"Palette swap Ninja" means a character that was a palette swap to **"save space" for digitalized graphics in the 2D era of games. Jade, Mileena, Kitana and Khameleon are palette swap ninjas. Skarlet is too as she is based on an graphical glitch with Kitana. Frost is a ninja, but not a Palette swap one, although in MKX she is wearing Sub Zero's clothing.

Tanya is not a palette swap nor a ninja. She was originally developed as Kitana but was decided to be a new character and her clothing was deliberately changed. The other FPSN served Shao Khan as assassins, but as far as we know, Tanya never did. (I guess theoretically Mythologies should have been a stealth game.)

**(the reason Midway always gave is to save space, but MK1 Arcade Machines had the same Memory restrictions as MK2 or UMK3. Really it was just to save on production time.)

But, yes. I agree, it would be great to get a retro Tanya costume. Hell, we got a Cyber Skarlet costume. Why not?

I never considered Reiko a palette swap because he did not have a mask like every other ninja. Tanya is like all the other fem ninjas. Reiko just has a similar costume.

Reiko is as much an MK3 style ninja palette swap as Tanya is.

Wh... what? Tanya didn't have a mask either. And she wasn't a color swap of anyone. Totally unique design, always. Reiko's body model really was a palette swap of Sub Zero in MK4.

Tanya WAS a palette swap of Kitana, i don't know where you got that they changed Kitana's model to make Tanya from. The Kitana seen in Liu Kang's ending and accessible through gameshark IS Tanya but with different costume color.

Yeah, the Kitana model for MK4 still present via Gameshark is exactly the same as Tanya's model -- outfit, hair, everything. They just turned the leotard yellow and the skin brown and gave her a different face.

First of all, I think the term "ninja" is inaccurate. Just because someone has a mask, doesn't necessarily make them a ninja.

The way I look at it, if Tanya as a character had been conceived during the trilogy era, there's no doubt that we would have seen her appear as "yellow Jade." Same with Skarlet, and possibly Frost.

The male "ninjas" each have a defining color and an elemental gimmick.
Sub-Zero, Blue, Ice
Scorpion, Yellow, Fire
Reptile, Green, Acid
Smoke, White, Smoke
Noob, Black, Darkness/Shadows
Rain, Purple, Water
Ermac, Red, Souls
Tremor, Brown, Earth

The female "ninjas" each have color and a weapon as their gimmick.
Kitana, Blue, Fans
Mileena, Pink, Sais
Jade, Green, Staff
Tanya, Yellow, Tonfa
Skarlet, Red, Kunai/Ninjato

Tanya complements the group, so I consider her one of the female "ninjas." Its kind of open to interpretation. Sort of a case of "See it as you wish to see it."

Are you saying Tanya is a palette swap of a character they didn't bother make playable? I got the "changed Kitana into Tanya" from the Dev's mouths themselves. "It was going to be Kitana, but we wanted a newer character." Yes, they used a swapped Tanya model to be Kitana in one ending but that's a lot more dubious than Reiko's questionable design. Especially when they got to update it.

Here's Kitana.

Here's Tanya


Totally fuggin different.

Tanya was playable in MK4 while Kitana was not. It'd be more accurate to say Kitana was a palette swap of Tanya in that game... she wasn't playable until Gold.

That Kitana was redesigned for Gold. Of course she wouldn't be the palette swap of Tanya at this point.

Yeah. Probably.

But she wasn't.

And more importantly when we think of what Ninjas do, I'll say this again, they practice Ninjutsu, the art of the unseen. This concept originated in japan and was practiced by burglars and assassins. Jade, Skarlet, Mileena and Kitana all worked as assassins for Shao Kahn.

Tanya didn't.

Playable Kitana is, again, available in MK4 via Gameshark. She's incomplete, but she's there, from early in development before they changed her into Tanya -- her model, KITANA in the health bar, everything. It's Tanya's model in blue with pale skin and a different face.
In any case -- while none of these women are actually 'ninjas', I do think Tanya is part of the set.

She is not a ninja, she is a toblerone.

No, I wouldn't say Tanya is a ninja.

What the fuck is up with the semantics in this thread? He's not asking if Tanya can be considered a feudal japan ninja.

Everyone who grew up playing Mortal Kombat refered to them as male ninjas and female ninjas. Doesn't matter if they're assassins, revenants, wizards, wraiths, etc.

He's only asking if Tanya can be considered part of the Kitana, Mileena, Jade and Skarlet group of palette swap female warrior.

Lol apparently this is too hard to grasp for some

There was also a icon for Kitana found in the MK4 files, but weirdly enough it looks like her UMK3 outfit just updated onto a different background. the whole thing with Kitana/Tanya was just very odd, seems like she was created at the last second

here's the video I found for it: https://youtu.be/MFitVFdFAxk?list=PLMkz8zR_vXk7avidDKyKuNYOdVniKu9He

She was, along with Jarek. That's why he has Kano's moves, Kano's fatalities(without the red eye, meaning he can shoot lasers from his real eyes) and is dressed similar to how Kano would start to dress in Deadly Alliance.

Tanya had more work done on her but she still ended up with a Kiss of Death type of fatality.

Hmm...

You're looking at the MKGold Kitana. MK4's Kitana really was just Tanya's model with the skin lightened and the clothes colored black. And it's not meant to be totally visable. I don't think anyone after the 2D era should be considered the PSN except Tremor and Skarlet who were designed very intentionally. The idea than Tanya was a Palette swap and Reiko wasn't, seemed crazy.

Is Tanya a "ninja"? No.
Is Tanya a palette swap? No.
Should Tanya get klassic FPSN costumes? (which are essentially Edenian uniforms) Yes.

I have always considered her the fourth ninja, other than khameleon.

Yes. It's mostly based on the fact that she had similar edenian attire in mk4 and deception, and rocked yellow as iconic color. They also gave her that eye mask in deception, which I thought was just another unique way they tried to differ her from the other 3.

I still think she has the same flavor in mkx to group her with kitana and mileena rather than Sonya, Cassie, and Jacqui, mainly because she still rocks that iconic yellow the same way kitana and mileena display their vintage colors, but in designs that for all three of them, stray from anything familiar we have seen before.

NRS konfirmed Tanya as the yellow female ninja a few times. Search the MK9 forum or the 3d games forum, cause I remember this argument was back in MKA, and MK9.

She`d have a yellow MKII, and UMK3 famale ninja outfit.



Ka-Tra

I defiantly see Tanya as one of the female ninjas. Just because she had her own non-palette swapped costume, it doesn't change that she was designed like the other female ninjas.

Her outfit is a simular style, but yellow. She has a signature weapon (even though it changed from Boomerang->Tonfas->Tonfas/Naginata).

Labelling Tanya as a ninja, to me, is simplistic and reeks of wanting something to easily identify her as. It doesn't matter if her MK4 model was intended to be Kitana's and that she shared a few things in common with her. She is not Kitana, and was never said to be a ninja, so unless they say otherwise, she is not a ninja. As a matter of fact, I don't believe she can be considered any type of warrior in particular. She's just a warrior.

This debate again? Tanya is not a ninja, she never has been. Kitana, Jade, and old timeline Mileena are ninjas, Frost is also a ninja but in a different regard than Kitana, Jade, and Mileena. New timeline Mileena is not a ninja, only Kitana and Jade are and Skarlet, but she sucks can we just forget about her?