It's refreshing that traditionally evil characters like Baraka, Mileena, Sindel and Reptile are given a noble or tragic side. Also it is fitting that the story begins and ends at the teahouse.
The only bad thing about MK1 is never knowing what exactly Madam Bo made that was so good that caused Kung Lao to eat so much in the beginning and Liu Kang's compliment in the end.
For anyone who liked this game and is also into D&D, I recommend checking out the sponsored one-shot critical role did for this game. They have Nashir reprising his role as Rain and Travis Willingham who voiced the older Raiden(The Richard Epcar impression is so good because the 2 are friends IRL) playing Raiden. Its a bit long for some at almost 4 hours long(a standard Critical Role EP length) but is fun and worth it.
have you seen the tower endings too? they are cannon and badass, even get a tease for characters who haven’t appeared yet. also I main Kenshi, i feel like he plays and feels the best out of any of his other iterations.
I’ve been looking back through this channel’s videos today and honestly they’re all great all the way from god of war to halo. This channel fills a very specific niche which I enjoy lots and I hope they continue with this for a long time and cover other games like Minecraft story mode or cuphead.
Also the man Noah Fleder who did the motion capture for Smoke, Scorpion, Sub Zero, Raiden, Reptile, Liu Kang, Kung Lao and Kenshi absolutely killed it! Also was the face model for Kenshi! 👌👌👌
I chose Smoke as my main. Mainly because I felt like he was and still is a underappreciated kharacter. I haven't seen anyone react with a bit of heartwarming feeling when Kuai Liang told Smoke that they may not share blood, but that they are brothers.
Geras, Syzoth and Shao are my favorite characters and I'm so happy to see them given the depth they have always deserved. Johnny goes without saying, everyone loves Johnny.
18:00 I also think that's a neat reference to the fact that MK9 Raiden did sent his champions (Liu Kang and Kung Lao) into Mortal Kombat and got both of them killed
What I love most is that the character tower endings aren’t “what ifs?” They’re the actual continuations of the characters after the main plot For example Rain destroys a city but realises his mistakes, and now seeks to change his ways Or how reptile has discovered that there are many zaterran shapeshifters, but someone powerful is having them killed
Most if not all of these are set ups for Part 2 of the Story as well, Bi-Han started the Cyber Initiative, Kuai Liang and Smoke Started the Shirai Ryu, Reiko successfully captured Onaga for Shao’s revolution, and Kung Lao training Shujinko, plus more.
It definitely has its flaws, it falls into the same trappings it’s predecessors fell into and while I like the pyramid battle at the end, it’s probably the weakest ending to any of NRS’s stories yet.
no they didn’t , mk characters are bland zero personality overly serious fodder now . yall really forgot how mk used to be before NRS huh? mk is way too serious now, its terrible
Something I really like in this game is how real and GENUINE the characters are. That’s not to say previous games sucked at writing characters, but a lot of the time some of our favorites got sidelined or misused. In this game however in the story everyone had good screentime, interactions, and overall depth they talk to eachother like real people with characters like Baraka, sindel, Tanya, Ermac, Reptile, and especially Mileena getting more screentime then they’ve ever had before and I love that I love when every character has a purpose in the story and isn’t just there to be there they matter to the plot. And even with returning characters they change things up. Instead of Liu kang and kung Lao it’s raiden and Kung Lao with raiden being Liu kangs champion for once, Johnny cage still being a cocky jerk but changing much quicker then usual plus his romance with Sonya has been replaced with a surprisingly good friendship with Kenshi, baraka and reptile help our heroes as opposed to serving the villains, Kitana taking a backseat to Mileena for once but still showing she’s elegant royalty that cares for her people, bi Han and kui leng having a somewhat non violent fallout, and so so so so much more. The developers really stepped up their creativity with this game and it’s story and I tip my hat to them I might just like this game more then mkx and mk11. Though those games are great to.
The mocap and graphics in the cutscenes is jaw dropping, the detail in every muscle of their face moving and them looking damn near real in that sense is just amazing, which is surprising given its MK
@@justincummings8557 the old “i know you are but what am i” tired trick for when you have nothing to say. go sit down some where and find something to do besides reply to old comments like a clown
I actually like how Raiden gets his lightning powers from the amulet the thing I like about Raiden is that his story’s an underdog story and when he gets the amulet it feels earned.
For the Irony, the shield that Cage used in the movie set is actually pretty similar to the one he used against Scorpion in the 1994 movie down to the spikes on the border
One of my favorite things about MK1, is what they did with the characters, especially Mileena and Sindel. They both finally have some true depth to them, and aren't one note archetypes.
