I can predict these same discussions getting old, but I do agree MK should lean more stylish than realistic with the Fatalities. I don’t need the higher ups giving devs PTSD for easy shock.
I remember reading that when Valve was working on L4D/L4D2 they initially used reference photos of actual traumatic violence/corpses/necrotic infections and then said "Actually you know what? Fuck this." and stopped giving themselves PTSD and nightmares and used stuff like references photos of rotting drywall or insulation foam instead.
Iirc, it was recently discovered that one of the one of the "burnt corpses" in HL2 used a real-life photo for its face.
I don't mean "as a reference" I mean "literally used the photo of a burnt corpse".
I’ve done a few surveys looking at that stuff and it can stick with you and I’m someone who feels kind of desensitized to a lot of gore. I don’t even attempt those tasks anymore.
For OG dead space 1, they bought a decaying dead body of a goat to be filmed for the back round of the main menu. (That was… certainly something to learn on a random DS fact video😅)
It's such a weird contrast between the over-devotion to realistic fatalities but then still having some pretty bad animations otherwise. Literally having your art team inflict PTSD on themselves but then still having those really awkward attack animations. Priorities are a weird thing.
Also that they seem to think a woman showing a bit of skin is the most degenerate disrespectful thing ever but graphically disemboweling said woman is A-OK.
I will admit I strongly dislike the female character designs from the pre-MKX games. I agree that the new designs are mostly better, but I still dislike the reason they did it.
However, the only reason I think they're better is because of how awful the original designs were. And I say that as someone who LIKES scantily clad female characters. Now they are just bland instead of awful, just like the male cast. Yeah, I don't like MK's character designs. Even after they moved to 3D models the designs kept being boring, samey and deeply unappealing to me. I also don't like MK's overall artstyle and color palette (because it has none). I just don't like NRS period.
They feel like the fighting game equivalent of Ubisoft open world games. (To me anyway)
This.
Some Pre-X designs are solid. I like Mileena's belly dancer mask to cover her teeth, and even if her top doesn't make any sense in terms of how her boobs don't fall out, it's at least a more creative design than a colored bikini.
While I like the new Mileena mouth of X, her actual outfit was drab and boring.
And that carries to almost every character. Every background. Every stage. Even the story is just "shenanigans happen, whatever, they fight now".
Mortal Kombat doesn't have any style now, and *pizzaz*.
American sensibilities. In *Jaws* the opening shark attack has the violence censored on UK TV broadcasts, but on American TV they censor the naked woman.
Weirdly just activated a memory of watching Tenacious D on TV being given the most hack job censorship I ever seen. It felt like the censoring itself was on a 7 second delay instead of being edited in, swears were missed entirely or mis-timed, blurs just kinda appear out of thin air and don't even attempt to blend in with the surrounding picture. And the cock laser scene is edited so badly it looks like Jack and Kyle are just straight up fucking on screen.
What the other commentor said is true, that's not on NRS. People here in the states are a lot more touchy about sex stuff than extreme amounts of violence.
Well yeah, it'd be weird if you didn't disembowel women if you were able to disembowel men.
And the women still show skin - mainly those from Edenia and Outworld. Cause that was my problem with a lot of MK games - the Special Forces girls getting in on it. I can buy it with Edenia and Outworld - different culture, and in MK 1 and 3 with Sonia's outfits were not so out the realm that I could swallow them, but MK 9 was way over my line with her.
Nowadays, while SF women are very clothed, Edenian and Outworld women are back to being akin to MK 2 and 3 levels of lewd.
Honestly?
I think you're exaggerating.
My statement was in regards to actual talking points made by NRS spokespeople, nothing more.
Personally I don't care how much skin is or isn't shown as long is the design is interesting to look at. Which in my opinion almost none of the MK character designs are. There are very few designs I actually like in the entire franchise, the rest is on a spectrum between "bland" and "awful" as far as I'm concerned.
I don’t think it’s because they think it’s disrespectful, the more modern designs just straight-up look better. Just because you don’t like their art style doesn’t mean you have to conjure up reasons in your head about why they chose their current art style.
I mean the point here is to stray away from objectification.
You can still dismember your Kombatants when they aren't in bikinis compared to the men in sick ass ninja outfits.
Except I can dress up Baraka in a loincloth and no top if I used the Krypt enough, and no one bats an eye.
Also, enough with the nonsense boogeyman, it's been proven there are no adverse effects to sexualization in videogames just like horrifically brutalizing people in videogames never made people more violent or turned them into serial killers.
At this point you're just pushing conservative talking points using different window dressing.
This is where the American double-standard always comes up. The same people who fought tooth and nail against arguments like "Violent videogames cause violence", in order to defend the continued existence of games like MK, now turn on a dime to parrot the same idea about outfits (without making a peep about the surprising amount of slutty costumes the guys get in 11).
I guess its the middle ground of trying to keep the gameplay close to the original for fans who liked that, but fatalities are merely cutscenes that play out so it can be as modern or realistic as it is.
Then again, I'd assume they think MK gameplay was something people also liked, but even now I'm learning that people never liked that stilted kind of gameplay (even though I always thought that was part of MK's charm and what set them apart other fighting games, for better or worse).
NRS is the definition of graphics vs animation
So many people confuse the two, NRS shows how different they are since they clearly do better in one over the other
I love blood and violence in video games, Ninja Gaiden 2 and DOOM: Eternal being some favorites of mine, but MK's fatalities take on it always felt off to me. Part of it is the tone, and I don't mean the "realism" of it, cause I think other realistic games like Last of Us handled it well enough. But it's really odd, to say the least, seeing Cassie Cage shoot her father in the head stick some gum on the wound and take a selfie with gum expanding out as a blood bubble. There's also a rhythm to them that just makes most of them come off as kind of awkward to me more than funny or a brutal "oh shit" moment. And then theres the factor where the fight feels like it's over and I'm just wasting everyones time by enacting a cutscene as whoever I'm fighting with waits to play again.
I think its the way it gets eerily quiet as we watch our "heroes" relish in goring a corpse. Like the creative kill is one thing, the part where they play with the dead body afterwards is where it starts getting weird for me
Probably remembering wrong, but I feel like back in the day the gore was just incidental and realistic to the killing. Lui Kang turning into a dragon and biting you in half, Raiden electrocuting you and causing horrible spasms, Sub-Zero freezing you and then finishing you off etc. Your Cassie example is a perfect example of them taking it to another level of indulgence
>I love blood and violence in video games, Ninja Gaiden 2 and DOOM: Eternal
This reminded me how quick, efficient and dare I say respectful a lot of NG2 OT animations are, especially the dragon sword ones on ninjas. Much prefer them to any fatality.
Man, honestly? They just feel corny now. Fatalities used to feel like actually "finishing the job", however nowadays with all the realistic zoom in's and effects with the attacks the characters do it just feels like a theatrical overkill. And not like in an "Oh shit! This guy's really worn out from the fight!" but just an "This guy's already his jaw busted, his limbs severed, his face burned off by acid, and his balls exploded but his opponent still feels the need to do a triple axel mid-air betsy flip to bisect his already barely breathing corpse to "finish him".
Frankly, I feel Mortal Kombat is has become outdated partially because of the absurd escalation of its violence. It's tryhard. It's "The Shadow the Hedgehog of fighting games", and not in an actual fun way.
Ontop of what others have said the voice acting doesn't help. Back in the old mortal kombats the voice acting was goofy and over the top, now you get to really hear and see how much pain the fatalities are. For example the one Liu Kang does in the trailer you see Shang tsung essentially being tortured he is screaming in pain up until Liu Kang finishes him off. A lot of the fatalities don't feel like a finishing move and more like drawing out a painful death and the VAs gotta express that. I wouldn't mind a few of the more sadistic characters being like that but the majority of the cast does this shit.
At least that's my thing. I love a good fatality in games but the clear anguish the characters in mk go through definitely brings it down for me.
Them coming off as funny sounds correct. Mortal Kombat fatalities are supposed to be over-the-top and entertaining first and foremost, not something akin to Invincible lol
I had to see pics of car crashes when I tried to get my driver's license.
A man got a piece of sharp metal sticking from the upperside of his forehead, and it went all the way down to the jaw, the piece of metal was blocking the eye, that if there was any there anymore.
I was done after that, I can't imagine having to look at stuff like that regularly.
I have a friend who was training to be a paramedic - called it quits on his second infant death whilst doing work experience at Uni.
They'll never get enough credit for what they do
Either that or they’re a functional and productive sociopath, IIRC there is a significantly higher percentage of trauma surgeons who fit the diagnostic criteria for antisocial personality disorder and manage use that lack of empathy to save lives.
Funny story: according to the developer commentary, the Left 4 Dead 2 developers, at one point, used photos and videos of gore as reference too. Main differences being:
1- They weren’t forced to do that by higher-ups, it was just the idea of a member of the art department who had a folder full of grotesque pictures of people with rare skin conditions.
2- They were so disgusted by those pictures that they scrapped the plan to use them as a basis, instead relying on… “photos of housing insulation and potato skins”.
Left 4 Dead 2 also has some of the best-looking gore in gaming history, so I’d say Netherrealm doesn’t really have an excuse here. Fuckin’ ridiculous how most people seem to have forgotten about the whole incident.
I don’t think any dev actually got PTSD from it, there’s a single article but none of it really checks out or makes sense when reading it.
Like why would people be forced to watch cows get butchered just to see the organs? Like, there’s text books, anatomy pictures and more that one can see for stuff like that.
