So we come to the middle of our listing of Mortal Kombat games from best to worst. For a recap, see the previous post. Next on our countdown(up) is:
Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (2006). As stated, this game was originally announced as the final chapter of the original Mortal Kombat continuity. This in turn led many people to think it was the last game that would be made whereas if they'd paid attention to the wording, it was clear that it wasn't. Armageddon was the 3rd game in Mortal Kombat's second trilogy of fighting games and it was supposed to bring all the main story lines to a close. Did it? Well, not exactly. Given the direction that the series has taken since 2006, we still don't know which parts of the game are canon and non-canon. The game itself improved on its predecessors in terms of more fluid gameplay and it featured the largest cast of characters in any MK game yet made.
The game was hampered by one humongous problem, "Kreate-a-fatality." This feature replaced the programmed fatalities for each character in the game and for the most part made them all generic. The only standouts were the stage fatalities (known as "death traps") as they maintained their originality. It's been said that it's unthinkable that an MK game could exist without fatalities but that apparently didn't stop them from trying in a way. It's a real shame this feature was included because other, than the fact that the endings of the characters weren't as cinematic as they usually are in the games, it was an extremely good game. The Konquest Mode of the game which told the story of Taven and Daegon was absolutely stellar. The only complaint I had for it was its abandoning of the open-world style that MK: Deception's Konquest Mode featured in favor of a linear style of Konquest mode. In a sense, it's like Konquest Mode made a change from Zelda to Mario in terms of style but that didn't stop it from being a lot of fun.
While Armageddon certainly wasn't a bad game by any stretch, it left a lot of room for improvement. Especially with the idea that we still don't know which parts of the game were and weren't canon. Now in 2013, I'm afraid we've reached the point that no one honestly cares what is canon from this game as it has pretty much fallen into obscurity at this point. In fairness, it would've been nearly impossible for the game to improve on its predecessor which will be listed later in this countdown. Not a great game, but if you can find it for say less than 15 bucks these days, it's probably still worth a go if you can find the Kollector's Edition which featured a bonus disc containing several video featurettes as well as an arcade port of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.
Up next on our listing, we go all the way back to the beginning. Our next game is:
Mortal Kombat (1992) AKA Mortal Kombat 1 to differentiate it from the 2011 rehash. This was the game that started it all. A surprise hit, the game introduced the major characters to the franchise. Many of which have now become legendary in the annals of video game and pop culture history. There really isn't much I can say because there's nothing previous to compare it to and I personally consider it unfair to compare it to the later games because the technology changed and evolved so quickly in just a few years. If you look at MK1 and MK3 which were created/released just 3 years apart, the only similarities between them is the digitized graphics and gameplay style but even then, they're so different that there's hardly no comparison. I guess the biggest thing I can say about MK1 that most people may not know is that it was developed by only 5 people: Ed Boon, John Tobias, John Vogel, Tony Goskie, and Dan Forden. The game was also intended to be a cheap cash-grab because Street Fighter II was not only the hot fighting game of the time, it was arguably the hottest video game period. I would be willing to argue that this simple cash-grab not only equalled Street Fighter II, but it far surpassed it and even more, I would personally argue that the MK franchise has gone farther than the Street Fighter franchise has. It must be conceded however that if there were no Street Fighter II, there would probably be no Mortal Kombat franchise.
Anyone who is a fan of video games and has never played the original Mortal Kombat owes it to themselves to seek out and play the original. You'll not likely be impressed by it in 2013. In fact, you might look at it and think it's quite primitive. You'd be right, but don't let that stop you from playing the game just to see how the whole thing started. The graphics and audio is extremely primitive compared to today's games, but the gameplay holds up and probably surpasses a lot of modern games which seem to focus so hard on graphics and far less on gameplay.
Mortal Kombat nearly ran out of steam in the late 90's leaving many people to feel the franchise had run its course and would fade away with the 90's. Midway decided the series needed to be rebuilt from the ground up and the result was the next game on our list:
Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (2002). Much like MK1 did in 1992, this game actually became a sleeper hit in late 2002. As previously stated, most people had written off the franchise by the turn of the century. There hadn't been a new game since MK4 other than Special Forces and the less said about it, the better. John Tobias left Midway in this time period which left Ed Boon as the sole creative lead of the franchise. Mortal Kombat needed their next game to be a hit and not only was it a hit, it completely revitalized the franchise and took it in a whole new direction. Deadly Alliance is the first game in MK's second trilogy and this game is really where the storyline of the series began to shine. Developed for the home consoles, Midway was able to expand the story so much farther than the previous arcade versions of the game were capable of doing due to expanded memory. Aside from introducing many new characters, it also introduced Konquest Mode to the franchise which served as a side-game and helped tell the story of the game itself. It also worked to flesh out some previously untold backstories of many of the more established characters. This trend would continue with Deception and Armageddon.
