Yeah you're referring to the Legbar and it's follow ups. They're not that bad really. It's just a matter of muscle memory, it takes a while to get used to it though. The timing is tight so not exactly newcomer friendly. But he has a lot of other moves so you don't have to use that if you don't want to. But for high damage combos you do want to use it.

The fact some characters have very weak damage rate.
Cyrax in MKDA and Darrius in MKD are obvious proofs.

The hara-kiris: They should never have been invented.

Mokap, Kobra.

The combo system in MK4 and MKG. It was stupid to make an universal system. It completely ruined the gameplay.

The air combo system in MKA. It's was too universal and completely unoriginal.

To answer the topic, my biggest gripe would be the fact that we've never actually SEEN the storylines of MK1, 2, 3, 4, or Deadly Alliance. (Or Deception and Armaggedon either, really. We've only seen Shujinko and Taven's backstories play out in realtime.)

Text and comic books are an inferior storytelling medium to video. I want motion and I want voice acting and I want a version without time travel or retcons.

I don't mind if it's just cutscenes in a game, or if it's a cartoon (several games like Halo, Resident Evil, Dead Space, and Dante's Inferno have put out licensed straight-to-DVD animes and CGI movies), or if it's a live action movie or TV series, or even a fanfilm or a simple goddamn series of flash animations on Newgrounds, as long as someone in the world, just ONCE before I die of old age, makes it EXIST.

The closest we'll get to that is with MK10's Story Mode. Even though it is an alternate timeline, the storytelling itself is in the right direction.

On a different note: I miss the CGI endings from MK4. With MK's graphics today, endings could look so good. But oh well.

Still better than 'freefall kombat' & 'klose kombat' in MKvsDC. Everything else in that game was so good though. Especially incorporating TYM into battles themselves, that was clever.

- 3D Face modeling for the women is horrendous. (i.e. Sonya has looked like a transvestite since MKvsDC and it hasn't improved in MK2011)

- Terrible AI. This includes the fact that a lot of your moves are "cancelled out" like there are programmed special exceptions to the game play when fighting against the CPU.

- Attack commands and combo strings change too damn much from each game to the next. It's about time they start standardizing their characters and give them a fighting "style" that matches their personality, works well for them, and transitions from one game to the next with only minor tweaks for the better.

- Drastic costume changes. While I enjoy seeing new attire for our favorite characters, some of them change too much and for the worst. The primary costume shouldn't change at all. Only the alternates. Tekken and Virtua Fighter, for example, do not change the looks of their characters. Yet they have unique alternate costumes and modes that allow you to customize the character which keeps things fresh and you can make them look how YOU want them to; not how some artist at NRS THINKS they should look. When will NRS get the hint? They almost went right with Kreate a Fighter... almost.

- Women wear whore-ish clothing and I cannot take them seriously. What kind of a special forces agent dresses like Sonya? Am I supposed to really believe Kitana and Mileena are assassins when they look like washed-up downtown strippers?

- Body models are recycled. Every character has the same height, width, and muscle build as their male/female counterparts. Are you going to tell me everyone in all the realms are shaped the same? Give me a fucking break! Bo Rai Cho is the ONLY exception to this!!!

- No true canon to the story. Every game contradicts itself one way or another. I am not talking about character endings (we all know these are "what if" scenarios).

- Terrible hit boxes in MK2011. The fucking fists and feet don't even touch my character model yet the combo strings are still busting my ass into the double digits. Was there no QA for that game!??!!?

- Stupid shit like Mokap and other half-assed last minute characters that are thrown into the mix.

Your entire post contained a solid list of good gripes, but this one I agree with especially. Every good fighting game has characters that have a fighting style that is always the same for that character. They just add a few moves or tweak certain moves. MK needs to follow suite. Nobody should have to relearn their favorite characters with every new MK.

MK really hit it's stride in gameplay with MK9, I really hope they don't screw that up.

At least, free fall kombat was unpredictable unlike that shitty air kombat.
It could be reversed. The only thing that could be done to stop the air kombat was using a breaker.

And I also would like to add:

Most of the versions that were released on the nintendo consoles:
No blood in the very first MK.

They kept the same endings on the N64 as the arcede version. All other versions had been granted improved endings.
MKT on N64 was a mess. 2 Sub-Zero combined into 1: what the hell was that stupidity? Plus horrible screams.

Adding Goro and Shao Kahn on the gamecube partially made MKDA's intro and Kitana's ending in the same game obsolete.


Why did they add Khameleon exclusively for MKT on N64 and for MKA on Wii? One chameleon was already enough.

And KAF. At the beginning, that was cool to see but it quickly became repetitive and nonsense.
How comes an opponent that has lost his brain, his arms and his hart is still standing?

-Quan Chi, this guy is such a cheap bastard that he may as well disappear and be replaced by a better character, like Nitara. -The 2 on 1 fights that MK2011's story mode was obsessed with, where you only controlled one character and the CPU had a tag team, how the hell is that fair, especially in the Liu Kang vs Scorpion and Quan Chi fight. So cheap. -The lack of character development for Sheeva and Mileena. Both of these characters are immensely interesting yet we hardly know anything about them. It doesn't help that the MK9 story mode just tossed them aside like some dirty rag. (P.S. I actually loved the 2.5D(3D visuals mixed with 2D gameplay) style that MK9 had, that should stay.) -The broken and awkward control scheme of MKvsDC and the lack of characters in that game. Johnny Cage, Mileena, Reptile and Sheeva would have fit into it very well. -The training segments of MKD's konquest mode, especially when they force you to string styles together. -The fact that MK Annihilation exists

Needs more Fujin.

I agree.

Here's a great character with great potential who's being completely under utilized. In terms of gameplay and story, he's ripe with interesting ideas.

Plus I could totally see that Flying Knee move he had from MK4 being an awesome combo ender for MK10.

That move had such a cool sound effect (and did lots of damage).