Yeah, pretty much agree with all of this. Some more texture to the clothes would be nice, whether they’re transparent or not. I’ll have to get a better look when the game comes out though. Just doesn’t seem to be too much fabric variety (even though that’s a small nitpick, obviously). I’m also happy with the designs they’ve shown off though.
But man, Liu Kang. I wonder what they could do to get me interested in him as a character again. I like that his story is different now, but his gameplay, I agree, feels rather old and done already. They’ve found some creative ways to spice up gameplay for other long time characters though, so hopefully they take care of him as well.
I could say it would be fun for him to have the MK dragon as a pet and do some cool combinations with fireballs and airkicks. Also he could change his shape to a dragon same way that scorpion changes to a burning skeleton. Somekind of a statement like this game is mine, so to make him look important.
See, the problem with that is that they’ve repeatedly said that they want Liu Kang to be “the character you could use to teach your grandma to play MK”. So they want his design to be inherently simple to understand. Hard to make him flashier and more “interesting” without loosing that design philosophy.
Liu Kang is an interesting character study. In my opinion MK2 was “peak” Liu Kang. He was cool,
He had that awesome bicycle kick, hi and low fireballs, and the best fatality ever in MK - the dragon transformation (this is not an opinion, this is FACT).
In the story, he suffered from “good guy” syndrome. He’s the “chosen one” hero trope. He is filled with virtue and goodness. This is slightly boring and also a bit out of place in mortal kombat. They “fixed this” in the 3D era by gasp killing him (dum dum dum!!!). Then we had dead Liu Kang. Then bizarre Maori face tattoo Liu Kang - which to me read as desperate attempts to make an uninteresting character interesting without actually giving him anything interesting story wise.
His fighting style is pretty sound still, as far as I’m concerned. One of things that will be interesting to see is how they adjust his tools for the slower pace of the game. The high low fireball mixup is going to be brutal at MK11’s slower pace without any kind of run or universal anti-zoning tool. Will he keep it?
It was speculation was all. I can’t remember who, but I’ve heard it. Don’t take my word for it though.
But I think the reason the team would’ve still called him smoke because most people are familiar with that name. Even if MK11 would address him as Enenra.
Regardless, I understand how upset some might be about Smoke being left out. Here’s hoping he makes it as DLC.
MK3 Liu Kang is where I’d put his “peak”, but I actually like what they did with him in MKX, and look forward to seeing his story continue. I hope they continue to lean into Ip Man-style fast hands and quick strikes take on him - I thought his flame fist variation was pretty sick looking. He also had one of the dopest x-rays in the game imo.
It’s VERY easy to make an image like this for any first-level photoshopper lol
don’t think anyone* could embody Sindel more than an unreal engine-designed Queen of Edenia
