The Superman Video Game Conundrum

Superman is a double-edged sword, no matter how you look at him. One edge, he is kind, uses his strength to save the innocent civilians and does as little damage to the city as possible when he has very large fights. On the other edge, Superman is overpowered, his storyline has been booted and rebooted to the point where a "true canon" is nearly non-existant, and he is just a very hard character to write for. No matter how you look at it, being the first superhero comic book ever made Superman the equivalent to unmolded clay. He didn't even fly at first, he just jumped long distances. It was a later comic book writer who finally just said that he could fly. Then he got every single power known to man. He is powered by the yellow sun, almost completely indestructible, with super speed, super strength, X-ray vision and laser eyes. Some of his powers were brought from even more obscure places, like being able to hear from across the entire world, materializing brick from his "Brick Vision" on top of having a photographic memory, the ability to slow his pulse to make it look like he was dead while he healed and the list goes on and on and on. 

From a writer's standpoint, Superman was a ticking timebomb. It is nearly impossible to stay loyal to such a wide and expanding source material when not even the original company can't seem to get such a laundry list of powers right. It got to the point where they were pulling any power out of thin air in order to give Superman the edge, then his powers get rebooted and he either gains a new power or loses one of his powers he once had. 

With all of that in mind, try thinking up game mechanics around such a broad spectrum. Think about what would be considered thugs that could bring him down. The NES Superman game made him vulnerable to bullets. Maybe they were kryptonite bullets? There really needed to be some nonsensicle terms in order to get Superman on board without him flying into space and laserbeaming his opponent from orbit. Here was a superhero that can literally take down armies within seconds and you are now tasked to make a game that would be considered challenging with such a character. 

Superman for the Nintendo 64 came up with the very stupid idea of having Superman sent into a virtual world that looked like Metropolis (?) and the air is filled with kryptonite so you can't... do... powers.... Look, no one bought it when they devs said it. The real problem with this whole scenario is that Superman for the 64 is considered the worst game on the system, but there is a game of similar quality for the XBox/PS2, Superman Shadow of Apokolips. 

You fight robots but you can't use any attacks except for the attacks that hurt certain minions. They can't be bothered to come up with any reason to explain why Superman can't scrap this entire army of bots, it just gives you the jankiest controls with which to make the attempt. This game is a meaningless waste of time with the worst game mechanics and 3D cut scenes known to the Playstation 2. It really seems like one of the worst problems with Superman games is his flight. Where Nights Into Dreams and Mario 64 who seemed to get the flying mechanics down to a science years before, Superman games just can't seem to get them right. 

While there haven't been any stand-alone Superman games to reach critical or commercial success, the Justice League games involving him usually turn out pretty decent. Nether Realm Studio's Injustice games actually use him to much more of his potential. They just come up with the plot device of people taking super pills and being able to actually hurt him with their bare fists. Yes, this is the lengths they need to go to to sidestep that little problem of him being able to liquify them with a backhand. 

What needs to be done to create a Superman game that actually works, obviously there needs to be a good story, but there also needs to be an enemy that can hurt him while also being able to keep up with his speed and universally overpowered strength. Pulling off such dangerous opponents would be very tricky to write around without getting too violent. The whole idea is not to nerf Superman's powers to an inconsiderate rate. Using his powers that make sense while also having the power to demolish entire structures with a punch is what every Superman fan has dreamed about. Giving him short distant super speed and ice breath would also be a great bonus in this mechanic.

Bringing on Doomsday as a final opponent, or even Darkseid would be preferable after a long storyline, using them as a climax. Batman v Superman the movie could have worked as a video game if you added in some more main line DC villains. Brainiac has been a little over used as of late, but he could also be executed brilliantly in terms for a Superman adventure game. Without a very deep understanding of video games or a deeper understanding of the comic book super hero character, you're not going to go far with the fans. Mixing and matching storylines for a video game is acceptable, so long as you keep it fun. 

That's the key detail, whether the game is fun or not. If we don't feel like Superman, then the game takes a terrible hit. Perfecting Superman's power level in comparison to the villains is paramount but perfecting his character is equally as important. It's these huge, mounting details that befuddles video game developers to no end. This would require an entire team with a solid gameplan and a considerable budget to accomplish. It's this reason that makes it seem like you just can't get Superman right in a game while Batman has ever growing potential, given his brilliant and strong mortal status. It's Superman's own power that destroys him, ultimately, and the free wielding way comic book writers treated him like a literal god in terms of his infinite number of powers. Come up with a solid formula for him and you might be able to release something that will surprise everyone who said it couldn't happen. Until then, he still has an awesome animated series and a good number of comic book storylines. There's a ton of things that make Superman great already, I guess video games are just too magical a concept.

