Slight correction. This isn’t a copyright battle over the characters of Spider-Man and Doctor Strange. This is actually a Cease and Desist order. Essentially, the families of Ditko and Lee are beyond pissed and fed up with the way Marvel and Disney has handled these characters, and are (once again) in the process of telling them to kindly fuck off with turning Marvel’s most iconic character into a cry baby dick sucker for a capitalist pig. They are also concern with the strange rotations in the graves of Lee and Ditkos concerning Doctor Strange having the dialog choice of “Try me Beyonce”, having him be outclassed by Iron Man in combat against Thanos, and making him entirely irresponsible with the usage of magic just to appease an idiot kid… despite that being the comic after the dreadful “One More Day”. Infact, they are beyond pissed that No Way Home seems to be based loosely off of “One More Day” in anyway, shape, or form, and wish to abolish the memory of such horrid decision making.
Heheheheh
In all seriousness, they likely won’t win because it’s Disney. They’ve got too much power, and can afford to bend the law to win any case they want. If they can change city laws on a whim, these guys have no chance.
That being said, there’s no way in hell I would root against the Family in a case like this. I’ve been ultra vocal about how Disney has destroyed the character of Spider-Man, probably not vocal enough about how they turned Doctor Strange into Magic Iron Man, and I for one would be all for it. I despise MCU Spider-Fan in every single aspect. I don’t care about the actors involved, I don’t care if they didn’t have a choice, all I know is they ruined the fucking character and his mythos. You don’t even have Uncle Ben in the films, not even a mention. That above all else shows how little of a fuck they give. Get Spider-Man and Doctor Strange away from these hackjobs. I want a Spider-MAN, not “Iron Boy” as the guy says.
Seth Rogan… is Donkey… this monkey doesn’t even talk, shit cgi cartoon withstanding… but… Jack Black is Bowse… Mmm.
Can we officially declare that Hollywood simply doesn’t give a fuck anymore? I mean… what do you even say to shit casting like this? Jack Black is Bowser, that doesn’t even sound right.
Hold on hold on….
Might be going for that Harvey Atkin direction, but I doubt Black can get his voice that low…
Donkey Kong shouldn’t be talking, why the fuck does he have a voice!?
That’s 3 comedians! I’m sure it’s more appropriate for Mario than Sonic, but jeez. You’d think they’d give Bowser someone more menacing. Or hell, just take his VA from the games.
Why is that such a problem for Hollywood? You didn’t need a star-studded cast to sell people on the Lion King. People don’t care that Whoopi Goldberg voiced one of the Hyenas, or that Johnathon Taylor Thomas was Simba. I’m sure people will remember James Earl Jones above all else, but… overall, the “stars” weren’t important. I don’t get this shit with Hollywood where they just have to shove in name brand people for videogame adaptations. Pikachu didn’t need Ryan Reynolds to voice the damn Pikachu, Jim Carry was an absolutely TERRIBLE decision for Robotnik… but this!? I don’t get it. This over reliance on star power is asinine. But hell… if we’re gonna go that route:
Mario should’ve been played by his original live action actor.
Luigi should be played by Johnny Gat (whoever did his voice in Saints Row 4)
Peach should be played by whoever played Thelma/Hawkeye’s wife.
Bowser should be played by Danny Devito
Donkey Kong should have an actual Gorilla voice
Yoshi should be played by Pikachu
Hell, if Hollywood doesn’t have to give a shit, why should I? These bastards don’t care whether or not the actors actually fit the characters, they just see name brand and figure that’s a good marketing opportunity. Jack Black will work better as Claptrap, but as Bowser, you couldn’t pay me to see that shit working out.
So Nintendo has finally decided to make an Open World Pokemon game! Or… at least that’s what people are saying.
I do like that it takes place in ancient times. All that background info from Gen 4,5, and 6 going on and on about these wars… or at least Gen 6 did. Only thing we get from the Japanese Regions is vague legends of the Pokemon themselves. We never got an inkling of cultural differences of the ages, or major events in the past like the wars of of Kalos. Unless this is strictly a style choice and have no connection to the mainline games. I mean afterall, we have Lucas and Dawn because hey, those remakes are coming out so now we gotta shill the ugliest Pokemon in the series. Amma I hate Turtwig! That little shit cost me so many gym battles! Weak ass Grass Pokemon!
That said, I don’t like the use of Pokeballs. It takes me out of the whole “ancient times” aspect. I remember Pokemon 4 Ever where Oak’s Pokeball had to be winded up in order to pop open. Another guy had a “poke’cage”. That movie had more realism than this game. That movie had shown that technology had to progress to the point of turning the little fucks into lights that could fit in the balls. Kinda disappointed in that.
Another thing I despise is the reliance on those tried and true turn-based battles. What the hell!? Here you’ve got Pokemon like Ursaring and Luxray trying to rip you a new one, but as soon as you send out a pokemon, here comes these slow ass battles now. I was thinking something along the lines of letting the Pokemon auto attack while you… idk, fighting with sticks and stones or some shit. Something like Monster Hunter in a way. But… no, instead of looking at something like Xenoblade for combat, we get scared and stick to that same ol’ bullshit. At some point, Pokemon needs to ditch turn-based battles and get to something more fast paced. This just ruins what could’ve been a more interesting game. Like people back in ancient times would know something about advanced techniques or the names of Pokemon moves around these times. Or if they had tournaments and shit. Hell, maybe they did.
Looks wise, it doesn’t look all that much better than sword and shield. It’s all cel-shaded so that takes out the workload. That Braviary looked like the bird boss from Wind Waker. Overall, it doesn’t seem all that… exciting if one could say that. Feels more experimental, and they spend too much time trying to show us the… “serenity and beauty” of the Pokemon World than the shit I wanna see. Nintendo being pretentious for all trailers nowadays, they take waaaay too long to get to the good parts.
Everytime I rewatch the trailer for the Forgotten Land, the game looks shittier and shittier. I don’t think Nintendo is even trying anymore.
Kirby is a franchise that’s been around for at least 30 years now, and aside from maybe Kirby’s Airride, the franchise was perfectly happy being in 2D. So much so that I find it difficult to imagine the Forgotten Land working fine without feeling a bit awkward.
Something tells me Kirby is going to lose his slide as a result.
Forgotten Land doesn’t look like it’s going to be terrible, but this is me basing it off the fact that Kirby games haven’t been outright terrible since… forever. What little I’ve played of the last Kirby game at a Kiosk, they probably fucked up how the copy powers worked, so who knows how bad that turned out besides Switch owners, but a part of me can’t help but imagine the 3D turning the game into a shitshow.
One, because it’s in 3D, you’ll need additional buttons to perform attacks that you could pull off without a hitch in 2D. Again, his slide. It’s an underrated attack that only required you to press “down” and “Jump”. Here, you’re gonna have to hit one of them shoulder buttons just to crouch and yadda yadda. That or he’ll lose the slide altogether as sliding doesn’t serve much of a purpose in Kirby games. Another thing that might be tedious to do are all of the unique attacks for each copy power OR they’ll remove those altogether because of the damn 3D. In.. ALL the games, you’d have to press in different directions to use different attacks. The sword is one of the copy powers shown off in the trailer, and all they’ve shown for it were his most basic attacks. Infact, all the copy powers are shown to be as basic as can be with the exception of the Needle Power actually allowing you to move around for a change. This is going to be HORRIBLE because these powers have been in practically every Kirby game… and not only are they going to be stagnate as fuck, they’re going to be nerfed in terms of utility by the looks of it. The Copy Powers aren’t even shown to be utilized in a cool way. The Sword is used for combat, but even that looks like ass. In Return to Dreamland, the enemies at least have a “hit” animation. Here, they’re just “stunned” and are motionless until they’re dead. Every other power is just shown in gimmicky ways like using the fire power to light a lantern. That ain’t fun to watch, Nintendo! Using the cutter like Link’s boomerang to yank in some green crystal. That’s either there to just show off that the Cutter Power can pull in items (why waste a demonstration on an item you can just WALK into to collect!?), or the Copy Powers have to be used for specific things (like the Needle Power for some… cardboard). I can only assume these things will be used more for puzzles than combat. Granted, they’ve had elements like this in the past, but it seems more egregious here as an indication of what the game is going to play like.
Another issue I’d have is the issue of aiming. Shooting or spitting things in 3D has never been fun outside of First/Third person shooters. I can’t imagine Nintendo putting a crosshair on the bitch, so you’re gonna be spending time just pushing the stick in whatever direction you want to aim in, spraying and praying that you hit your target. I don’t find that prospect to be fun or handled well.
It’s also really SLOW to watch. It looks like the game is running at 20fps at reduced speeds. If that’s the top speed, fuck you Nintendo. You spent all this time with this suped up hardware, and for a game this cheap looking, you don’t even have it in 60fps!? The fuck is wrong with you!? The last Kirby game on switch was down at 30fps too. That doesn’t make sense. You have the HD hardware and shit going on, why the fuck are you capping the cheapest looking games at 30fps!? They look cheap enough as they are!! Does that make sense?! Nintendo should know their hardware better than 3rd parties, but they’re making all these cutbacks for games that don’t even look better than the goddamn Wii titles! Just LOOK at how slow that boss fight is! Where’s the hype!? Where’s the excitement!? Where’s ANYTHING!?
This feels more like Nintendo is just pushing out product to inflate the Switch’s value rather than making an actual Kirby game. I mean… it looks more like an amalgamation of Mario Odyssey and Mario 3D World when you get right down to it.
I would sooner ask the question of why we need a Super Mario Movie, but I suppose Nintendo looked at all the money the Sonic Shitshow pulled in and figured “we can’t be shown up by that meddling Hedgehog!” Unfortunately, their taste in actors is just as bad as Sega’s.
Chris Pratt being cast as the titular Mario is just another example of Hollywood treating Star (pun) Power as just a marketing gimmick rather than an appropiate choice for the character. Twitter is hard at work making as many gifs and memes as possible, but the rest of the world should take notice of the lack of fucks given to casting choices. Chris Pratt as Mario doesn’t even sound right. He’s not even a good actor, let alone convincing in any of the roles he’s given. Who the fuck can take him seriously as the Action Hero Dinosaur Whisperer!?
