This thread has gone away from its original topic.

I say, those who do not like the women who dress sexy in MK - don't play them! Because in the end, you can't do anything about it. They will always dress like that for reasons previously mentioned, be it that it suits their character, design purposes or just for the fact that sex sells! If you dislike it, then there are other games out there with women who are more decently clad. There have been a few in the MK series, so go play them instead!

The continueous bitching about the scantily clad women won't change a thing, because they are intentionally dressed like that.

Funny how you conveniently chose to forget Sonya's MKDA alternate design, which is by far one of the most modest, decent, and "elegant" ones out there, whether you like it or not (it covers like, 100% of her body!). Not to mention her design in MK4, as well.

But, I do see what you mean with your points regarding the military and the army on her other costumes (which I'm not going to argue because you are most definitely entitled to your opinion), but there is no denying that Sonya (whether you like her or not) is well known by MK fans for having the most decent, modest, and less slutty costumes, and even you have to admit that.

Gigantic boobs and a thong don't change the fact that she dresses more "appropriate" within the realm of "half naked slutty babes" that is Mortal Kombat. She dresses more appropriate than the vast majority of the MK female cast. You see this fact pointed out everywhere in forums and by fans, not just by this crazy fanboy.

This is the main reason why Vincent's art of Sonya (with no pants) was so off-putting and out of character for her. It was a big WTF in everyones head, because everyone associates Sonya with a modest and decent style, even if its spiced up with sexuality (thong, midriff, etc). If that would had been Nitara, Kitana, or any one else, it wouldn't had even been an issue to comment about.

Unlike the rest of the MK girls, Sonya is the one who keeps her pants on and her belt tight along with her decency. Hopefully it stays that way, and hopefully they keep the sexy thong, which many loved, which was so talked about, and which is not that big of a deal, at all. You might disapprove of it, but it doesn't change the fact that its nothing in comparison to other designs.

PS: Talking about male bulges, remember Liu Kang's and Johnny's renders? Those were a bit less than subtle imo. I'm not sure, but I have a feeling there was another male with a rather noticeable and disturbing bulge in one of the recent renders. lol.

I fail to see the problem here.

Because you have yet to mature.


I wonder, why fighting games lack relatively modest, or non-sexualized female characters? I am annoyed by seeing boucing boobs all over the screen with females in stilettos. By all accord a broken ankle would ensue in seconds.

Not to mention suspension of disbelief doesn't quite work well with a martial arts tournament when we have karate bikini babes to fight in almost 0 coverage.

It is not sexy. It is not adult. It is not interesting. It is stupid and immature.

And it is not going to change.

I don't disagree, but we (and they) know what sells.

Since when is the attitude of "it won't change no matter what you say" a viable response to alternate opinions? Who said they seriously believed it would? Opinions are opinions. I'm not going to hold my opinion or change them simply because they aren't shared by the majority or because I know me sharing them won't change anything. That really isn't the point of a discussion.

It would be easier to accept the "high heels aren't realistic" argument if it weren't coming from a guy who thinks everyone should dress like Dairou. Heavy full-body armor at a karate tournament is so much more believable and fits everybody's personalities too, right? Gis? What are those? Martial Artists wear plates!
Every single time Chrome has ever complained about costume design, I can't get that one single thought out of my head. Livin' in a glass house and throwin' stones, man...

so you have no trouble suspending your belief with monsters, demons and undead ninjas fighting each other. But a women with large breasts gives you problems? Funny how violence in games like this never bothers people, yet any hint of sex appeal and people start to cry foul.

BTW, my original post was a joke bro, relax.

Well there's like three different discussions going on at once, but to the point about females and the attire they wear, it's a sore subject for me. It's not necessarily what they wear, but how the women are starting to be treated. I dislike that they are consistently pandering to the DOA audience. I really don't find it necessary. If you look at the women from MK1-4 and how they were portrayed, all the women were given a respect. It was refreshing to see the women go toe to toe with the men and not have their sexuality as their focal point. It was one of the biggest draws for me to MK, or something that I grasped on to as a young kid. There was always a sense of equality about MK to me.

Sonya, Kitana, and Mileena were going at it with the boys, but you never got the sense that they were weaker. There was an aggressiveness about all of them. They were doing fatalities and were having fatalities performed on them. There wasn't a sense of "Oh we can't hit her! It's a girl!" or “Oh man look at her tits! They are ginormous!”.