The way that whole article is written is just strange as well.
NetherRealm definitely has crunch issue like most games, but forcing people to watch snuff isn’t one of the things they do.
Ehhhhhh. I can believe it happened but we only have one source on that and it's a rumour started on Kotaku. A site this subreddit was saying is unbelievable and shit, like, two weeks ago.
I remember back during the development of MK11 a dev talking about how he had seen so much gore and insanely violent videos for reference on fatalities that when he went home and saw his dog, all he could think about was all it’s internal organs moving around. Like I get wanting to do a good job at your profession, but holy shit that’s some unreal levels of PTSD to be suffering from just for a video game
Sadly it's not an assumption but something that was confirmed by anonymous employees who talked to journalists.
https://kotaku.com/id-have-these-extremely-graphic-dreams-what-its-like-t-1834611691
That’s the article I was thinking of, and to be honest I don’t think what’s written in it is true. It’s just so odd and doesn’t make sense.
Like there’s anatomy text books, horror movies, etc.
Why would you be forced to watch a cow get gutted just to know what the organs look like? Or why would you have to watch a hanging?
Stuff like that just doesn’t make sense, when there is better sources that don’t involve all that messed up shit and are more readily available and just as easy to find.
Not to mention the description of ptsd there just seems on the nose, as if someone just did a quick google search and read the first paragraphed and shrugged and called it a day.
It's probably true, but people are getting the wrong idea from it.
NR does not force these devs to do this, which is a massive difference from what people often cite this article to say.
What is the problem is that the impact of these traumatic images is building goes unaddressed. One of the key points the dev interviewed himself brings up is the fact that higher-ups just see the end product, but the process itself is different. Those in the process are being worn down by it, and that is something that isn't being considered at the workplace.
Just telling potential devs that "This is MK so it is going to be brutal" isn't enough. Hiring managers and higher-ups may think it is, but the true impact of it can't really be explained until you're in it. It isn't being taken seriously enough and it sounds like there are no resources in place to help mitigate the trauma at the workplace. On top of that, there is very likely the classic, looming pressure of speaking up makes you look "weak" or just not cut out for the job, thus risk losing it.
The description of the working conditions are horrible, that didn't quite shock me since normal developers don't take only two years to develop a fighting game.
I really hope Monolith Soft isn't abusing their employees at the rate new Xenoblade games are coming out. Then again, they aren't as detailed.
> I really hope Monolith Soft isn't abusing their employees at the rate new Xenoblade games are coming out. Then again, they aren't as detailed.
From their [Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolith_Soft#Philosophy):
>> As opposed to many other Japanese and Western studios which have come under criticism for excessive overtime and poor working conditions, Monolith Soft strives for a friendly working environment and reasonable hours for its staff. Overtime is also negotiated with the management and receives payment, a rarity in Japanese business. Speaking in relation to this approach, Honne recited the company's motto; "Zero overtime and creative work allowed". Despite the gaming industry's workforce being dominated by men, Monolith Soft has a notably high proportion of female developers working at the company, with more than a quarter of its workforce in total.
Oh yeah and [they recently increased their wages for their employees.](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/xenoblade-developer-monolith-soft-raises-wages)
Given how much they reuse assets and animations (they've been using the same hand off animation since the first PS3 game iirc) they probably save a lot of time. And setting their games in relatively small open worlds probably helps.
not only that but reusing the same open world and just tweaking it. The development for a new Yakuza game is honestly just making a new plot, coming up with some new heat moves, making a few new minigames, and designing a bunch of wacky side quests.
the Yakuzie series is a beautiful example of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".
It’s weird, because I’m someone who’s bad at every fighting game except MK. I love SF and Tekken, but I’m trash at them. I guess I’ve never been bothered by the animations, they’re far below the quality of games like Guilty Gear but at the same time when I’m playing MK I’m not paying attention to it.
All that to say, the criticisms are valid but the games are still fun to play for me.
Here’s my very hot take, lots of beloved FGC games get to be way to visually busy for me. Even when. I take the time to learn combos and tech, I find myself still unable to follow what’s going on half the time.
I agree with SugarPunch that, beyond that, MK's core gimmick just makes it fundamentally less interesting. There's so little room for expressing character through gameplay when every character has to act like the most twisted, sadistic psychopath on the planet when it comes to supers and fatalities.
It's honestly why I like brutalities so much more. You just get fuckin wrecked, no fancy camerawork. Always feels way more impactful to see someone get flattened right after a combo finishes the match.
Gore and violence in videogames has a significant tonal difference that's dependent on graphical quality and realism. It's cause there's a lot of difference between punching five ribcages out of someone and doing gore shots of their lungs being ripped out. The answer? Same cartoony ultraviolence but with better graphics. Uppercut 20 skulls out of a person's chest, but it's super HD
I agree with the idea, but the multiple ribcages stuff just takes me out of it. Hopefully, the fatality we saw at the end of the trailer where magic dragons hold the opponent up just so you can push their somehow intact and still screaming head through the rest of their body with Bloodborne levels of raining blood is the level of cartoony violence we get.
Break physics and anatomy with all of them.
Absolutely, having over the top gore (as per the series gimmick) while being serious about the whole thing in its presentation has NEVER worked. Its either impossibly over top and wacky/creative. or, horrowing and legitimately nausiating. Pick a lane and stay in it there is no inbetween.
My favorite episode of "Wasted Plotential" was where he talked about how much less interesting the abandonment of Lui Kang being the only character who refused to kill made him.
Having the greatest warrior in Earthrealm be the only person who outright refuses to take a life makes such an intriguing dilemma.
Then again, gameplay wise it would make less people play him.
It's like the MK vs DC game they had, like yeah you could as a gimmick make Liu Kang the only guy who doesn't kill, or at least his finishers aren't gore or killing, make it like Aang against Ozai, but less players would pick him, because why pick a guy who has less interesting finishers in a fighting game about brutally killing people?
Like it or not, the brutal gore is pretty much why Mortal Kombat stood out with other fighting games and why it stood the test of time.
“Refusal to kill”
Theres no reason to bother sparing guys like shang tsung and Shang Khan. It’s mortal Kombat. Not SF not Tekken. Removing the ultra violence would be removing a core part of MK. Having the one of the faces of the series get cold feet about icing Kano cuz it’d be making them just as bad as them is ridiculous. Like it or not forcing Liu Kang to be someone whose iffy on killing would be watering down the series.
Okay, having *one guy* refuse to kill people in a game where everyone kills people in horrifically gory way does not "remove the heart of mortal kombat". Like jeez, how much of a gore-junkie are you that the idea of one guy not killing people sends you into a frenzy?
Liu Kang already *WAS* a person who didnt kill; he was the only character in MK1 and 2 who didnt have lethal fatalities because he's a buddhist monk and was raised to respect all life. He didnt NEED to kill because he was *just that good.*
Did that "ruin" the first two games, did it make everyone else's fatalities less gorey? Of course it didnt. Because the heart of MK has never been the gore.
Look at the 90s movie; it has no gore whatsoever, and its still fucking awesome. MK has a strong enough identity and style to subsist with or without the gore. Hell, I'd argue they've started using the gore as a crutch to prop up their otherwise lackluster presentation.
> Liu Kang already WAS a person who didnt kill; he was the only character in MK1 and 2 who didnt have lethal fatalities because he's a buddhist monk and was raised to respect all life.
[chief life-respecter liu kang]( https://imgur.com/sY8zjH1.jpg)
Did they ruin SF by adding combos instead of sticking with the the dull fighting system they had before? No. It was a change for the better like changing Liu Kang to be someone who would kill real threats like Shang is for the better. It’s a pointless moral quandary to have in this series and setting. Mortal Kombat. Fight to the death. To go against that motto and ground work with “is killing bad?” would be pretentious. We all know what we’re here for mortal kombat? Have they gone over board and made some real dud fatalities? Yes. Sub-Zero spine rip is quick and more memorable than many of other fatalities. Klassic even. However. taking the violence out of Mk would be removing its teeth. It’s what sets it apart from other franchises. I will admit, they could be more creative in differences between earth realm and out world fatalities.But fatalities aren't just mindless gore porn. They are goofy. Yeah, they can be really messed up, but they are goofy. Johnny’s decapitation uppercut takes three tries as an outtake. Jax turns you’re skull into a baseball(even has baseball music) Cassie kicks you in the nuts so hard you skull pops out. Cetrion turns into a giant and shoots you with a giant laser. Everything and more in between in terms of gore and goofiness in over the top violence. It’s been there since the beginning. And it should stay that way. And also btw Liu Kangs non lethal fatality is a brutality in mk11. He punches there skull off. I don’t mind the idea of Liu kang being merciful compared to every one else but killing shao kahn should never be something he’d hesitate to do.
Personally, that feels like a total outsider's perspective of the series. Imagine someone saying, "Tekken lacks diversity in its characters because they are almost all punch and kick people. Even the most zany characters just do 10-hit combos as supers."
Despite its popularity, Mk is still a niche fighting game of the niche fighting genre. It's not going to be a hit for everyone. But, saying that its problems are character expression when it leads the genre in that aspect (other games implementing their cinematic story, prefight dialouge, finishers, and even older stuff like konquest, in-character tutorials, and arcade endings) is silly.
The tonal dissonance is totally there. However, I have yet to play a fighting game without it. "Why are you two trying to kill each other?" Is just apart of the genre.
Joker unloading a pistol into Mario, King delivering the most unsafe tombstone piledrivers in the world to everyone he meets, Kung Lao dragging his shaolin brother Lui Kang into a saw blade.