Street Fighter the Movie (1994) - Video Game Cheese

We don't really need to go into how terrible video game movies were and how bad of a reputation they accumulated back in the late 80's and early 90's. While they weren't all the worst movies to come out, some of them very much earned this terrible reception. Street Fighter was one of those movies that brought this about, but many will tell you, it is not the worst of the bunch. It's bad, don't make any mistake on that, but it still had a campy charm that people still look upon fondly. This was in an age when video games were pulling anything and everything out of thin air in order to promote their properties. This included making movies, TV series, soundtracks and toys of all sorts. 

Street Fighter was written in a very short amount of time and that shows. In this movie, there are a very select few fights that people actually want to see. There are a ton of side plots and wasted characters all over this entire film. T. Hawk does next to absolutely nothing and he looks nothing like his video game counterpart. Dee Jay is equally as useless, but at least he had some amusing lines. Fei Long is in the movie for maybe five seconds. Why were they in the film? So they could say that they were there. On top of that, the all American Guile is played by Belgian superstar, Jean-Claude Van Damme. He looks the part but really, his accent is so thick, it's hard to even know what he's saying some of the time. 

There is no Street Fighter tournament. Instead, it's all about wartime hostages and America coming to help a country fight against Shadaloo, led by M. Bison. He is asking for ridiculous amounts of money or he is going to kill them. Instead, Guile leads an army to go and fight him, even though he has an army of his own and huge amounts of security surrounding his country. Then, there's Sagat trying to get in on M. Bison's plan so that he can get large amounts of money in the weapon trade. Then there's Chun Li going undercover as a news reporter to get revenge on Bison for killing her father. Then there's a sideplot Ryu and Ken are trying to go undercover to help Guile fight against Bison. Then there's Charlie getting turned into Blanca, even though it's not part of the actual lore of Street Fighter. There are so many of these little plots that go absolutely nowhere and it's just dizzying. It leaves so little room for actual, meaningful plots or combat scenes. 

Now, for the good things about this movie. M. Bison's portrayal by Raul Julia is seen as a highlight. He is having so much fun with the role, even though he was sadly suffering from horrible pain thanks to his terminal cancer. This was his final role and that is a legendary way to go out. Not only is this movie terrible, but he is seen as an element that sends this movie into a cult classic masterpiece. It really shows how amazing that man was all the way to the very end. His scenes are just fun to watch because he understood the assignment the entire way through. This is especially true for the final fight with Guile. Even if he could not exert himself because of his illness, he still pulled it off and that's partly due to the director doing the best he could with the scene itself. 

Balrog and E. Honda were fun because the actors obviously had good chemistry as chums. Their scenes are few but they are decent. Then Zangief is seen as another highlight, as he is just plain dumb, but he looked the part so well. He had some good lines here and there, but he is, once again, just not featured enough. Chun Li should have also been featured more, but with such a bloated cast, you get the idea, it was just too much for one movie to handle. 

This movie was pretty popular for its time, but it isn't exactly looked upon fondly. This film is the text book example of a "turn your brain off and enjoy" movie. If you don't think about it and just take it scene by scene, it's actually a good time. Take it for its good parts and maybe put it on as a bit of background noise. It didn't do the video game movie genre any favors, but at least it wasn't Double Dragon. No, seriously, screw Double Dragon.

Top 160+ Favorite Games of all time! (Pt 3)

We continue with the list and WOW has it been a little more difficult than I thought. Writing twenty paragraphs isn't so bad, but trying to remember things about this game to comment on was more challenging than expected. All of these games have gotten tons of play time, but there were some that I haven't played in years. While I was able to replay a good number of them, not all of them are readily available for everyone to re-experience. It's sad, but that's the game industry. Anyway, on with the last of the games before we enter the top 100! Onward!

#119 Virtua Fighter 4

When you want a great fighter on the PS2 and are tired of Mortal Kombat Deception, Virtua Fighter released a fantastic title just for you! You want to fight on a single player ranking system and fight in arcades? Then get ready to revisit one of Sega's most awesome franchises. They're all here, from Jeffry to Pai-chan! Its graphics only got better from title to title, and the controls never faltered. Virtua Fighter stood tall from console to console and PS2 is no different. You still get the fast pace punch, kick and throw action you want and that's how it's always going to be

#118 Mortal Kombat X

While it is not as good as Mortal Kombat 9, this title still delivered on a lot of fronts. The storyline isn't anything to write home about and the idea of death in the series has become something of a joke, but the fatalities and a lot of the new characters added bring a lot to the table. The character designs on the women can be seen as a bit of a downgrade, thanks to some public outcry, but the graphics and the gameplay are still very solid. It's good to see a lot of these returning characters they brought back and a lot of the different gameplay keeps it fresh. A lot of good jokes came from this title and even some of the DLC characters are greatly appreciated, including Leatherface and even the playable Goro!

