I didn't expect my MK1 rant to go on this long lol. Please take as many breaks as possible. A little heads up, I'm almost ready to drop my Octodad series review. I just need to play the DLC levels soon.
Mortal Kombat 1 starts as another reboot of the time line. But a more full reboot route than from MK9's timeline. You know what Terminator: Dark Fate route that people hated so much. I didn't have much of an issue with this prior to any trailers. I figured following Mortal Kombat 11 they should reboot the franchise.
Little did I realize things only gotten worst. By now most can agree how they went about the DLCs just isn't right. Also attempted to con people with smaller stuff you could buy. When in reality, they wanna get real money out of people in a rather shady method. They should've used in game points for that instead. At least there you don't lose any money when you get stuff you don't want.
Very early on with the DLCs I knew it's going to be much worst than MK11. They fail to make a proper big deal that includes everything with MK11. I wouldn't be surprise that happens again with MK1. There's also the elephant in the room, the title itself. You guys couldn't call it anything else? No really just because you added an 1 to the title doesn't prevent people confusing it with the original MK game.
It's sorta what Xbox done with Xbox One despite that being the third Xbox console. Although the One in that title actually stood for multiple forms of entertainment through an game console. In that regard, it justified using such a title. We still haven't gotten to what really turn me off about the game yet. So many characters were given notable changes that I felt doesn't work well at all.
They tried to justify things with your selected character being an accompanied by other classic MK versions of characters. Simply known as Kameo characters is in all honestly a huge slap to the face. Majority rather play as a lot of those now thrown away characters. Especially the original Scorpion deeply piss me off!!!
He always been my favorite MK character from the beginning. I could excuse he's not in original MK3. He was later in both updated versions of that game. He's also Ed Boon's favorite MK character as well. Everyone agrees anything MK needs characters like Scorpion. This is beyond unacceptable to me!!! I also should point out Kameo characters has only one fatality.
At times these characters joins in combos for some fun, brutal animations. It's not even like playing as Noob-Smoke in Mortal Kombat: Deception which was done better than this either. A lot of characters we love gotten ruined surprisingly bad with the changes. Scorpion in this timeline is Kuai Liang. Whose was the younger brother of B-Han.
You know both Sub-Zero characters in most timelines that played out. This change took some time getting use to. Eventually I became okay with Kuai Liang being the new Scorpion. A handful of characters that's working in MK1 timeline is Baraka and Reptile respectively. Of course, I do like Fire God Liu Kang as well.
So far the better, popular version of characters are reduced being Kameo characters. It's a little weird an alternative universe female counterpart of Johnny Cage named Janet Cage among em. If you played the last couple MK games. There's a couple modes you can play. For some reason, more recently they're hiding the fight ladders.
There's Story Mode that ended up doing some of the same mistakes MK11 done. Including an DLC portion of that mode already a bad idea. You're making people pay more for an ending to the story is rather cheap. There's DLC characters that's almost comes off like random selection than anything else. Kombat Pack 1 had three comic book guest characters.
Which is already bordering on Injustice series as well as MK11 in that regard. Injustice series was meant to be their take on DC comic characters. I did like they gotten a few comic book characters from other comic companies like Hellboy. MK11 we gotten both Spawn and the Joker. The Joker actually came from Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe game for those that didn't know.
I'll be honest Spawn was the one guest character in MK11 that needed to be in an MK game. Not to disrespect the rest of them. Even he played into too many gun characters problem that game had. Indirectly they're confirming there's no plans for Injustice 3. Which is exactly why we gotten Peacemaker, Homelander and Omni-Man in MK1 respectively.
More recently fighting games kept doing DLC characters. Some are worst than others in that area. If you think about it just those characters alone among the DLCs. You actually could end up paying a few times the base game alone. Which is flat out ridiculous!!! They kept adding in finishers to keep those still playing there.
