It's like you're ignoring the overwhelming possibility for individuality for the sake of keeping one store between realms in business.


EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT x14: Hey, I can ignore entire posts to wish upon a star, too.

One of the things I've been saying this whole time is you can have individuality and a V-shirt at the same fuckin' time.

And just for summary's sake, the other two things I've been saying this whole time are "Reptile totally is a ninja" and "the shirtless breastplate in MK9 just plain looks stupid."

Reptile totally is a ninja and the hood not attaching to anything looks stupid, but why is this discussion pigeonholed into "either it is a stupid breastplate or a redundant V-shirt?" Why can't it be something else?

LIKE A FUCKING GREEN TUXEDO!

I would be happy if they just added a black spandex shirt underneath his breastplate.

I would probably dislike the breastplate less with a shirt underneath it, sure. But I'm never gonna stop thinking "This is not a new setting, this is a revisit to an era we've been before and characters should have something that looks like their old clothes on. If Kung Lao can wear his Shaolin Monks outfit, why can't Reptile wear his too?"

The problem has nothing to do with him looking like a ninja or not. The problem is that his design is just awful in this game.

Like really fucking awful.

His skin looks wrinkled rather than scaly, the skin tone is way too light. His model in MKDA had great skin texture.

His head should not be round - even in MK2 he had a proper "snout" and not just a round face:



He really does look like a damn turtle. The hood should not be skin tight, it was a horrible idea in 1995, it's a horrible idea today. It connects to nothing, it just looks stupid.

And if the whole idea of the mask and hood is to conceal the fact that he's reptilian, why the fuck are his green arms and his lizard hands and feet showing? Might as well just get rid of the mask, which looks horrible anyway.

The breastplate just looks bad, his pants should not be green, his whole colour palette is incredibly unappealing, the whole thing is just bad. Very, very bad.

It's bad.

o ok. i C now.

Attn: Michael Satan.

Plz provide worthwhile responses to my posts. Ur rly pissing me off.

Thank you!

Personally, I never saw anything wrong with how they did him for the MKII commercial (aka, the most epic thing ever created).

UR WELCOM. :-)

Here's a wild idea: Let's just, I don't know... NOT put him in a hood, a mask, shoulder pads, a loin flap, or a mask... Imagine how exciting that would be! I bet you can feel the adrenaline coursing through your veins just thinking about it! Just breathe through it, the panic will subside.

He's a fucking lizardman! Let him be naked, for crying out loud!
How does he even make his stolen pyjamas turn invisible?! MADNESS!!!

It still astounds and infuriates me that on a TV commercial budget, that thing was able to give the characters costumes that both looked more accurate to the game AND less cheap and shitty than those in any of the actual live action adaptations.

No way dude, he's a ninja. Characters can never progress, change or grow. They need to look the same. Forever.

A lizardman ninja.

No matter how many times you use that argument, MK9 will still be set in the past.

o shit! My bad, man! Honestly, I'm embarassed I forgot so soon.
You should check out Chris_Hero's earlier post, it's pretty conclusive.

I'm dressed like a ninja right now, btw. EDIT: Minus the pants.

And no matter how many times people respond, they can't tell me why these characters do not look 100% exactly like they were in that game. After all, since this is set in the same time period, shouldn't they be? How is it that Reptile has a whole new costume? I didn't see his arms and feet foolishly sticking out in MK2, he was "human Reptile" after all, right? Johnny Cage's magic tattoo much?

If the ninja disguise was meant to "blend in" with the other ninja around at the time so he could spy, then that would be a storyline reason to have him in such a costume. But now? He's clearly not human and his ridiculous "ninja" costume now has no place in the story.

Besides, it's the same old argument. Even if this game was set a million years in the future people would not be satisfied unless the characters stuck to the strict color and costume policy MK fans have. You, I and everyone else that's realistic knows that. That's the essence of the majority of this fanbase unfortunately.

The concept of a color scheme isn't exclusive to Mortal Kombat.

But at least if the game WAS set post-Armageddon, and Reptile had a REASON to no longer look like a ninja, story-conscious posters like myself and Garlador would be on the other side of the argument.
Also, graphical updates are not "growing and developing". Johnny Cage got a tattoo for the same reason Vader's ghost in RotJ is now played by Anakin's actor from the prequels. Reptile may be showing his scales now that the palette swap era is over, but he is still a ninja in the story. Though if I were in charge of the art design, I would indeed have stuck to the "human disguise", colored his scales peach, and called it using his chameleon powers. I'm still hoping for that as an alt costume.