#117 Doom 64

Doom has gone through several different versions, moderations, and iterations, but none of them are quite as unique as Doom 64. This Doom does focus on killing monsters and demons, but it also has a strange quality to its puzzles and map quirks. The entire game was far different than people thought it would be, thinking it was just another port to another system, but it was different in so many ways. The monsters and tone were so unique, it's basically considered its own separate entity. Some people consider it the true Doom 3, but there are others who wouldn't consider it that, thinking it was far too different. Still, we here at Planet Virtua consider it a strong entry to the Classic Doom franchise. That should be good enough.

#116 Dragon Quest XI

Although the story is a bit taxing to keep up with, Dragon Quest 11 is a lot of fun, and the characters make up for a lot of its shortcomings. The graphics are quite strong and the setting is absolutely beautiful. It has that beautiful character design we know Toriyama for and that is enough to put it on this list as a strong entry. While it is quite linear, it's still a very dynamic and long run from beginning to end. It goes through many different places and you meet many different characters that decide to join you on your journey.

#115 Mega Man X

Perhaps the greatest followup to a thriving series. Mega Man 2 is the greatest of the original series, Mega Man X is unmatched in its own series of games. This game has an introduction that's actually fun, and the gameplay can be so wonderfully challenging. I had a lot of problems getting through some of these levels before I finally got better with the controls, which are easy to learn but hard to master. X is a character design marvel, who joins the Mega Man team as something of an upgrade, and the two of them take on the likes of Dr. Wily and Sigma. If you are a fan of the franchise, this title is obligated to be played. 

#114 Doom 3

This was a divisive title, but it has many charms of its own. Not only does the BFG edition for consoles include Doom and Doom 2, but once you accept this as a survival horror, it's a lot more attractive as a game. This was the first game in the franchise to be fully rendered with all new 3D graphics compliments of John Carmack and what little remained of the original ID team. The look of this game was so advanced that it made PC's of the time cry constantly and the darkness that you explore has some very stylized horror elements that you just can't help but love. As a Doom game, it's lacking a bit. As a stand-alone offshoot of the series, it's more entertaining as a thriller along with being a slower shooter. 

#113 Luigi's Mansion

So few consoles ever have such an amazing initial title. Luigi's Mansion is iconic of the Gamecube. While in the Mario Franchise, Luigi's Mansion is darker with completely different but equally enthralling gameplay. You need to use evolving and complicated techniques to defeat high level ghosts as well as ghost bosses. Seeing all of the different types of ghosts and boos is a lot of fun and Luigi became something of a great character on his own merit thanks to this series of games. Even after three whole games, this little spinoff series still retains its outward charm.

#112 Duke Nukem 3D

Both the Sega Saturn and PC version of this game are more than worthy of being your first ports to play. Even on the N64, this game keeps its great charm of being a "Doom Clone" done correctly. Duke Nukem is trying to save the women of the world from a bunch of different aliens invading the Earth. You can use both rocket and alien technology to take on these pigs and squids, and you steal one-liners while doing it. This is required playing for anyone who wants a good "Boomer Shooter" showing off the game engine's true capabilities. 

#111 Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Love the 80's? Love stealing digital cars from NPC's? Can't get enough crime from game crime bosses? Head down to Vice City and play a plethora of minigames and shootouts while you take it over! When it comes to the GTA series, this is one of the great titles. Playstation 2 was graced with this awesome title to great effect. The city is expansive and plays among the greats when it comes to a sandbox game. It's more of a great thing in the series and don't forget to take in those retro vibes of a bygone era. Rad.

#110 Batman: Arkham City

The peak of the Arkham series. Going through this entire cityscape of Gotham is an absolute joy as you ram your fists into the faces of criminals along the way. Two-Face, Catwoman, Clayface, Harley Quinn and an ever deminishing Joker. Thanks to taking too much Titan Venom in the first game, Joker finds himself trying to find a cure and he's going to have Batman help him whether he likes it or not. The twist in the final act is awesome and the gameplay is just Arkham Asylum with a wider scope. You are Batman, now go boot faces!

#109 Hrot

There are few games where I have poored so many hours into nothing but the Endless Mode. Hrot is one of those games because it just has a very addictive style to its gameplay. You're equipped with a lot of DOOM like weapons and amplifying damage/speed powerups to take down some very strange soldiers and creatures. All of the humans have gasmasks because it's a post-nuclear apocalypse. Everything is a shade of brown or dull gray and everything is also powered by PASCAL, which is a very difficult programming language. It still looks so old-school and Quake-like, but it also has such an interesting level design to each episode. If you're up for a great modern Boomer Shooter, this is your game. 