The guardians of the galaxy/outworld team of Johnny, Kenshi, Kung Lao, Ashrah, Baraka and reptile that we end up getting in this is something I hope we see more of in the future. And yes, Johnny is the best character in every timeline, I love the sheer amount of movie references he uses
42:00 I was just talking with a friend about how much I liked this final boss because of all the reasons you say he's weak. Just having the AI be a bit harder and taking away our Kameo is so many leagues better than giving it stupidly OP moves or just letting it cheat outright. Feels like an actual test of your skills.
Something I like about the roster this time around is the downplaying of having jobbers for the sake of having jobbers. Like, in 9 you beat up Reptile, Baraka, Sheeva, and who knows how many others just to pad out chapters, and they don’t get much characterization beyond being some powerful lackeys of Shao Kahn. X also had this problem a lot, with multiple chapters having the majority of enemies being either Kotal’s entourage or Shinnok’s revenants, and not much interesting character stuff being given. 11 tried to correct this by giving past jobbers like Baraka and Sheeva more focus, but there was still a lot of problems, like poor characterizations for non-Kano Black Dragon goons and non-Frost Lin Kuei cyborgs, for examples. 1 really feels like they figured out how to make this work. Even though you still fight some particular characters a lot, they are characterized well enough that it makes sense why they’re persistent threats working for the villains. Nitara and Havik aren’t just loyal to the bad guys just because of some ambiguous loyalty to them, they have their own ambitions that the antagonists agreed to fulfill in exchange for their aid. Reiko does fall under that category of only being motivated by loyalty to General Shao, but it can be forgiven because he’s the *only* one in that category this time around, which actually makes him more distinct as a character. Until Shang Tsung and Liu Kang’s chapters, where it’s just a bunch of brawls against Titan Shang Tsung’s baddies so “dark” that their personalities are a collective void. Seriously, the most interesting evil character in that bunch is Kenshi, just because of his big stupid shades.
I literally just beat this game this morning and not even a few minutes later I see a new wins video? coincidence? I think NOT. Thanks for another amazing video.
13:21 Cassie said "Fuck" uncensored twice in story mode in MKX, and Johnny says it twice fighting Goro and Leatherface. In MK11, Cassie says "fuck" once in story mode, and she, Spawn, Terminator, Baraka, and Rambo say it in regular fights. 41:53 You actually CAN play as Havik in the final chapter. You just have to do it on your second playthrough after you unlock him. You play as a good Titan version of him.
Amazing hearing other people have drinking problems too, sometimes especially since my military service, I’ve had a lot of trouble staying sober but every little mention helps
29:31 actually if you played the tower ladder as smoke, theres a cutscene that reveals Hanzo exists only now as a young man who is accepted as the first student of the shirai ryu
I think Liu Kang really meant that everyone could find peace if they wanted to, even the old baddies who seemed set up for failure. This timeline's Shao actually did overcome his initial disability and could have continued to be a loyal patriot to Outworld he hadn't fallen to his own pride and prejudices. Likewise, Shang Tsung's cunning and talent for magic could have led to a good, if maybe unremarkable life as a politician or sorcerer. He is made to be pitiable in his first scene but he did willingly and knowingly preyed upon desperate sickly villagers.
36:35 one neat detail about this line is that in mk11 aftermath, Shang says that kronika wanted him to be her pawn, not her partner, and now he did the exact same thing
There's so much to love about this game, as you said the Johnny Kenshi bro-mance. The fact that so many characters that have typically been villains or neutral at best are now strong allies. Baraka getting to be Edinian in birth really works because it heavily removes the Tarkatan culture which was something that just couldn't stand in a new era of peace. Reptile being able to be a rather sweet hearted warrior, Smoke/Thomas and Scorpion/Kuia Liang's brotherhood while also getting the fact that Bi-han is still Bi-han. Like sure it sucks that Sub-zero is the bad guy but if Bi-han didn't die and become Noob in the 9-11, Yeah this is likely what would of happened. I find it interesting that Liang became scorpion but i think it was in hopes that fire and ice could work together like Liang and Hasashi did in 10 and 11. Mileena getting to be Kitana's actual sister and getting to have Tanya close without having to be tied to Shao Khan and his rule obviously was a good move on Lui Kang's part to give her the chance at peace she probably sought. Geras, His character is truly inspired. First off this is still The Same Geras, but rebuilt by Lui Kang. Sure this allowed him to be given more noble traits, but I think Lui Kang's design and desires allowed Geras to find his own path. Between his ending in 11 and just the fact he's not bound to being the keeper of time's enforcer