I suppose it’s easier to get away with this since Mario games were never known for having story or characterization that would give way to a preferred voice actor like say Optimus Prime or Wolverine, but there is something to be said when merely starring in a superhero film (and a BAD one at that) is all it takes to be qualified for a character as big as Mario. It’s likely this Mario will be it’s own separate entity in terms of personality and accent, much like Sonic was in his own disaster.
Another thing to point out is that Seth Rogan is also in the film, likely to be Luigi or Bowser. Both him and Pratt are more known for doing comedy roles (Pratt was the fat jerk ass office friend in “Wanted”), so again, like Sonic Shitshow, the Mario movie is going to be more comedy than fantasy. Typical. I suppose Hollywood is thinking “LOL who’s gonna take magic mushrooms seriously!? HAHAHAHAHA”.
I do find it amusing that people are outraged that Charles Martinet isn’t reprising his role for the film. It’s strange that people have more standards for Mario than they do for Sonic. Otherwise, casting Jim fucking Carry as Robotnik would’ve garnered the appropiate level of piss. Sorry to say this, but Martinet would’ve sucked in the role unless the only script he’s given is one where he just makes stupid ass noises all day. I’ve never been a fan of his take on the role. I’m old enough to remember the old Mario cartoons with his Brooklyn voice. This was back when Mario was vaguely cool. He had the voice of a MAN instead of someone that was eccentric. It also sounded appropiate given his character’s profession as a Plumber… or perhaps that’s a stereotype, idk. I mean… when you think a Plumber, the last thing you’d think is an eccentric Italian. “Good-a morning, Mada’am Moseulle! I’m-a here to declog-a your crappa!” They only chose an Italian because of some janitor they had in the building at the time. You know that’s weird, it’s like for some of their characters, they don’t spend a whole lot of time conjuring up designs or concepts like other people do, they just slap something into a game and call it a day. Kirby was literally based on a vacuum cleaner for fuck’s sake!
Oh well, just another example of Hollywood ruining shit. Though I did like that Ghost in the Shell movie. Wasn’t nerely as boring as the cartoons were. Yes, I await your pitchforks. Hell, Detective Pikachu was an alright movie… even if Ryan Reynolds was oveused by that point…
Not really a fan of the 3D movement, but hey, they’re trying to use some of that Mario Odyssey magic on this one. This time without the hat tricks. š
Amongst the other announcement such as the vomit inducing choice of making Star Lord Mario, this is likely the only light in the distance sine Metroid Dread is officially ruined. Fucking Adam and the X Parasites…. again.
Damn, I forgot to get on that Open World Pokemon game… I’d prefer if the characters were based on Johto (bias), but eh, not a bad concept having it take place in ancient times. I tell yah, I’ve been out of the Nintendo shit for so long, barely anything BUT Kirby interests me. š
Eww, Bayonetta again. Damn it’s gonna suck missing out on No More Heroes 3…
Ahhh fighting games. How you so love to SUCK nowadays. When you’re not busy trying to nickel and dime a mother fucker for every new character you shill out, you’re busy being developed by mobile game devs with shitty mechanics, physics, and overall design commands that defeat the purpose of being an “accessible” fighting game.
While it was sort of an issue back in the 7th Gen, fighting games these days feel more awkward to play than usual. You’d literally have to go to the devs that have been around for ages for something that feels cohesive and comfortable to play without some nonsensical design that feels as though it were made to be “different” and “distinctive” instead of being functional. A lot of this is attributed to all the animu/doujin fighters that have come out in spades, a few of which came from ASW infact. These games, I feel, tried to over simplify the commands of moves to a point where they add some extracurricular nonsense like “well ok, you can’t do this sort of move without first inputting this move” and sometimes, especially in the case of Nitro Blasters+ (Yes I regret playing this shit for titties), they get really stupid. Sometimes, you start wanting to go back to that time when games had 6-buttons, yah know? Yeah, I can’t lie like that. But I did for this one time.
Probably the most expensive Import I’ve bought thus far (literally the price of a new game >_<), Fighting Ex Layer is a game that is less of a sequel and more of a fanservice game. I don’t have a good intro for this, so bear with me. Fighting Ex Layer is a game developed by Arika, specifically Akira Nishitani. Oh, it’s ok if you don’t know who he is, he only ever made STREET FIGHTER 2!!!
Yes, the revolution of the fighting game genre can be attributed to this man. He, like all of Capcom’s talented developers sans Inafune, got fed up with Capsule Computer’s rampant bullshit and moved on to make his own company, Arika. Ironically, though, Arika constantly found themselves developing games for Capcom anyway. Mega Man Network Transmission (a guilty pleasure of mine) is one of those titles, but more relevant was their development of the Street Fighter EX series. Unlike whatever the fuck the Alpha series was doing, or how long it took for SF3 to not suckā¦ and THEN suck in Turd Strike, the EX series stuck to their guns to be SF2 in 3D. The games were hated for all the wrong reasons despite being the true spiritual successors to SF2. The original characters were more interesting, the old veteren characters were more accessible and had some new moves here and there, they had the unblockable attacks, and unlike whatever the fuck Ono cooked up for SF4 and SF5, the EX series was actually pretty FAST! But oh no, it wasn’t Tekken or Virtua Fighter, so people kinda justā¦ looked at them as being outdated. Idk why people hated the EX series. They attributed them to being victims of the curse of the 3D transition which is nonsense as they didn’t change their mechanics to be 3D fighters, they just had 3D graphics.
Needless to say, Nishitani knows his shit… which is more than I can say for Ono.
Unknown to most people outside of the emulation scene, Arika made their own fighting game known as “Fighting Layer”. Unlike “EX” Layer, Fighting Layer had a GANG of new characters while also having 2 characters from SFEX1. I suppose they wanted to establish that the characters they created for EX series was their own. That was a thing, none of the original characters appearing in SFEX belonged to Capcom, they were all owned and controlled by Arika. It’sā¦ honestly a good thing when it doesn’t lead to situations that prevent sequels from happening (Like Mischief Makers >_<).
Fuckā¦ now I miss CVS2 again.
Anywho, ages later, Arika finally decided to revisit their fighting games back in 2018 with Fighting Ex Layer, a game that couldn’t be anymore low budget if it tried. From what I hear, Arika didn’t have all the money in the world. Thus, FEL (geez, what a shit acrynom) started off as a digital F2P game, or so I’ve heard, starting off with the bare minimum characters before rolling out new ones through free DLC. Praise amma the PS4 was Regionfree or I’d never be able to get the physical version that was exclusive to Japan (SON OF A-!)
Anywho, FEL is, I feel, improperly named. The original cast of characters that appeared in the original game are not found here. Instead, you have all the characters that appeared throughout the SFEX seriesā¦ and Terry Bogard who’s now become a fadā¦ and paid DLCā¦ fuck. So instead of Tetsuo, random Taichi girl, random psycho gun bitch, random TKD user with a bandana, so on and so forth, we have:
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Kairi – A guy who desperately wants to be Jin Kazama when he grows up. He had black hair in the first game, and only went white when he unlocked the Satsui no Hadou for the next 2 games. I guess we’re not gonna mention that in this game forā¦ obvious reasons. He does have his original hair and pants color from the first game, which was a nice touch. Apparently, he managed to kill Akuma in EX which gives him BOSS points.
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Hokuto – Supposed to be Kairi’s sister, and is also paid DLC for some strange reasonā¦ even though her evil version is not. Odd.
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Shirase – Said Evil version.
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Nanase – The youngest sister of both Kairi and Hokuto, and who’s name is spelled “Sanane” in this game for some reason. Makes her sound like “Sha Nay Nay” from Martin. š She’s also STILL FUCKING CHEAP after all these years! >_<
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Hayate – Hokuto’s Husband, and Kairi’s Rival more or less. Back in the day, he looked like a character you’d find in Last Blade. In this game, however, he looks like a stereotypical animu shit. So an easy to hate character for his cheap ass moves is evenā¦ easier to LOATH!! No wonder Kairi hates him! š
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Blair Dame – A woman who dressed like a wrestler in the past, but now dresses like a knightly chick. Has the fattest ass and the best moves in the whole gameā¦ unless she’s fighting Kairi and Allen.
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Sharon Dame – Blair’s sister whoā¦ now that I think about it, reeks of the Williams Sisters from Tekken! Nishitani must’ve been a massive fan! Tries to show more skin so as to not be one upped by Blair’s latex. Also uses a gun because she can’t fight for shit.
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Allen Snyder – The Paul Phoenix of the gameā¦ because he has a super punch! Fuck, Nishitani really WAS a fan of Tekken! I ascribe Allen to be more of the Dan Hibiki since he’s so terrible. Also wants you to know he’s American. His outfit screams it! Another thing that’s weird is that he seems more comical in this game than he ever did before. His original artwork showed him as a casual fellow.
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Pullum Purna – Sex Bomb Indian belly dancer who can be best described as “Black Cammy”. Might as well have been the basis for Rouge from Power Stone. Her face looks bizarre as hell in this game.
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Darun Mister – Indian Wrestler who can be best described as “Black Zangief”. He is the bodyguard of Pullum, and has a bad habit of using his crotch to launch his opponents in the air. Behold the true power of the BBC!
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Doctrine Dark – One of the coolest characters from SFEX! Unless you know how to zone the fuck out of people, don’t bother with this guy. Likely wants to be HUNK when he grows up.
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Cracker Jack – Hahahahaha, what an INTERESTING name! š A cowboy who can be best described as “White Balrog”. Also uses a baseball bat because “Fuck it, why not?”
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Vulcanno Rosso – Likely to be everyone’s favorite character because “he looks like a quirky and quippy funny guy”. Everyone compares him to Maxi because of his hair, but he’s far more/less awesome. Can phase through people, and pulls off Bruce Lee kicks because “fuck it, why not”? Hmm, he probably IS based on Maxi since Maxi does all the Bruce Lee shit himself in Soul Calibur. Not to mention Rosso’s affinity for fire. Could also pass for a Jojo character since he amps up the flamboyancy this time around.
