You mean because of the Joker movie, or something else?
At the same time it implies you play on the Kombat League, which you confirmed you do not. But whatever, considering my experience on the Kombat League I can’t blame you, it gets old really quick (especially versus bad connections).
True, even though it’s never the same having a different actor playing the role it sometimes works for the better. Though I have no problem with soundalikes either: Jeff Bergman did a pretty good Cesar Romero impression with his Joker voice in the Adam West cartoon movies back in 2017.
On a side note, the Young Justice Joker voice I was thinking of was Brent Spiner, who most people here probably know as Data from that one Star Trek series (I think Next Generation? I don’t remember). Funny thing was Brent did a perfect Mark Hamill Joker impression as Loki in the old Gargoyles cartoon, and as Greg Wiseman worked on both Gargoyles and Young Justice he wanted Brent to voice the Joker there as well. Problem was that playing as Data for so many years basically ruined his Loki/Joker voice, so he ended up as one of the worst Joker voices in that time.
This has been my Twitter Handle long before NRS appropriated it. It’s meant to reflect how my two favorite fighters are Mortal Kombat and Injustice. I also once had an idea of doing amalgam comics with MK and DC, which is what I first came up with the phrase “Kombat League” for.
Also, I thought Bret’s joker was neat. He tried this really creepy direction that I found legit unsettling as a kid.
I agree that VA’s should try to put their own spin on things. There’s often little value in trying to imitate iconic roles - it’s a lot better for a VA to bring their own unique take/style to the character. For what it’s worth I actually liked the YJ Joker. He wasn’t remotely funny or jokey, but he did a good job bringing a sinister aura to the character that you don’t often see in his animated incarnations.
Which is a shame because his role as Loki was funny and jokey, but still capable of being sinister as well. But I guess that’s what happens when you play an emotionless android character for years on end.
See this is why I just kept the randomized name XBL gave me, it’s too easy to make your own name only to have it claimed by people richer than you. Then again I remember hearing how a PSN user got his account banned 8 years later for “Offensive Username” because of Sony’s policy changes, so I guess I’m dead either way.
===
But back to MK, seeing Joker being revealed yesterday has honestly made me upset at the release schedule now. We got four characters in 4 months, but have to wait 4 more months for the last two? It’s not like they’re doing endless balancing or anything (Endoskeleton still sucks) and WB owns the Joker, so outside of legal stuff with Spawn I’m honestly at a loss for the big delay.
I understand if stopping crunch time was a factor, but I was under the assumption that they were working on multiple characters at a time. Just seems weird to spend double the amount of time on two characters when Shang Tsung, Sindel, and Nightwolf turned out great.
So between the old rumor that the Ash Williams DLC was cancelled (which I’ll believe if a Season 2 happens), and the fact that Shovel Knight: Showdown did apparently cancel their plans to include the system exclusive characters in each respective versions (I still remember their Steam post with that GIF of Rash fighting Shovel Knight in the Plains of Passage, which doesn’t happen in the current Battletoads content), I was thinking if they decide to put more guests in a possible Season 2 they should probably do with Capcom does with Street Fighter and use first party characters that they own.
In the same way that SF put Final Fight characters like Cody, Hugo, Poison, etc., I was thinking MK could use characters from other properties that WB bought from Midway’s shutdown. For example, assuming they still owned properties like the The Suffering or Smash TV, I could see characters like Torque or The Contestant being guests (lets not forget that MK:DA mentioned Johhny Cage being in Smash TV at one point). And the thing is those games already had heavy amounts of gore, so that’s even one less hurdle to worry about (We can still get Ryu or Bison in Injustice 3 though, if that news about Ono meeting Boon to talk about crossovers was true).
…But then again, knowing WB’s track record of putting in horror characters they own, there’s a higher chance they’ll just put the robot dog character from the R-Rated Banana Splits reboot (which was basically “turn a 70’s kids show into FNAF”). Personally I’d rather have a savage Fred Flintstone, but they haven’t corrupted that one yet. Though Savage was a violent caveman cartoon made by the creator of Samurai Jack, so maybe we aren’t too far off.
If they were to pull any characters from older Midway or Atari properties I would love for them to throw in a character from War Gods, though most of the trope characters in that game have a similar MK counterpart already. Probably Voodoo, Tak, or Anubis would be the best fit. There is already an “Aztec” so Au Kin would be redundant, as would SY-5 because, you know, cyborgs.
Warhead seems mostly like a Johnny Cage knockoff with missles…Kabuki-Jo would be good…dang I forgot about Maximus…
…you know what, probably 80+% of the roster would be excellent additions.
Final Fight characters exist in the same universe as Street Fighter. They aren’t guest characters.
And Ash being cancelled is just that. A rumor. We know a second season is happening and it makes sense to save one of their bigger guest characters for it. Not to mention, data for him was already in the game. You can’t get that far on development for content like that just to cancel it. That’s not how licensing contracts work.
In Capcom’s eyes they may as well be, since I don’t see any other Capcom characters, like Rival Schools fighters, appearing in SF games proper (just costumes, nothing more). So I consider them “first-party guests”, like how the Disgaea games constantly bring in characters from other NIS franchises.
Also keep in mind Cloud was supposed to be in the PS2 version of Soul Calibur 2, before Squaresoft (who even to this day is a well-known nightmare to work with) cancelled the deal at the last possible moment. So the idea of last-minute cancellations is not unknown to anyone in this world, it’s just depends on who you work with.
Personally I wouldn’t mind Ash, but after being spoiled by the Terrordrome version of the character I don’t see NRS doing a better version (I’m still on-and-off about Terminator).
EDIT: If I remember correctly Capcom also said Rival Schools exists in the same universe as Street Fighter. So why aren’t they playable? Really shows how Capcom is very specific about who gets in their games as playable characters.
The animation looks weird. So are the character designs. And forgive me if I’m not exactly hyped to see MK1’s story again. With a name like “Scorpion’s Revenge” I expected it to be more original then that.