#108 Mortal Kombat 11

This game fixes just as much as it destroys in the MK Lore. Mortal Kombat 11 takes everything from both MK9 and MKX while also adding a very disjointed multiverse/time travel plotline. Though there are some great playable characters, there's also some not-so-great new characters. Either way, the game mechanics are improved with a new way to do x-ray moves plus an awesome array of new backgrounds. The story mechanic of bringing back dead characters, though, is still unfortunately still here. It's a mixed bag, but what edges it onto this list is the great gameplay and controls in its fighting classical towers.  

#107 Hogwarts Legacy

There are a lot of great things about bringing your own created character into the world of Harry Potter and being able to achieve a great deal of power along with all of the unforgiveable curses. This game's story is not great and its characters are more miss than hit, but the way you can explore the country side and take down dark magic users along with dark creatures is just a fantastic time waster. The ending when you achieve the OWLs is underwhelming, but the fact that you can play with dark magic and explosions in the arena mechanic is just beautiful. Creating your own Room of Requirement and customizing your own outfit is a lot of fun. This may be the Harry Potter fan talking here, but I will say this game is not for everyone. There's still a lot to explore and do in this beautiful world the devs created. 

#106 Resident Evil 4

When you want to kill infected people who not only attack you but also put hoods on in order to do so with chainsaws, RE4 is your game! Fighting the different creatures, playing through the story and using your own weapons in order to survive this dangerous world will get you to clench against your seat. You go up against huge monsters and whole barrages of deadly, mindless villagers to the point where it is downright exhausting at times. Save the girl and bring her out of the danger zone, but do not expect to get out unscathed. This is definitely one of the best Resident Evil titles, period.

#105 Saints Row: The Third

Many will argue this point, but I consider this one of my absolute favorite Saints Row titles. This was when they really started to lean into the craziness of the entire franchise, which it was already getting into in the second installment. In here, you fight titans of other gangs as well as some extra powerful arsenals which include, but are not limited to grenade launchers, armored vehicles and high tech guns. While it still has the annoying obligated mini games and some annoying tasks here and there, it's still a fun game overall. The story is crazier and the Saints are hilarious sellouts, but they still come off as bad ass, as they should.

#104 Jet Set Radio

When the gameplay shines brighter than everything else, but everything else is still great, you've got an awesome game. Jet Set Radio (or Jet Grind Radio in the states) was one of the earliest games on the Dreamcast, and it brought the system out in a state of greateness. The mechanics are challenging but also a lot of fun, and the characters are just the 90's coming forth to show you how awesome it truly can be. The graphics are cell shaded and stylized in an anime form that is simple but still really cool. You can customize your own graffiti and you can make a name for your character as you spread the name all across the city. 

#103 Resident Evil

Sometimes, you just need to go with the original. This title is great while also being flawed. The tank controls need a lot of getting used to and the voice acting was hysterically bad. The graphics did not age well, but that has never concerned us here at Planet Virtua. This is still a dark toned, crazy rendition of the survival horror genre, which was nearing infancy at the time. It set the bar high right off the bat. It wiped Alone in the Dark off the map and drilled its own name into the hearts of gamers all over the world. It also brought us zombie tropes and monsters that are still used and referenced heavily to this day. If you're brave enough and are sure you know what you're getting into, this game is highly recommended.

#102 X-men Origins: Wolverine

One of the very few examples of a game that not only was a great movie tie-in game, but even out shined its own film in every way. This game throws its source material out the window, as it should and showed its greatness in its own way. You are Wolverine and you are cutting through the baddies in gloriously gory combat segments while also figuring out your way through forests and rough turrains. The abilities you use make you feel like the killer himself and you do great feats of violence that are nothing less than therapeutic. If you doubted this game because of the movie it's based on, perish the thought. Give this game a try if you're willing and able.

#101 The Orange Box

Half-life 2 has had a very interesting history in its long, fabled release. For some reason, they packaged it along with Team Fortress 2 and Portal, which kind of makes this title a shining example of a compilation. Portal, even when it was basically a throw-away title that they just slapped on as an extra, became a fan favorite and still has a cult following to this day. As a Team Fortress Classic fan, TF2 was a lot of fun to come into contact with, because it was everything you loved about the original game with a new paint job and some very colorful characters on top of that. Half-Life 2 is everything you loved about the first game with a tweaked physics engine and a whole new slew of levels to power through. It all culminated into an amazing collection of titles that is still beloved to this day. 

#100 Sonic Adventure

Sonic is one of the few success stories when it came to his debut in glorious 3D! This awesome title took Sonic and threw him into a completely new adventure with brand new villains. While it is far from perfect, it's just great to see how dynamic your control over the blue hedgehog is. This game is long and a lot of it can be rather challenging, but there is just that nostalgic luster all over the graphics and it can go so far as to make you fall in love with Sega's favorite mascot all over again. This game is just flat out fun and while it's obviously not perfect, the overall experience is more than worth it.