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Skullomania – RIDEEEEER KICK!!! FRIENDOR CHANGE!!! HURR-RI-CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANE!!! Sorry, lost my train of thought there. But the guy is a tokusatsu character writ and large.
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Shadow Meister – Skullomania’s archnemesis, and HOLY SHIT!!! This guy was hittin the roids in the last hundred years! Can be best described as “Bison in drag”.
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Area – Big brainy wiz kid who was inspired by Sieger from Samurai Shodown 2. Was a worthless and forgettable character back in EX2 and 3, and is no different here. Skin tight latex won’t change that one bit.
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Garuda – Heā¦ is SOā¦ FRIGGINā¦ CHEAP! Looks like the baby of Doctor Doom and Omega Red. Apparently was the source of Satsui No Hadou in the EX series who came about after Kairi killed Akuma.
I guess Ace couldn’t be included since he was just a character you could program moves into Virtua Quest Style.
If you couldn’t tell, the crux of the EX games revolved around Kairi going Satsui No Hadou thanks to Akuma being a douche, and his family goes to look for him. Though it seems now, the game revolves around Hokuto going evil since her “evil twin” is more or less plastered all over the title screen. I had to get this game patched so I’m not aware of all the story bits as of yet. Yeah, right out of the box, this game has the same exact problem that SF5 did. No Arcade mode, no real single player content, all you had was a vs mode. Thatā¦ wasā¦ some bullshit! Didn’t even have Pullum or Vulcano which, by the time the physical version came out, already had those characters available via free update!
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It’s rather disappointing that they only included the characters from the SFEX series and not have any of the ones that came from the original Fighting Layer. Otherwise, this game feels pretty redundant. It is surprising that the roster has this many characters as it does, but damn does it feel tiny regardless. Imagine having Allen fighting Tetsuoā¦. š¦
Anywho, gameplay wise, if you’ve played SFEX all those years ago, you won’t be able to tell the difference between this game and that series. It’s pretty much a word for word translation of those old titles on current gen hardware and freakish looking character models. Damn if the characters don’t look HIDEOUS in HD! As ugly as SF5 is, these assbags would fit right in with their bodies looking like mashed turkey, goddamn. Some of the character’s faces range from average to scary as shit! Most notably Allen Snyder! Probably done on purpose because he’s supposed to be the silly Gaijin Americano funky action, but I get Jump Force flashbacks just looking at his mug!
I’m also not a fan of some their design changes. While a few of them remain unchanged from their SFEX counterparts like Kairi, Skullomania, and Darun, others feel like they were overdesigned or something. I HATE Shadow Meister’s Roids look. He never had Bigorexia in the original titles. Not a fan of Blair’s armor plating, though I’m sure that had more to do with “not wanting females to be overly sexualized”ā¦ oh who am I kidding, this is JAPAN we’re talking about! Vulcano dresses like Benimaru for some reason when his attire was more “Two-Face” and less “Jojo”. Sharon just looks cluttered, like some weird Cowgirl from a western bar, though I’m sure her original outfit would’ve caused far more issues on Twitter. D.Dark’s more cybernetic look ruined the military assasin vibe he had in the original games. The aformentioned “Americano Funky Action” of Allen’s Gi, and Hayate’s more animu look all bother me. I suppose Nanase’s change was the only good one they had.
Most if not all of the sound effects were kept as wellā¦ which makes the game sound and feel extremely dated since a fireball sounds like someone’s getting whacked by a mallet. Yeah I get it’s low budget, but having some better sound effects for different moves wouldn’t have hurt.
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Getting back to the gameplay, as I’ve said before, if you’ve ever played any of the SFEX games, you will feel right at home as nothing has actually changed. If you haven’t played those games, I pity you. š Like I said before, it’s essentially Street Fighter 2 with 3D graphics. You’ve got the six button layout which isn’t particularly a favorite of mine, but beats those 3 button mash fests that are all the rage these days. The game also, unfortunately, has auto combos which lead into using super moves. Fortunately because this game was NOT made by Namco or ASW, the auto combos don’t become a crutch to winning as this game was designed by someone with some common fucking sense. Theyā¦ just seem to be there because “hey, that’s what everyone else was doing”.
Auto combos were, of course, made for newbs who don’t know how to do combos or even special & super moves. But we all know it’s not as satisfying, but even Nishitani knows that people aren’t going to take a few seconds in training mode just to get the motions down pat. So Arika made 2 different command schemes. Classic and Progressive. Classic is “no shit” way of pulling off special moves, while Progressive gives you the option of “Easy Specials” as they’re done in Super Street Fighterā¦ 2 Turboā¦ Xā¦ Hyper Revi-ā¦ oh fuck off, Capcom! The GBA SF2 game! Basically how special attacks were pulled off in that game where you tap foward and can toss fireballs with ease. Now obviously, something like this would lead to a lot of spamming and cheating since, like Street Fighter, he or she with the projectiles usually has a greater advantage and can literally cheese their winsā¦ and it’s no different here. Zoning assholes becomes a cinch. On the one hand, you don’t have to spend all day in training just to get the moves to work perfectly, but it CAN lead to some awkwar sessions where you try to do certain normals and all of a suddenly, you’re doing some weird jumping kick that you had no intention of using. It’s not too much of a hassle, but it can bee a nussiance and cost you a win if you suddenly whiff out a special you had no intention of using.
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It’s kinda sad that only Eighting (the creators of the absolutely BADASS Bloody Roar series, as well as TvC, and MvC3) knows how to make “accessible” command schemes than everyone else, and I get the feeling it has more to do with fear of reprisal from the FGC than feeling it’s a design flaw. You couldn’t simply spam specials in TvC and win automatically despite the fact that the game was piss easy to pick up and play with Wiimote alone. The only argument I could see was that playing the game could get old and repetitive fast because there wasn’t anything to learn since everything was practically handed to you, and if no one feels the need to learn anything, the game will get boring quickly. So in this case, trying to make more accessible command schemes without compromising the desire to learn the ins and outs of the game makes for a more tedious and awkward experience (which is definitely the case for Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid). It makes it where you have to be extra precise with the controls so as to not fuck up and accidently use a special attack which could leave you wide open. Fighting game developersā¦ can’t seem to get that part right for some reason. Bloody Roar had extremely simple commands for each character’s special moves (every single one was usually a Quarter Circle motion, with straights coming in at Primal Fury), so the barrier to entry for every character was non-existent, YET you could still dive deeper into the characters and find several unique ways to beat wholesale ass on players. Bloody Roar is what Guilty Gear wishes it could be!
Damnā¦ now I miss Bloody Roar. š¦
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In eithercase, the progressive scheme can be summed up as “the Road to hell is paved with the best intentions”. Again, it’s not a major pain in the ass, it’s just more prone to whiffs. The best thing I can say about the Progressive controls is that each character still has their own distinct play styles meaning that some knowledge about the characters are required before actually being good with them. You can’t just turn on Progressive and think you can play D.Dark the same way you play Allen Snyder, etc. But that’s more dependent upon the characters than the control scheme, you get the picture. It does make playing against Darun Mister a MASSIVE SHIT SHOW because HOLY FUCK, THE DAMAGE HE DOES ON ALL HIS THROWS IS GODDAMNED INSANE!
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Another new element added to the game isā¦ pretty pointless. They called it a “Gougi” system which can be best described asā¦ card battling. Basically, it’s this thing that gives you certain abilities during a match. The base game gives you only 5 of them just to let you know how important it is to the overall game. Each Gougi is grouped into “Decks” (IE Card Battling) based on the abilities themselves. Aggro is based on attacking the opponent, Juggernaut is steeped in defense, Infinity involves super charging your super gauge, Shinobi is all about evasion, and Miracle is everything with the kitchen sink. The problem with the Gougi system is that, because Nishitani has too much of a brain cell, it’s HIGHLY situational! There are conditions to activating each Gougi ability during the match, and every condition makes it impossible to abuse. Unfortunately, that means you won’t be thinking at all about the Gougi abilities during the fight, which makes the whole system feel entirely pointless. I get the feeling it was only included just to make the game feel like it wasn’t a cheap rehash of SFEX w/o the SF cast. Total throwaway mechanic. Resources that could’ve been spent putting the ACTUAL Fighting Layer characters in! š¦
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There’s not a whole lot to say about the game’s presentation or content. Infact, there’s nothing to say! It has no intro (which, given the load times, is probably a blessing), and the title screen is just a static image. Oh don’t mind me, I’m just pissing and moaning about how much I paid for this, and the game feeling excrutiatingly cheap at the same time leaves me a tad bitter. Then you have to update the game just to get 4 extra characters and an actual arcade mode, so yeah. The game felt empty when I first bought it, and I’m not a fan of having to drag the damn system somewhere just to get features it should’ve had from the start. Why the hell wasn’t there an Arcade mode? Did Arika not see the piss people were slinging at SF5 for not including an Arcade mode? Not everyone wants to spend every waking moment in VS or online just because it’s a fighting game. Soul Calibur and MK9 should’ve taught the industry that there was more to fighting games than just fighting. The market keeps showing you that content matters. Stripping everything out just for Online Vs isn’t working. “Low budget” wasn’t an excuse to exclude an Arcade mode the first time around. Especially since, again, this physical version came out after an update included extra shit.
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Another thing I don’t understand is the supreme lack of options! Each match in the game is 3-5 rounds. You CANNOT CHANGE THIS!! Why!? Maybe I’d like shorter matches when going into Arcade mode, best 2 out of 3. But no, nothing! Training mode doesn’t allow you to change the stage, so you’re always in that damn, dull box room that shows up in every fighting game nowadays. The music itself isn’t really memorableā¦ or maybe that’s because most of the music is generic. Fine, low budget it is, but that doesn’t mean the music has to suck. You do have the option of using the music from the SFEX games in place of the original soundtrack the game has, but those songs weren’t all that good either. Nostalgic, maybe, but not an overall good replacement.
Big ass hands on this one!