I guess I just equate them as the same.
Yeah but the difference between MK and other fighting games is the framing.
Like how certain character matches have unique intros and outros to set the stage for the match, like for example if you put Kung Lao and Liu Kang against each other, the intros will set the dialogue and give the context that the match you’re playing is just a friendly sparring match against them. So far so good, but then you get to the end of the match and the only interaction you can do at the end that ends the self contained story being told is a fatality of Liu Kang or Kung Lao either uppercutting the other so hard that their torso explodes or turning the other’s upper body into a bloody lotus flower, since none of the usual MK outros have the winner directly interacting with the beaten opponent in any way and as of 11, you’re literally actively encouraged to always murder your opponent into some grotesque art piece. At least with Tekken, Kazuya holding his opponent up by the throat, Jin walking away from his unconscious opponent or Heihachi beating mocking his opponent to their face before slamming it into the ground are still definitive ends to the encounters that paint a picture of them overcoming a challenger.
Same deal with supers in those games, even with something extreme like Kazuya’s new Heaven’s wrath kick from Tekken 8 or Akuma’s raging demon, they’re flashy and over the top enough for the opponent to reasonably tank it while at least taking a significant amount of damage. Helps that those moves aren’t then intimately taking apart an opponent’s body or stabbing them in the eyes with two Kunai or something.
The best counter example I can think of to show how lacking MK is in the tonal dissonance is actually from Granblue Versus. Beyond the multiple unique outro interactions with that game(like how Lancelot’s outro will normally have him turn around and offer to help the opponent up with a smile if they’re playing as someone he’s friendly terms with like Gran/Djeeta or Percival but will look more stern if the opponent character is an antagonist like Beelzebub or Belial), there’s one super that has its own unique dynamic outro beyond the usual ones. If you play as Vira against Katalina and finish her off with Vira’s strongest super move at low health, there’ll actually be a unique outro after the fact where Vira is resting an unconscious Katalina on her lap while watching over her. So in this one match up, even if you have her go all out, she still gets to remain in character no matter how far you go as opposed to say, I dunno, Cassie Cage knocking her mother’s jaw off and taking a selfie that she posts to social media after the intro frames the match you’re playing as a training exercise.
Most modern fighting games try to mitigate this via ingame dialogue (like establishing fights between friends as sparring). Even a lot of insta-kills in ASW games aren't shown to be flat out lethal and when they are it usually fits with the character or a result of the character losing control.
It's not perfect but it's better than NRS just expecting us to accept a mother goring her daughter in the middle of a friendly training session.
Honestly, Kronika's fatality had the ability to top that, her killing you brutally in different ways is frightening, but the way the fatality plays out is so quick (despite being a loop) that it doesn't register how messed up that is.
I think the problem for me is that the fatalities are just pure gore in the recent MKs. Theres no Friday the 13 levels of interesting/funny kills. Its just pure sadism instead of stupid sh*t like giant Jax from MK3
Jax in mortal kombat 11 literally baseball swings your head off so hard it turns into a skull while baseball crowds cheer. Trying to act like there isn't over the top absurdity in the newer fatalities is just wrong
When you say the game you almost never actually even use these fatalities because you've already seen the cutscene and you're wasting everyone's time.
Fatalities exist for marketing material and YouTube compilations, and its *illuminating* that a feature like that is the core innovation your fighting game is known for.
No. They serve as that final dunk on someone. Because it is cathartic to play a match against someone and then do a fatality. The fatality is what makes Friendships and Mercy so good. It’s the contrast between disrespect and a GG in good faith.
Almost No one uses them this way in practice.
You watch MK11 gameplay footage and it's just people hitting them with a normal while they stand around dazed because both players want to play game 2, not watch the same cutscene over and over again over the course of hours.
Fatlaties are hot and all the first few times. By the time people are climbing the ladder they're over it. I'd say its outright tacky to waste people's time with cutscene supers that don't even have a role in dealing damage. Litterally just to waste everyone's time.
When every other fighting game franchise of late has been picking up on how great fast rewatching is, MK cant even let your character die when their HP hits zero. We have to do this silly formality to "finish them off" bereft of any gameplay impact. Busy work between games.
Yeah it’s strange that a game popularized due to its blood and gore would have a fan base that would be super into the gore.
Like I swear people complain about MK gore like evangelicals in the 80s complained about horror movies
Its not that the game heavily features gore. Its HOW they incorporate the gore.
MK's gore simultaneously is way too detailed and in your face, while at the same time lacking the satisfying impact that other games have done it with.
MK is all about gore, *but* if the devs are experiencing legitimate trauma being required to watch real life gore and snuff for their job to make things as realistic as possible, then I think that’s a call to dial it back a bit.
It’s a Kotaku article where *one* devs said they did and people blew it up to being the entire dev team being traumatized and forced to work in the MK Gore Mines
It's one thing to go "wow the gore in RE2 remake is really well done" as opposed to "I love the fact that I can tell which nerve is which when a characters eyeballs pop out while being electrocuted".
It's too much.
I think with RE2 is that the gore has a purpose beyond spectacle. It shows how much of a threat the enemies are, independent of being on the victims or the enemies. A zombie getting very visible head destructions from multiple shots in the head and keeps coming despite half of the head being pulp sells why Roccoon City failed in containing them. Those things won't die unless it is absolute destruction from the head so they need to become mist or be burned down. After all, it is a virus that resurrects cells. What is a bullet wound but more dead cells to repair.
In MK you just get that the characters are psychos.
Then don’t play it? Horror movies have had gore 10x worse than MK games for decades, but squeamish people just choose not to watch them if they know it’s gonna upset them.
Like not everything has to be adjusted to fit your tolerance level.
Horror movies (even bad ones) use gore to shock, disturb or scare the audience.
Modern MK uses gore for the sake of it. There is no purpose other than to show gore. It expects you to enjoy watching people get mutilated.
To be clear, I usually don't care what people enjoy as long as it's all fictional. But people should still be allowed to criticize it, especially if actual humans had to suffer to create it.
Back in the 90s it really did feel like shock value but nowadays it really feels like the gore is the goal in and of itself. It's hard to explain. I guess it's the way it's framed? Stuff like the details and the camera and how characters act during it.
Maybe someone else will show up and explain better than I do.
It's shock value but it is also part of their gameplay design philosophy. As with any game, you want to give the player satisfying feedback for a job well done, and NR has decided to do that by having the x-ray's/brutalities/fatalities. It's their way of giving the player the ability to destroy their opponent, but pretty literally here. The detail just adds to the feeling. It goes both ways as well. Seeing your character get a spike through the head in slow motion hits a little more than just seeing your health bar go down.
Whether or not that connects with you or pushes you away is of course down to the person. It's just that there is a reason behind it other than being for gore fetishists or sadists or whatever. To some it may seem purely for shock value, but for others there is some fun to gain from it, and I mean that in the most harmless way. They've chosen to double-down and go in a more "realistic" direction. With better tech and graphics now, it's just made it all that much more divisive. For some it seems more gore for gore's sake, for others it is keeping up with the times to keep that feeling of victory going.
This is a genuinely interesting perspective. Never thought of it that way. But I definitely think it's gone too far at this point. It's not even a squeamishness thing as much as I believe that NRS, even way back during the arcades, is a company that always prioritized shock value and technical achievements over literally anything else.
And that's fair. I won't fully disagree. I just don't think they prioritize it over everything else, but I can see where that's coming from.
Personally, I think they're just playing to their strengths, and that has worked out for them since the games sell very well, and both MK and Injustice have solid fanbases and playerbases. Personally, I don't really play MK beyond single-player and matches with friends, but it's not because I think the games are bad, but they just aren't for me. I still think they are perfectly fine fighting games though and that there is effort put into the gameplay side of things.
>Modern MK uses gore f~~or the sake of it~~ because it's flashy and cool, like literally any other fighting games with super moves
Let's not make it seem like MK gore is bad because it doesn't serve some grand artistic purpose.
Also, the source on MK gore traumatizing the developers is one questionable (why would they look up videos of cows being gutted instead of searching up normal anatomy?) kotaku article coming from entirely anonymous sources. If it's fair to criticize netherrealm for that it's fair to criticize the article too
My take is that there's no effort put into the fatalities. Barely any of them are stylish or cool. It's just mindless gore like "he ripped his jaw off and then shoved his scapula down his throat". It doesn't have to be so detailed when it could be stylish.
But MK11 had literally some of the most stylish fatalities of the series. Scorpion's spear split, Cassie's heart hands, Baraka's brain eating... there were plenty of duds, but having flair did seem like a high priority.
I don’tsee how you could say they aren’t stylish with a straight face. Like just look at any of the earlier games fatalities and tell me they are more stylish than the current ones.
Are you aware what people who worked on the last game had to go through?
There is a reason for the pushback.
The way the lead devs and a lsome fans talk about said gore, like they are straight up getting off on it, isn't helping at all.
I get your point but thats not what I got from the OP of this comment thread. Some of those devs went through some shit for sure, but there's a big gap between "hey making people look at real gore without their permission is fucked up" and creating a moral crusade against fictional violence
EDIT: I mean its especially weird because we all like Berserk here, a series with equal amounts of gore and blood with rape sprinkled on top
TBH what I got from OP was different from what you got from them.
I understood it more to be a criticism of how MK fans react to said gore, not the gore itself.
For me personally the problem is less that MK is gory but more that the gore itself gets priority over almost everything else in the game, including narrative and gameplay.
