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Thoughts on

Thoughts on guest characters in MORTAL KOMBAT, 2011-2019

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Guest characters and crossovers in fighting games is a tradition almost as old as the genre itself – Ryo Sakazaki was a secret “Dream Match” boss fight in FATAL FURY SPECIAL, Gouki was a secret playable character in X-MEN: CHILDREN OF THE ATOM, and the entire premise of THE KING OF FIGHTERS ’94 was seeing characters from a bunch of different SNK games share the screen with each other. Although the idea mostly started with developers having their characters make unexpected appearances for a goof, with time the concept of guest characters has increasingly become a means of cross-promoting other brands.

You could easily write an entire lexicon of guest characters, crossovers and cameos in video games, but today I wanted to focus on the various guests we’ve seen over the years in MORTAL KOMBAT. While by no means the first, MORTAL KOMBAT kind of ushered in the modern era of bringing in high-profile guest characters, especially as paid DLC – a practice which isn’t always well received by series fans, but unlikely to stop any time soon given that the guests consistently outsell any other character DLC.

My personal standpoint on guest characters in general is that it can be a bit of fun, but also a bit of a bummer for sure. In the case of MORTAL KOMBAT, I’m definitely in the crowd who will always have a ton of legacy MK characters I’d love to see over any potential guests, and I do find it disappointing to see guests making out a full 50% of the DLC lineup in recent MKs. That said, given that it’s inevitable at this point, I don’t find much reason in getting too worked up about it – If we’re getting characters I didn’t ask for, I’ll at least hope they are well done and incorporated well into the game! So as we’re waiting for the latest batch of guests to show up in MK11, I thought I’d take a look back at the last decade of MORTAL KOMBAT guests.

Continue reading Thoughts on guest characters in MORTAL KOMBAT, 2011-2019 →

Just Musin'

Ten characters I really want to see return in Mortal Kombat 11

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So, I recently wrote a post with a bunch of collected thoughts and speculation on MORTAL KOMBAT 11, but to be perfectly frank the real reason I wanted to write about MK11 was basically to talk about my personal wish list for what (or who) I would like to see in the game. Leave it to a verbose dimwit like me to spend 1,700 words without ever getting to the point! But hey, this way I get to spin off this wish list nonsense into its own post, which is probably for the better, anyway.

A few minor notes before we get started:

  • This is a list of who I want to see in MK11 – but I’ll make note of how likely I think each of these guys are to actually make it into the game
  • I’m operating under the assumption that all purported “leaks” are inaccurate, or at the very least not worth acknowledging until corroborated by official announcements
  • The list is not in order of who I’d like to see more or less, or any other particular order for that matter

All right, so without further ado, let’s get on to the list!

Continue reading Ten characters I really want to see return in Mortal Kombat 11 →

Reckless Speculation

Mortal Kombat Eleven

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At The Game Awards a couple of weeks back, MORTAL KOMBAT 11 was announced to the world. As a long-time fan of the MK series, and especially the most recent instalments, the news that the latest incarnation is coming – and soon! – was great indeed. NRS are keeping things close to their chest as usual, so for now we don’t know a whole lot about MK11. So let’s recklessly speculate and express some wishful thinking, shall we?

First off, there’s been a number of supposed “leaks” surrounding certain details about the game, including the character roster, game modes, and whatever else, dating back to well before the game was officially (or even unofficially) announced.  So far though, I personally haven’t seen anything leaked that has since turned out to be true, or couldn’t reasonably be guessed – at this point all the “leaked” info I’ve seen has been conflicting with other “leaked” info, and/or been of the nature that we can’t know what’s accurate until it’s corroborated by official reveals. So long story short: I’m largely ignoring all “leaks” for the time being. Continue reading Mortal Kombat Eleven →