beginning. And that game's models don't have x-ray skeletons or body damage during the fight.
For Shang's morph to work the way a tag-team match does, the game would have to load about 30 characters at the beginning of every fight.

See, that is what I was referring to when I wrote this.



Come on, surely we (and hopefully the MK team) have enough creativity to come up with a concept of Shang's morph while bypassing all the troubles that plagued PS1 players of MKT.

Sure, if he he had unlimited morphing capabilities, which, as I've stated before I do not believe will be the case. I'm betting more on the one or two pre-selections scenario.

I completely agree with your assessment of 3D Shang, though.
People here also forget that nearly half of his DA-A moves existed solely to hit people who try to sidestep normal fireballs- a mechanic which *will not* be showing up here.

After watching Liu Kang's video again, I am almost positive he will have his morphs.
You can see at first that Kang is fighting Kano, then when he shoots the fireball the video pauses and when it comes back, he is Reptile and gets hit by the fireball.
It all happens in the same arena too, which is further proof that its the same match.

So yeah, he will probably be morphing. Maybe into 2 characters like in the video. Who knows? I would prefer unlimited morphs though.