One missed opportunity: Shang Tsung

I'm sorry, but against an experienced player, excessive jumping will get you no where in MK - whether it's counter Uppercuts, aaRoundhouses and death punches in MK2, or aaHPs and aaRoundhouses (just to name a couple) in UMK3. I can promise you that. MK invented the juggle combo, so you better believe it has anti-air to go along with it. If you're referring to CPU difficulty, that's a different story. I suggest visiting UltimateMK.com and educating yourself. You may be surprised at how deep the 2D games actually are. The 3D games -- game play wise -- were inferior to the original 2D games, believe it or not.

I got most of those figures from vgchartz. Their data doesn't seem to be complete for a lot of the MK games, hence why I told you to feel free to post your findings here. I'd love to know for sure. It's hard to find accurate sales records, as the results tend to vary by the source.

Let me ask you this: If the last few MK games only sold because of its brand (Deception was good, btw), then why have so many clones failed? Way of the Warrior, Kasumi Ninja, Blood Storm, Time Killers, Tattoo Assassins, Survival Arts, Ultra Vortek, Cardinal Syn, Bio F.R.E.A.K.S., War Gods, Shadow: War of Succession, etc. - all failures. As I said before, ask any MK fan why they play MK. It's a passion to most for a reason. I don't necessarily have a problem with your opinion of it, but if you're going to spout your dislike for something, at least get your facts straight. That's the only reason I jumped in.

 

Well, even though mortal kombat has never been an awesome franchise, all the other games you mention were just pure shit copycats. Which is, for me, the best explanation for their failure ^^

 

As cyberguile has pointed out, none of the games you mentioned are exactly stand-out titles, are they? As soon as one title gets recognition there will always be at least a dozen clones springing up almost straight away to cash in. How many Street Fighter, Tekken, Virtua Fighter and countless other franchises have we seen sullied with atrocious rip-offs. They also failed just like the titles listed above because they were made purely to cash in on a popular genre, no other reason than to milk the gamer of his hard earned cash.

As for the titles you've listed Skizelli, how many of those would you honestly say, hand on heart, were A1 titles? Tattoo Assassins never even got a release, and when you bear in mind some of the complete dogshit that Data East did put out that alone is testament to its awfulness. As for Way of the Warrior and Kasumi Ninja, come on, they're virtually unplayable. The others failed because they were boring, clunky copies of a game that wasn't the greatest to start out with. Like the old saying goes, familiarity breeds contempt, and there's none more contemptuous than a publisher looking to extricate cash from consumers eager for more of the same.

 

man, I LOVE Way of the warrior, it's so much fun to see everything you shouldn't put in a game on a single cd.
As for tatoo assassin, I've been willing to play this one for years. Hope someone will finally locate one working copy and dump it

 

If you want to understand his point, just try playing the games he mentioned. they aren't much fun to play (aside maybe from bio f.r.e.a.k.s.).

Mortal Kombat has kept going on because aside from the blood and gore that made it (in)famous, the games for the most part are just plain fun to play. the fighting engine up to mortal kombat deadly alliance is simple and effective, and even the DA fighting engine (before it got ruined by MK Armageddon) was still fun to play with.

They're nowhere as deep as street fighter or king of fighters or tekken or whatever but they're still fun.

 

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Tattoo Assassins was dumped ages ago man. Google it.

 

Does it really matter what games I list? I challenge you to name ONE clone that was successful. You're starting to reach. As someone said above, MK is just plain fun. There's a reason why nobody has been able to copy its success (or Street Fighter's for that matter).

 

Look, you're taking this waaaay to personally. I tried last night to think of a clone that had successfully aped MK and came up short. I suppose the closest I came that was similar in gameplay style and feel were the Killer Instinct games. With Street Fighter on the other hand just off the top of my head popular titles that took their inspiration from the game were the World Heroes games (massively under-rated), Fighters History, the Power Instinct series, the Art of Fighting/Fatal Fury series, the Suiko Enbu games, the list goes on.

As you and several others have pointed out, the original MK games were FUN, they didn't take themselves at all seriously and that's where all the cash-ins and clones got it wrong, they tried to make serious fighting games which lost all of what made the original MK games fun to play. Sadly now - for me at least and this was what I thought I'd conveyed in the beginning - MK has gone the way of the clones and now sees itself as a serious fighting game and because of that has lost a lot if not all of the charm it once had. That's just my personal opinion. When it was tongue in cheek it was a good way of wasting an hour or two but since the transition from 2D to 3D it's just not the same game any more. Gone is the humour, that knowing wink at the camera that lets you know that they're in on the joke too and because of that it's now nothing more than a shadow of its former self. What was once the innovator is now just another fighter with nothing to recommend it other than its past glories. I still stand by what I said in an earlier post, remove the MK branding and the game wouldn't sell nearly as many copies, it would be just another so-so fighting game.

 

I played mortal kombat a lot, and except for sindel and ermac combos that need cancel tricks, none of the combos on the video I shown are difficult (I could do most of them. and that was BEFORE I started to play fighting games competitively). Back in 1998, I played Rain as a main character, and I won like 90% of the rounds on an infinite (thunder till it hits > run > stand P > stand roundhouse > etc). Second main was robot smoke, rounds were something like guard all the time until you get a teleport punch > 70% combo. Looking back at it > what an interesting game lol
As I said, not all the combos work on every version and on a competitive range, mortal kombat 3 is about run > guard guard guard > run > guard stand P x50 and one or two combos in the round (always the same). Fucking boring.
I do agree with mortal kombat trilogy, though. The video was just an example of what I meant (first video to pop up on youtube when I typed mortal kombat infinite combo). But I have seen tons of the combos shown in it used in competition videos.

Actually, you can, using a game's mechanic bug which resets the combo counter while the combo is still going (in mortal kombat, there is a lot of situation when the opponent can actually end your combo by blocking but if he doesn't, the combo counter goes on. and on the opposite, other situations when the opponent can do nothing and the combo counter resets)

Some umk3 infinites:
http://www.darktemplarz.com/cvids/getvid.php?id=157
http://www.darktemplarz.com/cvids/getvid.php?id=156

As you said, some stuff is useless in real match, but a lot of combos are doable.
Main problem with those videos, though, is that the game's engine is enoughly broken to make them possible.

 

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I don't think I am. I thought I made that obvious when I said that I respected your opinion, and that I only jumped in to correct you on some things. I'm not out to change your mind. To each his own.

You're not alone there. MK did lose something when it entered 3D, I agree. But again, fans still flock to the franchise because it's far more than just a brand. It's by no means the best fighting game mechanics wise, but it's a very imaginative one, and that is why no other clone has been successful. On a side note, I think it's a bit silly to say that it would sell less if you took away the brand when that could go for pretty much anything. Still, a rose by any other name...

And for the record, the new MK will have Babalities and possibly even Friendships. I'm not sure about the Friendships, but Babalities are definitely confirmed. So it's a mix of both worlds - the humorous side we all know and love from the 2D era, as well as the serious side that can actually be taken seriously this time (at least EVO seems to think so).