Audience "Stand-In" characters (Cole Young) and Narrative Liberties with Live Action Dragon Ball

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Re: Audience "Stand-In" characters (Cole Young) and Narrative Liberties with Live Action Dragon Ball

Post by JewyB » Sat May 08, 2021 9:14 pm

I think the best example of an audience surrogate is Fry in Futurama. He worked perfectly in the role but then evolved as the audience grew more accustomed to the world, but because of his backstory, he had the perfect excuse to fall back into that role when needed.

Admittedly, that was for a brand new series, as opposed to an existing franchise, so he wasn't added alongside already established characters.

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Re: Audience "Stand-In" characters (Cole Young) and Narrative Liberties with Live Action Dragon Ball

Post by Aim » Mon May 10, 2021 3:52 am

No.

Here are my reasonings.


Dragon Ball is bastardised enough, the moment it kicks off in a really good live action movie, I guarantee you this franchise will never be the same, Freeza will now be “Frieza” in Japan, names will continue to stay changed, etc.

Unless Funimation fucks off the map or changes for the better I don’t want to see Dragon Ball go down this path where it will be mostly Funimations show and no longer a work of art by Toriyama.

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Re: Audience "Stand-In" characters (Cole Young) and Narrative Liberties with Live Action Dragon Ball

Post by Kunzait_83 » Mon May 10, 2021 10:11 am

goku the krump dancer wrote: Sat May 08, 2021 9:16 amThe stories in the older games were there but they weren't the driving force for the games, granted I was born in 92, so I'm not sure if people were claiming for MK3 because they were curious as to how Shao Kahn came back or they just were amped to play their favorite characters again and check out the new ones.
This is hugely, hugely incorrect. I'd been playing the MK games literally since the first game's original arcade release: people were most DEFINITELY into the series' story almost from day one. More so than pretty much any other fighting game in existence, MK's always been incredibly story driven from pretty much day one, and fan interest in the series' lore has always been there and heavily omnipresent since the very, very beginning.

Obviously the gore and digitized graphics were always the initial draw that would grab people immediately, but from there it wouldn't take very long for people who played the games to get sucked into the game's universe, and rumors pertaining to story details and developments were every bit as prominent as those surrounding different finishing moves and hidden characters and whatnot. This was always the case going back to MK1, but it ESPECIALY increased once MK2 first came out.

This was both IRL, in gaming publications, as well as in online video game discussions. Mortal Kombat's 1 and 2 were some of the earliest examples I can think of of a video game that became a HUGE internet sensation where viral posts about moves, characters, and yes, even story details, would spread like wildfire online as early as 1993. Even with hidden characters, people didn't just speculate about how to unlock them or what their moves were: people speculated wildly as to their role in the game's narrative as well. There was a massive investment there from the getgo, and anyone who'd been following video games (particularly on the arcade side of things) in the very early 90s can readily attest to this.

There's a reason why those prequel comics were first created, why they sold as well as they did, and why OTHER fighting games later on (like Killer Instinct) tried to replicate things like tie-in comics to their fighting game's "lore": because people genuinely gave a shit about MK's story at that point, and it became just as big of a draw as the gore and "realistic" graphics did in very, very short order. None of this stuff ever happens inside of a vacuum guys.

goku the krump dancer wrote: Sat May 08, 2021 9:16 amMK1 can almost be treated like its own thing considering that a lot of the character's personalities were so different in that game, as well as core premise being to stop Shang Tsung from running a corrupt tournament, not necessarily saving "Earth Realm". In MK1 Liu Kang doesnt kill, Shang Tsung is running the tournament for his own selfish reasons ( no mention of Shao Kahn) and Raiden is just some bored God looking for a fight and destroys the world in his ending.
While there are indeed a number of bits to MK1's story that are clearly signs of what a site like TVTropes would regard as "early installment weirdness", MK1 is still pretty instrumental to the story of later games. The entire premise of MK2 is rooted in the idea that the Outworld tournament is a direct reaction to Liu Kang's victory in MK1, that Shao Kahn wants revenge for the loss, and that he primarily invites survivors who participated in the first tournament.