Virtuamehameha #4 - Dragon Ball - Neptune Origins

 If you look back at the history of Dragon Ball, you'll see it goes all the way back to the 80's. Our sensei, Akira Toriyama taught us a lot of things. He created characters, villains, and an entire world to go along with unforgettable stories of fighters and friendship. Even in America, Dragon Ball has had a very interesting history. It began with the original series when Funimation and Saban got the rights to Dragon Ball's broadcast in the states. Funimation did not originally use their voice acting studio, instead they outsourced to Ocean in Canada. This started with the first movie and 10 or so episodes of Dragon Ball, but that proved to not become so popular at the time. 

Instead, they started again with Dragon Ball Z on small television stations in America, and I just so happened to catch this entire series in its first run. The first image I ever saw was when Gohan headbutted Raditz with overwhelming power for a five year old. This started with a terrible schedule every Sunday at around 7 am. Still, the first season when the Saiyans came to Earth was one of the greatest in the entire series. When we first meet Vegeta, we had no idea he would be one of the most prominent Z Warriors, as well as a fan favorite. With Brian Drummond as his voice actor, he came up with one of the largest memes on the internet. "It's Over 9000" became another fan favorite after DBZ hit Toonami with his original English VA. 

Overall what we consider the "Rock the Dragon" collection of episodes is up to each individual fan. Here at Planet Virtua, we consider these episodes superior in the ways of voice acting. However, it was far too censored to be considered objectively better in every way. If Saban is known for anything, it's the editing and censoring it did to the original Ocean Dub episodes. Hell was now known as HFIL (Home for the Infinite Losers) and being killed was changed to being "Sent to the Next Dimension"! Blood was covered up with effects paint, some of it being very obvious, and there was to be absolutely no nudity, cigarettes or alcohol of any kind. 

Once again, these episodes are amazing, but they are also a very funny meme in many different ways. The censoring is comical in so many ways and have been parodied by old school DBZ fans for years. Once Cartoon Network added Dragon Ball Z to its Toonami run, the series exploded! It very quickly took over the internet with literal millions of websites. The Dragon Ball fan community was such a wide sensation that once it started to hit the USA in the ways of VHS and merchandise, needless to say it was sold out very quickly. Kids came home from school to watch it in its first three seasons before it started to rerun. 

The reruns seemed to go on forever, but soon it was clear that they were working diligently to bring us the conclusion to the Freeza Saga, along with Cell Games and Buu. However, the biggest change to the series, along with the nixing of much censoring, was that now there was a whole new voice actor cast list. Chris Sabat was selected to take over the voice of Vegeta... along with half of the character cast. Needless to say, it took a while for these voice actors to come into their characters and it took even longer for Ocean Dub fans to get used to the new English cast. 

To say that it was a much longer story would be an understatement, but it was such a fun ride. There were theories on how the series would end, but by the time we got much of Dragon Ball Z in the states, but in Japan, Dragon Ball GT had already ended in 1997. GT was a huge disappointment, but we'll get to that in another article. Still, from the beginning of Dragon Ball all the way to the end of the Cell Saga, there was a great masterclass in how to make an action series. Even with the excess in yelling, even with the recap episodes, and filler episodes, this whole enormous section was worth revisiting over and over again. 

Goku has become an icon of Japan and anime fans everywhere, and for good reason. His journey to become the greatest still has not ended because fans just keep wanting more Dragon Ball. Should it probably have ended by now? Yeah, the series has become a shadow of its former self. It was a lot better when it as a martial arts comedy adventure. With the passing of the Sensei himself, it's a comfort to know that his masterpiece was immortalized in the hearts of millions. Just remember to give it a watch and bring a Dino Cap of water.

Mortal Kombat (1995) - In the Beginning

When everyone said that video game movies could never be good and they'll never make a good video game in a feature film, Mortal Kombat was the argument. This was a movie that actually did its homework and made a decent Mortal Kombat movie, though it was still stocked with issues. While they did do a good production with a good cast of characters, the film was still almost wholly bloodless and not even remotely as graphic as its video game counterpart. 

Anyone will tell you that this game gets the practical effects down very well, but when it comes to CGI, this movie fell very short. Reptile looks like a pixelated Dreamcast game character, and there were maybe three or four special moves involving a tiny bit of special effects. Goro, on the other hand, was a very well produced effect through costume and animatronics. They make him look like he is in the scene, aside from his final scene. 

