If you grew up in the 90's and witnessed the birth and current state of Mortal Kombat, that means that you have seen many, many characters come and go. From Johnny Cage making his exit for advertising another game, to Hsu Hao coming and going like a bad smell, there are a great deal of idiotic and brilliant characters. Some concepts panned out really well and have become staples of the series, some of the concepts died just as fast as they could be brought to the table.
There are going to be two lists, that is just a matter of time. There are entirely too many things to consider throughout the series and the spectrum goes way too high and low to ignore. Where there is this top character list, there might as well be a doorway for a top 20 worst characters list.
Make up your own list if you disagree with this one. No, I don't know your opinion or which characters you hold dear. You hold those characters to your heart and be sure to PLEASE make your own list if you want to. Otherwise, enjoy this free entertainment. You're welcome, internet. FINISH ME!
Ermac
Who doesn't love the red ninja with telekinesis? Really, what draws this character to #10 is that he has quite the original backstory and has a very strange presence that brings about a unique characteristic of having multiple souls in one body. These souls are used to pick people up and throw them in various ways, or sometimes just rip them apart. Ermac is based off of an Error Macro character who came about from a glitch, but it was untrue. The developers made it true anyway. Yes, sometimes development lore is just as interesting, if not more than the story itself.
Kitana
Princess of Outworld and beautiful warrior in her own right. Many will attest to hating her because she ousted Shao Kahn as the Empress of Outworld. Despite stupid history rewrites from stupid and meaningless expansions of stories that are erased anyway, Kitana should have been Empress. She was his daughter, Sindel was dead. What does not make sense? Either way, Kitana was awesome in her own right. She has a very simple move list and some awesome fatalities. Even though her relationship with Liu Kang was never any good, she's still just an interesting character overall.
Mileena
Where Kitana is the honorable, studious pupil, Mileena is her trash-talking, party animal of a sister who gets detention all the time. Despite her Tarkatan DNA, she is just a spectacle to look at. Yes, her character design has been rather scantily clad, but her fatalities and various moves make her an even better sight to behold. Her history of being Kitana's clone and then trying to find her way through life after Shao Kahn dies could have been a lot more fleshed out. It seems like she was robbed of character archs, but she was still one of the best parts of MK9 Story Mode. She brought about a craziness that was just downright fun and she has sais! Sais are awesome!
Noob Saibot
Bi Han, or the original Sub-Zero, was transformed into a black ninja of the shadows after he was killed. Whether he was killed by Scorpion or not is apparently fluid. Either way, this guy is awesome in many ways, mostly with the clone moves and the dark, sinister back story with Quan Chi creating him. Yes, his two names are the names of the creators of MK backwards, and that's cool. Still, that takes a backseat to how he played through Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and Mortal Kombat 9. The latter has some of his best fatalities.
Goro
This was the true nemesis from the first game, as far as Planet Virtua is concerned. He was the most imposing and he had the harder fight between the two, him and Shang Tsung. This mountain of muscle just brings about an iconic presence for Mortal Kombat as a franchise and it would have been cool to see him more throughout the games, though he is not exactly neglected. It's really awesome to be able to play as him in Trilogy and X, and let's just be thankful we got as much of him as we did because it doesn't look like he's going to be in many future installments. Shiva's boss as well, so it's cool.
Frost
This Sub-Zero offshoot would have been higher on this list if it weren't for her terrible iteration from MK11. She has her own style of the Lin Quei technique and she has to be one of the best characters from Armageddon. It would have been nice for her to have a place in the reboot earlier, because her story had potential that just wasn't used. Still, she is a lot of fun to play and feels like a fun alternative to Sub-Zero in Armageddon. In MK11, it's just a constant reminder of how stories can go terribly wrong. Frost deserved better.
Raiden
Thankfully, his iteration of MK, where he is a wreckless god who destroys Earth with a Godly party, was never used in future titles. Raiden gets a bad reputation because of his constant reliance of the Elder Gods. Honestly, it seems more like he was given the raw deal while the gods did nothing to help, like they apparently claimed they would. This guy has an awesome set of moves with lightning and his wondrous sounding torpedo "ABIGADEY!!!!" or whatever it is. His semi-evil state was pretty dumb both times it happened. If you wanted him to go back to being a drunk god, then just go back ot it! Raiden has been done dirty a lot throughout the series, but overall, he has been a lot of fun to play and has remained one of the wiser and more level-headed characters, usually.
Reptile
One of the big shocker characters! Imagine watching him being played at an arcade, and then Fatality comes up on the screen. He pulls off his mask and licks off Jax's head! The reveal that he really was a reptile hyped him up big time in the beginning. Sadly, his character design has bobbed up and down many times throughout the series, and not all of his moves are the greatest. Still, he has been the best part of the story in many iterations and his Fatalities are that of legend. He turned into a monkey for an Animality! It's true!
Scorpion
One of the most iconic characters of the series and one of the big characters that caused MK3 to turn into UMK3 with his exclusion. The fans were furious when he was not in Mortal Kombat 3 because they wanted to change up the cast of characters. The backlash was so bad, they released a bigger and more awesome game soon after. Scorpion's one-liners, fatalities, special moves, character design, backstory, just about everything about him screams LEGEND! He's the best part of movies and his chain spike has become a staple of ninja pop culture.
Sub-Zero
While the battle between Scorpion and Sub-Zero has taken both sides, Planet Virtua is going blue. His fatality was the biggest factor in the creation of the ESRB. Sub-Zero's power is one of the coolest parts of watching any of the series or movies, no matter how terrible they might actually be. Whether he be the first Sub-Zero, his brother or the Cyborg iteration from MK9, Sub-Zero wins on this list. Scorpion is legendary, well, there's a reason why Sub-Zero has an equally as powerful fanbase. His character design is very simple (unless you count Deception) and his fatalities can range from breaking frozen people to stabbing various sized ice spikes into people. Oh, yeah and maybe ripping out their SPINAL CHORD!!!!
You might be asking "But wait! There are no characters or designs from the new MK1 from the very current and relevant year of 2024!" Well, for one thing, that's not a question, and for another, no, there's not. Not only have I not played it, I don't own a PS5 and I don't have ridiculous amounts of Gigabytes of space to cram it into my computer. Could my CPU handle it? Probably. Could crap go wrong? Most assuredly! So instead of spending 60 or 70 Galleons on it, I've decided to make this list with my own knowledge and nothing else.
As said before, if you don't like my list, make your own, and if you don't like one or two of my choices, that's life. These are the characters that I grew up with and the ones that kept returning for more bloody, gory action. They are the ones that have been truly chosen and there will be more MK very soon. Right around Kombat Time!!!!