If you were to ignore MK1, MK2's basic premise would be wholly lacking in context and would leave people wondering what the hell happened in this "first tournament" that keeps getting constantly referenced throughout the game's text. Also Shang Tsung's presence in MK2 is entirely hinged upon the events of MK1, including the regaining of his youth, his thin ice relationship with Shao Kahn for his previous failure, etc. Liu Kang's MK2 story hinges on his Shaolin Temple being attacked while he was away competing in MK1's tournament as well, to say nothing of Scorpion and Sub-Zero's roles (Scorpion having previously killed the first Sub-Zero in MK1, and his relationship with his younger brother being entirely rooted in that killing).

MK1 is anything but ignorable and is certainly in no way whatsoever divorced from the context of the later games, regardless of some of its details being tweaked later on; to the point where even the MK9 reboot (which retells the story of the first three games back to back, with key bits being altered via time travel shenanigans) still sees fit to begin things at MK1 and not MK2. MK1, 2, 3, and even some key pieces of Mythologies all more or less seamlessly tie together to form one full, complete narrative arc. And that arc is the central spine that most all the present day games and media primarily stem from.

goku the krump dancer wrote: Sat May 08, 2021 9:16 amMK-2 and 3 roll together and MK4 with Mythologies are supposed to be a tandem as well but because Noob Saibot and Sareena aren't factors in MK4's story then Mythologies events are a non-factor. Nothing about MKM is referenced in MK4.
Not true: the original Sub-Zero's (Bi-Han's) quest to retrieve Shinnok's amulet is directly referenced several times in MK4 via Kuai Liang (the second Sub-Zero)'s story in that game. He serves the role of guide and exposition for the other characters, as only he (and Raiden) are aware of the events of Mythologies and the details about Shinnok, Quan Chi, and the amulet.

Also the events of MK Mythologies are MASSIVELY important (almost centrally so) to the broader events of the entire MK franchise, since Mythologies tells the (canon to the games) story of the genesis of Scorpion and Sub-Zero's (Bi-Han's) rivalry, how Scorpion was originally killed, what happened to his clan, how it ties into the Shirai Ryu's rivalry with the Lin Kuei, Quan Chi's role in his resurrection as a Hellspawn, etc. Hell, Scorpion's real name (Hanzo Hasashi) and the name of his clan all originated in Mythologies in the first place! Mythologies basically fleshes out ALL of the details of the backstory between Scorpion and Sub-Zero that was previously only hinted at in the first three games: details that are still referenced and adapted across all MK media to this day (including the recent movie).

Hell, Mythologies even includes some small details that tie into the backstory of MK3 (like how Shang Tsung first acquired the means to resurrect Sindel in Earthrealm from Quan Chi the first place).

Its to the point where Mythologies' events are STILL considered fully "canon" to even the reboot timeline's events, and Mythologies is still continually referenced even as recently as MK11. Despite its poor reception as a game, the actual story content of Mythologies still makes up some of the most critical content of the entire MK lore that's still a major reference point for a whole bunch of MK media to this day.

goku the krump dancer wrote: Sat May 08, 2021 9:16 amThe only aspect of MK4 that carries over to Deadly Alliance is that Raiden became an Elder God but he relinquished his status to help fight, ultimately making it a non factor too.
Again, not true: Quan Chi's initial imprisonment in the Netherrealm, and his escape from it, are a direct continuation of Scorpion's ending in MK4. MK4 is where Quan Chi is first taken to the Netherrealm by Scorpion, and its only there that he first learns about the Dragon King's army, gets his now-signature tattoos (which comprise a spell for resurrecting the Dragon King's army) and so on. We even see most of this play out in Deadly Alliance's opening cutscene. All of that forms the backbone of the setup for Deadly Alliance, and all of it is contingent on events that happened in MK4. Deadly Alliance is a direct continuation from certain events that happened in MK4.