Another stark point in this movie's favor is the cast. Robin Shou was in some very low budget action movies before this, and he would turn out to be one of its better actors. Beyond that, many will tell you that this movie features the best Shang Tsung. Apart from that, Raiden is also among his best performances with Christopher Lambert. He brought a silly light hearted bit of character into the scene, while also offering guidance and wisdom. 

The fighting scenes are hit and miss, while thankfully being mostly hits. It's worth it to see Scorpion and Sub-Zero, but it would have been nice to see them fight like their video game lore states rather than being "servants" under Shang Tsung. Scorpion has some of the best scenes, especially in his fight with Johnny Cage. While some of the fight scenes start off well, many of them do not have the most fulfilling ending. Many will cite the Liu Kang fight with Sub-Zero when it comes to disappointing endings. 

This Mortal Kombat movie has several problems, but they can be chocked up to a simple writing problem or lack of budget. This was not given a great amount of money, but they obviously did a lot with what they had. The sets look very good and otherworldly like they should. The costume designs were also convincing on a level you didn't often see because no one took video game movies seriously. Paul W.S. Anderson did a great job with this movie, but it's obvious that he wouldn't have done much better with it, given what he did to the Resident Evil movie series. 

It's hard to say what W.S. Anderson would have done with the sequel movie, but many will tell you that it would probably be better than the movie we got. When this movie came out, Mortal Kombat II was on its way out the door to make way for Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. The first movie's plot focuses on the first Mortal Kombat game, but differs a great deal on a few details. While it does have teasings of going with Mortal Kombat II next, but instead, the sequel skipped onto Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Did it do this well? Well no, but check out Mortal Kombat Annihilation in the next review to see how bad it can get.  

Virtua Kombat #2 - The Lore Breaking Mortal Kombat 11

The Mortal Kombat lore has always been a bit of a mess. Well, that's being too generous. It's been a disaster. At first, it started pretty simple, Scorpion wanted revenge on Sub-Zero, everyone wanted to win the tournament and Raiden wanted to have a party for the gods that destroy the Earth (realm). Okay that last one was retconned for good reason, but you get the idea. One big running theme, though, are the elder gods that enforce the rules unless you're evil. If you're evil, you get a free ride to do whatever you want until it's conveniant for the plot to say otherwise.

(Spoiler Alert for MK9 through MK1)

The story has been hard reset. The Playstation 2 3D games ended with Armageddon and were given a new beginning through Mortal Kombat 9. Now, it's not like they did a great job with the hard reset, because they ended up killing off 80% of the characters throughout the story... again. There was a horrific cut scene of Sindel just walking through, bonking everyone on the head and killing them easily before being killed by Night Wolf sacrificing himself. The death toll was taken to another level through MKX. 

Many characters had an undead evil counterpart called revanents. Through these forms, they can use magical mumbo jumbo to bring them back to life and the entire concept just makes things more grimey to get through. Now we have a way to die and come back to life. This is not a good corner to crawl out of, story-wise and they do not use it well in the slightest. The failure to MKX's story is nothing compared to the can of worms they release in the next title, though. 

We've gone through resurrections, now we're going through multiverses! Call it time travel all you like, but multiverses come in droves and bring about new versions of characters. MK11 decides it wants to get rid of the new slightly more evil Raiden that came about thanks to Shinnok's amulet corrupting him. We spend the entire game of MK9 and MKX following this Raiden, only for him to be literally erased and replaced with the one from MK9. 

So now the entire story is made into a stew. Old characters are meeting new characters and apparently Kotal Kahn hooked up with Jade, so there's a weird shipping decision. Either way, this story has pushed the crazy button already and that's not even considering how D'Vorah killed the new version of Scorpion and had him replaced with Scorpion from MK9. 

Are you realizing a pattern here? It seems that these people at Nether Realm Studios just can't seem to handle death, as ironic as that sounds for this series. Every single time they kill a main character, it seems that they are forced to give into some sort of backlash or realization that the character they just offed is too marketable to truly let go. Now, they need to come up with some way to kill them in some form while having a replacement for them ready on hand. 

The lack of stakes is one of the reasons why this new storyline is wasted in potential. Once they introduce Kronika into the story, she becomes their biggest excuse to bring characters back and/or kill them off without any risk to their sales. Because of this, they start changing literally everything. Not only does it invade this story, but it also screws up the ending by giving Shang Tsung the crown and the ability to change reality to his own liking. Let's go with: I do not consider the DLC even remotely canon. It changes the entire story for the worse and wastes everyone's time because Liu Kang still gets his god powers and restarts reality anyway. 

Yes, Liu Kang was caught up in all of this too. It's still a great thing to put into the series, given that Liu Kang and Raiden do continuously fight throughout MK history. Putting in a timeline where they join powers together in order to defeat the villain is a very good way to do this. The timeline is so screwed up before everything in Shang's DLC story that he was going to do the restart anyway. 