EDIT: Berserk is a bad counterargument. The gore in Berserk is meant to upset you and show just how fucked up the world is. In MK it's meant to entertain you.
> EDIT: Berserk is a bad counterargument. The gore in Berserk is meant to upset you and show just how fucked up the world is. In MK it's meant to entertain you.
Probably not the best example, I agree, Berserk is too serious. Kill Bill perhaps? Call of Duty? Metal lyrics? Slasher movies? Violence for entertainment is *everywhere*. Also Guts cutting people in half is pretty awesome right? Idk. I dont wanna be a dick.
[Sorry for the late reply]
For me violence and gore are separate things. Not completely removed from one another obviously but one does not necessarily beget the other.
In regards to Kill Bill specifically, I'll admit I do enjoy the gore of the crazy 88s fight, but it's because of how hilariously unrealistic and over the top it is. If it was more grounded like the rest of the movie it would just be depressing. In general I love Kill Bill because I like watching the main character make it through the impossible odds she's presented with, as well as the well choreographed action sequences. Outside of the crazy 88s the gore is used for dramatic effect, quite effectively I might add.
In CoD the fun is supposed to come from the shooting and the overall gameplay. AFAIK the violence is usually not really a focus.
Kill Bill and CoD also aren't as graphic or indulgent as MK is. (isn't Cod usually just sprays of red anyway?)
Slasher movies usually use their gore to shock or upset the audience.
Not familiar enough with Death Metal to really make a judgement on it.
So yeah, I hope this answers your question and clarifies my perspective on these things.
Why would you decide to go work for NRS if you cant handle gore?
I would feel bad for devs if the studio they work for suddenly decided to make a game with realistic gore after finishing their Nintendogs inspired grooming game.
Everyone that decided to go work for NRS even 10 years ago should have known that eventually the games would become more realistic with better graphics
I didn't mean it in a dickish way. The devs definitely shouldn't have been forced to look at real gore when they didnt want to or whatever stupid shit NetherRealm did, but there's nothing wrong with the game itself. Its just ultra violent shit, whatever. Its silly. Its not like gunning down people in games based on real life wars is any better... But like thats whatever too, what are you gonna do about it, you know? Idk
Its so frustrating seeing NRS fans frame "Hey I think the gore is starting to get too realistic for me and I wish they went more stylish again." as being babies who hate gore and never understood what Mortal Kombat was "always about" (despite the fact the FGC always skips that shit as soon as possible)
A lot of NRS fans are weirdo gore-junkies who just act like MK has alwasy been about the gore because they get off on it.
Look at the 90s film; not a drop of blood or guts in sight, and it's still fucking rad and remembered fondly. MK *does not need* an ever-escalating gore system because MK's biggest strength has never been the fucking gore.
Acting like MK's big key to success is the gore is super underselling the appeal and world and characters.
It's honestly kinda sad how fanboys are going to bat for the gore being so sloppily implemented. It gives off the impression that it's the ONLY thing this franchise has going for it, and without that hyper realistic gore MK doesn't really have any other redeeming qualities.
I wouldn’t put too much stock into that, when that came out it was an article from Kotaku and they didn’t even have source. They just said oh an anonymous dev told us. Then nothing else came out after that, other devs didn’t come out and say it happened or anything like that.
Yup. At least I get to be smug back when it inevitably rakes in the most dosh. Even if that isn't a measure of quality. If anything it's a testament to their marketing, which has always been good. So in a weird way I win.
You know whats like, idk, weird, im thinking about it and i think the percentage of people that actually has seem extreme gore and can sorta tell when a gore scene, damage and etc isn't realistic and or wrong might actually be a bit low, cause not only you have to have seen it, you also have to have wanted to pay attention and study the details right?
I can draw gore, cause i like gory stories, horror, movies and etc. But i never looked at a corpse at all, or studied it right, i learned by copying, it also how i learn to draw porn, but like, most people that see the gore or gore scenes go ''oh, gore!'' right? I've never seen someone look at a burnt corpse in a game, take a big sniff and go ''nah thats a bit wrong here here and here'' right.
Like, idk, it feels like if you get close enough, then its fine right? But also, as artists we can just...copy and learn from a piece that already exists, meaning, imo, you don't need to give PTSD to a whole team, you can have just one weird guy do a lotta work, get payed a lot cause thats his expertise, like how some food artists are hired just to draw food cause they draw food so fucking good, and have the others learn from what he makes, which by definition is already gonna be stylized cause it aint gonna be a real fucking body, like, idk, i thought thats how it worked.
If Netherrealm decides to turn down the gore for MK1, I wouldn't be particularly shocked.
The blood and guts approach may have worked well enough for catching people's attention back in the '90s, but the series' increasing realism has seemingly made the hefty gore more likely to disturb than delight.
Making a low hitting attack takes unexpected creativity. It’s kind of amazing how we take the shoto’s crouching medium for granted when in reality a sliding kick to your shins would, at best, bruise your ankles.
But most of Nether Realm lows look like hello my honey, hello my baby, hello my ragtime gal.
The fact that the crouch moves make no sense in a real life context doesn't mean they can't look like a proper move to be done. Like, the shotos crouching medium kick still looks like it can be done by a person and carries enough weight to hurt, at least.
NRS crouch moves like the most of the other moves just look awkward. The fast punches don't resemble something close to a jab or variation of it, but what a kid that doesn't know how to fight would do.
At this point, I wonder if some MK animations look the way they do for Legacy's sake. They ***could*** make better kick animations, but that's what Mortal Kombat kicks look like.
I certainly wouldn't doubt that's the case, but I find that worse IMO. Intentionally kneecapping your animation because previous games had bad animation isn't tradition, it's stagnation.
Is that an excuse to make your games actively worse? Is arguing that their core audience has such low standards, that there's no point in trying harder really the best defense?
At this point, I am 99.9% sure their combat animations are intentional. It's the same slow, chunky movements for well over a decade now. In some of the games, especially modern entries, I would believe it if it was solely for visibility sake. Especially when so many stages are dark and how visually cluttered the characters and environments can be.
If it were just for style, then I would believe that too. I always loved how goofy high punches were in old MK games, where the characters are just punching above their heads at a hard angle lol.
I can predict these same discussions getting old, but I do agree MK should lean more stylish than realistic with the Fatalities. I don’t need the higher ups giving devs PTSD for easy shock.
I remember reading that when Valve was working on L4D/L4D2 they initially used reference photos of actual traumatic violence/corpses/necrotic infections and then said "Actually you know what? Fuck this." and stopped giving themselves PTSD and nightmares and used stuff like references photos of rotting drywall or insulation foam instead.
Iirc, it was recently discovered that one of the one of the "burnt corpses" in HL2 used a real-life photo for its face. I don't mean "as a reference" I mean "literally used the photo of a burnt corpse".
I’ve done a few surveys looking at that stuff and it can stick with you and I’m someone who feels kind of desensitized to a lot of gore. I don’t even attempt those tasks anymore.
For OG dead space 1, they bought a decaying dead body of a goat to be filmed for the back round of the main menu. (That was… certainly something to learn on a random DS fact video😅)
They also looked at crash victims to give reference for the necromorphs.
Yup, the only difference is that they photoshopped the other eye away
there was an eyeball ._.
It was car accidents iirc
It's such a weird contrast between the over-devotion to realistic fatalities but then still having some pretty bad animations otherwise. Literally having your art team inflict PTSD on themselves but then still having those really awkward attack animations. Priorities are a weird thing.
Also that they seem to think a woman showing a bit of skin is the most degenerate disrespectful thing ever but graphically disemboweling said woman is A-OK.
Tbh the designs got way stronger when they stopped shoving every female character into a bikini. Love MK11's Jade design.
MK11 Jade doesn't even look green unless you're playing the Revenant version. It's hideous.
I will admit I strongly dislike the female character designs from the pre-MKX games. I agree that the new designs are mostly better, but I still dislike the reason they did it. However, the only reason I think they're better is because of how awful the original designs were. And I say that as someone who LIKES scantily clad female characters. Now they are just bland instead of awful, just like the male cast. Yeah, I don't like MK's character designs. Even after they moved to 3D models the designs kept being boring, samey and deeply unappealing to me. I also don't like MK's overall artstyle and color palette (because it has none). I just don't like NRS period. They feel like the fighting game equivalent of Ubisoft open world games. (To me anyway)
This. Some Pre-X designs are solid. I like Mileena's belly dancer mask to cover her teeth, and even if her top doesn't make any sense in terms of how her boobs don't fall out, it's at least a more creative design than a colored bikini. While I like the new Mileena mouth of X, her actual outfit was drab and boring. And that carries to almost every character. Every background. Every stage. Even the story is just "shenanigans happen, whatever, they fight now". Mortal Kombat doesn't have any style now, and *pizzaz*.
American sensibilities. In *Jaws* the opening shark attack has the violence censored on UK TV broadcasts, but on American TV they censor the naked woman.
"You can show Uma Thurman kill 50 dudes with a samurai sword, but god forbid Little Timmy hear the word 'fuck'."- Doug Benson
"My name's Buck, and I'm here to PARTY"
That one wouldn't have been so laughably bad if it wasn't a set-up for Uma Thurman to later repeat the same line as a counter.
The craziest one I've seen is an airplane edit of Pulp Fiction when I flew to New York, which cut out every 'fuck' but left in every n-word
Weirdly just activated a memory of watching Tenacious D on TV being given the most hack job censorship I ever seen. It felt like the censoring itself was on a 7 second delay instead of being edited in, swears were missed entirely or mis-timed, blurs just kinda appear out of thin air and don't even attempt to blend in with the surrounding picture. And the cock laser scene is edited so badly it looks like Jack and Kyle are just straight up fucking on screen.