All in all, for all the faults it has (its still ultimately just the storyline to a fighting game after all), MK's story across the first 3 or 4 games (and one of its spinoffs) prior to Deadly Alliance hangs together incredibly well and is vastly better fleshed out than that of an overwhelming majority of other fighting games. Only Capcom and SNK's efforts generally stacks up to it in that department.

Saying that it "only found its narrative footing" at Deadly Alliance is not only just flat out demonstrably wrong, its also ignoring a GIGANTIC amount of its entire history as a franchise up to that point.
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Re: Audience "Stand-In" characters (Cole Young) and Narrative Liberties with Live Action Dragon Ball

Post by Kid Buu » Mon May 10, 2021 2:57 pm

Liu Kang's death in the opening of Deadly Alliance was quite shocking. I couldn't imagine watching that with no context of the previous games.

Tekken tried to copy that with killing Heihachi in Tekken 5 but it turns out to be a false alarm.
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Re: Audience "Stand-In" characters (Cole Young) and Narrative Liberties with Live Action Dragon Ball

Post by Super Sonic » Mon May 10, 2021 4:20 pm

Kunzait_83 wrote: Fri May 07, 2021 8:39 am
Super Sonic wrote: Thu May 06, 2021 9:05 pm While I haven't watched the movie yet, have to ask, would a variation of the classic theme song with his name instead of whoever he may have replaced work? Speaking of which of things I've seen, haven't seen if Raiden and Johnny Cage were in it, so guessing it would be one of their names, or would it sound out of place?
Raiden's definitely in it (ironically played by Tadanobu Asano, who's most famous role was in a really fun Japanese cult classic called Electric Dragon 80,000 V), but Johnny Cage is only briefly teased in the very last scene (the last shot of the movie is one of his film posters).
Ok. Name sounds familiar. *checks* Oh, Hogun the Grim. Admit not sure if I've seen him outside the Thor movies, (and still think had they not nerfed the Gauntlet, he could've came back in Endgame, but that's another story) but he seems cool. Agree on the stuff you said regarding story of earlier stuff that did have the first game with "early installment weirdness" though it did form the original movie's plot and the whole setup of things. Been out of MK stuff for a bit and think last game I played was very, very little of MK vs DC which is my most neglected 360 game.

On topic of DB, something like this wouldn't work nowadays I think:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5NCSx5HF8c

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Re: Audience "Stand-In" characters (Cole Young) and Narrative Liberties with Live Action Dragon Ball

Post by Kid Buu » Mon May 10, 2021 4:30 pm

After the MK Vs. DC game Midway was absorbed into Warner Bros and the series got rebooted. All the games since then have been a big improvement IMO. I recommend them.
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Re: Audience "Stand-In" characters (Cole Young) and Narrative Liberties with Live Action Dragon Ball

Post by goku the krump dancer » Wed May 12, 2021 3:52 pm

Kunzait_83 wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 10:11 am Snip
I'll concede that "finding its narrative footing" might've been the wrong term to use, at least from a broad stand point, because as Kid Boo said, everyone's experience with MK is gonna be different depending on where you live and how old you are. There're still narrative hiccups between games though, such as in MK-2 Scorpion vows to be Kuai Liang's body guard, he holds that promise in MK-3 but then 4 rolls around and all of a sudden he's blaming him for the massacre of his family again even after only participating in that tournament because Quan Chi promised him a new life, despite he (Scorpion) having a "hidden agenda" which is never really revealed. What I should've said was that I didn't start to pay attention to the story at large until Deadly Alliance, My first game was Mythologies, with Trilogy and MK-4 following shortly after, I was able to grasp some story beats from MK-4 due to the game having voice overs for the endings and Raiden narrating the plot but it was still the character's, their abilities and playstyle that kept me coming back.

I'm not implying that Deadly Alliance is "The Best" entry point to the series, as any of the games (save for the portable versions and Special Forces) are good enough starting points to get anyone hooked if they like the general aesthetic of whatever entry they're playing, like I said my gateway to the MK World was Mythologies, a game I hold near and dear but its almost universally panned as badly as Special Forces, though its really not that bad if you ask me.

