Are Guest Characters Ruining "Mortal Kombat"?


I remember playing Mortal Kombat (2011) more than 10 years ago. Honestly, I feel like the game's getting neglected by Warner Bros. The game needs to get a remaster during the PS4 era. Now, it's the PS5 era. Mortal Kombat (2011) had paid DLC characters namely Kenshi, Rain (who's really THAT mistreated in the reboot trilogy), Skarlet (who was a rumored fighter back then), and the PS3-exclusive Kratos. Interestingly, Kratos was a guest character in the PSP-exclusive Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny. Kratos was banned from tournaments due to his exclusive status.

As I was playing Mortal Kombat (2011) -- I found Kratos to be a fascinating guest character. God of War is supposedly a VERY VIOLENT SERIES. Kratos would fit more in Mortal Kombat than he would in Soul Calibur. Soul Calibur is rated Teen compared to Mortal Kombat. Kratos carried out his violence with less restraint. Soul Calibur wasn't really meant to be a bloody series. Why Sony tried out Kratos in Soul Calibur before Mortal Kombat is interesting. Kratos' inclusion also gave us the Chamber of the Flame -- a stage with three fatalities in one! I'd say it's the top-stage fatality ever! 

Mortal Kombat (2011) has Freddy Krueger as a guest character. Yes, THAT Freddy! Strangely, I can enjoy Mortal Kombat's lore but not the lore of Hollywood horror films. Maybe, it's because CGI violence isn't as scary as realistic violence. Freddy showed up and it was kinda fun murdering him. I always had the guilty pleasure of performing a Fatality on Freddy. It was because the guy gave me too many nightmares. Then again I was at fault for watching Freddy's Nightmares. I had the enjoyment of doing the Dragon Fatality on Freddy since I'm a Liu Kang fanboy.

Mortal Kombat X can have a strange roster. The gameplay can be fun BUT the roster can be lacking. Sure, I had fun using the newcomer Takeda Takahashi. Takeda was interesting since he was Scorpion's student and Kenshi's son. Unlike its predecessor -- they added more guest characters. Was it so fans can have the opportunity not just to play as horror movie villains but to also get their revenge? Sure, I never watched Texas Chainsaw Massacre series or Friday the 13th series. There was also Alien (Xenomorph) and the Predator. I felt that the DLC roster was a weaker point of the game. I was glad to have Tanya, Tremor, Triborg, and Bo Rai Cho (I'm a fan of his despite his negative reception). However, I feel development money spent on the horror movie villains could've been better spent somewhere. Seriously, I wanted Rain, Baraka, and Sindel -- NOT Leatherface or Jason Voorhees! I feel that it was VIOLENCE FOR THE SAKE OF VIOLENCE! 

Mortal Kombat 11 has itself bloated. I feel most of the fatalities are meant to be violence for violence's sake. Some of them may be unnecessarily overkill. Right now, I even feel I have ZERO REASON to get Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate. The guest characters are now making me say, "WTF are we thinking here?" Robocop? Joker? Rambo? The Terminator? Spawn? The Joker? Well, Spawn kinda fits here better than he did in Soul Calibur series as a guest character. However, I feel money spent to create them could've been spent on other characters. Sheeva, Mileena, and Rain were DLCs. However, I feel like the DLCs people needed were Cyrax and Sektor. I feel the guest characters here might be better viewed as nuisance characters. As for the Joker -- I was wondering if it was Netherrealm Studios' way of apologizing for the abomination called Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe? However, I feel Shang Tsung's Mortal Kombat (2011) fatality was more than enough. With DC being under Warner Bros. now -- I guess it became A-OK for the Joker to really do bloody stuff and to be maimed huh? Still, having a lot of guest characters was like, "Is this still Mortal Kombat?" I even feel that if I were Fire God Liu Kang -- I'd probably send all the annoying guest characters to never exist in my New Era! Bwahahahahahaha!!!!

As I look into Mortal Kombat 1's reincarnated storyline (and the reincarnations can be very annoying) -- the guest character list is there again. This time, I even feel adding Conan the Barbarian and Ghostface is OH SO RANDOM! I can't decide which is stranger between the possibility that Cyrax and Sektor got reincarnated as women or the guest characters. My opinion is that the guest characters are getting more and more annoying. I heard how Mortal Kombat 1 is already plagued with too many microtransactions. So yeah, I feel that if I were Fire God Liu Kang -- I might really reboot everyone at Netherrealm Studios, thrash their studio, and say, "NO MORE RANDOM GUEST CHARACTERS!"  

Overall, it's really getting stranger and stranger. I feel that the guest characters are nothing more than quick cash grabs than gimmicks. Sure, there are other ways to do microtransactions such as Easy Fatalities or purchase-exclusive costumes. I feel purchasing guest characters might actually derail the series. 

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