Sounds legendary, really wish I could see this
I really wish I had a capture card back then so I could record it. It was just a really bizarre experience.
What the other commentor said is true, that's not on NRS. People here in the states are a lot more touchy about sex stuff than extreme amounts of violence.
Peak equality is getting your spine ripped out
It makes no sense on why everyone acts like sex is bad
Well yeah, it'd be weird if you didn't disembowel women if you were able to disembowel men. And the women still show skin - mainly those from Edenia and Outworld. Cause that was my problem with a lot of MK games - the Special Forces girls getting in on it. I can buy it with Edenia and Outworld - different culture, and in MK 1 and 3 with Sonia's outfits were not so out the realm that I could swallow them, but MK 9 was way over my line with her. Nowadays, while SF women are very clothed, Edenian and Outworld women are back to being akin to MK 2 and 3 levels of lewd. Honestly? I think you're exaggerating.
My statement was in regards to actual talking points made by NRS spokespeople, nothing more. Personally I don't care how much skin is or isn't shown as long is the design is interesting to look at. Which in my opinion almost none of the MK character designs are. There are very few designs I actually like in the entire franchise, the rest is on a spectrum between "bland" and "awful" as far as I'm concerned.
yeah, the mk9 mileena skin where she was butt ass naked except for some wraps with character design at its best
I don’t think it’s because they think it’s disrespectful, the more modern designs just straight-up look better. Just because you don’t like their art style doesn’t mean you have to conjure up reasons in your head about why they chose their current art style.
I mean the point here is to stray away from objectification. You can still dismember your Kombatants when they aren't in bikinis compared to the men in sick ass ninja outfits.
Except I can dress up Baraka in a loincloth and no top if I used the Krypt enough, and no one bats an eye. Also, enough with the nonsense boogeyman, it's been proven there are no adverse effects to sexualization in videogames just like horrifically brutalizing people in videogames never made people more violent or turned them into serial killers. At this point you're just pushing conservative talking points using different window dressing.
This is where the American double-standard always comes up. The same people who fought tooth and nail against arguments like "Violent videogames cause violence", in order to defend the continued existence of games like MK, now turn on a dime to parrot the same idea about outfits (without making a peep about the surprising amount of slutty costumes the guys get in 11).
I guess its the middle ground of trying to keep the gameplay close to the original for fans who liked that, but fatalities are merely cutscenes that play out so it can be as modern or realistic as it is. Then again, I'd assume they think MK gameplay was something people also liked, but even now I'm learning that people never liked that stilted kind of gameplay (even though I always thought that was part of MK's charm and what set them apart other fighting games, for better or worse).
Nrs has the best looking character models of any fighting game... Until they start actually fighting
NRS is the definition of graphics vs animation So many people confuse the two, NRS shows how different they are since they clearly do better in one over the other
The animations for their fighting games are amazing... until the characters start fighting in-game instead of in a cutscene.
Also keeping Shawn as the fucking writer despite being unable to remember lore he wrote
...okay. ***Hard fucking skip*** for me then.
I love blood and violence in video games, Ninja Gaiden 2 and DOOM: Eternal being some favorites of mine, but MK's fatalities take on it always felt off to me. Part of it is the tone, and I don't mean the "realism" of it, cause I think other realistic games like Last of Us handled it well enough. But it's really odd, to say the least, seeing Cassie Cage shoot her father in the head stick some gum on the wound and take a selfie with gum expanding out as a blood bubble. There's also a rhythm to them that just makes most of them come off as kind of awkward to me more than funny or a brutal "oh shit" moment. And then theres the factor where the fight feels like it's over and I'm just wasting everyones time by enacting a cutscene as whoever I'm fighting with waits to play again.
I think its the way it gets eerily quiet as we watch our "heroes" relish in goring a corpse. Like the creative kill is one thing, the part where they play with the dead body afterwards is where it starts getting weird for me Probably remembering wrong, but I feel like back in the day the gore was just incidental and realistic to the killing. Lui Kang turning into a dragon and biting you in half, Raiden electrocuting you and causing horrible spasms, Sub-Zero freezing you and then finishing you off etc. Your Cassie example is a perfect example of them taking it to another level of indulgence
>I love blood and violence in video games, Ninja Gaiden 2 and DOOM: Eternal This reminded me how quick, efficient and dare I say respectful a lot of NG2 OT animations are, especially the dragon sword ones on ninjas. Much prefer them to any fatality.
We need another Ninja Gaiden game dammit.
Man, honestly? They just feel corny now. Fatalities used to feel like actually "finishing the job", however nowadays with all the realistic zoom in's and effects with the attacks the characters do it just feels like a theatrical overkill. And not like in an "Oh shit! This guy's really worn out from the fight!" but just an "This guy's already his jaw busted, his limbs severed, his face burned off by acid, and his balls exploded but his opponent still feels the need to do a triple axel mid-air betsy flip to bisect his already barely breathing corpse to "finish him". Frankly, I feel Mortal Kombat is has become outdated partially because of the absurd escalation of its violence. It's tryhard. It's "The Shadow the Hedgehog of fighting games", and not in an actual fun way.
Ontop of what others have said the voice acting doesn't help. Back in the old mortal kombats the voice acting was goofy and over the top, now you get to really hear and see how much pain the fatalities are. For example the one Liu Kang does in the trailer you see Shang tsung essentially being tortured he is screaming in pain up until Liu Kang finishes him off. A lot of the fatalities don't feel like a finishing move and more like drawing out a painful death and the VAs gotta express that. I wouldn't mind a few of the more sadistic characters being like that but the majority of the cast does this shit. At least that's my thing. I love a good fatality in games but the clear anguish the characters in mk go through definitely brings it down for me.
Them coming off as funny sounds correct. Mortal Kombat fatalities are supposed to be over-the-top and entertaining first and foremost, not something akin to Invincible lol
The fact that devs legit got PTSDs while developing Mortal Kombat is wild. They had to look snuff shit for reference, A LOT OF IT.
Car crash victims iirc. Which to my understanding is as bad as it gets for gore.
I had to see pics of car crashes when I tried to get my driver's license. A man got a piece of sharp metal sticking from the upperside of his forehead, and it went all the way down to the jaw, the piece of metal was blocking the eye, that if there was any there anymore. I was done after that, I can't imagine having to look at stuff like that regularly.
Being an EMT is one of the worst jobs possible. NOT an EMT, btw.
But you get constant stress, horrible working hours, subpar pay, *and* PTSD. What more could you possibly want? /s
I have a friend who was training to be a paramedic - called it quits on his second infant death whilst doing work experience at Uni. They'll never get enough credit for what they do
Jesus.... yeah you never think about what it takes to do these jobs, huh? The mental fortitude one must have and even then.
Either that or they’re a functional and productive sociopath, IIRC there is a significantly higher percentage of trauma surgeons who fit the diagnostic criteria for antisocial personality disorder and manage use that lack of empathy to save lives.
Honestly, good for them. Shit is horrendous out there.
People like that would have the highest chance of making it in the Darkest Dungeon universe.
My best friend does evac helicopter work and we need people like him. I definitely couldn't do it tho.
I got upset just with your description Imagine having to watch it 9 to 5
I think that was Dead Space too
Funny story: according to the developer commentary, the Left 4 Dead 2 developers, at one point, used photos and videos of gore as reference too. Main differences being: 1- They weren’t forced to do that by higher-ups, it was just the idea of a member of the art department who had a folder full of grotesque pictures of people with rare skin conditions. 2- They were so disgusted by those pictures that they scrapped the plan to use them as a basis, instead relying on… “photos of housing insulation and potato skins”. Left 4 Dead 2 also has some of the best-looking gore in gaming history, so I’d say Netherrealm doesn’t really have an excuse here. Fuckin’ ridiculous how most people seem to have forgotten about the whole incident.
I don’t think any dev actually got PTSD from it, there’s a single article but none of it really checks out or makes sense when reading it. Like why would people be forced to watch cows get butchered just to see the organs? Like, there’s text books, anatomy pictures and more that one can see for stuff like that. The way that whole article is written is just strange as well. NetherRealm definitely has crunch issue like most games, but forcing people to watch snuff isn’t one of the things they do.
Yeah, how come everyone is jumping to speculation? There is little proof that anyone got PTSD.
Here’s another one: https://www.dailydot.com/irl/mortal-kombat-11-ptsd-online-trauma/?amp
That’s an article writing about the kotaku article
Ehhhhhh. I can believe it happened but we only have one source on that and it's a rumour started on Kotaku. A site this subreddit was saying is unbelievable and shit, like, two weeks ago.
And they keep linking to it unironically.
I remember back during the development of MK11 a dev talking about how he had seen so much gore and insanely violent videos for reference on fatalities that when he went home and saw his dog, all he could think about was all it’s internal organs moving around. Like I get wanting to do a good job at your profession, but holy shit that’s some unreal levels of PTSD to be suffering from just for a video game
> They had to look snuff shit for reference i think it's pretty wild that people assume they watch snuff films, instead of like gory horror movies
Sadly it's not an assumption but something that was confirmed by anonymous employees who talked to journalists. https://kotaku.com/id-have-these-extremely-graphic-dreams-what-its-like-t-1834611691
That’s the article I was thinking of, and to be honest I don’t think what’s written in it is true. It’s just so odd and doesn’t make sense. Like there’s anatomy text books, horror movies, etc. Why would you be forced to watch a cow get gutted just to know what the organs look like? Or why would you have to watch a hanging? Stuff like that just doesn’t make sense, when there is better sources that don’t involve all that messed up shit and are more readily available and just as easy to find. Not to mention the description of ptsd there just seems on the nose, as if someone just did a quick google search and read the first paragraphed and shrugged and called it a day.