What I will say however is they were able to articulate the story at large better (but I guess that's obvious), starting with Deadly Alliance, at least at that time I was old enough to actively pay attention to what was going on, on top of story presentation taking somewhat of a step forward over "competitive" hardcore gameplay for the PS2 era. Though there was a "scene for that stuff.

Again I'm not saying any of the core games should be ignored, Though they typically do a good job recapping the previous game in the follow up entry. What I AM saying is that Deadly Alliance at least for me was where the story really started to grab my attention, Shang Tsung and Quan Chi teaming up to kill off Liu Kang and Shao Kahn and revive a dead army using the souls of other people really made me go "Holy Shit", when I was kid, plus I knew enough back then to understand just how sneaky Quan Chi really was, seeing as though he betrayed damn near everyone, even Shinnok, back in MK-4, though I'm not 100 percent certain that his ending is canon.
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Re: Audience "Stand-In" characters (Cole Young) and Narrative Liberties with Live Action Dragon Ball

Post by LoganForkHands73 » Wed May 12, 2021 9:15 pm

My perception of the atmosphere surrounding Mortal Kombat and its peers in the arcade days is that it wasn't necessarily so much about the actual, concrete storyline that the games presented onscreen, but more about the mythology people made up in their heads. 'Cause really, as much as I love the older Midway games, the overall storyline was inconsistent as fuck and really quite bad. Just look at MK4's cutscenes. Hell, look at any of the cutscenes outside of opening cinematics from that game to Armageddon. They're monstrously shit. Characters' motivations, personalities and even ethnicities flip-flop between games, dead warriors return from the grave with literally zero explanation, etc. The movies, comicbooks and animated series accomplished the great task of streamlining the games' story into something more coherent, and it's been repackaged again and again over time, but the fans filled in all the gaps that remained. I'm fairly sure the entire connection between Noob Saibot and the original Sub-Zero Bi-Han was entirely a fan's idea that the devs implemented into the games. And Noob Saibot had pretty much nothing going for him besides being the silhouette ninja with some of Scorpion's moves. If it wasn't for that one guy posting on some forum, Noob would probably still be an easter egg character, but now millions are invested in his conflict with Kuai Liang. It's genuinely amazing, really, how people's investment in these pixellated actors in rubber ninja costumes ripping skeletons out of people's assholes can be so strong.

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Re: Audience "Stand-In" characters (Cole Young) and Narrative Liberties with Live Action Dragon Ball

Post by Kid Buu » Wed May 12, 2021 9:39 pm

Noob Saibot had Kano's moveset originally, at least in the Sega Saturn version of UMK3 anyways. The Mega Drive/SNES version of UMK3 and later Mortal Kombat Trilogy gave him a brand new moveset.

Human Smoke is the one who had Scorpions moves.
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Re: Audience "Stand-In" characters (Cole Young) and Narrative Liberties with Live Action Dragon Ball

Post by goku the krump dancer » Thu May 13, 2021 12:26 am

Noob had Scorpion's moves in MK2.. He and Smoke were the secret fighters in that game, which is probably why they paired them together in Deception (out of universe) and that's definitely why they both had the MK2 Klassic skins in MK9.
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Re: Audience "Stand-In" characters (Cole Young) and Narrative Liberties with Live Action Dragon Ball

Post by Kid Buu » Thu May 13, 2021 12:41 am

goku the krump dancer wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 12:26 am Noob had Scorpion's moves in MK2.. He and Smoke were the secret fighters in that game, which is probably why they paired them together in Deception (out of universe) and that's definitely why they both had the MK2 Klassic skins in MK9.
Oh crap, you're right! Can't believe I forgot abut that. Also Jade was a secret fighter in MK2 as well.

Funny thing is Reptile in the first game was a secret boss character that also had Scorpion moves, as well as Sub Zeros.

