agree, the new music gives it an different feel. not necessarily bad but the old music fitted better to the MKUniveres. the levels look very good, but the overall game lacks that serious darkness it had in their previous games.

the darkness that the game has now is more of an MKvsDC/batman Gotham city darkness. i love comics but i prefer the serious darkness with MK or darkness similar to Hell SPAWN.

I think most of us would agree about this. The old music had a more underground tone.

But I can ́t think of any new big game that has that kind of atmosphere; it ́s all full-blown orchestrated music now.

I think it's just lacking in the music department entirely. Love the game, but I don't think I've played a fighting game more where I found myself listening to music while playing.

I don't think the music has anything to do with it... The music in the cathedral area(don't know the exact name) is darker than anything from classic MK. If I remember correctly, Deception had plenty of orchestral elements, but has to be the darkest game of the series.

For me, the reason this game isn't dark is story mode, which came off as rather chipper and campy. That, and the menus, which are bright red with gold(?) trim, which looks more regal than anything else. Deception had desaturated colors while older MK's had more atmospheric themes and took themselves more seriously(the humor was hidden, not a primary focus). This game brought the cheese to the spotlight, leaving any notion of seriousness behind. The challenge tower doesn't help, it is a series of missions that can be just plain silly with things like headless combat or limb flinging turning the characters into toys instead of serious business ...

Check it out this ecuation for MK:

IF:

Ed Boon = the Head

Tobias= The Hart

so

MK - Tobias = MK + good gameplay - evil and dark feeling.

Got it???

I think Tobias should come back for a crazy ass sequel or something. It would be so fucking epic.

OP: I agree. It just doesn't seem right. IMO, they should have the option of turning the Klassic music on full time, without having to do the code. New or old music.

Only "dark" parts in the game was the opening and Sindel's massacre

MK4-MKD was dark

The fatalities were bright and sunny, right?

My particular favorite is the one in which Kung Lao slices off his opponents rainbow with his sunflower. That was awesome!

Personally, I feel the game that had the darkest presentation was MK2. I'm speaking mostly about the environments though.

I'm not talking about the Fatalities(though they are dark)

It resembles too much the vs DC Universe atmosphere, but it's because of the music.

You said there were only two dark parts in the game. Fatalities have always summed up the MK style: Dark, gruesome, ridiculously over the top, and occasionally campy.

Meh the games dark enough and is tragic enough, several of the fatalities when I first saw them were highly disturbing, the arenas, especially the Wastelands, The Flesh Pits and Pit Bottom were especially dark and brutal arenas.

Not to mention the intro to story mode and the ending, you can't get much darker than the destruction and enslavement of 80% of the heroes in the game.

The murder of


The music I don't particularly have a problem with it suits its purpose but I do use retro music often.

Completely agree with this. Honestly I think the soundtrack is second only to Deception/Deadly Alliance. You can't not love the Armory's theme which is gritty and rocky, or want to kick someone's ass to the Wastelands theme which is dramatic and somewhat dangerous. The Pit is my favourite level just because of the soundtrack! Even the Deadpool's remix has a creepy, disturbing yet kickass soundtrack. Very few levels have a bad soundtrack to them, IMO.

It's the theatricality of this game that kinda takes away from how dark the game should be. Imagine if the image of Scorpion punching Sub-Zero in the main menu was replaced with a dark version of Goro's Lair, and chosing an option brought you to one of the lair's darkened corners where there was an Oni's eyes, or blood on the walls, or even Scorpion's Spear coming out from the Shadows. Something much creepier would have set the tone rather than two bright ninja's punching each other in a Colliseum.

Hang on i didnt say i hated all the music did i?If not sorry i just meant certain tracks take it away i love the music you just listed.

Hate is a very strong word, and I don't believe for a second you do hate any of the songs for the levels. I was being quite vague with my response, I've heard since the audio files were hacked on the website that the soundtrack is considered weak to some fans, so I was just stating my own case in saying I love it. I honestly don't think it is the music in the levels that impede on the game's darkness, which is why I agree with Harle. A lot of the menu's and colour scheme's revolve around bright colours, personally I think if the menu's had darker tones in them it would look a lot better.

Deception done this wonderfully with their main menu (the fog in the background, the dojo, the lightning and the MK dragon) and even their pause screen was a regal yet fitting black and gold menu. My point is, other things add to the darkness asides from the music. Sure Resident Evil's menu in the REmake were even creepy to me lol

definitely this^^
MK and tao feng proves they need to work 2gether

I think some of it has to do with character animations, alot of them are really exaggerated to the point of looking goofy. Take for exemple the way characters react to Stryker's second fatality, or Rain's water jet.

Part of it has to do with character designs and colour palette too; Kitana going from a badass looking assasin with dark blues and blacks to a princessy looking good girl with floral patterns and baby blues.

Also, the cheezy quotes found throughout story mode and character intros. Alot of characters come off as being really dumb.

All of these aren't necessarily bad things, but it's all very campy. I would agree with the poster above mentioning MK2 as the MK with the most serious tone.

I personally think MK4 was the darkest MK. The dark atmosphere of the levels with the music fitted well. I'll be sad if they can't recreate that when they make the next Mortal Kombat game, since I guess it's going to be loosely based on MK4.

The game is dark enough, I'd say, but it seems like the tone they were aiming more for -- and accomplished beautifully -- was intensity. The SFX and animation have high impact. The arenas and music are less moody than in, say, MK2, but are well suited to cinematic action. All together, the elements of the game give it the most visceral feeling of any fighting game I've yet played. It draws you into the action much the same way God of War does.

So yeah, it could be darker, but it really doesn't need to be to keep me happy. Lively characters, deep environments and hard-hitting kombat give it all the atmosphere I want. It's like playing a fight scene from an action movie, and since movies were the initial inspiration for MK in the first place, well, I think it suits just fine.

Not dark in the least, story mode was too cheesy, which i guess is what they're going for now. Goofy "take my teddy bear plz" challenge tower missions and the story is corny as fuck. Not dark and as far as story line is concerned not even serious. Just cheese.

True.

I've never really considered Mortal Kombat as "dark" as such. Nor have I considered it a horror-game, though there are obvious blood and mutilation in the game... I dunno, it was just never my main priority, to have MK be "dark". It has interesting gameplay and storyline with lots of great characters and designs, that's the most important thing in my opinion. :)