All of this could have been avoided if they just had a better plan from the very beginning. All of this was brought on because they ended up killing so many main characters in MK9 to begin with. Even when they have the way to bring them all back to life, half of them become resurrected while the others remain as revenants. It was pretty obvious that they were planning to bring more new characters in to replace the old one, mimicking what Transformers did, and this series received a similar backlash. Once that didn't work out, it was all about the writers trying hard to keep all of the characters in the game. MKX does this while also slamming more and more new characters, making it feel bloated. 

This article won't even go into how the multiverse plot affected MK1 (2023), but it's pretty obvious they kept pushing the multiverse once again just for the excuse to bring more and more legacy characters and mix them with the other action figures in the toy box. While this multiverse stuff does come out with some interesting interactions between characters, it's an overall hollow experience. When anything and everything can happen in a story, it stops being all that interesting. There needs to be something to reign it n before it trips all over itself. 

Mortal Kombat needs to drop this stupid idea that killing characters and bringing out more and more powerful people can sustain the story in any meaningful way. Much like the Dragon Ball franchise, this just ends up building a garbage story with enormous plotholes you could drive a truck through. No amount of nostalgia or fan pandering can cover up writers who don't know what to do. Trying to offer new DLC content behind a paywall or making your characters only available through real money, is just proving people right when they say your story is just a vehicle for extra pay content. Also, get some real writers and have an actual plan! 

There's always a good bit of entertainment to be had in Mortal Kombat's Lore. Sometimes they don't take full advantage of their position. Sometimes they make characters who do next to nothing and only exist to look cool. It's a fun ride through the story from a gameplay perspective, but when you step back and think for two seconds, immediately finding plot holes and uncharacterized moments, there is something wrong. When your cut scene literally makes people rage quit your game, then it's time to think of another strategy. Now, go get some water before your next fight and don't slip on the blood.

Virtua Kombat #1 - The Good and Bad Kharacter Direction

When you have a cast and a story as wide spreading as the Mortal Kombat franchise, there is a good chance you're going to over complicate things. This is the real problem with how big the Armageddon Roster was. They don't learn their lessons, of course, and upon rebooting the franchise, there was now a more solid, smaller cast of main characters, but that doesn't stop them from pouring more and more of the action figures onto the play area. Now, there are playable characters and partially playable characters everywhere you look. Let's just hit you with the SPOILER ALERT for this whole thing on the MK Lore as a whole.

Mortal Kombat 9 brought about a new cast of characters, mostly made up of old and returning characters already existing in the franchise. This was an understandable change across the board, but of course, there was more killing characters and attempting to bring in new ones for a new generation of games. This was why MKX suffered storywise. They wanted to put the Cage family up on the highest bar of the cast, but they just went about it in a clumsy way. Now Cassie Cage isn't even in MK1. 

Kitana

The worst way they handled the new generation turned out to be the best way in the end. And no, we're not including the Shang Tsung alternate ending. Kitana started out as the unwitting pawn in Shao Khan's games. It turned out he did not care about her and she became quite the sympathetic character as she struggles in the fight to the survive. In the mean time, she not only gains a love interest, Liu Kang, but also a "sister". Mileena became her clone, or they just stuck with sister and true daughter of Shao Kahn. She learns about all of the lies he told her about their family and relationship, and then she ends up getting killed by her mother. Yes, all of that happened in MK9. 

They bring her back to life, of course, but what they do after bringing her back in the time conversion of MK11. Now she is back and so is her lineage. Mileena has been killed in this timeline (another reason to hate D'Vorah), so once Kitana kills Shao Kahn (in this timeline, not in the Shang Tsung DLC), she becomes Kitana Kahn. This was one direction that actually works, aside from the arguments online. Seriously, she has been seen to be a great character and morally in the green while killing her opponents. The fact that Liu Kang chooses to spend eternity with her once he becomes the God of Fire and Thunder is just a very good ending for that particular timeline. This was the high note they should have ended it with, but of course additional entries have retconned and stomped on this part, but it was a nice touch.

Frost

As Sub-Zero himself said, "Wasted Potential". This was a character that could have been treated a lot better. Bringing her back as a mostly robot with a detachable human head would not have been on the top tier as far as ideas go. This was a potential character that could have gone against Kuai Liang and then learned that his defeats of her were training her and helping her learn how to fight. Instead, they turned her crazy, made her get a robot body and KILL the entire Lin Kuei in order to make a robot army. This could have been a new female Sub-Zero character who earned her way to that title, if Kuai ever decided to pass the mantle. It's alright to make her a villain, but they really did not need to go this dark with her story. 