There's a lot of DLC customization stuff. However a large amount of it should've already been in the game. There's virtually no excuse to do that Warner Brothers!!! I'm happy Animalities finally comes back. I heard mostly mixed stuff about another mode you move spaces. What is this a board game? There's plenty of decent board games I rather play than this!!!
I still haven't got to play this game. They also made a few notable bad casting choices. In MK11, people didn't like Ronda Rousey voicing Sonya Blade. Personally she just wasn't the right person for the job. Now somehow they made a worser casting decision. Megan Fox as Nitara just does not work!!! They even brought in Jean Claude Van Damme as an alternative Johnny Cage skin.
Funny enough, Van Damme does voice mostly the same lines as the other Cage actor. This is a full circle because a particular movie Van Damme done inspired Johnny Cage. You know like in MK11 we gotten Terminator. Who previously inspired the mercenary, Kano it's the same thing. He also more recently in Hitman: World of Assassination.
I felt he worked way better in that Hitman game. They previously brought some of the actors from the original live action MK movie back as DLC skins for a few characters in MK11. I guess they are that desperate to make a lot of money now lol. Yes I'm also aware movie Sub-Zero and Scorpion skins in MK1 as well.
I'm more fine with them bringing in actors or characters that inspired classic MK characters. Eventually you can't bank off those live action MK movies. Even comparing the dialogues within intros from MKX to MK1. It was getting better until MK1. Their decision to not continue the conversation or any jokes with one of the characters talking again.
Actually represents a few major problems. They are notably rushing those to get into matches. Then again simply press a button if you wanna do that. Just comparing Conan's intros to that of Terminator's in MK11. It's not even close at all, they were notably more creative with the references. More jokes from Terminator worked way better than any of Conan's.
I guess they should've gotten Conan O'Brien to write for em lol. There's just something about having a third set of dialogue that works wonders. I could excuse Schwarzenegger didn't reprise voice wise to either characters of his. He did help to a degree by selecting someone to voice in place of him for those MK games.
I will be a little brutally honest Conan should've came before Ghostface. There's more hype for both Ghostface and T-1000. Now I could jump the train on criticizing them using another Terminator character. Personally T-1000 is unique enough to justify it's existence in the game. I'm not trying to say Conan boring by any means.
If they really wanted more Schwarzenegger in their MK games. Then why not either Jack Slater or Detective Jericho Cane? In a way both those characters would work better than Conan. Even to a degree Terminator fits in better with the MK characters. Jack Slater would easily play into a multiverse concept MK1 started.
Also Slater does have some information about the actor that played him in a movie series. Therefore, Slater could easily open the door to more clever Schwarzenegger references. Detective Jericho Cane took on the devil to prevent the birth of the Anti-Christ in the movie End of Days. Now Netherrealm is essentially Hell in MK universe.
There's several demon & spiritual beings within MK. This alone would easily tied Detective Cane well with the roster. I'm just glad they didn't go Commando!!! Someone had to make that joke because they previously done Rambo in MK11. Even Rambo with the references was done way better too. Rambo even voiced by Sylvester Stallone.
It seems since MKX, they had to bring some famous rivalries to the franchise. In MKX it was Alien vs. Predator. In MK11 could differ depending on view. Either Schwarzenegger vs Stallone since both were huge action movie stars. They also played heavily on Robocop vs. Terminator as well. In MK1, Homelander vs Omni-Man you serious? haha lol.
Even their creators all agreed Omni-Man destroys Homelander badly. It's starting to come off as a rather desperate attempt to get more people's attention. In all honestly that's quickly getting old. I know criticize why Ghostface in MK1. I actually felt he belongs in there. They did previously had Freddy, Jason and Leatherface prior.
Just think three of those slasher villains playable in Dead by Daylight, you knew it was coming. I will be brutally honest, the actual story to the game a huge mixed bag. It barely gets remotely close to being good. I watched it online that's how I'm allowed to discuss this. Yes I did watch parts of the DLC portion, it gets worst.