Here's what I was talking about about Noob Saibot having Kano moves in Saturn UMK3.
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Re: Audience "Stand-In" characters (Cole Young) and Narrative Liberties with Live Action Dragon Ball

Post by goku the krump dancer » Thu May 13, 2021 1:04 am

Kid Buu wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 12:41 am
goku the krump dancer wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 12:26 am Noob had Scorpion's moves in MK2.. He and Smoke were the secret fighters in that game, which is probably why they paired them together in Deception (out of universe) and that's definitely why they both had the MK2 Klassic skins in MK9.
Oh crap, you're right! Can't believe I forgot abut that. Also Jade was a secret fighter in MK2 as well.

Funny thing is Reptile in the first game was a secret boss character that also had Scorpion moves, as well as Sub Zeros.

Here's what I was talking about about Noob Saibot having Kano moves in Saturn UMK3.
Yeah, Kano was the Noob Saibot sihloette for MK3&UMK3 because there were ZERO traditional ninjas in vanilla MK3. Scorpion and Reptile were gone, Ermac hadn't been created yet and Smoke was the secret fighter for vanilla MK3 but as Robo Smoke not Human Ninja. MK3 introduced Clark Kent Unmasked Sub Zero, so he had a different design all together as well.

The Ninjas, the Kunoichi and even Raiden all made comebacks for UMK3 (shocking I know). Not sure why they kept Kano-Noob for that game since they had ninja sprites to work with, I guess they didn't feel like it was necessary to reprogram the character since he was just a rando secret fighter with no story at the time.

EDIT: Funny enough. Noob Saibot was also a secret fighter in MK4, he had Tanya's fire ball and Reiko's teleport with a long scythe as his weapon and on top of that one of his fatalities he shared with Sub Zero where he froze the guy, slid over to him and shattered them with an uppercut. Maybe they were toying with the brother idea back then and just didn't pull the trigger until Deception.
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Re: Audience "Stand-In" characters (Cole Young) and Narrative Liberties with Live Action Dragon Ball

Post by Kid Buu » Thu May 13, 2021 1:13 am

goku the krump dancer wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 1:04 am Yeah, Kano was the Noob Saibot sihloette for MK3&UMK3 because there were ZERO traditional ninjas in vanilla MK3. Scorpion and Reptile were gone, Ermac hadn't been created yet and Smoke was the secret fighter for vanilla MK3 but as Robo Smoke not Human Ninja. MK3 introduced Clark Kent Unmasked Sub Zero, so he had a different design all together as well.

The Ninjas, the Kunoichi and even Raiden all made comebacks for UMK3 (shocking I know). Not sure why they kept Kano-Noob for that game since they had ninja sprites to work with, I guess they didn't feel like it was necessary to reprogram the character since he was just a rando secret fighter with no story at the time.
When I was younger, I once assumed the ninjas had become the robots (Scorpion -> Cyrax, Reptile -> Sektor and yes I realise they're not even the same colour). MK3 got a lot of hate, but I like how they reinvented the series instead of rehashing. Plus some of the atmosphere in it is terrifying.

I actually hated UMK3 at first because it kept recylcing the same four stages over. :lol: Kind of odd to think that Scorpion wasn't even in the original MK3, given now he's treated like a poster boy.
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Re: Audience "Stand-In" characters (Cole Young) and Narrative Liberties with Live Action Dragon Ball

Post by Anonymous Friend » Fri May 14, 2021 6:02 pm

Cole was such an unneeded character in the movie simply because Sonya and Jax still needed to get exposition about what was going on. Everyone knew what his role was for the film when they announced the brand new character.

As for Dragonball. Both beginnings (in the anime) do a pretty good job of opening it's world up to the audience. DB's first arc was so isolated and had so little characters that anyone could just jump in. Z's opening had a few more characters but opened on an inimate setting or friends reuniting.

Dragonball starting at either one doesn't really need it, especially since there are already characters present that need to be brought up to speed.

Also, Cage should have been the insert character in the movie. But you know how everyone feels about whiteboys these days.