Many consider this game the first true 3D Mortal Kombat because it was the first to take place in a completely 3D environment and the first to allow for truly 3D movement. The gameplay was rebuilt from the ground up. Gone were the days of each character's basic attacks being the same. Starting with Deadly Alliance, each character was given their own fighting styles which made every character unique in terms of their abilities. It also helped that each style was based on a legitimate martial arts style.
Many people bemoaned the changes to the game because they couldn't get over the fact that the game was evolving and expanding. I feel that the changes were necessary because it wasn't simply the same-old same-old. It brought MK to a fresh audience and expanded the series in terms of richness, character, and gameplay and it saddens me that so many people were so stuck in the 90's that they refused to accept this. This trend would only continue with the releases of Deception and Armageddon and it directly led to the complete rehash that was MK9 in 2011. Whether these clowns like to admit it or not, Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance extended the series lifespan by at least a full decade.
We've reached the end of part 2 of our countdown of Mortal Kombat games. Coming up will be the final edition of our rankings. There are only 3 left and most people should know what 3 games these are, it's just a question of the order. The final edition of this post will hopefully be up by Saturday at the latest.
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Sunday, October 20, 2013
A Few Thoughts On...Ranking The Mortal Kombat Franchise Part 1
So I return after a long hiatus to offer my thoughts/rankings of the Mortal Kombat franchise. This was inspired by the recent release of Season 2 of Mortal Kombat Legacy to YouTube. The series itself is fantastic and I recommend it to anyone whether you're familiar with the franchise or not. Although in all fairness, some of the impact and a few plot points will be lost to those unfamiliar with MK's history but not so much that you can't enjoy the series.
In a few words, this series has allowed me to re-discover why I have loved Mortal Kombat for so long after an extremely disappointing few years which saw the franchise nearly damaged beyond return in my eyes. With this series, that love has been rekindled and I'm looking forward to anything new that NetherRealm Studios (formerly Midway) has to offer in the future. Latest rumor says a new game is coming in 2015 which means it's likely to be announced sometime next year. Quite likely around E3 in June.
With rediscovering the series, I've chosen to rank the games from worst to best with a few thoughts on each game. I'm only focusing on the main franchise of the games and not the side games such as Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub Zero, Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks and Mortal Kombat Special Forces because they're not considered part of the main franchise but are merely side games and because for the most part, with the exception of Mythologies, the stories in them are mostly non-canon in regards to the series itself. Mortal Kombat Trilogy is not on this list because it was basically a "greatest hits" game and did nothing to further the storyline. It simply existed as a way to combine everything from MKs 1-3 into a single game.
Now, we'll start from the nadir and work our way to the top of the mountain. Our worst MK game is:
Mortal Kombat (2011) - AKA Mortal Kombat 9 to differentiate it from the original game. This game was to be the beginning of a new era of Mortal Kombat. For a couple years up to its release in April 2011, Ed Boon, co-creator of the franchise and current head honcho of NetherRealm Studios, promised that this game would be a completely original continuity, new characters and would have such extreme violence and gore that the game might actually have trouble avoiding the X rating which is an extreme rarity in video games. Of these 3 main promises, NRS outright lied on the first 2 and only partially delivered on the 3rd one. The game was nothing more than a rehash of the first 3 games in nearly every way. The only thing really new in the game was the altering of the previous storyline to allow Sub Zero to be transformed into a robot instead of Smoke. Beyond that, everything from the moves, the fatalities, the characters and the vast majority of the backgrounds were a simple rehash of the previous series. The game is similar to the New Super Mario Bros. series in that respect and it should've simply been a side project instead of a new entry into the main series itself. Adding to it the fact that the controls were extremely stiff and, in some cases, non-responsive not only made the game a creative disappointment but made it a disappointment from a gameplay standpoint as well.