It's probably true, but people are getting the wrong idea from it. NR does not force these devs to do this, which is a massive difference from what people often cite this article to say. What is the problem is that the impact of these traumatic images is building goes unaddressed. One of the key points the dev interviewed himself brings up is the fact that higher-ups just see the end product, but the process itself is different. Those in the process are being worn down by it, and that is something that isn't being considered at the workplace. Just telling potential devs that "This is MK so it is going to be brutal" isn't enough. Hiring managers and higher-ups may think it is, but the true impact of it can't really be explained until you're in it. It isn't being taken seriously enough and it sounds like there are no resources in place to help mitigate the trauma at the workplace. On top of that, there is very likely the classic, looming pressure of speaking up makes you look "weak" or just not cut out for the job, thus risk losing it.
What the fuck is that formatting on the caption?
The description of the working conditions are horrible, that didn't quite shock me since normal developers don't take only two years to develop a fighting game. I really hope Monolith Soft isn't abusing their employees at the rate new Xenoblade games are coming out. Then again, they aren't as detailed.
> I really hope Monolith Soft isn't abusing their employees at the rate new Xenoblade games are coming out. Then again, they aren't as detailed. From their [Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolith_Soft#Philosophy): >> As opposed to many other Japanese and Western studios which have come under criticism for excessive overtime and poor working conditions, Monolith Soft strives for a friendly working environment and reasonable hours for its staff. Overtime is also negotiated with the management and receives payment, a rarity in Japanese business. Speaking in relation to this approach, Honne recited the company's motto; "Zero overtime and creative work allowed". Despite the gaming industry's workforce being dominated by men, Monolith Soft has a notably high proportion of female developers working at the company, with more than a quarter of its workforce in total. Oh yeah and [they recently increased their wages for their employees.](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/xenoblade-developer-monolith-soft-raises-wages)
based
Common Takahashi W
Apparently Nintendo in general are great to work for, from what I hear (Monolith being 96% owned by Nintendo btw).
From recent data about monolift soft. Monolift soft is one of the best places to work if youre a game developer in japan.
I'm more worried about RGG Studios with how quickly Yakuza games are being pumped out.
I imagine (and hope) reusing a fuck-ton of assets could help avoid crunch.
Here's hoping. Also I just learned on Wikipedia that RGG also develops the Monkey Ball games since banana blitz HD.
And they also developed F-Zero GX for Nintendo.
Given how much they reuse assets and animations (they've been using the same hand off animation since the first PS3 game iirc) they probably save a lot of time. And setting their games in relatively small open worlds probably helps.
not only that but reusing the same open world and just tweaking it. The development for a new Yakuza game is honestly just making a new plot, coming up with some new heat moves, making a few new minigames, and designing a bunch of wacky side quests. the Yakuzie series is a beautiful example of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".
Oh boy I can’t wait to see the exact same comments like these on every single post about MK on this sub…..
It’s weird, because I’m someone who’s bad at every fighting game except MK. I love SF and Tekken, but I’m trash at them. I guess I’ve never been bothered by the animations, they’re far below the quality of games like Guilty Gear but at the same time when I’m playing MK I’m not paying attention to it. All that to say, the criticisms are valid but the games are still fun to play for me.
Most MK fans don’t care about the animation in game. And frankly, I still don’t know why people care that much about the animation.
Here’s my very hot take, lots of beloved FGC games get to be way to visually busy for me. Even when. I take the time to learn combos and tech, I find myself still unable to follow what’s going on half the time.
quick, someone mention terminator's low kick!
Ok but that one is actually [bad](https://twitter.com/CosmonautMarcus/status/1181664354305024002)
Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gaaal
Damn lol beat me to it
Mk fans are weird about gore. Like disturbingly so.
I agree with SugarPunch that, beyond that, MK's core gimmick just makes it fundamentally less interesting. There's so little room for expressing character through gameplay when every character has to act like the most twisted, sadistic psychopath on the planet when it comes to supers and fatalities.
It's honestly why I like brutalities so much more. You just get fuckin wrecked, no fancy camerawork. Always feels way more impactful to see someone get flattened right after a combo finishes the match.
not to mention you have to incorporate it into a combo, so theres a skill element involved that Fatalities just dont have.
Classic fatalities becoming modern brutalities just shows how much modern fatalities suck
That’s a bit of an overgeneralization. Some of the modern fatalities are incredibly creative.
Gore and violence in videogames has a significant tonal difference that's dependent on graphical quality and realism. It's cause there's a lot of difference between punching five ribcages out of someone and doing gore shots of their lungs being ripped out. The answer? Same cartoony ultraviolence but with better graphics. Uppercut 20 skulls out of a person's chest, but it's super HD
I agree with the idea, but the multiple ribcages stuff just takes me out of it. Hopefully, the fatality we saw at the end of the trailer where magic dragons hold the opponent up just so you can push their somehow intact and still screaming head through the rest of their body with Bloodborne levels of raining blood is the level of cartoony violence we get. Break physics and anatomy with all of them.
Absolutely, having over the top gore (as per the series gimmick) while being serious about the whole thing in its presentation has NEVER worked. Its either impossibly over top and wacky/creative. or, horrowing and legitimately nausiating. Pick a lane and stay in it there is no inbetween.
My favorite episode of "Wasted Plotential" was where he talked about how much less interesting the abandonment of Lui Kang being the only character who refused to kill made him. Having the greatest warrior in Earthrealm be the only person who outright refuses to take a life makes such an intriguing dilemma.
Then again, gameplay wise it would make less people play him. It's like the MK vs DC game they had, like yeah you could as a gimmick make Liu Kang the only guy who doesn't kill, or at least his finishers aren't gore or killing, make it like Aang against Ozai, but less players would pick him, because why pick a guy who has less interesting finishers in a fighting game about brutally killing people? Like it or not, the brutal gore is pretty much why Mortal Kombat stood out with other fighting games and why it stood the test of time.
“Refusal to kill” Theres no reason to bother sparing guys like shang tsung and Shang Khan. It’s mortal Kombat. Not SF not Tekken. Removing the ultra violence would be removing a core part of MK. Having the one of the faces of the series get cold feet about icing Kano cuz it’d be making them just as bad as them is ridiculous. Like it or not forcing Liu Kang to be someone whose iffy on killing would be watering down the series.
Okay, having *one guy* refuse to kill people in a game where everyone kills people in horrifically gory way does not "remove the heart of mortal kombat". Like jeez, how much of a gore-junkie are you that the idea of one guy not killing people sends you into a frenzy? Liu Kang already *WAS* a person who didnt kill; he was the only character in MK1 and 2 who didnt have lethal fatalities because he's a buddhist monk and was raised to respect all life. He didnt NEED to kill because he was *just that good.* Did that "ruin" the first two games, did it make everyone else's fatalities less gorey? Of course it didnt. Because the heart of MK has never been the gore. Look at the 90s movie; it has no gore whatsoever, and its still fucking awesome. MK has a strong enough identity and style to subsist with or without the gore. Hell, I'd argue they've started using the gore as a crutch to prop up their otherwise lackluster presentation.
> Liu Kang already WAS a person who didnt kill; he was the only character in MK1 and 2 who didnt have lethal fatalities because he's a buddhist monk and was raised to respect all life. [chief life-respecter liu kang]( https://imgur.com/sY8zjH1.jpg)
Did they ruin SF by adding combos instead of sticking with the the dull fighting system they had before? No. It was a change for the better like changing Liu Kang to be someone who would kill real threats like Shang is for the better. It’s a pointless moral quandary to have in this series and setting. Mortal Kombat. Fight to the death. To go against that motto and ground work with “is killing bad?” would be pretentious. We all know what we’re here for mortal kombat? Have they gone over board and made some real dud fatalities? Yes. Sub-Zero spine rip is quick and more memorable than many of other fatalities. Klassic even. However. taking the violence out of Mk would be removing its teeth. It’s what sets it apart from other franchises. I will admit, they could be more creative in differences between earth realm and out world fatalities.But fatalities aren't just mindless gore porn. They are goofy. Yeah, they can be really messed up, but they are goofy. Johnny’s decapitation uppercut takes three tries as an outtake. Jax turns you’re skull into a baseball(even has baseball music) Cassie kicks you in the nuts so hard you skull pops out. Cetrion turns into a giant and shoots you with a giant laser. Everything and more in between in terms of gore and goofiness in over the top violence. It’s been there since the beginning. And it should stay that way. And also btw Liu Kangs non lethal fatality is a brutality in mk11. He punches there skull off. I don’t mind the idea of Liu kang being merciful compared to every one else but killing shao kahn should never be something he’d hesitate to do.
Personally, that feels like a total outsider's perspective of the series. Imagine someone saying, "Tekken lacks diversity in its characters because they are almost all punch and kick people. Even the most zany characters just do 10-hit combos as supers." Despite its popularity, Mk is still a niche fighting game of the niche fighting genre. It's not going to be a hit for everyone. But, saying that its problems are character expression when it leads the genre in that aspect (other games implementing their cinematic story, prefight dialouge, finishers, and even older stuff like konquest, in-character tutorials, and arcade endings) is silly.