MK1's original antagonist doesn't even make sense. Let me explain in the DLC portion of Story Mode in MK11. You actually had two possible endings. Fire God Liu Kang or Titan Shang Tsung wins. They actually somehow made both outcomes possible. It's virtually rigged regardless who won that. In canon outcome Fire God Liu Kang erased Shang Tsung from existence.
It did a terrible job explaining how he somehow survived that. I also prefer the guy who played the role in MK11. Who played the character in a few MK adaptations. Funny enough also played live action Heihachi Mishima in Tekken movies. This Shang Tsung altered many characters from their original paths for personal gain.
He does eventually get stopped. Which quickly led to Havoc from another universe. Yes here we go with this to cause chaos across the multiverse. This is coming more off as a desperate we need something or people playing it. Which is exactly among many reasons this portion of the game got heavily criticized for.
The big difference is how MK11 went about doing that. The DLC portion actually was concluding things. This is obviously never intended to do that. It's becoming more clear people really don't want more Story Mode to play. At this point they simply want the characters. Some prefers the online matches that's it.
I know this almost coming off like me reviewing the game. I really held in exactly how I felt about this game for a long time now. The even crazier part is I still haven't gotten to comparing it to MK Sega Genesis games yet. I was so focus painting this huge picture of distasteful I had. MK1 is constantly losing players fast.
This already becoming a sinking ship. Warner Brothers already limited to four franchises. None of which was Lego surprisingly enough. Considering how popular those licensed games are that's mind blowing. It's becoming more obvious they wanna rip people off. They don't care anymore what you think about their products.
Let's look at Gotham Knight and Suicide Squad as an example. Two notable flops that had Batman to some degree. You know things are bad when even Batman can't save ya. Considering Batman was in Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe as well as Injustice series, I can say that. They also wanna focus on Harry Potter and Game of Thrones.
I could understand Harry Potter since it's a very popular franchise. But Game of Thrones' ship kinda sailed following a lackluster conclusion to the show. They are struggling to keep fans going without Warner Brothers further screwing anything else up. I think it's getting to that point another company should be making MK games.
When I look at MK1, I barely seen Mortal Kombat at all. Which is terrible of me to say but it's very true. More true than I possibly ever begin to realize!!! It's so upsetting they are so willing to ruin things like this for money. The more I view this situation. The more I realized MK Sega Genesis games way better in comparison.
Yes I made that meme quite proud of it myself. Just when you think I'm done ripping MK1 to pieces no I'm not. There's plenty of reasons I rather play my main childhood MK games than this. For starters, you don't need any service to play online since that never was an option for em. Although through emulators you could play these MK games online just pointing that out there.
Obviously, these are the versions of the characters you love with a huge passion. There's little to no playable hidden characters among em. There's technically more unplayable hidden characters. Yes Sheeva gotten removed from UMK3 there. We ended up getting both Rain and Noob Saibot into the roster.
Not to mention that port automatically given us three previous hidden characters of the Arcade version by default. Originally you had to access a particular code screen to properly input a few long codes. Which can be quite frustrating to do. Ermac, Classic Sub-Zero and Mileena respectively. In both versions of MK3, there's another code that allows players to be the bosses.
Although you have to do versus matches to play as em. This was a little before Mortal Kombat Trilogy as well. Don't expect everything from the Arcade versions to be in these ports. Especially in MKII's case but still among the most fun ports of that game. It's kinda amazing everything you do get from the original versions.
MK1 did change some finishers. Unlike SNES version, there exists a blood code. This alone was enough to outsold that version. The actual MK team was busy with the games for the arcades. They couldn't work on a lot of ports. Probe Software ported several of their games to many platforms. They done the first two MK games as well as Primal Rage.
Sculptured Software made MK3 on Genesis. They also done the first three MK games on SNES. Avalanche Software finished out both systems with UMK3. Considering how decent these ports were for their time. It's still proof to a degree that other teams could make decent MK games. Sure there's a notable lack of pause feature.
