This if something that has really struck me of late when visiting these forums.

i've been seeing a lot of people bashing rain, tremor, skarlett, etc, because, apparently, we have "too many ninjas".

i admit, i too have occasionally made this remark.

however.

it occurred to me recently that virtually ALL of the most popular mk characters ARE ninjas. Obviously, scorpion and sub-zero, but also reptile, ermac, mileena, kitana, even the cyborgs if you count them.

but, as people frequently remind me, "this isnt the 90s anymore, we dont need palette swaps. we want different, non-ninja characters".

well, dya know what? from mk4 to armageddon, that's exactly what we got. in abudance.

mk 4 onwards gave us kai, jarek, mavado, hotaru, darrius, dairou, ashrah, li mei, kobra, taven...need i go on.

im not denying that these characters do have fans, and im not disrespecting those fans in any way, but we can all agree they're not generally considered the strongest characters in the franchise.

"well, the character designs in those games were just lame", i hear you cry. well, what about jax? i dont see him getting much love among the mk community, not compared with most of the trilogy roster, anyway. same goes for kano and nightwolf. even liu kang is often derided and called "boring" (NOTE, i have nothing against these characters, i actually like them, but im speaking generally). johnny cage is extremely love/hate, and stryker certainly had HIS critics before this game.

so maybe, just maybe, this game NEEDS ninjas. they are the trademark of mk. seeing brightly coloured ninja characters is what instantly screams "mortal kombat". it's very difficult to get that same feeling when watching a fight between darrius and shujinko.

so, don't be so quick to groan when skarlett comes out as dlc, or when (somewhere down the line) so is Rain. because, we may not want to admit it, but ninjas make mortal kombat what it is. without them, it wouldnt be the same. and without the "boring" ninjas, we'd just see more of the crappy characters that deadly alliance introduced. give me rain and skarlett, hell even TREMOR, ahead of hsu hao.