and allowed to wander and do things of his own volition, Geras gets to be who he wants and he finds that he wants to do good. It really does fit him as he says himself in an exchange with Johnny cage. Raiden and Lui Kang seem to unironically do better in each other's lives. Lui really does feel like a better god protector of earth realm then Raiden and Raiden seems to really flourish as Earthrealms Champion and Kung Lao's friend. What I wonder is, is Raidens Amulet his own power, In MK11 we see Lui kang decend to speak to The eventually great Kung lao, and refers to hismelf as God of thunder And fire, while he is only god of fire in this game. I wonder if it's a retcon of him just dropping thunder, or perhaps he eventually created the Thunder amulet that Raiden would be given using the Thunder left over from when His Raiden merged and Ascended him to godhood to finally fight Kronika. During the story it really does feel like the chapters would of been better if Instead of single character chapters we had cluster chapters. Injustice style, Like you pick who you want to play and this slightly alters the story in who beat whom but it doesn't greatly change the flow of the story so you can focus on several characters at a time. Cause that's half what the chapter order does. The first set focuses on the champions of earth realm then the villains tu rned heroes like Baraka and Reptile and then the Outworld royal family. The story just kind of snowballs out of control when the Titan Shang tsung shows up. I really like the idea of it because it opens up the story potential for NRS to have alternate versions of characters show up and it explains where some mirror matches come from. One thing I am surprised you did not bring up was the actual endings. MK1 has something i don't think I've seen in a modern MK game and that's where all the endings are cannon. Now yes MK11 has this but in a blatently retroactive way. In MK1 all of the endings are all unified and cannon with 0 conflict as part of the design and aren't going to be made all cannon in a retcon in the next game. None of these endings conflict and the fact they are all cannon not only is great but i feel could of been brought up for aspects of winning certain character arcs. Now This is is pure speculation, however, the sheer number of timelines isn't just all the ladder endings but it also means there are actually 4 timelines that lui kang is the titan of. Timeline 1: The cannon ending of aftermath and the one this story is based on. Timeline 2: the standard ending that all characters have which is actually different from the other 3 in small ways. Timeline 3: Where he just barely beats Kronika and has Not-lord Raiden as his advisor while he restarts time untill that raiden passes away. Lastly Timeline 4: where he absolutely dunks on Kronika and brings his Kitana back to be his companion when he begins his actions as Keeper of time. There is also the potential that there are now several kronika's who won their fights. Infact while Faux-Kronika/Damashi (which is also a word for soul in japanese which is also fitting, i believe damashi (deceiver) and Damashi (soul) are pronounced differently but are similarly spelt so it is extra layers of fitting) was just titan shang tsung revealing that the fight itself caused split timelines, this means that even if one lost to Kronika the sheer amount of force fighting her directly exerted on the timelines means there might still be a Titan Kronika or 9 out there.
Letsss gooo I’ve been waiting for this, I can’t wait to see what your about to win, also I love your vids man I’ve been watching for over a year and half now
Important additional things, every single arcade mode ending cutscene is canon, and actually shows what the characters get up to after the story! Bi Han starts the Cyber Lin Kuei while Smoke and Kuai Liang start the Shirai Ryu to oppose him and recruit a young Hanzo Hasashi, Mileena becomes empress, makes Kitana the leader of her military branch and rules alongside Tanya, with Reptile and Baraka serving major roles in the conduct of Outworld, Raiden and Kung Lao return to the Shaolin with their new student Ashra and train a young Shujinko who becomes out of control with power, Kenshi joins up with the feds and meets Sonya and Jax, and works with an FBI-affiliated task force to bring down the Yakuza, Shao, Reiko, and Quan Chi continue to conspire against empress Mileena and are currently trying to capture and tame Onaga as their ultimate weapon, and Shang has managed to escape custody and has found his island from the old timeline, where he's uncovering incredible magical power, which will explain how he'll be much stronger the next time we see him, whether its in MK13 or if he skips a game to hone his skills.
“ The other games i’m covering this fall like Spider-Man 2”- the last words i heard before this man became my new favorite youtuber as my soul left my body out of hype
i dont know if you love comments or whatever but it's my birthday and this video made my day. your videos on MK got me back into the games. you have an awesome channel and i say keep it up, my brother!
So real talk I haven't really played ANY of the story telling MK games but, this video makes me want to go back and play them all! I love the breakdown. Good stuff!
