If this game is going to keep breathing, it really needs at MINIMUM a fully functional arcade mode! Anything after that is just gravy. 6-10 stages and then a boss/rival, and you get an ending, and if you do extra well you get a bonus fight against Boss-mode Gargos or Shadow Jago or a beefed up Aria. You win, you get a couple of panoramic stills, a narrator explaining what happened, granting some insight into the interpersonal relationships of the cast and how they affected the overall arching plot of the KI-verse. Maybe some small reward like Shadow points, or not. Either way, it needs this really badly.
Then, if it gets this, we can go beyond, make a Dojo for every character as detailed as what they made for Jago, where you can learn similar tech.
With these two things, honestly, I will feel like this game is complete. It’s all I personally want for this game, where I can just pick up the game, play for like 20 minutes at a time to get an ending. It’s what I’ve done with every fighting game I’ve ever owned up until this one, where I have fewer choices. Shadow Lords feels like a chore and lacks the basic appeal a simple, normal Arcade mode would have given this game.
I know there’s countless threads out there about this very thing, but if we’re not going to get a season 4 at LEAST give us the former. I want to keep playing this game but I am running out of reasons to do so.
If you’re losing interest in the game now, how would adding an arcade ladder change anything? You can fight CPU-controlled characters right now in a variety of modes. If you play against other people primarily (like I do), then the game is always fun to play, regardless of single-player content.
Arcade mode should be a thing, hell we already have it just add the other characters. I don’t know the relative difficulty of captioning a couple of stills but I think one happy ending is simple enough.
This game needs some roots from KI1. Arcade mode, roof top stages without having to perform a stage ultra to knock your opponent down. Aside of that it needs boss mode.
You know the funny thing is the whole story mode over arcade ladder thing pretty much started with MK v DC.
Yeah, KI kinda has an arcade mode, but it was abandoned, and what is there has that weird “There’s no reason to come back to this mode, you’ve already unlocked everything” page that dissuades you from even playing it.
Just a bit of tidying up, make every character playable, move the unlockable screen to a side menu, and add a legit boss to every ladder, and it’d be golden. Possibly even add a shadows ladder.
As far as endings, I don’t care if they’re nothing more than drawings with a quick 2 sentence “what happens next” scenario, just so long as it’s something.
Arcade modes may be a “thing of the past”, but it’s still something a lot of people want to see in FGs…it’s not something everyone wants, but I’d bet there’s enough interest to warrant taking out some time time and effort to do it…it’d be kinda like adding the Ultimates. Sure we don’t need them to make the game play well, but adding them in scored a lot of brownie points with the community, save for the vocal minority that wanted MKX level gore instead.
I’d like an arcade mode, but I can honestly say that I’d never go back to it once I was done unlocking whatever’s unlocked at the end for beating the boss. For me, that’s just something to check off a list. I’m not sure that helps KI “keep breathing” as the OP suggested, but to each, his own.
So yeah, it’d be a nice addition.
Personally, I’d like a full fledged, all-inclusive, cohesive narrative that pulled the entire roster in (minus the guests), like a massive, tournament bracket mission in Shadow Lords where you go in and actually find out what’s happening before, during and after the Gargos invasion for each character and their own subplots plus their influence on the main story threads. Do this with cutscenes, dossiers, and maybe some type of short, ending movie that unlocks once you have the whole story for everyone.
I agree with the tournament setting one they had in mk9 but leave the guests in. They can be dragged through portals against their will by aria or Kan Ra. Brought here through Failed attempts to access the shadow realm or weapons used to fight gargos
I’d love an arcade mode, just let it have daily rewards or something like Shadow lords so I can play it to unlock shards or coins, or I don’t know something.