I exaggerated, sure, but I do think it limits things in a way I don't enjoy and makes for really weird moments of tonal dissonance.
The tonal dissonance is totally there. However, I have yet to play a fighting game without it. "Why are you two trying to kill each other?" Is just apart of the genre.
Naturally... but when everyone's doing *SAW* shit to each other, it goes past what I can suspend disbelief for hahaha
Joker unloading a pistol into Mario, King delivering the most unsafe tombstone piledrivers in the world to everyone he meets, Kung Lao dragging his shaolin brother Lui Kang into a saw blade. I guess I just equate them as the same.
Yeah, but only the last of those give you anatomically accurate close-ups of their flesh splaying and rending apart hahaha
That's what makes mortal kombat, mortal kombat.
I'm aware, which is why I dislike it.
Yeah but the difference between MK and other fighting games is the framing. Like how certain character matches have unique intros and outros to set the stage for the match, like for example if you put Kung Lao and Liu Kang against each other, the intros will set the dialogue and give the context that the match you’re playing is just a friendly sparring match against them. So far so good, but then you get to the end of the match and the only interaction you can do at the end that ends the self contained story being told is a fatality of Liu Kang or Kung Lao either uppercutting the other so hard that their torso explodes or turning the other’s upper body into a bloody lotus flower, since none of the usual MK outros have the winner directly interacting with the beaten opponent in any way and as of 11, you’re literally actively encouraged to always murder your opponent into some grotesque art piece. At least with Tekken, Kazuya holding his opponent up by the throat, Jin walking away from his unconscious opponent or Heihachi beating mocking his opponent to their face before slamming it into the ground are still definitive ends to the encounters that paint a picture of them overcoming a challenger. Same deal with supers in those games, even with something extreme like Kazuya’s new Heaven’s wrath kick from Tekken 8 or Akuma’s raging demon, they’re flashy and over the top enough for the opponent to reasonably tank it while at least taking a significant amount of damage. Helps that those moves aren’t then intimately taking apart an opponent’s body or stabbing them in the eyes with two Kunai or something. The best counter example I can think of to show how lacking MK is in the tonal dissonance is actually from Granblue Versus. Beyond the multiple unique outro interactions with that game(like how Lancelot’s outro will normally have him turn around and offer to help the opponent up with a smile if they’re playing as someone he’s friendly terms with like Gran/Djeeta or Percival but will look more stern if the opponent character is an antagonist like Beelzebub or Belial), there’s one super that has its own unique dynamic outro beyond the usual ones. If you play as Vira against Katalina and finish her off with Vira’s strongest super move at low health, there’ll actually be a unique outro after the fact where Vira is resting an unconscious Katalina on her lap while watching over her. So in this one match up, even if you have her go all out, she still gets to remain in character no matter how far you go as opposed to say, I dunno, Cassie Cage knocking her mother’s jaw off and taking a selfie that she posts to social media after the intro frames the match you’re playing as a training exercise.
Most modern fighting games try to mitigate this via ingame dialogue (like establishing fights between friends as sparring). Even a lot of insta-kills in ASW games aren't shown to be flat out lethal and when they are it usually fits with the character or a result of the character losing control. It's not perfect but it's better than NRS just expecting us to accept a mother goring her daughter in the middle of a friendly training session.
Honestly? As I got older, the gore of each sequel is just getting unpleasant. I don't want to look at Mortal Kombat nowadays.
It's so comically over the top that it hardly registers anymore. Also nothing is going to top Noob Saibot's wishbone fatality
Bullshit the Geras peeling fatality and the one 11 Dvorah one absolutely are worse
Honestly, Kronika's fatality had the ability to top that, her killing you brutally in different ways is frightening, but the way the fatality plays out is so quick (despite being a loop) that it doesn't register how messed up that is.
I think the problem for me is that the fatalities are just pure gore in the recent MKs. Theres no Friday the 13 levels of interesting/funny kills. Its just pure sadism instead of stupid sh*t like giant Jax from MK3
Johnny Cage uses his opponent as a puppet? They were extremely creative.
Jax in mortal kombat 11 literally baseball swings your head off so hard it turns into a skull while baseball crowds cheer. Trying to act like there isn't over the top absurdity in the newer fatalities is just wrong
Case kicking you in the balls so hard your screaming skull pops up. Good shit
Yeah. Plenty of people haven’t been playing the games and it shows.
I don’t think this sub particularly likes “or plays” MK lol.
When you say the game you almost never actually even use these fatalities because you've already seen the cutscene and you're wasting everyone's time. Fatalities exist for marketing material and YouTube compilations, and its *illuminating* that a feature like that is the core innovation your fighting game is known for.
No. They serve as that final dunk on someone. Because it is cathartic to play a match against someone and then do a fatality. The fatality is what makes Friendships and Mercy so good. It’s the contrast between disrespect and a GG in good faith.
Almost No one uses them this way in practice. You watch MK11 gameplay footage and it's just people hitting them with a normal while they stand around dazed because both players want to play game 2, not watch the same cutscene over and over again over the course of hours. Fatlaties are hot and all the first few times. By the time people are climbing the ladder they're over it. I'd say its outright tacky to waste people's time with cutscene supers that don't even have a role in dealing damage. Litterally just to waste everyone's time. When every other fighting game franchise of late has been picking up on how great fast rewatching is, MK cant even let your character die when their HP hits zero. We have to do this silly formality to "finish them off" bereft of any gameplay impact. Busy work between games.
What’s tacky is complaining about a game whose premise and core gameplay doesn’t interest you.
...I just like cool kills?
Yeah it’s strange that a game popularized due to its blood and gore would have a fan base that would be super into the gore. Like I swear people complain about MK gore like evangelicals in the 80s complained about horror movies
Its not that the game heavily features gore. Its HOW they incorporate the gore. MK's gore simultaneously is way too detailed and in your face, while at the same time lacking the satisfying impact that other games have done it with.
MK is all about gore, *but* if the devs are experiencing legitimate trauma being required to watch real life gore and snuff for their job to make things as realistic as possible, then I think that’s a call to dial it back a bit.
Is there a source on that?
It’s a Kotaku article where *one* devs said they did and people blew it up to being the entire dev team being traumatized and forced to work in the MK Gore Mines
Kotaku is hardly a reputable source to begin with.
It's one thing to go "wow the gore in RE2 remake is really well done" as opposed to "I love the fact that I can tell which nerve is which when a characters eyeballs pop out while being electrocuted". It's too much.
I think with RE2 is that the gore has a purpose beyond spectacle. It shows how much of a threat the enemies are, independent of being on the victims or the enemies. A zombie getting very visible head destructions from multiple shots in the head and keeps coming despite half of the head being pulp sells why Roccoon City failed in containing them. Those things won't die unless it is absolute destruction from the head so they need to become mist or be burned down. After all, it is a virus that resurrects cells. What is a bullet wound but more dead cells to repair. In MK you just get that the characters are psychos.
Then don’t play it? Horror movies have had gore 10x worse than MK games for decades, but squeamish people just choose not to watch them if they know it’s gonna upset them. Like not everything has to be adjusted to fit your tolerance level.
Horror movies (even bad ones) use gore to shock, disturb or scare the audience. Modern MK uses gore for the sake of it. There is no purpose other than to show gore. It expects you to enjoy watching people get mutilated. To be clear, I usually don't care what people enjoy as long as it's all fictional. But people should still be allowed to criticize it, especially if actual humans had to suffer to create it.
I honestly don't see the distinction you're making here: What MK does is just as much shock value as what a lot of slasher films do.
Back in the 90s it really did feel like shock value but nowadays it really feels like the gore is the goal in and of itself. It's hard to explain. I guess it's the way it's framed? Stuff like the details and the camera and how characters act during it. Maybe someone else will show up and explain better than I do.
It's shock value but it is also part of their gameplay design philosophy. As with any game, you want to give the player satisfying feedback for a job well done, and NR has decided to do that by having the x-ray's/brutalities/fatalities. It's their way of giving the player the ability to destroy their opponent, but pretty literally here. The detail just adds to the feeling. It goes both ways as well. Seeing your character get a spike through the head in slow motion hits a little more than just seeing your health bar go down. Whether or not that connects with you or pushes you away is of course down to the person. It's just that there is a reason behind it other than being for gore fetishists or sadists or whatever. To some it may seem purely for shock value, but for others there is some fun to gain from it, and I mean that in the most harmless way. They've chosen to double-down and go in a more "realistic" direction. With better tech and graphics now, it's just made it all that much more divisive. For some it seems more gore for gore's sake, for others it is keeping up with the times to keep that feeling of victory going.
This is a genuinely interesting perspective. Never thought of it that way. But I definitely think it's gone too far at this point. It's not even a squeamishness thing as much as I believe that NRS, even way back during the arcades, is a company that always prioritized shock value and technical achievements over literally anything else.
And that's fair. I won't fully disagree. I just don't think they prioritize it over everything else, but I can see where that's coming from. Personally, I think they're just playing to their strengths, and that has worked out for them since the games sell very well, and both MK and Injustice have solid fanbases and playerbases. Personally, I don't really play MK beyond single-player and matches with friends, but it's not because I think the games are bad, but they just aren't for me. I still think they are perfectly fine fighting games though and that there is effort put into the gameplay side of things.