As weird as it may seem, I don't consider this the nadir of the MK franchise as a whole. I consider it the worst game because of everything we were promised and because of the extremely high level of disappointment from these unfulfilled promises. This game was basically made to appeal to the fans of the 90's games who just couldn't get over the fact that it wasn't 1995 any more and that Mortal Kombat had evolved and expanded beyond those 90's games. This is another reason I think it should've been a side project. The game sold huge because of that nostalgia factor and it has since faded a long ways now that the nostalgia has worn off and the game's long list of problems are now apparent. This game was pretty much what drove me off from Mortal Kombat for nearly 2 years because combined with the previous game, which is the next game on the countdown, I was disgusted to the point of just throwing my hands up and leaving the franchise altogether because I honestly felt betrayed, lied to, and crapped on by Ed Boon and co. at NRS.
We move on to the next game which, while not the worst game of the series, is hands down the absolute lowest point the franchise has ever hit and hopefully the lowest it ever will hit. Our next game is:
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe (2008). From this point forward, this game will be referred to as TWSNBN(That Which Shall Not Be Named) because I basically refuse to acknowledge the game's existence or its place in the franchise. Thankfully, this game is excluded from the canon of the franchise but it is a fighting game and was originally intended as an extension of the storyline so that's why it makes its way to this list. The reason this game is not considered part of the main canon is due to the near universal rejection of the game as a legitimate entry in the franchise. The same goes, I'm told, for fans of the DC franchises that this abomination incorporated. In fact, I'm told that while the MK franchise actually tolerated the game as a fighting game, the DC Universe fans not only refuse to acknowledge its existence, it's actually quite the sore spot among many of them. The gameplay itself wasn't too bad, certainly not as ungodly terrible as MK9, nor were the graphics. The main problem is that this crossover made absolutely no sense for either side. Given the timeframe of this game's development and release, I'm guessing that The Dark Knight's highly successful run had a lot to do with Midway's choice to attempt this crossover. That's not to say crossovers can't be successful and well done. Capcom and Marvel had a highly successful crossover series in the 90's as have Street Fighter and Tekken in recent years. The biggest offense this game produced was its T (Teen) rating. Every MK game that's been released since the ESRB established its rating system has been rated M (Mature). The violence was toned down well below the usual Mortal Kombat levels which in essence crippled a high percentage of the appeal these games have to the majority of the population. The reason for this was that DC didn't want the usual over-the-top fatalities performed on their franchise characters i.e. they didn't want Sub Zero to rip out Superman's spinal column with the head attached to it. This pettyness by DC took an already stupid concept and ruined any possibility it had for being successful while neutering the MK aspect of the game.
In short, this game did nothing except piss off fans of both sides and alienate a great many MK fans who simply asked why. Like MK9, NRS had made the same promises about a new storyline and new characters and not only failed to deliver on this entry, but also failed to deliver an actual new Mortal Kombat game. The game managed to sell relatively well as a strange curiosity but as I said, the near universal rejection of the game from both sides has thankfully led to it largely being ignored and hopefully forgotten. NRS has continued its relationship with DC however with their recently released game Injustice: Gods Among Us which is a DC Universe based fighting game, also rated T. This concept actually works because the game is it's own game and has nothing to do with the MK franchise. This is what should've been done in the first place instead of nearly destroying one franchise and highly angering the fanbase of another franchise.
We're past the lowest point of the franchise and so we climb up from the trenches back to sea level with our next game which was the final game in the series released in arcades:
Mortal Kombat 4 (1997). We've covered the only really bad games in the main franchise so from this point on, there are no more "bad" games in the franchise but simply "less good" games. Mortal Kombat 4 was the last game released in arcade format and was the first 3D version of the game. Prior to MK4, the games featured 2D digitized graphics and with the evolution of fighting games as well as highly successful 3D franchises of the time such as Killer Instinct, Virtua Fighter, and Tekken, this was a logical step. The gameplay itself was actually quite good, the main problem was with the graphics. This was not a pretty game to look at for sure because the technology to make an MK game in 3D mostly didn't exist at that point. Software had to be built from the ground up in order to make this game in 3D and it shows with highly unrealistic looking graphics even for the late 90's. Had the gameplay been bad, this game would've been a complete failure but as mentioned, the gameplay itself was fluid like the earlier games which made up for the graphics problems. It didn't help that the storyline of the game was more or less rendered irrelevant by later games of the franchise. Nor did it help that of the new characters introduced into the game, excluding Quan Chi (who was actually introduced in MK Mythologies), none of them were particularly memorable nor did any of them outside of Quan Chi have much to do with furthering the MK storyline.
