I'm waiting for who will be the games new characters. They likely revealed half the roster and there's no one new.
I'm waiting for who will be the games new characters. They likely revealed half the roster and there's no one new.
Cool to see Li Mei again. I'm not sure how I feel about "cop" Li Mei though. I guess because my image of her is mainly from Deadly Alliance, where she was a young, innocent prodigy, so I have to get used to this "grizzled cop" version.
Good to see Tanya, too, but kinda funny that Outworld/Edenia has it's own Dora Milaje now. Like cop Li Mei, it's strange to see Tanya is essentially Okoye now. I'm so used to her as the sneaky, deceiving backstabber. But maybe that's the point, and we'll find out it's the same ol' Tanya after all.
I've never liked Johnny Cage, but uber-douche Johnny is even more grating. He's always been bit of a dick, but it seems kicked into overdrive here.
Question: is Kitana not 10,000 years old anymore? Because now they're saying Li Mei trained her. Mortal Kombat 11 suggested Sheeva trained her. I get the impression developers want Kitana to be a "youth" of Outworld even though she's significantly older than pretty everyone that isn't Shao Kahn, Sindel, and gods.
In the original timeline, Goro was canonically 2,000 years old. Shang Tsung was only a little over a thousand. As said, Li Mei was introduced as a young prodigy. And there's an in-universe reason why Edenians live as long as they do.
I've noticed fan fic writers fall into this trap, too. I've seen stories set during Kitana's childhood or flashbacks that have Shang Tsung or Goro or Reptile or Nitara around and...no, she's much, much older than all of them.
From a writing perspective, the reason to have relatively young (or young coded) protagonists is because youth suggests they don't have the answers, still have much to learn, need things explained to them, etc. That's why they seek or need mentors to guide them.
Not to say she couldn't be outsmarted or out-fought, but a Kitana that's 10,000 years old presumably has seen it all and been through it all. And I feel like they want her to be less experienced and in need of guidance and mentors.
Not a big thing or necessarily a bad--depending on where they go with it--but it clashes with her being one of the oldest non-god characters in the franchise.
Last edited by Guy_McNichts; 08-05-2023 at 03:39 PM.
I wonder how many mirror match intro's are basically just going to be "you're Shang-Tsung, right?"
See, this is another thing people often forget: even before MK9 changed it, Kitana and Mileena still didn't grow up together as children. Remember, Shang Tsung is the one who created Mileena, and as I said, canonically, Shang Tsung is (or was, I wonder if even the developers remember this anymore) only 1,000-2,000 years old. Therefore, Kitana was already at least 9,000 years old by the time Mileena was introduced to her.
So, Mileena wasn't hiding her deformity for 10,000 years and there was nothing for Kitana to question.
If you think about it, it would actually be pretty easy to keep Edenia a secret because, really, who is there to tell her? Sindel commits suicide while she's a child. Jade is approximately the same age, and judging from her MK9 bio, her parents were cowards more interested in saving their own skin. Tanya was never part of Kahn's forces. Rain didn't even know his full history. Anyone who would know the truth about Kitana is either dead, too young to know for themselves, or not around her.
Kahn keeping Edenia a secret for 10,000 years only becomes silly when we go with the assumption everybody in Outworld BUT Kitana knows about it. And this ties to what I was saying about her age. Why would Reptile know anything about Edenia or Jerrod? Shokan characters might have heard of it, but what the hell do they care? To most people in Outworld and within Kahn's forces, Edenia would just be another forgotten realm conquered by him long, long ago, and only know Kitana as his daughter. Most probably wouldn't bother to connect the two.
By the by, D'Vorah in MK11 claiming she not only was around back then but was in fact the one who actually killed Jerrod is ludicrous.
And again, there is an in-universe reason why Edenians live for thousands of years...implying it's something relatively unique to their people. Reptile and D'Vorah and Nitara shouldn't be hundreds of thousands of years old.
Granted, there are still a lot of questions regarding the Edenian resistance that we know lingered after the realm was conquered. Did they know Shao Kahn's daughter, Kitana, is the the rightful Princess, or did they assume Jerrod and Sindel's daughter was killed along with her parents? Did they think she was just a traitor, hated her guts, and never bothered trying to sway her to their side?
Personally, my head-canon is Kitana never fully believed Mileena was her sister, and this is what initially sparked her searching for answers.
MK9 went too far by having Mileena created during MK2, which damages her more than it does Kitana. The core of Mileena's character and their rivalry is based on her being stuck in Kitana's shadow. If she's only just born during MK2, and Kahn immediately declares her the daughter he always wanted, then there is no character or conflict with any of them. Mileena has what she wants, the choice to turn against Kahn is made for Kitana, and Kahn himself loses that small bit of complexity.
But this all goes back to my question. If they want Kitana and Mileena to have grown up together as children, if they want characters like Sheeva and Li Mei and D'Vorah to factor into their upbringing, if they want Edenia to have been the last realm Shao Kahn conquered before setting his sights on Earth...then, yeah, they should drop the 10,000 years bit and make it something more manageable.
SAREENA! My girl!
Okay, just a Kameo now. But hopefully she'll be playable DLC.
This trailer was amazing. All three revealed characters and Sereena have such unique gameplays and they all look fierce IMO. Favorite reveals so far. I must confess I miss Ashrah's hat but otherwise she looks amazing. Best costume yet!
Only two more characters reveal trailers I think:
General Shao, Sindel and Reiko in one and then Nitara and two new characters in another? Or maybe Jade will be in it after all and Sindel and her could be in the same trailer.
So a trailer for General's Shao and his army and one trailer for the Royals.
Last edited by MentalManipulator; 08-07-2023 at 07:46 AM.
A picture would last longer darling...