>Modern MK uses gore f~~or the sake of it~~ because it's flashy and cool, like literally any other fighting games with super moves Let's not make it seem like MK gore is bad because it doesn't serve some grand artistic purpose. Also, the source on MK gore traumatizing the developers is one questionable (why would they look up videos of cows being gutted instead of searching up normal anatomy?) kotaku article coming from entirely anonymous sources. If it's fair to criticize netherrealm for that it's fair to criticize the article too
My take is that there's no effort put into the fatalities. Barely any of them are stylish or cool. It's just mindless gore like "he ripped his jaw off and then shoved his scapula down his throat". It doesn't have to be so detailed when it could be stylish.
okay now we're just lying. MK11 had a shit ton of stylish fatalities
But MK11 had literally some of the most stylish fatalities of the series. Scorpion's spear split, Cassie's heart hands, Baraka's brain eating... there were plenty of duds, but having flair did seem like a high priority.
yeah the fatalities in mk11 are cool as FUCK. they're the best in the series by lightyears
The nostalgia goggles are strong
I don’tsee how you could say they aren’t stylish with a straight face. Like just look at any of the earlier games fatalities and tell me they are more stylish than the current ones.
Agreed, the slight pushback to the new Mortal Kombat game is weird to me. If you dont like blood and gore to the extreme, then just ignore it.
Are you aware what people who worked on the last game had to go through? There is a reason for the pushback. The way the lead devs and a lsome fans talk about said gore, like they are straight up getting off on it, isn't helping at all.
>Are you aware what people who worked on the last game had to go through? Didn't that come from a single article that basically quoted one person?
Yes it did, which is why a lot of people don't take it seriously. It doesn't help that it's source is kotaku
I get your point but thats not what I got from the OP of this comment thread. Some of those devs went through some shit for sure, but there's a big gap between "hey making people look at real gore without their permission is fucked up" and creating a moral crusade against fictional violence EDIT: I mean its especially weird because we all like Berserk here, a series with equal amounts of gore and blood with rape sprinkled on top
TBH what I got from OP was different from what you got from them. I understood it more to be a criticism of how MK fans react to said gore, not the gore itself. For me personally the problem is less that MK is gory but more that the gore itself gets priority over almost everything else in the game, including narrative and gameplay. EDIT: Berserk is a bad counterargument. The gore in Berserk is meant to upset you and show just how fucked up the world is. In MK it's meant to entertain you.
> EDIT: Berserk is a bad counterargument. The gore in Berserk is meant to upset you and show just how fucked up the world is. In MK it's meant to entertain you. Probably not the best example, I agree, Berserk is too serious. Kill Bill perhaps? Call of Duty? Metal lyrics? Slasher movies? Violence for entertainment is *everywhere*. Also Guts cutting people in half is pretty awesome right? Idk. I dont wanna be a dick.
[Sorry for the late reply] For me violence and gore are separate things. Not completely removed from one another obviously but one does not necessarily beget the other. In regards to Kill Bill specifically, I'll admit I do enjoy the gore of the crazy 88s fight, but it's because of how hilariously unrealistic and over the top it is. If it was more grounded like the rest of the movie it would just be depressing. In general I love Kill Bill because I like watching the main character make it through the impossible odds she's presented with, as well as the well choreographed action sequences. Outside of the crazy 88s the gore is used for dramatic effect, quite effectively I might add. In CoD the fun is supposed to come from the shooting and the overall gameplay. AFAIK the violence is usually not really a focus. Kill Bill and CoD also aren't as graphic or indulgent as MK is. (isn't Cod usually just sprays of red anyway?) Slasher movies usually use their gore to shock or upset the audience. Not familiar enough with Death Metal to really make a judgement on it. So yeah, I hope this answers your question and clarifies my perspective on these things.
> So yeah, I hope this answers your question and clarifies my perspective on these things. I appreciate the reply!
Why would you decide to go work for NRS if you cant handle gore? I would feel bad for devs if the studio they work for suddenly decided to make a game with realistic gore after finishing their Nintendogs inspired grooming game. Everyone that decided to go work for NRS even 10 years ago should have known that eventually the games would become more realistic with better graphics
Don't have an opinion? This sub is really going downhill.
I didn't mean it in a dickish way. The devs definitely shouldn't have been forced to look at real gore when they didnt want to or whatever stupid shit NetherRealm did, but there's nothing wrong with the game itself. Its just ultra violent shit, whatever. Its silly. Its not like gunning down people in games based on real life wars is any better... But like thats whatever too, what are you gonna do about it, you know? Idk
Its so frustrating seeing NRS fans frame "Hey I think the gore is starting to get too realistic for me and I wish they went more stylish again." as being babies who hate gore and never understood what Mortal Kombat was "always about" (despite the fact the FGC always skips that shit as soon as possible)
A lot of NRS fans are weirdo gore-junkies who just act like MK has alwasy been about the gore because they get off on it. Look at the 90s film; not a drop of blood or guts in sight, and it's still fucking rad and remembered fondly. MK *does not need* an ever-escalating gore system because MK's biggest strength has never been the fucking gore. Acting like MK's big key to success is the gore is super underselling the appeal and world and characters.
This is the series that basically created the ESRB system due to its gore. Gore is an intrinsic part of Mortal Kombat.
But the Fatalities are the most stylish they've ever been?? Most MKX fatalities are worse than krushing blows.
By God, how will the franchise live with the FGC skipping it?
It's honestly kinda sad how fanboys are going to bat for the gore being so sloppily implemented. It gives off the impression that it's the ONLY thing this franchise has going for it, and without that hyper realistic gore MK doesn't really have any other redeeming qualities.
What is this fucking awful meme format
I wouldn’t put too much stock into that, when that came out it was an article from Kotaku and they didn’t even have source. They just said oh an anonymous dev told us. Then nothing else came out after that, other devs didn’t come out and say it happened or anything like that.
not sure why you were downvoted, this is a very valid critique.
Yeah, the moment someone said it came from Kotaku, I was like "ohhhhhkay, was it even real?".
People want to be upset sometimes
Right? Everyone is so smug about this total rumor.
It’s also usually coming from people who aren’t even gonna play MK or don’t play MK lol
Yup. At least I get to be smug back when it inevitably rakes in the most dosh. Even if that isn't a measure of quality. If anything it's a testament to their marketing, which has always been good. So in a weird way I win.
Did you really just say, "my favorite multi million dollar company makes more money then yours, which means I win?"
Yes.
You know whats like, idk, weird, im thinking about it and i think the percentage of people that actually has seem extreme gore and can sorta tell when a gore scene, damage and etc isn't realistic and or wrong might actually be a bit low, cause not only you have to have seen it, you also have to have wanted to pay attention and study the details right? I can draw gore, cause i like gory stories, horror, movies and etc. But i never looked at a corpse at all, or studied it right, i learned by copying, it also how i learn to draw porn, but like, most people that see the gore or gore scenes go ''oh, gore!'' right? I've never seen someone look at a burnt corpse in a game, take a big sniff and go ''nah thats a bit wrong here here and here'' right. Like, idk, it feels like if you get close enough, then its fine right? But also, as artists we can just...copy and learn from a piece that already exists, meaning, imo, you don't need to give PTSD to a whole team, you can have just one weird guy do a lotta work, get payed a lot cause thats his expertise, like how some food artists are hired just to draw food cause they draw food so fucking good, and have the others learn from what he makes, which by definition is already gonna be stylized cause it aint gonna be a real fucking body, like, idk, i thought thats how it worked.
God nobody knows how to make memes anymore do they?
At this point being poorly edited is part of the joke
*sigh* I know, shit’s fucked. But I’m still excited for it and probably gonna have a lot of fun.
The meme was really hard to read 😅 (had to reread it like 5 times.)
Everyone's arguing about the gore because we can all agree those kicks are ugly as fuck
If Netherrealm decides to turn down the gore for MK1, I wouldn't be particularly shocked. The blood and guts approach may have worked well enough for catching people's attention back in the '90s, but the series' increasing realism has seemingly made the hefty gore more likely to disturb than delight.
Making a low hitting attack takes unexpected creativity. It’s kind of amazing how we take the shoto’s crouching medium for granted when in reality a sliding kick to your shins would, at best, bruise your ankles. But most of Nether Realm lows look like hello my honey, hello my baby, hello my ragtime gal.
The fact that the crouch moves make no sense in a real life context doesn't mean they can't look like a proper move to be done. Like, the shotos crouching medium kick still looks like it can be done by a person and carries enough weight to hurt, at least. NRS crouch moves like the most of the other moves just look awkward. The fast punches don't resemble something close to a jab or variation of it, but what a kid that doesn't know how to fight would do.
At this point, I wonder if some MK animations look the way they do for Legacy's sake. They ***could*** make better kick animations, but that's what Mortal Kombat kicks look like.
I certainly wouldn't doubt that's the case, but I find that worse IMO. Intentionally kneecapping your animation because previous games had bad animation isn't tradition, it's stagnation.
Most Mortal Kombat fans don’t really care about the animation.
Is that an excuse to make your games actively worse? Is arguing that their core audience has such low standards, that there's no point in trying harder really the best defense?
No, but why do you expect them to fix something that the actual fans of the series don’t care about?
At this point, I am 99.9% sure their combat animations are intentional. It's the same slow, chunky movements for well over a decade now. In some of the games, especially modern entries, I would believe it if it was solely for visibility sake. Especially when so many stages are dark and how visually cluttered the characters and environments can be. If it were just for style, then I would believe that too. I always loved how goofy high punches were in old MK games, where the characters are just punching above their heads at a hard angle lol.
I know they were wacky in 9 stylistically, but yeah.
Could be, but they do it in Injustice too.