Time hasn't really done much to improve the game. It's really in an awkward position because the 3 games that preceded it and the 3 games followed it create 2 very nice trilogies. This actually causes many fans to forget the game exists unless someone else mentions it. It also doesn't help that the game hasn't been re-released on any format since its original home ports were released in 1998 whereas MK 1-3 have all been re-released at various times in their original arcade formats. So while certainly not a bad game, MK4 is far from the best this series has to offer.
We've reached the end of the first part of our rankings. With any luck, I'll have the remaining 2 parts of the series up by the end of this week. Leading off the next part comes the last of the second trilogy of the series. It was originally intended to be the end of the original MK continuity and was announced as such when it was released which led many people to think it was the last MK game that would be made. Which game is it? Find out in part 2.
In a few words, this series has allowed me to re-discover why I have loved Mortal Kombat for so long after an extremely disappointing few years which saw the franchise nearly damaged beyond return in my eyes. With this series, that love has been rekindled and I'm looking forward to anything new that NetherRealm Studios (formerly Midway) has to offer in the future. Latest rumor says a new game is coming in 2015 which means it's likely to be announced sometime next year. Quite likely around E3 in June.
With rediscovering the series, I've chosen to rank the games from worst to best with a few thoughts on each game. I'm only focusing on the main franchise of the games and not the side games such as Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub Zero, Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks and Mortal Kombat Special Forces because they're not considered part of the main franchise but are merely side games and because for the most part, with the exception of Mythologies, the stories in them are mostly non-canon in regards to the series itself. Mortal Kombat Trilogy is not on this list because it was basically a "greatest hits" game and did nothing to further the storyline. It simply existed as a way to combine everything from MKs 1-3 into a single game.
Now, we'll start from the nadir and work our way to the top of the mountain. Our worst MK game is:
Mortal Kombat (2011) - AKA Mortal Kombat 9 to differentiate it from the original game. This game was to be the beginning of a new era of Mortal Kombat. For a couple years up to its release in April 2011, Ed Boon, co-creator of the franchise and current head honcho of NetherRealm Studios, promised that this game would be a completely original continuity, new characters and would have such extreme violence and gore that the game might actually have trouble avoiding the X rating which is an extreme rarity in video games. Of these 3 main promises, NRS outright lied on the first 2 and only partially delivered on the 3rd one. The game was nothing more than a rehash of the first 3 games in nearly every way. The only thing really new in the game was the altering of the previous storyline to allow Sub Zero to be transformed into a robot instead of Smoke. Beyond that, everything from the moves, the fatalities, the characters and the vast majority of the backgrounds were a simple rehash of the previous series. The game is similar to the New Super Mario Bros. series in that respect and it should've simply been a side project instead of a new entry into the main series itself. Adding to it the fact that the controls were extremely stiff and, in some cases, non-responsive not only made the game a creative disappointment but made it a disappointment from a gameplay standpoint as well.
As weird as it may seem, I don't consider this the nadir of the MK franchise as a whole. I consider it the worst game because of everything we were promised and because of the extremely high level of disappointment from these unfulfilled promises. This game was basically made to appeal to the fans of the 90's games who just couldn't get over the fact that it wasn't 1995 any more and that Mortal Kombat had evolved and expanded beyond those 90's games. This is another reason I think it should've been a side project. The game sold huge because of that nostalgia factor and it has since faded a long ways now that the nostalgia has worn off and the game's long list of problems are now apparent. This game was pretty much what drove me off from Mortal Kombat for nearly 2 years because combined with the previous game, which is the next game on the countdown, I was disgusted to the point of just throwing my hands up and leaving the franchise altogether because I honestly felt betrayed, lied to, and crapped on by Ed Boon and co. at NRS.