Scorpion

Bringing Scorpion back to his humanity was one of the best touches they could bring to the character. At the same time, it wasn't such a terrible thing to go back to the Classic Scorpion at the end of MK11 either. It's a conundrum as far as this character goes. Having Sensei Hanzo Hasashi team up with Master Kuai Liang was a touch of brilliance. Their relationship has been very hard, considering it was Scorpion who killed Bi Han and created Noob Saibot as a result. 

Now, having him killed by D'Vorah was a stroke of stupid. He could have gone out like a champion, but they gave him to the character that they apparently want to promote in some way. What they did was piss off the fanbase. The way a character dies matters a lot, and yes they had the replacement for him on hand, but come on! It's good that they didn't go the Mortal Kombat 3 way and leave out Scorpion in any way. 

Raiden

In the end, Raiden is a very complicated matter. For some reason, in the Mortal Kombat franchise, he either have his powers in Outworld or he doesn't do crap. Either the gods can't intervene or he can just go wild and kill things with abandon. Seriously, the way the plot treats Raiden can mean a lot of quality points when it comes to Mortal Kombat. Thankfully, MK9 and up throw away his leash and allow him to do a lot of stuff, including resetting the entire universe in order to get back to the basics. 

Then, for some reason, the story decided to turn him evil. Well, semi-evil, if I'm being truthful. He's still fighting the evil people and killing them before they can invade, but still, he's overusing his power here and any elder god of old would have gotten involved by that point. Still, it's nice to know that the door swings both ways. Shao Kahn abused the rules of Mortal Kombat, so Raiden can teleport into their realm and destroy them with his thunder and lightning. 

There are mixed feelings about giving all of his powers to Liu Kang in the end. Hell, there's a lot of mixed feelings about him killing Liu Kang in MK9. That's why the way they did it was something of a stroke of genius, story wise. The build up between the two of them as two beings who handle situations differently, to fighting each other endlessly, it had a very nice flow to it when Raiden decides to end it all by joining forces with Liu Kang as the God of Thunder and Fire. It's a long way to jump, but they handled it rather well over all. It was nice that Raiden got his true happy ending when he talked to Liu Kang by the end of it, saying he was proud to be mortal again. This was where his character should have stopped, but of course, you get the idea where the series needs to go from there.

Cyber Sub-Zero

Now, stay with me on this one. We should at least be thankful we had this character made a reality. They were able to kill him and bring him back to life, of course, as we only see Revenant Sub-Zero at the beginning of MKX. From there, we can deduce that he was among the resurrected. Still, it was cool to have the cybernetic version. It's just a shame we never got to see Smoke very much at all in this part of the franchise. Still, Cyber Sub-Zero remains an oddity in the series, and that's really a shame. His cybernetic ice moves were awesome and just the thought of him going through the Cyber Initiative and then being able to remember it is just a nightmarish thought. It was good to have Kuai Liang back, though, and having him be the head of the Lin Kuei was kind of a no-brainer. So good on that. 

Shao Kahn

In the beginning, Shao Kahn was the highest level of god tier when it came to villains in the Mortal Kombat lore. Of course, then they came up with Shinnok and Quan Chi just in time for MK4. Quan Chi wasn't quite as powerful as Shao Kahn, but he was powerful enough to kill him, given the right opportunity. The newer, darker entities were needed, though, because we weren't going to be stuck with Shao Kahn for the entire franchise, we all know this. Still, how they brought about his final end was divisive. However, I would prefer his face getting cut off by Kitana over all of the garbage storytelling that they contrived for the Shang Tsung alternate ending. 

The real problem with Shao Kahn is that they kept him around being a playable character, but they just kept weakening him throughout the story mode. People end up defeating him on such a regular basis, he just loses so much of his overpowering charm from his original days. It used to be an achievement to defeat Shao Kahn, but now they just bring him about in order to have a slightly more threatening antagonist. Taking him down in the power scale was a decision that killed Shao Kahn's reputation, making him weaker and more vulnerable. Killing him off in an epic and story-driven way would be preferable to this treatment. Perhaps, if they decide to make him a main antagonist for a final time, they can give him a properly awesome ending. Otherwise, just let him go.

There are so many characters in the Mortal Kombat franchise and not all of them can be given the proper attention. This is a very large problem when they decide to jumble up their roster. That's not even to mention the special guest characters: Alien, Freddy, Leatherface, Terminator, Robocop, Spawn and more! Look, I would appreciate these characters a lot more if they didn't bring in so many characters and screwing up their power ranking. MKX was torn apart because of the fighters that defeated people supposedly three times their own power. The story becomes a mess when you decide to toss your continuity out the window. Just because you include these characters into the roster does not mean you need to shove them all AND MORE into the story. This is especially true when those additional characters are just paid DLC. Stories need focus and the more you toss to the wayside, the more the story gets pushback. Defend Earthrealm and be ready for what comes next!