All in all, Fighting Ex Layer can be summed up as, mmmā¦ not bad persay. Just underwhelming in terms of overall content. The gameplay is serviceable, and the developers did nothing to change the overall game from it’s predecessors, making it enjoyable for what it is. Basically a nostalgia trip back to an era where fighting games were fucking SIMPLE! On the other hand, that’s basically all it is. A “Gameplay” game. If you want content, it’s not here. You’re better off sticking with Namco and ASW even though their abilities in making decent fighting games are questionable at best. The severe lack of options is also a horrible decision. You should have some actual customization over matches, including how many rounds you have.
But eh, not a bad game to kill time before SOR4 AE comes out, eh? Can’t believe Max Thunder has to suck until the DLC edition comes out!
Usually I’d do a number of posts on Sonic when something new out of Sonic arises, primarily because now we have this situation where Sonic Twitter (where the fuck else?) is going hog wild over the idea that, yes, Sega commissioned a shoddy port of Sonic Colors for all current/last gen consoles in a rushed attempt to put out SOMETHING for the anniversary season (hell, for all we know, this WAS intended to be the damn anniversary game since Sega has shown unwarranted love toward this shit) despite evidence that Sega has fucked up ports in the past (Sonic Genesis comes to mind)… but… Idk, I always have this thing about not revisiting old shit unless I’ve never played them or rebought them myself. Like Saints Row 4, I would never have talked about that again if I didn’t think the PS4 version would’ve made the game better (it didn’t, that was me being spoiled by how much better the PS4 version of RE6 was), and really… IT’S SONIC FUCKING COLORS!!! You know!? š
It’s fascinating to me. I think I’m actually at a point where I’m losing interest in Sonic! Could also have something to do with the Tyranny going on in Washington that’s obviously of a higher concern because “so long income”, but at the same time, they haven’t given me anything to look forward to that says “Hey, we care about our long time fans!” So far, we’ve got Idris Elba as Knuckles and all I can say is “Damn, what a waste of talent!” It’s gonna be for an inevitably shit sequel so they’re daring me to “prove my loyalties” so to speak. But it’s like… damn. Sonic Colors is NOT worth talking about outside of laughing at all the plebs who are desperately trying to defend it’s rather lackluster port. Again, only in the magical land of Sonic Fandom is something like this ever possible. Just… how many people honestly care about “PORTS” of decade old games to go this hard to discredit people that are claiming that this shit is buggy and glitchy? Like every user who reports this is exclusively showing this from an emulator? Granted, a few (Keyword, FEW) people have come out and said they were indeed playing this on an emulator, but suddenly, “EVERYONE was doing so”? Not only are they claiming that no one in their right mind is going to spend money on this shit (which is reasonable), but at the same time, exclusively claiming that it is all SWITCH emulation as well. That’s desperation if you ask me. Switch ports have a bad habit of being straight ass! Lets be honest! Just like with the Wii, developers do not put in their best efforts when making ports to Nintendo platforms. Historically, even. Whether they use the “weaker hardware” as an excuse or not, they aren’t going to do it. The hardware excuse shouldn’t even exist since, as a port of a decade old game FROM NINTENDO HARDWARE, the Switch should be capable of running the damn thing with ease. Nevermind that people are reporting issues from across all platforms. One thing that I wouldn’t believe is the guy that claims the game shot his entire PC to hell, Sega isn’t generally known to create games that damage hardware (they barely take full advantage of any console they’re on) unlike those fucks over at Koei or Netherrealm Studios, but hell, what do I know of Sega’s efforts on PC, right? The idea of Sega making an ass port/remaster is not hard to believe at all. As far as I can tell, it definitely was a rushed port. Usually, Sega announces a new Sonic game at least a year in advance. Or at the very least more than 7 months. There’s usually a large gap between when a Sonic game is announced and when it actually releases. The time frame between when SCU was announced and when it released was about 4 months. Something tells me the pandemic fucked their original plans and they had to give us SOMETHING since Japan cares waaaaaaay too much about anniversaries. The same month that we find out this mythical anniversary game was pushed back… is the same month they announced SCU, they had to have rushed it out. I would find it plausible that they rushed this game out to make the anniversary, which would explain all of these bad results.
What I don’t find plausible is the desperation to defend Sega over this. Again, these could be shills… actually, fuck it, they’d HAVE to be shills to go this far! Anytime a Sonic game has bugs and glitches, it was always Sega’s fault, no exception. Now all of a sudden, people are just trying to defame Sonic Colors by any means necessary!? You shittin me!? Let this be a port of Sonic 06 and you mother fuckers would LIGHT… IT… UP!! You assholes go to sleep DREAMING about tearing a Sonic game apart! Or is this the new age of Toxic Positivity where we give everything a chance unless it’s “daaaaark” and “serious” and “edgy”? Usually something like this would get written off as just a shoddy port. But oh no! Now it’s just bad emulation! So maybe it wasn’t High Voltage’s fault that Zone of Enders 2nd Runner on PS3 ran like total shit. That wasn’t because it was a bad port, it was just me using an emulator! The patch from Hexadrive was just a figment of my imagination, all I did was actually buy the real-ok you get the idea.
Who made the port? Blind Squirrel? Yeah that joke writes itself. Could be that they were too busy with the Mass Effect Legacy Collection to give a shit about Sonic (since… you know, Mass Effect is actually a big deal), there’s a strong possibility that had something to do with the bad results. Anyone think about that? No, just poor emulation? How many times in the past has “Emulator” ever been used to excuse a shit port of an old game? This is the first time I’ve ever heard this as an explanation. Can anyone logically deduce why anyone would care so much about Sonic Colors that MULTIPLE USERS would pull a fast one, use emulators, or deliberately force glitches in the game to prove a PORT is shit? Sonic fans have a history of finding bugs in Sonic games and posting vids of them over and over and over again. It’s something of a pasttime ever since 06 came out. People were doing this with Sonic Boom. In all instances, no one claimed they were using emulation. What makes “now” so special? What makes “Colors” so special to people?
Then you got this fool here: “So I almost spent a full week trying to figure out whatwent wrong with SCU, and everyone’s still blaming the IP’s curse, and not looking at the wider picture of ever-increasing standards leading to toxic work environments”. Magical in-bred thinking rears it’s ugly head yet again! First and foremost, Toxic work environments have absolutely nothing to do with the demand for higher quality entertainment. You’re essentially saying that to “do better” is to make life hell for the people that develop the games. Making games is hard, yes, but making a GOOD game doesn’t lead to a toxic work environment. A toxic work environment depends on the people working on or overseeing the project. And often, the mindset isn’t on higher standards, it’s on short term profit. If the people are shitty (which… yeah, Sega are), then THAT leads to the Toxic Work Environment. I’m willing to bet the people over at Platinum aren’t working in a toxic environment, and they crap GOLD! They live up to the standards expected out of modern games, and they did so by getting OUT of a Toxic Environment (Capcom). The indies ain’t working in Toxic Environments, and they’re… moderately better as of late (Or so I can assume. No one’s doing any expose’s on their work environments). Secondly, how toxic does a work environment have to be to FUCK UP a port/so-called remaster of a Nintendo WII game!? That should fall on the overall skills of the people doing the work. Believe me, Sonic Colors is NOT a high standard game. People pretend it is because there aren’t too many elements present that don’t sit well with people. Essentially what they were supposed to do was be the Christian Whitehead for Sonic Colors. Difference is that Whitehead developed his code for Sonic ports way before Sega gave him a phonecall for CD. As far as I can tell, Blind Squirrel (So dumb…) is just like High Voltage Studios. They’re the random guys people call in to port their games to different systems, I doubt they have the skills necessary to rework the overall physics AND make the shit work on new hardware at the same time. The hell does any of this have to do with “Ever-Increasing Standards!?” This is SEGA we’re talking about! They NEVER have standards in regards to Sonic! Hell, Sonic doesn’t even get a BUDGET anymore! That’s why we have this lazy cash grab of a failure on store shelves.
Sonic Colors is only special in the fact that people didn’t outright hate the game, but it’s only for the reason that it kept the basic premise of Sonic without too many gimmicks. It didn’t have the multiple playable characters that Sega would inevitably use for gimmicks, it didn’t have werehog, it didn’t have a whole lot of motion controls… it didn’t have bullshit no one wanted. That above all else is why the game got the reception it did. When you don’t shove bullshit into people’s faces, you get much better reception than usual. People only like Sonic when they’re able to blast through Zones at their own pace, without having to do some extracurricular nonsense designed by Takashi Izuka in order to do so. But as a result, people ignored the problems the game DID have. The poor, piddly physics, the short levels that relied on 3D platformer “logic” rather than be a straight up Sonic game, lousy content, horrible dialog that people wouldn’t celebrate if this were 2004, shitty powerups that for SOME REASON will never go away, Rogic, and an overall emptiness after completing it. It feels like a game made for babies, which makes more sense today now that we know it’s SOJ’s target audience. Not insulting kids, first of all, just pointing out the gact that they want IDIOTS to play their Sonic games. Well, the age group might be wrong, but they sure as shit got em if these excuses are what constitutes as an actual defense of SCU.
Even this is deeply rooted in SOJ’s sheer arrogance. Rather than admit they have a problem with how they develop Sonic games, they instead blame their target audience for being hard to please. The mentality behind Sonic Colors was a giant middle finger to longtime fans of Sonic. Always has been, always will be. It doesn’t deserve all of these would be defenders. But alas, here we are. When a game that was literally made for babies garners this much support, what more can we expect from Sonic games than toddler fodder?
“Bastard Devil Biden”, more like “TYRANT DEVIL BIDEN!”
Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge is best described in the 90s as “wack“. It is a film that is confused as to what it wants to be, so much so that it literally destroys it’s own premise with a promise to be about one character while being about multiple characters that get shafted in favor of that one character.
In other words, it’s one of the main reasons I despise the MCU, but primarily because this animated feature was handled by people who clearly had a bias for certain characters over others. The movie spits in the face of Mortal Kombat lore in order to shill the likes of Scorpion and Johnny Cage, so much so that Liu Kang, the Champion of Mortal Kombat, gets his shit kicked in by Goro, and only Scorpion could save him from being torn to shreds. FUCK THAT MOVIE!!
