Ivo wrote:But the only series I actually liked used to be MK (MK 2 was the best - I didn't really move into the 3D ones).
However, I've always heard that MK games are crappy (MK1 wasn't very good, and I guess MK 3 and onwards are not stellar either) - particularly for competitions. I played mostly single player except with MK 2 (and never reached much seriousness anyway) so if anyone can explain that I'd like to hear! Are the characters not balanced at high level play?
Ivo.
I've been playing Street Fighter (and many others) professionally for over ten years now, so I think I could explain this: Mortal Kombat, whichever incarnation, lacks heavy depth and balance. Forgive me if this becomes an incoherent rant.
1.) The structure of the original two MK games is very rigid and not submissive to high competition. Street Fighter, King of Fighters, Samurai Shodown and those, all have elements that better consider "what happens next" after any sort of return. With Mortal Kombat, you're usually left trying to connect with a single attack, with little left afterwards save for rapid "sweeping" while your opponent is in recovery. In MK1+2, there's no stable "jump-in" combos (where you start with a jumping attack, following into a combo), or solid uses of "two-in-ones" (where you immediately link into a special). Basically, any sort of attack is followed by something that seems poorly crafted, unprofessional, unintended, or by nothing at all.
2.) The characters in Mortal Kombat are unbalanced. Liu Kang's high and low fireballs are mis-timed, and if used properly (i.e. improperly) destroy half of the characters. It's not like Sagat in SFII. Against a "good" Liu Kang, you'll rarely be in a place to jump a fireball without being hit with a jumping kick. There are too many different responses to different projectiles (electrocution, knocked back, frozen), and in instances are each timed slower, so with many characters you can't return a projectile against him. There's often no means to fight it. This is just the beginning of that example, and just one of many characters with balance issues. There's also some hugely cheap,"rapid" tactics I won't get into.
3.) "High+Low" attack buttons are pretty useless in comparison to the depth that "Heavy, Medium, Jab" affords. Of course some great 2D fighters don't have that standard, but MK's "High+Low" attacks offer no real competitive use. The Uppercuts and Roundhouses are not very conductive for high play, as they often result with the complaints in #1 above. The buttons in Mortal Kombat are just used to seperate moves inputs, for fatalites, and for continuing the "kombos" in MK3, which are really just hit-or-miss action scenes. Other games use their ranged-buttons for leading into something, that being whichever the player decides upon.
4.) MK3's combos. MK1 and 2 were acceptable without elaborate combos because no one played them for depth, only for the then-fresh gore. MK3 needed combos to complete, but they proved to be just rythmic button presses. Street Fighter, in almost every instance, allows the player to alter the combos' length without being screwed by stopping a combo.
5.) The arcade button layout:
............<HP>......<HK>
...................<BL>
............<LP>......<LK>
...<RUN>
6.) Just imagine I could come up with a million more reasons, because I could.
If you watch a real game of Super Turbo or 3rd Strike, you'll see an unrivaled level of combat and precision. It starts with "footsies" and then erupts into proper combos and juggles, supers, cancels, counters, etc. I like Mortal Kombat, I still play it often, but as far as competitive play is concerned there are too many games that have taken it ten steps further. For casual fighting fans, Mortal Kombat is fun, and with continuous play you can definitely become better at it, but only to a sharp, sharp point. You then begin dealing with the imbalances and the glitches and you're forced to play it a single set way, with little option.
So that's some of why you won't find Mortal Kombat at the "Super Battle Opera World Tournament" in Japan.