MK fans are the worst.

okay i think he shouldnt be another ninja butttt i like shaolin monks reptile best. this one has a beak. a beak.. gayyy

Okay, I'm not going to be alluded to as "not conscious of the story" because I don't share your viewpoints like Garlador does. How is he a ninja in the story? Just explain it to me, seriously. Are you secretly Jon Vogel, because if you not I have to say you're making vague assumptions based on opinions much in the way that I am. If Reptile is a "ninja", why is he so obviously not human? He's a failure of a spy if that's his disguise. You failed to answer any of my points so I don't have much new to add to what I've already said.

I don't think anyone should give their intentions that much credit.
This is no more a definitive statement about what was than any other half hearted iteration. Lucas was steamrolling a conventional logic to smooth things out. This new MK game is just slapping the usuall arbitrary new coat of paint on lazy nostalgia.


EDIT OLYMPICS: At this point, I'd like to talk about myself, hopefully you'll all come with me and we'll have a great roast... dot dot dot


Don't be too harsh. Sometimes he ignores plausibility and adds fanfic-y bits...

Reptile technically only actually needs stealth and the human disguise in MK1, that's only 1/3 of the story. Since he spends more of the game not using the disguise, it makes sense for it to not be his primary. But as I said, I'm still hoping for a fleshtoned alternate so that the canon for that first third can remain somewhat intact. (or at least so if they fuck up story mode, I can pretend they didn't while I play arcade)

Why does he need the human disguise? He can turn invisible. That's like Baraka carrying a dagger around.

Why does Scorpion bother with HIS flesh, why not just walk around with his flaming skull hanging out for the whole world to see?

Why don't we just show everyone at the table our cards every time we play poker? The whole reason Outworld wins Mortal Kombat tournaments is nobody sees the monsters like Goro coming because we don't have that shit on Earth. It's a tactical advantage. People think Reptile's a human, they'll underestimate him as a fighter, go "oh, he's just a regular guy like me." If they see the scales, they'll know some crazy shit is coming up like the acid spit and the giant tongue.

Besides, being fully invisible obviously takes some effort since he loses concentration on it every time someone even taps him. Imagine walking around all day clenching EVERY muscle, now compare that to just clenching one or two muscles. Gee, I wonder which one is easier to hold.

Have you read Reptile's MK2 bio? Or the Tobias-penned MK2 comic? Reptile was a stealthy assassin (basically a ninja), protector of Shang Tsung, and servant of Shao Kahn, but he specifically maintained a human form as a disguise to hide his reptilian features and blend in with both human and outworld denizens, rather than exist out in the open as a member of a dying and persecuted race of sub-humans. He caught his opponents off-guard when they never suspected his otherworldly, inhuman attacks.

In the MK2 comic, Reptile "out ninja'ed" Sub-Zero himself and used his stealth and camouflaging abilities to protect his masters and spy on the earth heroes.

I'm not opposed to change. I was one of the few that embraced Reptile's highly controversial MK4 and MK:DA designs. But even Shaolin Monks, which fans regarded as arguably the biggest retcon ever, was wise enough to include a human version of Reptile as his alternate. Sindel's ending in Deception has Reptile reverting back to his HUMAN look as well.




Now, if this was an MK game beyond the timeline of MK:Armageddon, I wouldn't care one bit whether Reptile looked like a T-rex or James Dean, but if the MK crew themselves care enough about his human form to reference it in his bio and storyline and to include it in some of the most recent games, well, you'd think that a game that occurs during the same period he HAD this form would, you know, use it. Just for continuity's sake.

I'm not saying I would prefer his human form, even. I'm just making an observation. This is a game that is adhering to the style, aesthetics, and history of the older games, and I find it strange that some people are upset at the changes (why isn't he more human-looking?) while others are upset there aren't enough changes (why does he still dress like a ninja?).

The entire debate amuses me, just like those saying "MK never had ninjas", despite characters and the creators themselves referring to them as such. I know my MK lore front to back, and I'm okay with them doing slight tampering with the aesthetics of characters to make them fresh in the current-gen age, like Scorpion and Sub-Zero's outfits, but we'll see how the MK team handles Reptile. Will he be an unintelligent brute, or will he be the rather articulate, talented warrior he was in the initial three games? I guess we'll find out.

Ahh, I'd forgotten about that. That's an even better explanation than mine. Thanks.

Those examples are not really analogous to this situation at all.

How do you know it takes concentration? Serious question. I don't know what you're referring to.

Why does invisibility take more effort than turning scales peach? I have the feeling this is something you think is true but really has never been confirmed.