That being said, I was intruiged by the sequel which decided to put Liu Kang up front as the main character this time around. It’s actually rather shocking. Liu Kang hasn’t been the main character of Mortal Kombat since MK4. Even back then, Liu Kang didn’t take so much priority away from other characters that they never had the chance to shine (to my knowledge). But ever since John Tobias left, it felt like Raiden, and then Johnny Cage took center stage of the games, and the transition didn’t feel natural at all. Raiden was just the mentor character to the characters, and Johnny Cage is the comic relief. Besides, why would a GOD become the main character of something called “Mortal Kombat”? I suppose the latter case is just another aspect of the 2010s where the sarcastic rich dipshit has to be the star of the show nowadays. Thanks Iron Man, you’ve ruined entertainment more than you’ve ruined Spider-Man. You know there’s a problem when everyone’s favorite parts of the last 2 Mortal Kombat films were the comedy (Cage from Scorpion’s Revenge, and Kano from 2021).
I’m going to take a minute to ramble about how much I’m sick of seeing this fucking trend. I absolutely HATE the idea of the sarcastic quippy, sometimes rich asshole being the main character of shit. I hate it, I hate it, I absolutely hate it. I feel like the last decade has literally trained people to be drawn to the worst aspects of American society, so much so that a literal sociopath can be everyone’s favorite character so long as they’re funny.
Yes I like Deadpool, but that’s aside the point. He’s not an unbearable shit like Iron Man.
Anywho, before I start this off, I would love to give a very special “FUCK YOU” to Warner Bros. for making this sequel exclusive to Blu-Ray and digital. What balls you have to demand I pay more just to watch a sequel that is only marginally improved upon the first film. Yes, I have a working PS3 and PS4 to play Blu-Ray, but fuck paying extra because of the format it’s on. This shit is a good reason to pirate. š
But yes. “Marginally” better is the appropiate description. Mind you, it is a clusterfuck, but it seems to have been handled by a mind that thinks “ok, just because I like Scorpion the most doesn’t mean everyone else does, and that maybe the original main character of the franchise deserves some shine as of late.” Of course, the way they go about this is contrived as shit, it’s better than what they did in the last film. Thisā¦ unfortunately comes at the expense of one of my favorite characters, and I will DEFINITELY get into that later!
I realize I never really had a post on Scorpion’s Revenge, so here’s a refresher on what that shit stain did. First, it’s opening sequence where Human Scorpion fucks up the Lin Kuei is the only good scene in the whole movie, and it reallyā¦ REALLY makes you feel for Scorpion when Quan Chi murders his son right in front of him! So automatically, you want Scorpion to get his revenge! Unfortunately, The next few scenes introduce you to Liu Kang, Sonya Blade, and Johnny Cage. This is the movie’s way of telling you that we have to care about these people as well, but gives us no meaningful reason to unlike Scorpion. Cage is being a douchebag to women and his agent sets him up for Mortal Kombat. Sonya Blade is fighting in the back alleys only to get information about Kano who is working for Shang Tsung for Mortal Kombat. And Liu Kang has a sparring session with Raiden in preperation for Mortal Kombat. Then we cut back to Scorpion who is in hell, and fucks up Moloch and several other Netherrealm demons before being comically twisted up like a pretzel by Quan Chi. Quan Chi forces Scorpion’s to find a key that looks like Shinnok’s amulet, which is located on the island where Mortal Kombat takes place. From that moment on, Scorpion literally gets sidelined for the other characters as we get bombarded by references to past games before we do the obligatory maiming of Jax Briggs by Goro. Then the Tournament begins where Cage defeats Baraka without actually fighting back, Reptile jobs against Sonya while having the most flawless design ever seen in MK (FUCK he looked awesome!), and Liu Kang doesn’t hurt women which is why he doesn’t beat the literal shit out of Kitana. Scorpion just goes around dusting Lin Kuei ninjas with no effort. Then Shang Tsung cheats and uses the Black Dragon to kill off Earthrealm fighters because he’s a douch. Scorpion rapes the Black Dragon, then has a friendly conversation with the 3 main humans while Sonya kicks Cage in the nuts, because for some reason I’m expected to care about Johnny and Sonya’s relationship just because it happened in MKX. Then the 4 badasses rape the Black Dragon. Sub-Zero randomly appears, kicks Kano’s ass, and then Scorpion and him fight in a battle that lasts in half a minute. For a rivalry as celebrated as this one in Mortal Kombat, they did fuck all to make it anything other than anticlimatic. After killing Subs, Quan Chi reveals he murdered his family and clan, and Scorpion, who was also impaled, gets the will to kick more ass. Sonya and Johnny go after Kano who is holding Jax hostage. Fuck this movie for humiliating Jax twice. I was convinced the writers had a hate boner for the character. Strong female character gets destroyed and is saved by stupid funny man Cage because we’ll be damned if our Tony Stark Stan gets immasculated 3 times. Then Liu Kang gets dusted by Goro because we don’t care about MK lore anymore than we care about making Scorpion awesome. So Scorpion kills Goro, then forfeits to Liu Kang so that Earthrealm wins Mortal Kombat. FUUUUUUUUCK!!! Then Scorpion fights and kills Quan Chi in an anime fight that’s been more impressive than every other fight in this movie. Liu Kang then whines about being too shit to beat Goro, and Raiden tells him that it was his destiny to beat Shao Khanā¦ while MK fans shit themselves with laughter as to how that could happen since Goro is practically second to Shao Khan in terms of raw strength.
There, all caught up! So without further adeu, lets get on wit it!
The film begins with a prologue for Liu Kang’s backstory to let you know that he’s the main character this time. Because Liu Kang has less fans than Scorpion, this backstory isn’t done well enough to make me care about Liu Kang’s parents. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Show us who these characters are BEFORE they’re murdered off, and THEN we care that they died. We at least got to see some bonding between Scorpion and his kid. We see NOTHING for Baby Kang and his parents. Eitherway, they’re turned into a cherry salad before Raiden randomly appears and saves Liu from being eaten. It begs the question of why he didn’t do the same for the Shirai Ryu when Quan Chi was murdering their asses, but Raiden has shown the world what an incredible fuck up he is.
So we come to the present where the outworld invasion has already begun, and we get to see MAH BOI KUNG LAO!!!
YEAH!!! OH YEAH!!! Man he’s gonna kick SOOOO MUCH ASS IN THIS INTRO, I JUST KNOW IT! LOOK AT HIM GO!!! YEAH BABY, KICK DAT ASS-Oh know, he’s been slammed to the ground by a big demonā¦ Oh well, not everyone can be damn near flawless like the 2021 version. Anywho, he has to be saved by the fucking special forces. Ja has his metal arms, and for some reason, Striker is in this movie, and for some reason, he’s made to be more impressive than Kung Laoā¦ and Lao’s been fighting against demonic shit FAR LONGER than Striker has! ā¦. I thinkā¦.
Anywho, they managed to make Jax annoying in this movie. He always has this shit eating grin, acting like he’s the coolest shit in the world even though a single movie ago, he was crying like a little bitch throughout the entire shit. It feelsā¦ jarring, to say the least. ALSO, because the writers decided to low ball the entire cast for some reason, he’s limited to strong arms and machine gun fire. No plasma fist, no ground shaker, not even those fast hands he has in MK11. Justā¦ machine guns. How lame is that!?
Anywho, we cut over to the main camp of Outworld, and for some reason, Kitana is the general of the Outworld Army even though fucking Reiko is right next to her.
FYI, Reiko is only in this movie to die. Sure he was a generic henchman in 2021, but his actor made that character hilarious! His overacting was incredible, seeing Reiko’s big fuckin eyes pop open for literally every reason was worth the price of admissionā¦ if I was actually allowed to go to theaters. >_> In this movie, Reiko is literally a waste of space. I don’t remember if he has any lines of dialogue, even.
Anywho, it’s revealed that Johnny Cage was spying on them while sitting in a tree, and my suspension of disbelief had to take a moment to decipher what in the fresh fuck I’m supposed to accept. How the literal shit does Outworld’s army NOT detect that Cage was in their camp for hours!? Even Cage calls bullshit on this script! This was, of course, all a set up for future gags that I’m all but tired of seeing. After Cage comically falls out of the tree and busts his ass, he’s immediately surrounded by Outworld soldiers. Then he comments on Kitana’s outfit because this is a thing now. After a minute of stupid shit, Sonya Blade starts sniping soldiers within the enemy camp shortly before the rest of the Earthrealm assholes show up to dust everyone. After a while of cheaply animated fighting, Shao Khan shows up. Liu Kang IMMEDIATELY kicks him in the face, and then gets swung into a tree because the writers want us to see just how strong this guy is. Increase the tension and what not. It’s not necessary seeing how Goro whooped Liu’s ass in the last movie, but I suppose that wasn’t convincing enough, so lets hve Liu Kang get swung into a tree with no effort. I’m certain the final battle will be made all the more convincing because of it! I’m annoyed how Liu Kang is made more of an idiot in these films. Like in the last movie, he picks a fight with Scorpion without knowing that he’s actually on the side of Outworld and assumes right off the bat simply becauseā¦ Scorpion looks scary. Here, he just lashes out and attacks Shao Khan without any real idea of how to deal with him. At least in the 90s film, there’s at least some reason given to why Liu Kang is something of a dolt, but here’s, Liu’s just an idiot! Im sitting here literally thinking “Oh amma, I hope they don’t make him look inferior to Cage for the second time, like Cage could come out with that Shadow energy bullshit and totes pwn the Emperior of Outworld.” It’s the Iron Man vs Thanos fight all over again where Thanos has more respect for Iron Man over Doctor Strange, and the excuse being “well Thanos first appeared in the Iron Man books!” or “Well Iron Man actually drew blood unlike Hulk!” Yes, I need to stop rambling.
Get used to seeing the Earthrealm warriors as inferior to those of Outworld. This movie is a one sided mess!
Shao Khan, bitch that he is, demands a “final Kombat” because he’s a sour ass that couldn’t handle losing the last time. Thoughā¦ I think he’s perfectly justified seeing as how Earthrealm practically cheated. I meanā¦ Scorpion was supposedly fighting on Outworld’s side, then he turned on them thanks to Quan Chi, killed Goro before he could officially defeat Liu Kang, and then threw the final match to Earthrealm. Hell, I’d feel cheated too! So he and Raiden go to pay the worthless Elder Gods a visit.