The reason for this is start button actually used to swap punch and kick controls. When you're playing these MK games on a three button controller. Ideally you should use an six button controller. Sadly does nothing about the lack of being able to pause your MK games. I guess only through emulator pause if you're playing em that way.
In the audio department, these ports were absolutely amazing!!! I also liked all of them had their own cheat menus. Back when doing cheat codes was a huge thing in gaming. You get most of the characters right off the bat. MK3 games notably has even more finishers. Which was quite impressive they gotten that many of the finishers into those ports.
Also being on cartridges means no load times. The games instantly loads into more matches. In game size wise all of them together would be just short of 1GB. A lot smaller than MK1's ridiculous game size without DLCs. I really don't wanna remove all the games I have installed just for one huge game!!! Not only that some surprises you won't find anywhere as well.
This is mostly MKII, there's some secret animations from the team as well as Fergality. Fergus McGovern through cheats cameo in many Probe games. Yes that includes MK1 as one of many shadow figures moving during the background of The Pit stage as a huge floating head. Stuff like this is becoming rare in modern gaming.
You mostly have Arcade Mode with MK3 games having a few modes. Sometimes less is more very true in this case. Overall all the rosters works way better than MK1's. Even knowing a lot of stuff didn't make it to these ports you aren't disappointed. It's easily to say some truly impressive ports. Easily among the best fighting games Sega Genesis had without question.
All of them felt like true MK games. The best part is you don't even need to buy anything additional at all. What's stuff like The Treasures of Shao Kahn at? Either beating the game or winning tournament mode in UMK3's case gives you choices. Each one has stuff including character's endings. Some of those choices are difficult, hidden fights.
Who remembers Supreme Fatality Demonstration? Now it was awesome to see most of the finishers done in a row. I'm aware MK1 has Test Your Might. I also could argue since MK11 made the mini game a joke. MK1's Test Your Might is very intense. It's so satisfying to break harder stuff. You simply felt more proud of yourself winning those.
The gore level is truly amazing for these ports as well. Personally for once I felt MK1 going a bit too overboard with the fatalities. Even character selection screens back then looks better than MK1's. I just now realizing how much of a true step down MK1 truly is. Sure The Krypt didn't exist in those games. Let's be honest, this mode differs a lot with the series.
My favorite version of that mode so happens to be in Mortal Kombat: Deception. You also got to realize back then unlocking stuff wasn't common among fighting games. What's better than simply have everything by default right? Going back to playing as the bosses, you can play as Motaro in versus matches.
Which is way better than him being an Kameo character. Surprisingly better than him being an Minotaur in Mortal Kombat: Armageddon. You rather simply play as him end of story. I kinda like General Shao but still prefer Shao Kahn!!! End of the day, areas MK1 should be pushing new boundaries for.
Just isn't cutting it while in other ways finally became what we all feared to happen. MK1 marks when the franchise became something us fans don't want anymore. We previously felt this with many MK rip offs. Then again I'm a bigger Tekken fan myself. The original timeline to me was the best. The second timeline with MK11 being the monkey wrench notably better than this!!!
Another major thing I liked more about these Genesis games is their cover arts. Also I am a bit nostalgic for Genesis cases as well. MK1 comes off as that spoiled rich kid. You know the kid that gets everything until something very bad happens. Suddenly they get knocked back into reality. I strongly felt MK1 desperately needs that right now.
In all honestly, these ports are more worth your time and money than MK1. They still hold up amazingly well. I simply prefer the usage of characters in those ports. MK1 is a gigantic disappointment that's somehow kept getting worst. I refuse to support the franchise unless they change this.
By the way, yes I'm also glad SFVI beating MK1 to a bloody pulp. At least, they are being somewhat creative. They are making classic SF characters refreshing to play as. Some rather interesting newer SF characters as well. A great story mode among many things. Obviously I'll play this and Tekken 8 over MK1.
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