18:12 I like to think of this moment as a subtle dig at Raiden that only Liu Kang understands. Notice how Kung Lao is in the background and in MK9, Raiden pretty much sent Kung Lao to his death and Liu Kang doesn't want to repeat that mistake
It has been awesome watching your Mortal Kombat videos the last few months leading to MK1 release. So far I've spent the most time with Li Mei ( My current Main) voiced by Kelly Hu who did Karai in the 2012 TMNT cartoon which I grew up watching, Scorpion, and Ashrah. Most used Kameo fighters are Sarenna, Sektor and Shujinko with the Kill Bill fatality awesome. Can't wait to watch your close to 2 hour long video on Spider-Man 2 at least I hope it's that long. Maybe you could set the release of the video up like you did for GOW Ragnarok last year?
This game is amazing to me because old characters that never got any time in the spotlight got whole chapters was great. The Kombat feels so good and there aren’t any characters besides one that I don’t enjoy. I played Smoke at first and still do because he is my favorite character in the series but this game got me to play and main Reptile and I think that is amazing as he was a character that was never on my radar till now. I hope that we get more story stuff besides invasion in the future. Also my head cannon is that Madam Bo is this timelines Bo Rai Cho as they fit the exact same role as mentor to the two main fighters of Raiden and Kung Lao.
Hearing you talk about Ike Amadi reminded me that he also voices Seer from Apex Legends. And the differences between the presentations of Seer and Shao is insane. Amadi really is a good VA
36:50 That's Travis Willingham, voice of Knuckles the Echidna from 2010 to 2017. Interestingly, Dave B. Mitchell, the current voice of Knuckles (who also voiced Geras in Mortal Kombat 11), voices Raiden in the Mortal Kombat Legends series.
18:00 That's probably also Lui Kang's also sneak dissing Raiden, since he also shares the memories or Revenant Lui Kang, the one who felt betrayed & wronged by Raiden in MK9
Hey man, this is my first time commenting on one of your videos. I LOVE MK1! I’ve played through the campaign 4 times! And yes, the story does kind of fall apart towards the end, but it’s still an enjoyable section. Johnny Cage is my main, all day everyday. Nothing will change that
The Ermac/Jerrod reveal is a reference to one of his endings in the 3D games. Where jerrod manages to be the strongest soul in the vessel and is capable enough to pilot Ermac
20:06 my theory is that we WILL get this story of lui kang learning to fully let go and general shao breaking and becoming shao kahn once again in mk2. the pieces are set for that exact story or something similar and there is no way NRS are going to let the opportunity to give us shao kahn back
Sad that you didn't look at the Tower endings and invasion mode, but there are somr things there that you complained about being missing which are there. Kuai Liang forms the Shiray Ryu, and his first apprentice with Smoke is a little kid name Hanzo Hasashi, Shao and Reiko free themselves from Sindel's prison and go fight Onaga to try control them, its little stuff that is just *chef's kiss*
I kinda wish you talked about the interactions before fights between the kharacters. They may be shorter than in the previous games, but dang are they good. They’re also disturbingly wholesome. Makes me feel bad at times.
This game made me a Baraka main, i always liked how he played, but in this game, with an actual character and even better gameplay, hes a treat to play as.
29:30 Hanzo is actually present in the game though only mentioned in soke's cutscene/ending if you complete the tower( I think that's what it's called)
"I would never send my champions unwittingly into mortal kombat" idk but to me I found it absolutely hilarious him saying that to Raiden WITH kung-Lao in the background when Raiden got Kung-Lao killed back in mk9 when he sent him in to fight Shao Kahn
i’ve been watching forever and i just realized you guys only have 250k subs i thought you had at least a couple million im surprised you don’t have more
Great video as always but unfortunately we didn’t get Cary Tagawa back as Shang Tsung. We got Alan Lee but the fact that you couldn’t tell does speak volumes about how great his performance was. Not to mention that we got Daisuke Tsuji (Jin from Ghost of Tsushima).
Thank you for pointing out how... wooden Megan's voice acting was without sounding like an AH, it's a really small criticism compared to how GORGEOUS the game is in terms of design and story. I will admit I'm biased towards her as she is one of my favorite actresses but hey you appreciate how good she is too to look at. Plus her opening banter towards fighters is much better compared to the story mode. Also they managed to sneak in a movie reference to her best performance in a jab to Kung Lao.
From what I have seen on Johnny Cage the hype meter should really be treated as more of an extra thing you can build to instead of something to focus all of your effort on considering Johnny already has INSANE rushdown and good combos to begin with.
20:12 Liu Kang said he'd made the new era in a way that gave everyone a chance for peace, and I believe that was the case for the sorcerers, too; If Liu Kang was out to punish people, I doubt Shao, Rain, Tanya, Mileena, and Sindel would be in the positions they have in this timeline.