BUT FIRSTā¦ We have to see what’s cooking with the most overrated Mortal Kombat character in existenceā¦. because Ed Boon pulled an Inafune back in the day and gave Scorpion all the importance, so much so that, because Gamers are a simple lot, they went along with the shilling hype and only loved Scorpion for the same reason they love Zero from Mega Man X! Anywho, Scorpion has a nightmare of his family burning to death before awakening in the Netherrealmā¦ because he was crushed by debris in the last movie. So Shinnokā¦. WAITā¦ I SMELL BULLSHIT!!!
Ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok. Maybe I should rewatch the last movieā¦ but there was some implication that Shinnok was imprisoned orā¦ some shit. Quan Chi was in control of the Netherrealm in the place of Shinnok, and had Scorpion on a mission to retrieve an object in relation to Shinnok. Quan Chi failed to get this “key” because Shang Tsung discovered Quan Chi’s plot before he could enact it.
The idea was that Shinnok was DEFINITELY locked upā¦ or somethingā¦ soā¦. HOW THE FUCK IS HE HERE NOW!?
Well, as the writers (who by this point clearly have stopped giving all the fucks they have) try to explain, the key was actually not for Shinnok’s prisonā¦ but for the dungeons which housed the Kamidogu, an idea that was ripped off of the Infinity Gems since those trinkets are the body parts of Nemesis. Just like the Chaos Emeralds being body parts of Perfect Chaos. Soā¦ Shinnok already has 5 of the Kamidogu, and he needs the one that’s located in Earthrealm. However, the key became bonded to Scorpion’s soulā¦ or some shit. Translation, because Scorpion is the franchise mascot and most popular character, we need to give him something to do for all the 12 year olds watching because they believe that if he is NOT front and center in Mortal Kombat, those same 12 year olds will run and cower in fear of his blasphemic absence! So obviously, Shinnok wants to keep Scorpion around in order to achieve his objective. Scorpion, predictibly, says “bite me” and runs away. But instead of following him, Shinnok decides to have the Lin Quei do his dirty work.
Enter Kuai Liang, the younger Sub-Zero. And BOY, do I have words for how they fucked his character! So you guys know that Sub-Zero is a pretty rational and mature guy when compared to angry boy Scorpion, right? It kinda shows that while Sub-Zero resents Scorpion for killing his brother, he lets it go and tries to focuson mending their conflict and doing all he can to defend Earthrealm while fucking up Sector and his Temugin assholes? Or w/e the hell was going on in Armageddon’s story mode? Yeah well, lets toss ALL of that out of the window and completely focus on the only thing we saw of Sub-Zero from MK9 as the vengeful younger brother. Nowā¦ let me clarify something (Oh dear, I sound like the asskissers of the MCU with that statement!). Having Sub-Zero as the vengeful brother here is fine in and of itself. It is only natural for him to want revenge. And as I can understand it, since the movie is based on MK2, that was his primary reason for entering the second tournament. Butā¦ here’s the problem. After Sub-Zero and Smoke’s little training session, the Lin Kuei Grandmaster summons them for the task of finding and killing Scorpion. Naturally, Subs is eager to complete the task.
BUTā¦ here’s where they fucked up. The Grandmaster reveals the Cyber Initiative. Here, he shows that Cyrax and Sector have already been mind/Body fucked. Soā¦ they fight. Subs manages to escape, but Smoke gets theā¦ wellā¦ “smoke” and is captured.
So what happens through the rest of the movie is that it cuts back and forth between MK2 and the Sub story (pun intended) of Sub-Zero and the Cyber Ninjas chasing Scorpion all across the world. That’sā¦ literally all they do for Scorpion’s story. Sub-Zero’s character is VERY much ruined as he is hunting Scorpionā¦ WHILE being hunted by the Cybers. The Cybersā¦ then seem to ignore Subs and goes for Scorpion, Subs freezes the Cybers momentarily, then chases Scorpion, trying to kill him, rinse and repeat. There is little change in what happens in the sub plot, but one thing to note is that Sub-Zero becomes almost exclusively a one-note character. He’s just “Angry” and irrational for the whole damn movie. You’d think he would lament more on the fact that his best friend was turned into a robot, but he’s pretty just “Oh well, them’s the breaks, bitch! I’ve got to murder this guy!” As expected, when Scorpion tries to reason with Subs (this shouldn’t really be a thing), Subs won’t listen and will just try to kill him. Usually it’s the other way around, but a big part of shilling a character is to make all others seem far more irrational than he or she. So in order for Scorpion to look good, Sub-Zero MUST be inferior. It’s how they did it for Tommy Oliver way back in the 90s, it’s how they’ve been doing it for X-Men, especially after Schism between Wolverine and Cyclops, it’s how they did it by turning Captain America into a Hydra agent so that Iron Man’s actions in Civil War were justified, and in many ways, that’s how it’s happened between Liu Kang and Johnny Cage. So for the entire movie, Sub-Zero is just a rage induced murder boner.
Back to Raiden and Shao Khan, they both request of the Elder Gods (or at least Raiden does as Shao Khan despises the idea of having to ASK for anythingā¦ which is fitting, actually) to hold a new tournament in Outworld. The Idiot Gods agree, but then Raiden also requests to take part. Shao Khan is pissed over the prospect because it’s called “Mortal Kombat”. Butā¦ there’s a flaw in his logicā¦ as well as the very aspect of the tournament itself. Shao Khan isn’t “Mortal”, technically speaking, but he takes part in it. Scorpion isn’t Mortal, he is a Wraith, but he takes part in the first tournament. Mortals don’t typically have the ability to survive deathā¦ which is something that Shao Khan has done plenty of times before. And quite frankly, given that the fighters of Outworld have such supernatural powers and abilities that put them on par with gods and demons, I don’t think it’s unfair for Raiden to take part. Afterall, the games, even the reboot, states that Raiden’s godhood is nullified in Outworld. He can still use his powers, but he isn’t immortal like in Earthrealm. I wonder why this factoid wasn’t utilized in the movie. But eh, the Elder Gods decide to strip Raiden of his Godhood in order to have him participate in this movieā¦ which is stupid. But it gets to a veryā¦ VERY big problem with this movie.
Earthrealm is fucking LOW BALLED for the sake of tension and suspense. Infact, ALL the heroes are low balled here. Remember when Scorpion would teleport often in the last movie? He doesn’t do that AT ALL here! They don’t even give a reason for it, he just doesn’t teleport anymore. I already mentioned that Jax’s capabilities are reduced to being strong and machine guns. Liu Kang barely uses his fire attacks. Johnny Cage, a character that massacered an army of demons in the last film, gets dusted by D’vorrah despite actually using his Shadow Kick abilities. Que angry fanboys raging that D’vorrah beat up another legacy characterā¦ except it’s Johnny Cage, who cares? But don’t worry. Girl power is in full effect so that Sonya Blade can come off like a complete badass expert fighter that easily destroys D’vorrah. Fuck power scaling, who cares if D’vorrah completely demolished a character that destroyed an army of demons that even she couldn’t defeat. Actually, no. That isn’t girl power at all, it’s the fucking shipping between Cage and Blade that I don’t give 2 worthless fucks about. Because after every fight, Sonya has to remind everyone that Johnny Cage isn’t his boyfriend. Infact, her character has been reduced to a goddamn tsundere. I can’t believe Sonya fucking Blade is just a random Tsundere waifu character in this film!
Mind you, I didn’t like her character in the last film, but at least she HAD a character! “Don’t underestimate the power of a strong female character who randomly kicks guys in the balls because that’s female empowerment” is 20x more acceptable than “I didn’t do that because I like you or anything”. Fuck this movie, and fuck the new interest that people have in exploring the love life between Johnny Cage and Sonya Blade. This literally wasn’t a thing back in the 90s, that much I do remember, but ever since fucking MKX, we all have to stand up and cheer for these 2 jackoffs. This is Neo-Trinity, Cyclops-Jean Grey, Tommy-Kimberly, and Spiderman-Mary Jane all the fuck over again, and I’m sick of it. I’m sick of being told to give a shit about the relationship between 2 characters when neither party is a character I like. I don’t like modern Comic relief Johnny Cage. I don’t like Sonya “I am woman, hear me roar” Blade. Even the relationship between Liu Kang and Kitana wasn’t shoved in our face like these 2. Unless you only remember the 90s movies and Defenders of the Realm. Speaking of which, Sonya Blade was a pretty cool character in the cartoon, and I honestly think the change in actress helped to make her a more likable character in Mortal Kombat Annihilation, especially since she would go on to kick David Hasselhoff’s ass in Nick Fury. Go go post-MKX Sonya Blade! May your badassery live on for all eternity!
Actually, now that I think about it, 2021 Sonya Blade was pretty cool too despite having no real arc. Fuck Legends Sonya Blade, and fuck the Legends Shipping! Holy shit, why am I ranting about a character that was never a particular favorite of mine!?
Anywho, most of the battles against Outworld go off without a hitch. The Earthrealm fighters, despite being underpowered as shit, completely destroys Outworld. So all that time spent trying to create fake tension has gone out the window. Later, the Earthrealmers get some rest and relaxation, we get MORE bullshit shipping for Cage and Blade in which I’m hoping one of you can bullshit me on why this cocksucker would care about pussy when they’re in a fight to save their world from being destroyed by a mad man. Actually, don’t answer that. It’s actually pretty realistic to want sex if the world is going to end. š
Liu Kang is worried about Raiden because he’s mortal now, is stripped of his powers for some odd reason, and actually desires food and sleep like a regular human, but Raiden keeps smiling and telling him not to worry. It’s like the movie can’t help but spoil the plot before it can finish, stop foreshadowing his death for crying out loud!