And the story in MK games didn't really become anything until 3. The first two were your standard bland video game stories. The thrid game was when NRS started expanding things a lot more.
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Re: Audience "Stand-In" characters (Cole Young) and Narrative Liberties with Live Action Dragon Ball

Post by ABED » Fri May 14, 2021 6:48 pm

The first two were anything but bland, and the story was never what made MK so popular. Story is hardly the most important part of a video game. Otherwise I agree.
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Re: Audience "Stand-In" characters (Cole Young) and Narrative Liberties with Live Action Dragon Ball

Post by WittyUsername » Fri May 14, 2021 6:59 pm

Would James Marsden’s character in the Sonic the Hedgehog movie qualify as another case of an audience stand-in?

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Re: Audience "Stand-In" characters (Cole Young) and Narrative Liberties with Live Action Dragon Ball

Post by Kid Buu » Fri May 14, 2021 7:27 pm

NRS didn't exist until MK 2011. Midway made the arcade games.
WittyUsername wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 6:59 pm Would James Marsden’s character in the Sonic the Hedgehog movie qualify as another case of an audience stand-in?
I would say yes. That being said Sonic movie had a much smaller cast. In the MK film it felt like Cole was in the film at the expense of other established characters.
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Re: Audience "Stand-In" characters (Cole Young) and Narrative Liberties with Live Action Dragon Ball

Post by Anonymous Friend » Mon May 24, 2021 5:52 pm

ABED wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 6:48 pm The first two were anything but bland, and the story was never what made MK so popular. Story is hardly the most important part of a video game. Otherwise I agree.
MK3 or 4 started getting serious with the story and lore.

Stories in general are very important to a lot of gamers. The storymodes in NRS games are some of the finest ones in fighting games and having been bringing in tons of players. There's plenty of money to be made when you announce your fighter have a big storymode.
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Re: Audience "Stand-In" characters (Cole Young) and Narrative Liberties with Live Action Dragon Ball

Post by ABED » Mon May 24, 2021 8:21 pm

Anonymous Friend wrote: Mon May 24, 2021 5:52 pm
ABED wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 6:48 pm The first two were anything but bland, and the story was never what made MK so popular. Story is hardly the most important part of a video game. Otherwise I agree.
MK3 or 4 started getting serious with the story and lore.

Stories in general are very important to a lot of gamers. The storymodes in NRS games are some of the finest ones in fighting games and having been bringing in tons of players. There's plenty of money to be made when you announce your fighter have a big storymode.
The stories are a selling point but if it were the most important aspect, why make it a video game, especially a side scroll fighting game?

The stories weren't what made MK a hit. It was already a hit by then.

And I'll say it loud again, screw lore. It's not a selling point. It's stupid, it's boring, and no one but nerds care.
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Re: Audience "Stand-In" characters (Cole Young) and Narrative Liberties with Live Action Dragon Ball

Post by Anonymous Friend » Wed May 26, 2021 5:44 pm

ABED wrote: Mon May 24, 2021 8:21 pm
Anonymous Friend wrote: Mon May 24, 2021 5:52 pm
ABED wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 6:48 pm The first two were anything but bland, and the story was never what made MK so popular. Story is hardly the most important part of a video game. Otherwise I agree.
MK3 or 4 started getting serious with the story and lore.

Stories in general are very important to a lot of gamers. The storymodes in NRS games are some of the finest ones in fighting games and having been bringing in tons of players. There's plenty of money to be made when you announce your fighter have a big storymode.
The stories are a selling point but if it were the most important aspect, why make it a video game, especially a side scroll fighting game?

The stories weren't what made MK a hit. It was already a hit by then.

And I'll say it loud again, screw lore. It's not a selling point. It's stupid, it's boring, and no one but nerds care.
Casuals are the ones who bring the bank. Nerds are the ones keeping it alive. Street Fighter 5 launched with one single player mode, Survival, and look at the flack it got for it. Heck, MvCI had some of the best gameplay in a fighting game but failed due to roster choices and character designs.
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