Look at the versus shot of all the female characters in UMK3/Trilogy. There was such a strength and fearlessness in all of them. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they were un-attractive, but it was more of a "Yeah I may or may not be hot, but that doesn't matter because l'll cut you your head off with this fan and you'll regret ever thinking about messing with me."

One could make the claim that Sheeva and Sonya in MK3 were overtly sexual and that the pandering to a specific audience isn't a recent thing. That may be true, but this is where the digitized actors helped make it not a big issue for me. Even though the representation of Sonya in MK3 became much more sexual, it was still an actual woman. A real looking proportioned woman, who I might see walking down the street, fighting a centaur. Wowee!

That's one of my biggest gripes about the portrayal of the women in the recent MKs. Kira's breasts are not proportionate at all to her body. Same with most of the women in the new games. They ALL have gigantic huge ass breasts. I'm not saying all the women should be flat chested, but these women are caricatures now. It's not a question of back problems or feasibility. I don't care about any of that. I just personally find it a hard to adjust to. I've come to expect something from MK and they've disappointed me and chose to go another direction.

When I play God of War, I'm not complaining about the breasts and the weakness of all the women. It's God of War! It's clearly obvious what the audience is, and they make no bones about it. MK for me was never about that, and that's why it's so disappointing. When they do it in DOA, that's entirely legitimate, it's fun and I get that.

I'm not saying they all have to cover up and all be nuns. They can still include some sexuality and have it make sense. Sonya in MK3 pandered to a certain audience, but it wasn't overt or tacky. The Sonya in MK vs. DC with her nipples showing through her shirt, and the tan line on her hips make me shake my head.

Anyway, I get that this is a personal thing, and I don't expect the MK team to change this based on one person alone, but it saddens me that more and more aspects of the series I love are changing. If they choose to cater to a specific audience that's fine, but my as a long time supporter and fan of the series I feel like my opinion should be considered.

Please MK team, go back to the aggressive, fearless, strong women of the old days. I know this isn't something that just plagues the female characters, but can we have women that don't look so plastic and un-proportioned? There are so many things I wish I could say to the MK team, but this is one that's near the top.

This may or may not be relevant, but I'm a gay male if anyone is wondering. The sense of equality was something that always appealed to me, like I mentioned earlier. There was a sense of, it doesn't matter what you are or who you are, none of that matters here, just fight. I don't know if that was the intention of the MK team, and you might think that's a weird thing to gleam from an MK game, but I did. I may very well be alone there, haha, but I was able to become so engrossed in the series partly because of the portrayal of the female characters. That may be odd and a foreign concept to most on here, but I think my post helps explain that perspective a bit.

If you're thinking “Oh stop being such a pussy, you homo! Go play some sissy games like Hannah Montanna!”, that's fine. I respect that. MK means different things to different people. MK has an extremely diverse audience, and I realize I may be in the minority with the way I approach the series. I've accepted the changes, and realize certain people enjoy these portrayals. It's not a huge deal to most and I recognize that.

Look at me go! Ramble, ramble, ramble. Hopefully this post is coherent. I have awkward phrasing and my grammar isn't perfect, so I apologize if this post and my posts in general are hard to get through.

Of course you can have your opinion, and so can everybody else. My point was that people seem to whine about something that is not going to change, and thus it just becomes pointless whining over and over again. Don't you find that tiresome sometimes? I know I do.

The point of a discussion is to share thoughts and ideas of a main topic. The main topic here was that someone thought that the MK women's faces look odd and unattractive.

Somehow, the whole topic turned into female fighter's sex appeal, something that will most likely not change in the near future. However, the graphic designers' skills in making women faces more attractive or realistic or whatever is something that -can- be dealt with.

MK already have women who are properly dressed in armour and gi etc., so I really don't see the problem. Do you want them all to be covered up and not expose their body at all? If that is the case, then sure, I respect that opinion... but then Mortal Kombat is just not the game to play, because it has multiple women in it with skin exposed, skimpy outfits and sex appeal.

There are other ways to show sex appeal, but in a fighting game, it is the physical attraction that stands out the most, because it is a physical genre!

I guess Mileena isn't a good example for face beauty, lol.