But then we get to Striker vs Shang Tsung, and holy shit, Shang Tsung just rapes him. Well obviously, no one I know actually likes Striker except the Proud Boys. But I must say that, aside from Jax, no one from Earthrealm ever uses fatalities on Outworld. I guess they have to be Reptile in order to be fatalitied because all of a sudden, we’re supposed to hate Reptile. Fuck that. Reptile is one of the coolest MK characters, and I will be damned if I get conscripted into looking at him as a lesser being than Modern Johnny Cage. Or Kano for that matter. No I don’t care if his 2021 counterpart is the only good character in that movie, Kano in general is ass!
But speaking of fatalitiesā¦. sighsā¦.. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKā¦ this next part!!!!
So MAH BOI KUNG LAOā¦ hasn’t had a single fight the entire tournament, ok? I meanā¦ literally, does not fight at allā¦ until this point. Kung Lao’s opponent?
FUCKING SHAO KHAN!!
Right then and there, I said to myself “FUCK THIS MOVIE! FUCK IT IN THE ASS, IN THE THROAT, FUCK THE WRITERS WHO WROTE THIS SHIT, FUCK THE FANBOYS WHO WILL INEVITABLY SUCK THIS OFF BECAUSE 2021 WAS SO BAD, JUST FUCKITY FUCK IT!!! FUCK!!” HOW does this happen!? Kung Lao only appears in the beginning invasion scene and does barely fuck all to save the shaolin temple, he doesn’t have his teleporting abilities, and he doesn’t fight in this tournamentā¦ until SHAO KHAN!? The writers have a raging hate boner for Kung Lao or something to fuck him over this badly!
Soā¦ the fight is short becauseā¦ it’s Shao Khan, but lets go over this. Soā¦ Kung Lao does a jump, right? Shao Khan evades him easily, so Kung Lao dashes toward him and delivers multiple punches to his abdomen which does fuck all, then finally with a kick that Khan blocks, so Shao Khan counters with a massive overhead punch that Kung Lao dodges with ease. However, Khan runs up to Lao and leg sweeps him into the air, then follows up with a straight punch. Lao gets knocked halfway across the arenaā¦ and appears to be out of commission. Khan slowly marches up to him and tries to step on him. Lao immediately jumps out of the way, and does his signature hat toss. Khan catches the hat with his bare hand, then tosses it back at Lao. Here, Lao fails to capture his hatā¦.
Laoā¦ fails to capture his hatā¦ doesn’t evenā¦ try.. to catch it. Iā¦ sighs
I reallyā¦ honestly, as a person who wasn’t even ALLOWEDā¦ to get invested into Mortal Kombat at such a young age, I shouldn’t be so upset over this. Hell, I barely even got to know Kung Lao since all the MK Media I could look at were the 90s movies, the 90s cartoon, and now. All that shit I watched back then never had Kung Lao. The first time I could actually play Mortal Kombat was on the N64 with that Trilogy shit, and I didn’t know who most of those characters, but knew my sister would always pick Liu Kang because he screams funny. Didn’t ever use Kung Lao once, never even fought him in the arcade modeā¦ I don’t even know if he was in the game.
I did not come to like or care about Kung Laoā¦ until MK9. When I was looking at the few gameplay trailers and whatnot, I said right then and thereā¦ that “He’s going to by my fucking main”! And indeed he was! Kung Lao is the literal PIMP of Mortal Kombat! He’s the coolest mother fucker there is in this series! He’s got so much style and finess that you’d be crazy to ignore his pimpability! He is the definition of Rule of Cool. And his moves were damn near FLAWLESS! The very rare times I went online, I managed to getā¦ at least 3 wins with this guy as my pick. Yeah, screw you guys, people had lag tactics up the ass! YEAH, THAT’S THE REASON >>, << I was FURIOUS that they nerfed him in MKX, but unlike Jax, he still had some fight left in him, and due time, I was whoopin ass once more! Sure I didn’t MK11, but I’m pretty sure he’s still the same old badass he usually is! Hell, the game’s story spelled it out for you! How he just said “fuck the Shaolin traps, I have THIS” and just tosses his hat to fuck up that whole trap, GODDAMN HE’S SO COOL!!!! And dude, you know I loved how 2021 put some respect on his name! No longer was he the jealous rival to Liu Kang, he was a mentor to a couple of idiots, provoking the funny man to get his Arcana, and was so damn pimp that he dusts the Vampire bitch with ease!
“Flawess Victory!” Wipe
HELL YEAH!!!
Soā¦ lemme tell you allā¦ that when I sawā¦ Shao Khan throw his hat right into Kung Lao’s chest, and he just stood there with no effortā¦ or any real fucking intentā¦ to catch the damn thingā¦. I shut the whole fucking movie off! I cut that shit off for the whole damn day! I was losing my mind, I was pissed beyond belief! I was sitting here thinking “They did NOT just disrespect mah boi like this!” I said cut this shit off, I don’t give a fuck! Justā¦ NO!! NO! NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!! What kind of fuckery is this!? They straight up DISSED him! They said “lets just put the original G of Mortal Kombat in this movie just to kill him off! We know people only care about Scorpion being awesome, and Cage getting sexy time with Blade, so no one will mind”. Just no respect at all! They just put him in the movie TO DIE!! Why the fuck am I watching these movies when my 3 favorite characters are always getting fucked over!? Either Reptile jobs, Jax gets maimed, or Kung Lao just dies. Why the fuck do I bother!? Everyone only cares about Cage and Blade sex bonding so fuck everything else! Sure Liu Kang gets his respect back, but now it’s like no one else in this series MATTERS anymore! Somebody get Tobias back because it’s clear Boon is screwing around with the characters at this point.
Yeah, that’s something that’s been on my mind lately. It seems that the only real shred of lore that people only enjoyed from the series goes up to MK4. While people mention 5(DA), 6(D), and 7(A) a few times, the only pieces of lore they do enjoy comes from the first 4 games, and these games all involved John Tobias (or did he leae before MK4? I don’t recall). That would make sense considering he’s the one who created all the lore for the series to my knowledge. Plus, DA inexclipibly had Shao Khan alive for some reason even though he was pretty much dead after MK3 with Reiko seemingly taking over the reigns of Outworld Emperor, something we have yet to see in this series because “HERP HERP, REIKO NOT SHAO” or some shit. So it stands to reason that the lore of the series was no longer important to the rest of the creative staff of Mortal Kombat as several things were just changed outright. While it’s true that MK9 was a reboot of the series (though technically Shaolin Monks made all the retcons beforehand), but it did so as a time traveling concept, meaning that some elements of the original canon (yes) NEEDED to be maintained instead of removing whatever depth the characters had in the first place where they are just changed into these very generic characters with no meaning to their struggles. I’m getting all kinds of info from the fans. How Mileena dresses sexy because she feels ugly thanks to her mangled face, or how Kung Lao is actually a pacifist who wants nothing to do with Mortal Kombat, but still harbors a grudge against Goro, or how Sindel was actually a loving mother instead of a generic golddigging bitch they turned her into for Aftermathā¦ just because it’s easier for them to make shit up as they go along instead of giving these characters proper stories or arcs that at least live up to, coincide with, or have a shred of goddamn respect to the source material! Thus, Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms is based on Final Destination 4 logic. No one cares about these characters, they only care about the fatalities. Which is the logic behind dusting Kung Lao like this. He’s treated like a nobody, some random character that apparently no one is supposed to like. It’s an inconsiderate logical fallacy in which the writers ASSUME my tastes right off the bat. This is another problem with entertainment today. You’re not allowed to have preferences for jack shit. You’re only supposed to be invested in the spectacle, not the substance. And for some reason, audiences are ok with this mindset. Movies are no longer a medium for telling stories in spectacular ways, it’s just a theme park attraction that costs more than the price of admission.
sighs. Soā¦ going back to the descecration of Kung Lao, after getting his chest split, Shao Khan pulls the hat out and proceeds to do his signature fatality. Fuck you, writers! Then Shao licks the blood off his fingers like his Mileena, Vega, or fucking Skarlet because, again, the spectacle is the most important. Then he says “Fatality”, and we’re supposed to stand up and cheer because “OMG IT’S JUST LIKE IN THE GAMES!!!” Fuck you, writers!
So next up, Shao Khan dusts Jax and a couple of other Earthrealm fighters, but he doesn’t KILL them like he did Kung Lao because special forces is more important than Kung Lao, and because we still need to do more shipping with Cage and Blade. Then we get to Kitana vs Raiden. Nowā¦ this here is a moment that pissed off quite a few fanboys as Kitana practically defeats Raiden with ZERO EFFORT! Raiden does not land a single blow during the entire fight and gets steamrolled as though he were a common chump. I would, like most normal people would, assume that Raiden threw the fight because he was trying to get Kitana to betray Shao Khan, which she does seconds laterā¦ but, and I shit you not, people were bitching that Kitana being able to beat Raiden’s ass was, are you ready for this?
A POLITICAL GESTURE!!!
WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK!?
A political gesture! Kitana beating Raiden (while THROWING THE FIGHT) is POLITICAL! I shit you not, this new generation of fans are retarded now. I knew it. You can’t do shit that isn’t white male oriented without it being “political”, the mind fucking is real! People who are not idiots would NEVER assume this to be the case. I mean hell, Raiden wasn’t even TRYING to fight Kitana. But thisā¦ oh noes, Kitana is beating Raiden with zero effort, it MUST be political! Yeah right, dumbass. And the very next scene, she’s getting bodied by Shao Khan after trying to kill him. Where’s the politics in that!? Let that be Jade whoopin Raiden’s ass, these people would lose their ever loving minds! But yes, after pinning Raiden down, she tosses her fan into Shao Khan’s chest, and declares that she forfeits the match. As rightful ruler of Edenia, she claims that Earthrealm wins so that the merging of the Realms do not happen. Then Shao Khan gets up andā¦ basically says “Silly bitch, your weapons cannot harm me, do you know who the fuck I am, I’m the Juggernaut!”
That’s actually hilarious, Shao Khan plays dead while Kitana gasses herself up. Then he wakes up and beats her senseless.
