I think it has to do with the fact that the MKTeam created the Shokan race, whereas Centaurs have been in fiction for a very very long time.

Centaurs are harder to program correctly in a fighting game.



No, they didn't. 4-armed creatures have been around for almost just as long.

Well, to be fair we haven't had a new Shokan since we had the Centaur race put in.

Kintaro wasn§t even supposed to be a shokan, but a tiger-like humanoid in Gi.
Sheeva was made because they wanted to do a playable balanced shokan character.

i meant the naming of it, i hadn't heard of anything known as a Shokan till the MKTeam...

and damn, i was going to mention the programming, but forgot about it.

i think jironobuo's right. the shokan IMO look cooler.

They look cool, but pred has a point, if they were to put in a centaur, the would have to do more programming for those back legs.

K.

I simply disagree then. Shokan look a bit more putsy // clumsy-looking to me, while horses are symbols of stability.



I've always like the Centaur better. Kitaro is good though.

Yeah, I think Pred has it nailed. Centaurs have been hard to program since the move to 3D. That's the only reason they considered leaving Motaro out of MKA. Nothing to do with them not liking him. I also think the name thing is a bit silly. So they came up with a name for their four-armed creatures? All that means is that they half-assed it with the centaurs. They could have easily pulled something out of somewhere.

One thing going for the Shokan, is their iconic status within the series. The four-armed giant thing is not unfamiliar in association with the MK franchise. Goro would probably be one of the more recogniseable MK characters. Motaro, having come later in the series, is sort of just stuck in there.

That being said, I much prefer Motaro to Goro, Kintaro or Moloch.

Centaurians are cooler than Shokans, but one of its kind should do well enough, I'd say. If you come to think of it deeper, even two big Shokans is too much, i.e. one of them is an unnecessary copy of the other one. A female, "balanced" shokan makes a healthy difference, but why do I need two shokan officers, one of which (Kintaro) has virtually no defined biography... Ok, he's gone apeshit because of Goro's defeat, and he loses in a fight against Liu Kang, and, uh,... that's all? Sheeva is also rather bland storywise, but more picturesque than Kintaro anyhow.

Armageddon was a good chance to evolve separate personalities for the Shokan. Sure -- they probably wouldn't be around next game -- but it allows development and closure for them, at least. I'm imagining Sheeva managing to escape the Netherrealm with things in disarray, and she discovers that Goro is aligned with Shao Kahn; so she decides to challenge Goro, and restore honour to her people.

Kintaro could have been made to have his own goals. Did he die during MKII? If so, perhaps he could have aligned himself with Shinnok? Perhaps he could see this as a chance to escape the flames of hell forever, and fight the good fight to cleanse his soul? Granted, that second one is a bit cliche, but it'd definitely set Kintaro apart from Goro.

Thats why Id prefer a shorter roster so they could work on each fighter and their story and not have stupid copies of another. And yes Centaurs are much cooler than Shokans.

Ahhh! Eternal fight between those 2 races!

You know, I think that the main problem is that if you create an other centaurian character, like Motaro, it will automaticly be a sub-boss. And, like it's said in few last comments, MK is more connected with 4-armed monster then centaur (I think). But still, I like the idea of conflict between the two races.

I just want to mention that there are other races that were a more ((totaly fail)) then the centaure race (That have, at least, some reference in other games).

I think here of the vampire race of Nitara who was supossed to have an interresting evolution... ... ... you guys see that evolution?