U r right. But not all the females should have very beautiful faces, few ones at least. Especially Kitana, she's known to be the beautiful princess of Edenia that when she takes off her veil her face beauty is like no other!

I didn't like Kitana 3D faces until now. Her MK2 face was the best.

In my opinion, the following females face & body should look very beautiful:

- Kitana
- Li Mei (in MKDA was so beautiful, bring her look back if possible).
- Jade
- Concerning Sonya she looked the best in MK3 and not bad in MK vs DC.

I personally care a lot about female beauty in the game, but not necessarily all of them. At least Kitana with another female.

It's good to have both, beautiful and ugly characters like in real life.

On their faces: They always seemed fine for me... But also remember that the MK team had ridiculous deadlines in which to complete their work.

On the topic of Edenian/Outworld fashion: I always assumed that their swimsuit-alike outfits were the norm there. Impractical? Not really. Maybe the one that brougth this up was a male, but I've always been comfortable enough in a swimsuit, you move freely and fast, which is probably what this fighters were for. All I've got to say on this.

On the "THEY NEED ARMOR!!ONEELEVEN!" topic: Not really. The males are wearing spandex, man. Just because it covers their skin, doesn't make it bulletproof.

On the topic of Sonya's bra (or its lack of): I don't know how they are called in English, but what she's wearing is a top made of elastic fiber that some sportwomen wear. I have one for when I go ride my bike. Way more comfortable that a bra, serves it's purpouse, and... That's it.

On the topic of "ITS JUST FOR THE EYE CANDY!!1": Yes, it is. I don't really complain, since a guy in spandex is the equivalent for a girl in a bikini. For some reason people hate when I bring that up... Or maybe that's just me.

Also: You made me feel like a whore for the way I dress, hahaha.



EPIC WIN.

Way to generalize me. Seriously, you have been beating around this for so long you deserve a delicious chessnut cookie.

I never once insinuated that the MK people should wear plating. Obviously there are more appropriate garbs for hand to hand combat. My gripes were with how ineffective weapons were in MKDA-MKA. I admit to bias here since I have dedicated a good portion of my life to actual cold weapons like the sword.

Since this is not the case anymore, we will not see people magically staying together after several strikes from sworsd, at least not until the reintroduction of Kenshi.

Also I would be stupid not to see that most of the designs are aestethic before reasonable. It wouldn§t be that much of a problem if I would not know that there are: "far more interesting, stylish and yet more logical solutions based in reality."

Reality is more fantastic than the fantasy they try to resell every time. MK and 90% of games dealing with martial arts have been stuck in somekind of creative limbo. It just bugs me that people are satisfied with now substandard building blocks and templates while the real world is so much more richer than ANYTHING a creative group can come up with.

No it isn't.

But if you really must have a fighting game where a sword can kill on one hit, I believe Bushido Blade worked like that. I can't imagine that being any fun though. There's also that game coming out based on the TV show Deadliest Warrior, I think it's going to have realism-based weapon physics too. But it also looks like it sucks.

It is. You just have not experienced it as I did.

I am familiar with Bushido Blade. I think that a balance is required what content fighting games produce. The more fantastic an idea is, the more realistic the setting need be for increased contrast. That is why a fencing simulator would fail as a game, and that is why I cannot request a game to be that. Would not work either way, as the real thing is more memorable than a game.

Artistically however...different story. That is why Salvador Dali paid such detail to muscles and surfaces in his paintings which were ANYTHING BUT realistic (aka Melting Hourglass Guy with Crazy Mustache).

The very reason fantasy exists is to entertain in ways reality cannot.
Anyway, you've admitted that weapons doing the damage they'd do in a real life fight isn't good for balanced game mechanics, and you've conceded the point I'm always making that good costume design means simple, iconic designs with personality have to come before functionality, so people can't all be walking around in armor or else you get designs that say nothing memorable and appeal to no one's eye, like Dairou, or Kai and Jarek in Armageddon...
Sooo...I'm not actually sure what it is you want or expect to be in the game. All I can think of is to backtrack to what this got started over: high heels. And fact is, Mileena is the kind of girl who would wear anything that looks "sexy" or "slutty" to a fight, and heels are considered sexy. And it shouldn't be a big deal since her ankles are imaginary, it's not like it ACTUALLY hurts her to walk on them. She's a piece of art, not a real creature. Her body and everything on it is for decoration and to give her character, function doesn't matter at all unless it's relevant to identity, i.e. Scorpion wearing his spear on his hip. It's not really hanging off his costume so he can reach it, it's there so the viewer can see it and go "oh cool, there's his spear." And if you do need a physical explanation, she's a ninja from another world, her balance and agility are greater than human. I'm sure she can handle standing on her tiptoes all day long.
I mean look, if this were Sonya we were talking about, I'd go "Y'know what, you're right. Sonya wouldn't wear heels, she should be in big, bulky combat boots. That's her style." But that has nothing to do with realism and everything to do with character. That's what costume design all comes down to. It's art, not reality.