Can’t say who I main specifically as I’ve just finished the story mode but in terms of who I’ve had the most fun playing as I’d say 1) Barakka cuz I like spamming his slash attacks 2) Raiden’s thunder powers and martial arts attacks are so satisfying 3) Scorpion’s Ranged attacks are beyond helpful for me lol 4) Liu Kang just looking awesome 5) Johnny Cage cuz he’s my favorite . In terms of who I played for the final fight I chose Raiden cuz he got SO sidelined I needed to see champion of Earthrealm be champion of all timelines-then I found out it was a multiversal variant- disappointing but ykw I can’t complain that’s like 24 different ways to play the ending which is pretty cool tbh 😎
I love how the game had one slot open as if the boss character in the story was going to be someone different. I think that’s what really nails the Shang Tsung reveal, because what insane game doesn’t have a symmetric design like that. That being said, they could’ve waited another game for that conclusion. I would’ve preferred Onaga for this game, then the end credits are the reveal that “Kronika” was actually Titan Shang Tsung and this was a test to see how powerful Liu Kang is now in this timeline. Then, seeing he doesn’t have Titan power anymore, Shang Tsung could start the plot to take over
I loved this game‘s story. When I saw that it was Liu Kang’s timeline, I thought they went with that Aftermath ending, but the twist of Shang Tsung’s ending happening as well was amazing. Added on with it being him lying instead of Kronika was just expert writing. All of the Titan designs are so good as well, especially Scorpion and Shang Tsung Also, I used Kenshi for the final battle and it was great to see Takeda back, but it was kind of funny to see Kenshi happy his son dies, even if he doesn’t know Takeda is his son
@@josephpalacio1350 Its spoilers, but that’s what they call all of the versions at the end of the game that are from other timelines and have defeated Kronika and become keepers of time
In intros it’s stated that liu kang didn’t lead Shang tsungs life to what it was he did that all to himself. Shang even asks liu why he didn’t erase him completely and liu says he expected him to change and be different than his other timeline self
Just finished the story so now I can watch this. I have to say my favorite part of the story was when Kitana says "then you're MY Liu Kang" I damn near cried on that. Another amazing and my second favorite part is when Kitana completely wrecked and killed Jackie and the rest of the "new generation" 😅😅
MK1 is phenomenal and so it is the story. It is 110% perfect. So happy that Reptile got his own chapter, that makes it even better! And the ending was not a rehashed of Aftermath, that's exactly what it should've been from the get go. Just because Onaga isn't there doesn't mean it is rehashed. Also Reptile and the others are not forgotten in the story, they just don't appear at certain points. Also the Reptile, Ashrah and Baraka in chapter 15 that you can play as are clearly the same ones from this very timeline, so no they are not forgotten.
I’m imagining since the overarching story in this next trilogy is timelines clashing, what they’re gonna go bring back specific variants of characters from the past games. For example they can have a scene where kuai liang Scorpion meets Deception Scorpion he explains to him in his time he became the elder’s gods champion to slay onaga or bring back taven and have him reveal that while he did kill Blaze in Armageddon he himself was eventually killed by Shoa khan which kicked off the events of mk9. Hell they can even weave mk vs. dc into this. The final game would be Armageddon like with the big bad (probably onaga) not only trying to merge timeline but probably trying to become the one being which would end in another reset
scorpion main here, i actually really enjoyed kuai liang as scorpion. of course i missed hanzo, but i think i actually like the character of kuai liang more. he seems more levelheaded and respectful in this story, maybe cause he doesn't have the trauma that hanzo had, but it was a nice change of pace. his act in the story mode was my favorite, and he was the character i played in armageddon. the story of him and bi han being brothers and being lin kuei was a really interesting take that i liked a lot. and the fact that he still has harumi and started the shrai ryu with her was really heartwarming for me, it makes me happy seeing scorpion have a happyish story. but oh my god, sub zero was such a little bitch in this game. i really wanted to like sub zero, but after he sided with shang tsung i immediately started hating him. im not too familiar with his story in past games, but in this one he's so entitled and egotistical, it pissed me off. im probably biased because i've always been team scorpion, but i will say they did make sub zero a good bad guy. i really wish they gave us an act all about kitana. she and mileena have always been favorites of mine and i loved that we got to play as mileena, but it would've been cool to have an act about kitana and liu kang. they did write the sisters really well, i love the relationship between mileena and baraka. and the way we got to see how mileena blinded kenshi and how guilty she felt about it afterwards really shows her character.
The reveal of it being shang and not onaga is a bit interesting, but i really hope we get to see him in a new playable title, also reptile is my main in this game, and I've been enjoying his gameplay alot, even though i suck at fighting games Also please have onaga return, even as a kameo fighter i would be happy