We move on to the next game which, while not the worst game of the series, is hands down the absolute lowest point the franchise has ever hit and hopefully the lowest it ever will hit. Our next game is:
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe (2008). From this point forward, this game will be referred to as TWSNBN(That Which Shall Not Be Named) because I basically refuse to acknowledge the game's existence or its place in the franchise. Thankfully, this game is excluded from the canon of the franchise but it is a fighting game and was originally intended as an extension of the storyline so that's why it makes its way to this list. The reason this game is not considered part of the main canon is due to the near universal rejection of the game as a legitimate entry in the franchise. The same goes, I'm told, for fans of the DC franchises that this abomination incorporated. In fact, I'm told that while the MK franchise actually tolerated the game as a fighting game, the DC Universe fans not only refuse to acknowledge its existence, it's actually quite the sore spot among many of them. The gameplay itself wasn't too bad, certainly not as ungodly terrible as MK9, nor were the graphics. The main problem is that this crossover made absolutely no sense for either side. Given the timeframe of this game's development and release, I'm guessing that The Dark Knight's highly successful run had a lot to do with Midway's choice to attempt this crossover. That's not to say crossovers can't be successful and well done. Capcom and Marvel had a highly successful crossover series in the 90's as have Street Fighter and Tekken in recent years. The biggest offense this game produced was its T (Teen) rating. Every MK game that's been released since the ESRB established its rating system has been rated M (Mature). The violence was toned down well below the usual Mortal Kombat levels which in essence crippled a high percentage of the appeal these games have to the majority of the population. The reason for this was that DC didn't want the usual over-the-top fatalities performed on their franchise characters i.e. they didn't want Sub Zero to rip out Superman's spinal column with the head attached to it. This pettyness by DC took an already stupid concept and ruined any possibility it had for being successful while neutering the MK aspect of the game.
In short, this game did nothing except piss off fans of both sides and alienate a great many MK fans who simply asked why. Like MK9, NRS had made the same promises about a new storyline and new characters and not only failed to deliver on this entry, but also failed to deliver an actual new Mortal Kombat game. The game managed to sell relatively well as a strange curiosity but as I said, the near universal rejection of the game from both sides has thankfully led to it largely being ignored and hopefully forgotten. NRS has continued its relationship with DC however with their recently released game Injustice: Gods Among Us which is a DC Universe based fighting game, also rated T. This concept actually works because the game is it's own game and has nothing to do with the MK franchise. This is what should've been done in the first place instead of nearly destroying one franchise and highly angering the fanbase of another franchise.
We're past the lowest point of the franchise and so we climb up from the trenches back to sea level with our next game which was the final game in the series released in arcades:
Mortal Kombat 4 (1997). We've covered the only really bad games in the main franchise so from this point on, there are no more "bad" games in the franchise but simply "less good" games. Mortal Kombat 4 was the last game released in arcade format and was the first 3D version of the game. Prior to MK4, the games featured 2D digitized graphics and with the evolution of fighting games as well as highly successful 3D franchises of the time such as Killer Instinct, Virtua Fighter, and Tekken, this was a logical step. The gameplay itself was actually quite good, the main problem was with the graphics. This was not a pretty game to look at for sure because the technology to make an MK game in 3D mostly didn't exist at that point. Software had to be built from the ground up in order to make this game in 3D and it shows with highly unrealistic looking graphics even for the late 90's. Had the gameplay been bad, this game would've been a complete failure but as mentioned, the gameplay itself was fluid like the earlier games which made up for the graphics problems. It didn't help that the storyline of the game was more or less rendered irrelevant by later games of the franchise. Nor did it help that of the new characters introduced into the game, excluding Quan Chi (who was actually introduced in MK Mythologies), none of them were particularly memorable nor did any of them outside of Quan Chi have much to do with furthering the MK storyline.
Time hasn't really done much to improve the game. It's really in an awkward position because the 3 games that preceded it and the 3 games followed it create 2 very nice trilogies. This actually causes many fans to forget the game exists unless someone else mentions it. It also doesn't help that the game hasn't been re-released on any format since its original home ports were released in 1998 whereas MK 1-3 have all been re-released at various times in their original arcade formats. So while certainly not a bad game, MK4 is far from the best this series has to offer.
We've reached the end of the first part of our rankings. With any luck, I'll have the remaining 2 parts of the series up by the end of this week. Leading off the next part comes the last of the second trilogy of the series. It was originally intended to be the end of the original MK continuity and was announced as such when it was released which led many people to think it was the last MK game that would be made. Which game is it? Find out in part 2.
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