Which is always a derivative of experience and reality.




To be more precise, I said that one hit kills would not make this a good fighter. Because the point of this game is not one hit kills. That would be simulation. This, as MK is, is not a smiulation.



I did not indend to do such a thing. You associate functional garbs with boring. Which is ot the case. The Vienna Museum of Arms would show you armors that pale Nightmare from Soul Calibur in decoration meanwhile remaining absolutely functional without outgrowths or exaggerated platings. So speak only for yourself. I acknowledge that Dairou and the newer characters were less successful, and that they did resort to all-too similar design patterns. I disprove, detest and denounce anything that is demagogic and generalizes.

To me Dairou was memorable. What is memorable depends entirely on what you experience and perceive. I find Scorpion and the ninjas to be below my stimulus, as their designs is not effective for me. I am disinterested in ninja garbs and primary colors because I usally do not register them with the associated shapes (the kataginu style clothes they wore from MK1) because to be blunt: they bore me. The same way Hotaru is visually appealing to me because it lacks any kind of decorum, and yet, the simple design is alien enough for registering.

The fanbase needs to wank out of it's obsession that the classics are the measuring stick by which everything needs to be done. MK2 is a prime example, aside Jax, Lao and Baraka not a new character had anything visually significant (they did, with the females fan/sai but that is not apparent at first + they are essentially and admittedly female ninjas. Yay.)



Nothing. As of yet, nothing. I am merely interested in MK in artistic dimensions. I stopped playing after MK4, but briefly investigated MKDA because of the martial arts. And MK manages briefly to shine in terms of artistic violence.

About the Mileena. Yes, what you said is true, however: if the simple justification to that is "it is fiction, she is from another world etc. " then MK fails to suspend disbelief for me big time. The medium would not need to resort to explanations to solve a logical and stylistic phallacy of such magnitude (again, this is personal perception). High heels mean death in combat (explanation in private if requested). This is a conflicting thing for me, because MK's other fantastic elements cannot overwhelm me enough to accept high heels as a minor thing, because for a good part MK still relies on the laws of Earth's physics, and meanwhile it occasionally does special moves, it is still fairly rounded in our world. Goro abides by our laws of kinetic physics (biologically, not so much) and sometimes throws fireballs and does seemingly impossible leaps which are NOT that frequent to imagine Goro leaping around for everyday movement because that would be an implication of him doing this everyday.

A counterexample would be if in MK everyone would be floating during combat and Mileena would fight while walking on her tongue. Then such absurdist masterpiece mockery of kung-fu martial arts extravaganya would indeed suspend my belief that high heels do not make sense, because the entire damn thing would be too funny to criticise.

Well I don't think you and I are ever going to agree on this, so all I can say is fortunately for me, video games are made by artists, not historians.

You guys keep bickering over what is realistic, what is fantasy, what is real and what is not.

But in the end, Mortal Kombat is but a game. It is for entertainment. If one do not enjoy playing Mortal Kombat, because one find it too unrealistic because a woman fights in high heels or something alike, then this is of course not the game for one to play.

I clearly want Mortal Kombat to be unrealistic, as in that not everything needs to be bound to the real life laws of physics and such, because that would suck out all the fun of a fantasy fighter which MK is!

Mortal Kombat has been unrealistic since day one of its existence. A yellow ninja who pulls off his face and spits fire at people through his skull - A blue ninja who conjures ice and freezes people through a projectile - A god of thunder and lightning... who is a god of thunder and lightning! Enough said there - A military woman who shoots purple rings from her arms and can blow a kiss which enflames her enemy...

High heels on a female ninja would not be my greatest concern, if I worried about Mortal Kombat being unrealistic.