So after that OH SO POLITICAL SCENE, we get the Liu Kang vs Shang Tsung fight. At first, I figure Liu Kang would crush Shang, but the sorceror actually puts up a good fight, just destroys Liu Kang. And then he “curses” Liu’s arm, rendering it disabled for the remainder of the fight. Thisā¦ means nothing as it was only done to create tension. You know why? Because then Liu Kang just steamrolls Shang Tsung for the rest of the fight! After kicking his ass, Liu Kang doesn’t even kill the bastard and declares that he should live in shame knowing that he got his ass kicked, and that the battleā¦ “wasn’t even close”. Wasn’t even close? Perhaps I can chalk that up to Liu getting his head caved in to the point of amnesia.
So now we get to the climax of the filmā¦ which is what everyone thought when they get to this scene. Raiden vs Shao Khan. If you couldn’t tell before, Raiden gets killed here, so no need to go into detail. But immediately after this, Liu Kang flies at Shao Khan in a murderous rage. As is typical of a final battle, Liu Kang gets destroyed. Keep in mind that his cursed arm doesn’t matter one bit in this battle as Liu fights normally. After his pummeling, Liu Kang then powers up to Ultra Instinct Gold and completely murders Shao Khan as though he were a Saiyan Warrior. It’s fair to say that this fight looked like Dragon Ball.
So then, the Elder Gods come out of their cave to declare that Liu Kang is the new Champion of Mortal Kombat. BUT OH NOES! It’s not over yet! Why? Well lets check in with Scorpion and Sub-Zero as their sub plot was more important to the movie than MK2!
So Scorpion makes it to the area where the Earthrealm Kamidogu exists, and Sub-Zero is STILL being an angry asshole with a murder boner, but after quite a few scenes, Scorpion manages to get the idiot Ninja to calm down and see the bigger picture, about how the realms are in mortal danger, and that they should live to settle their differences another time. So after 4 scenes, Sub-Zero lets Scorpion go, but OH NOES! The Cyber Ninjas come in and capture Scorpion, forcing him to open a door because he’s the keyā¦ shit, I’m talking about events out of order. That’s how little of a shit I gave about Scorpion’s story since most of it boiled down to a basic chase sequence that’s split into 5 parts (or scenes in this case).
First, Scorpion evades Sub-Zero’s capture at some military base while getting knocked around by the cyber ninjas. Then, he makes it to a temple gate, and is forced to open it by the Cyber Ninjas, but then Sub-Zero freezes the Cyber ninjas and chases Scorpion inside to fight in some ice caverns as though it were a reference to their battle in MK Annihilation, but Scorpion evades Sub-Zero and the Cyber Ninjas. Next, they make it to the shrine of the Earthrealm Kamidogu, and Scorpion talkes some sense into Sub-Zero, telling him to piss off and let him save the multiverse, and Subs just lets him. But then the Cyber Ninjas beat them both up and take the Kamidogu with them.
So now Scorpion takes Sub-Zero down to the Netherrealm to save the universe!
While in the Netherrealm, Shinnok has five Kamidogu in preperation to ressurect the One Being, with the Lin Kuei Grandmaster coming down to give him the final piece. But after stupidly realizing too late that Shinnok wants to ressurect the One Being, Shinnok has him and his Cyber Ninjas all killed. Then Scorpion and Sub-Zero show upā¦ FAIL to prevent Shinnok from performing his ceremony. So nowā¦ I guess, Shinnok merges with the one being, turning into his final form from MKX, and fucking up all the realms!
NOW we go back to Liu Kang where the Elder Gods give him even more God Power so that they can defeat the One Beingā¦ by turning into a giant dragon.
Now we have Godziliu Kang vs Shinnokong! Yes, this movie is still going on, yes you’re watching a literal kaiju fight, yes this is basically Endgame with no cohesion whatsoever, yes this is just another excuse to ship Cage and Blade for the last fucking time, yes Scorpion literally comes in at the last minute and saves Godiziliu Kang from getting his ass kicked, then he turns into Golden God Liu Kang and crushes the One Being with his bare hand, and finally, he goes into outer space and splits the 6(5 shown) realms back apart. Wow, this final battle went on far longer than what I described.
And thenā¦ something stupid happens.
Sonya Bladeā¦ turns her cap backwards and kisses Johnny Cage. No, not the lip locking, but the turning of her cap backwards. What the hell is that supposed to symbolize or insinuate? That she’s loosening up? Letting go? It’s.. dumb.
Then Kitana sucks face with God Kang, it’s just everyone getting horny after the hell that broke loose. Scorpion and Sub-Zero disappear from the scene altogether, and it’s implied that Raiden is still alive after the shitstorm was finishedā¦ and that’s the end of the movie.
Boyā¦ that wasā¦ weird.
It’s impossible for me to be upset at this movie as I’ve lowered my expectations thanks to the last 2 fuck ups in MOrtal Kombat moviedom, butā¦ this shit is a massive clusterfuck! The ending battle left be bewildered, confused, and bored out of my mind as to what the hell was going on. It feels like for this film, they tried to fit in several different MK games. You have MK2, MK Mythologies: Sub-Zero, you have UMK3 with all the realms getting merged, you have MK4 with Shinnok and Reiko, you have Deception with the whole One Being, and you even have MK Annihilation mixed in there. The plot is not structured well at all as you essentially have 2 different movies going on with no particular focus, and again, it DOES seem like Scorpion takes the most important plot point again. Compared to Scorpion’s Revenge, it would be a lie to say that I did not enjoy this more. The problem is I don’t know exactly why considering what they DID to Kung Lao, but I suppose it’s because the movie did not underwhelming like the first one did. It’s likely because the beginning of the film wasn’t compromised in favor of doing a Mortal Kombat Tournament. The beginning of the film states the main point of the movie is a Tournament, and it doesn’t try to dissuade you from caring about it. Scorpion’s Revenge started off making you care aboutā¦ Scorpion’s Revenge, but then throws the first Mortal Kombat Tournament in your face which makes you forget about that Revenge. Now I care more about the tournament than Scorpion’s Revenge. I don’t think people really care about Scorpion as a character, but rather as a mascot of adrenaline bad assery. He’s basically the Batman/Wolverine of MK where you only care about him doing all the ass kicking, but he doesn’t matter as a character, and that’s where the disconnect lies. Nevermind that Scorpion is barely in the damn movie as it were, so the director didn’t even care if the title character got sidelined. Might as well be one of the Russo Brothers directing “Captain America: Civil War” where Captain America got sidelined in favor of Iron Man. While Liu Kang is passed off as the main focus in the very first scene of the movie, he really isn’t as he’s given the same level of focus as everyone elseā¦ which is nice, I suppose. No one character is treated as being more important than the otherā¦ to an extent. Yes, the movie does have characters that are only there to die or get their asses kicked (mainly Kung Lao GRRRRRR!!!), but you’re never under the impression that one character is getting preferential treatment.
But that’s only a comparative analysis with Scorpion’s Revenge. On it’s own, Battle of the Realms is just really stupid. Too many plot threads and focus on stupid shit that I, and hopefully many others, don’t care for, namely the FUCKING ROMANCE between Cage and Blade. The amount of times the plot of the movie stopped to ship those assholes is astronomical for something called Mortal Kombat. Even going so far as to have Jax tell Johnny Cage how to get women. Why the fuck is this in Mortal Kombat!? You’ve got dumbasses bitching about Kitana beating Raiden as being political, but not ONE of these dipshits talks about why so much of this movie has a hard on for this ship! The action is fine for the most part, though the most revered gore of the series claim to fame isā¦ honestly dissappointing. Aside from 2 fatalities, the gore in this film that people swear is of utmost importanceā¦ is outdone by the last film and 2021. It’s actually quite sad that there was more blood and guts from 2021 than there was from Battle of the Realms. Characters areā¦ actually kind of boring because, again, they’re only in this movie to die for the most part. As I’ve said before, Jax is just cocky for some reason, and doesn’t act like a commanding officer of the Special Forces. Sonya was turned into a Tsundere, Johnny Cage is just as unfunny as he was in the Scorpion’s Revenge even when the movie tries desperately to convince you he isn’t (he randomly yammers on before he fights D’vorrah for some reasonā¦), Kung Lao has 2 line of dialog which tells us nothing, Striker is supposed to be the guy we’re supposed to relate to even though he just dies off, Kitana is generic and boring, Raiden isā¦ actually an improvement, Scorpion is boring and low balled, Sub-Zero is ruined, Shinnok is barely in the movieā¦ the characters aren’t really good to say the least, because again the action and gore was given emphasis. It goes without saying that this is a movie, and spectacle only lasts the first time. After that, there needs to be something that sticks with you from the movieā¦ but damn, even the spectacle is shit!
I don’t want to do another Spoony, but there are a FEW things that Scorpion’s Revenge right in terms of Spectacle. The gore and action was top notch, but characters and story fell flat. Battle of the Realms, the gore and action is inferior, but the characters and story aren’t that much better. Soā¦ why did I enjoy this more than Scorpion’s Revenge? ESPECIALLY after what these bastards did to Kung Lao!?
Perhaps I’m not giving the characters and story enough credit because it’s still poorly done, and I still probably have some baggage leftover from Scorpion’s Revengeā¦ and Kung Lao’s death. I likeā¦ that Liu Kang and Raiden are more than just blocks of plot wood. Even if the tension is cheap, forced, and artificial, I do like that it’s there as it DOES make the movie a bit more interesting. I do like the fact that Sonya isn’t the generic “Strong Female Character” trope that’s gotten old real fast (even if what we have now is WORSE!), I do like that Jax isn’t a punk bitch like the last time (even though he’s now more annoying than usual), I do like that Scorpion is not a one-dimensional bad ass and actually has guilt over what he did to Bi Han and how he tries to reconcile with Kuai Liang over it, and while it’s not particularly well done (much like MK11 before it), I do like that Liu Kang is once again the hero who saves the day. Immense baby steps, but it’s there. Overrall, I still wouldn’t recommend the movie. Too much stupid shit going on, and if I’m being honest, it kinda drags. The movie feels LONG, and not for good reason.
Perhaps this is a sign that people now only see film as a mere theme park attraction. Things that we used to care about (story, characters, lore) is no longer important to making an enjoyable film. It is 100% about spectacle.
Conflicting Views 