It's usually an unfair comparison to compare Mortal Kombat to Tekken. One game is geared toward an older audience while Tekken is geared toward a younger audience. Tekken became a major influence in the fighting game industry while copying ideas from other games into itself. I mean, it doesn't take a genius to see that Kazuya is based on Vegeta, Heihachi is based on Dr. Wily, Nina Williams is based on Sarah Bryant, Law is based on Fei Long, Paul Phoenix is based on Ken Masters, and the list can go on and on. I decided to think about the similarities between the two franchises.
Their first games were a hit but hardly aged well
Tekken 1 was released with only eight playable characters while the home version unlocked the bosses without endings. Mortal Kombat 1 released its game with only seven playable characters. Both of them had stiff controls, really unfair artificial intelligence, and a crazy old man running the tournament. That may be the reason why Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa became Heihachi in the really awful Tekken film. Tagawa later reprised the role in Kazuya's Revenge. Both the first games are really known to age badly.
The second games of the franchise were released barely after a year and are fan-favorite classics
Both game franchises released a sequel after the success of the first. Both took everything well and improved upon a lot of factors like controls and the like. Both even have a final boss demoted to extra namely Heihachi and Shang Tsung. Both also introduced a boss more menacing in Shao Kahn and Devil. The second games are still fondly remembered for truly launching their career much bigger than the introductory games.
Both games had some sidestepping issues
I would think about how Tekken 3 introduced the mechanism of sidestepping. Mortal Kombat 4 also introduced it. Both games had that awful slow sidestepping - another reason why I also prefer Tekken Tag Tournament 2 over its predecessor. Tekken 4 and the 3D-era Mortal Kombat games both had a too-easy sidestep. Tekken fixed it though. IMHO, I think Mortal Kombat is better off in 2.5D than 3D gameplay and I'm glad it did go back to 2D gameplay.
Mortal Kombat 4 once attempted to do Tekken-style endings
I think it's quite a bummer that the reboot series simply introduced animated paintings that are similar to the endings of Killer Instinct during the 1990s. The endings in Mortal Kombat 4 and its upgrade Gold were both voiced rather terribly. I think it was cool to see the 3D rendered endings but Tekken tends to do it better. I was wondering why the reboot series didn't feature full CGI endings when they practically had a budget for CGI cutscenes for the story mode?!
Both had a "trilogy" game before the fourth entry
Mortal Kombat Trilogy (as horribly imbalanced as it may be) is remembered to be a near compilation of the first three games. The game also featured a 2 vs. 2 system (lacking tag team due to memory constraints) which was later recreated in Mortal Kombat (2011) as tag team mode. Eventually, Tekken Tag Tournament was created before Tekken 4 came out.
3D era characters and similarities with Tekken
Frost might be a reference to Kunimitsu. Both Kunimitsu and Frost betrayed their clan leaders Yoshimitsu and Sub-Zero (Kuai Liang). It would be important to note that Kuai Liang has an ongoing rivalry with Frost like Yoshimitsu has with Kunimitsu. Sidenote, both Kuai Liang and Yoshimitsu also have cyborg rivals in Sektor and Bryan Fury.
Onaga does look like True Ogre to a certain extent. I even think the storyline somewhat got inspired by Ogre. Onaga is the previous Emperor of Outworld while Ogre is the god of fighting. Both of them have a former Big Bad trying to get back the spotlight seeking to get rid of them. Shao Kahn seeks to get rid of Onaga again and Heihachi seeks to get rid of Ogre.
Both Taven and Lars are side-quest protagonists leading to an important story climax
Taven sucks while Lars is a cool character. Both Taven and Lars also have a brother who they fight near the end of the side quest namely Daegon (full brother) and Kazuya (paternal half-brother). Also, Rain is the illegitimate son of Argus and paternal half-brother to Taven and Daegon. Both of them are in a scenario that could lead to Armageddon. Jin declares war on the world while Taven seeks to avert Armageddon. Both of the characters fight various characters in their quest to stop a global disaster. I'm amazed at how Tekken 6 actually took these concepts from Armageddon and made them work better. Though, I feel Scenario Campaign should've made boss fights similar to how Armageddon did it.
The reboot Mortal Kombat games really took notes from Tekken
The reboot games didn't go back to the high and low attacks. Instead, attacks were assigned to one button per limb but were renamed as front punch, back punch, front kick, and back kick - a rather confusing arrangement if you ask me! The use of dial-a-combo from the 3D era were returned except that Mortal Kombat (2011) is more juggle friendly than Tekken. What's more interesting is the addition of a tag team mode - something that didn't click so well with actual tournaments due to how broken it can get. Interestingly, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 was released months later after the reboot.
The designs in the reboot games are obvious references. Sonya's outfit clearly mirrors Nina Williams back in the older games. Mortal Kombat X also seems to take a little more from Tekken. Scorpion might be comparable to Yoshimitsu as both of them head their own Japanese clans such as the Shirai Ryu and the Manji Clan. Scorpion's rivalry with Quan Chi might be comparable to Yoshimitsu's rivalry with Bryan Fury. Maybe, the most blatant one is how Kotal Kahn is really a fleshed-out version of Ogre from Tekken 3 and both are worshiped by natives. Kotal is worshiped by the Mayans and Ogre by the Aztecs.
Mortal Kombat X featured a lot of new generation characters like Tekken 3 did. Tekken 3 introduced new generation of characters. King II (who is trained by Armor King in honor of his fallen friendly rival). Forrest Law ends up in the shadow of his father Marshall Law. Jin Kazama is the son of Kazuya and Jun. Julia Chang is the daughter of Michelle Chang. Mortal Kombat X also introduced Cassie as the daughter of Johnny and Sonya (even taking the mantle of protagonist for the game), Jacqueline Briggs as the daughter of Jax, Takeda Takahashi as the son of Kenshi, and Kung Jin who is now retconned as Kung Lao's nephew instead of a cousin in Mortal Kombat 11.
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