For clarity: It's not my birthday today. This video was supposed to release yesterday, but KZfaq didn't let me alter midroll placement on any of my videos for the entire day, so yesterday's video had one about a minute before the end (thanks for that) and I refused to risk this one being fucked too, so I held off for a day and I refuse to rerender it to update the ending monologue.

The "Get... Your... Shit... Together!" perfectly syncing whit Older Jonhy's lips makes my day.

17:33 I'm so glad Scorpion got tricked in MK4, because it gave us the best part of the game. The bit where Sub Zero whispers "Arrright" in his ending.

13:54 Sub Zero bustin' a move so good he's on fire

I think Mortal Kombat as a whole might be one of the main reasons why a LOT of people will always say, "The story/lore of fighting games never matters" because it is such a mess most of the time.

I *think* the implication is that the "Smoke" of MKX was the Enenra that the cult sacrificed him to, and that the human was now either gone, or sealed inside like the demon was as an inversion due to his death in 9. Problem with that is that literally NOTHING was said about it either way, and hell, you'd only know about the inner demon at all if you had played 9. That's how little X explained.

Shaolin Monks is still my favourite Mortal Kombat game because of its Ko-Op. It was such a delight to play with family and friends growing up

The Sub-Zero brothers having a sister that was left in the States in one back story is interesting. I wonder if that was just a random tidbit they through in or if they ever planned to actually develop that into a full character. Granted, assuming it ever was a thing, it probably got scrapped in favor of Frost for one reason or another. Also Be-Han confuses me. Bi-Han dies, gets brought back, now has weird shadow powers, and sometimes a Stand, with all the ice stuff seemingly being gone. Everyone else dies and gets brought back, they keep what they had, don't gain anything new, they're basically the same except with a skin condition and a bad attitude.

I can swear up and down that the reason Shao Kahn has the dragon aspects to him is due to one of the designers literally mistaking Shao Kahn for Shokan, with the mentioning of being half-dragon. This was in a Tweet that likely was deleted because it would have been -bad- worse PR for a team already under fire for messing up so much in a single game's span.

Even the positive changes that were done to the original stories/concepts by the arrival of the reboot/new "timeline" were eventually soured because WB and NRS insist on constantly rebooting the series to milk the popularity of the IP at its most recognizable form, constantly undermining older material, they simply REFUSE to put some effort into world building and coming up with new stories because MK sells and their budget is way too big for any game of its genre to compete with.

I've never read the old comics so was confused in Shaolin Monks when the island started to collapse, as I don't remember this being a thing in any of the mainline games. Deadly Alliance has Raiden rendezvous with the heroes on "Shang Tsung's old island fortress", which is now an "abandoned reminder of the struggle between Earthrealm and the forces of evil". It's mentioned in the bios for Raiden, Sonya, and Johnny (who parachutes down in style!). Seems to imply the fortress / island still exists in some capacity, and hadn't completely collapsed into the sea. A lot of characters seem to use the portal in the Lost Sea near the island to get to Outworld, since all other means of getting there were destroyed - either by the Outer World Investigation Agency (wanting to have the only means in and out, sorta like the Stargate in SG1), or by the GigaChad Hsu Hao (who destroyed the OWIA underground base).

I still think Bi Han was hired to assassinate Shang after he was invited to the tournament since that would mean he’d be close to him. This is assuming Shangs island is hostile to trespassers otherwise.

There are more versions of Mortal Kombat 2 made by Netherrealm/Midway than there are Killer Instinct games

I’m glad that Shaolin Monks gave us a pretty good Reptile design, coming after the abomination that was pyramid head lizard man Reptile.

You know as a kid, I just loved the coolness and air conditioning-quality the MK9 Sub-Zeros had and that might be a subconscious effect of living in the Philippines and kinda helped me love MK9 and the MK franchise better and when I found out about the ice arms *wheeeeeeeeeeekkkkeeeeeeeee*

Actually, the original reason Shao Kahn restored Shang Tsung's youth wasn't to make him stronger, or at least that wasn't the main reason. MK2 comic explained that he made him young because it drastically changed his body, thus allowing him to enter Earthrealm again and issue the challenge.

39:25 Almost started dishing out the Mortal Kombat equivalent to the Poké Rap.

Man for all it's problems, Shaolin Monks has probably my favorite designs of all the characters.

Midway Era had such a great world feel,I wanted to k ow so much and deception made the love stronger but nothing will ever be the same,we will never explore those realms like deception.

4th Snake did more for MK 30th birthday than Netherrealm did.

I remember back when this subject was going to be a video sometime in the future. Back when it was only MK 2, Shaolin Monks, and 2011. The wait was definitely worth it!

I think the reason why Raiden was able to intervene against Shao Kahn in Shaolin Monks was because Kahn blasted him earlier and that would count as him challenging Raiden in Kombat.

15:04-15:46 One possible explanation for this seeming contradiction is that in the Prequel comic he is simply putting up a front about being uncaring about his brother's death as Lin Kuei would presumably be taught to show no vulnerabilities to others. Note that he still describes his brother as "among the Lin Kuei's finest"

kung lao went from a cool mysterious guy to a immature jealous teenager lol

My only defense of the hug part it could've just been a "parting till we meet again" thing. Like good luck or be safe.

I'm glad you pointed out out the young, bald Kano of past MK11, which always bugged me as an egregious example of how bad fighting games can have inconsistent/radically changed character designs. From my point of view, Middway and NRS relied on and favoured too much of Kano's hair and bearded look, which started out in MK vs DC (as part of the Trevor Goddard tribute) and carried over to MK9 and 10. So by the time NRS had to do past and future versions for 11, they were obviously stumped and had to pull Kano's MK3 look to make him most distinguishable,. It's quite a silly retcon, but still, it was worth it in the end. As SonicHaXD points out, Karno and the cooler Karno is the best gay romance that NRS could've written.

Thanks for always covering interesting topics through all these years, sticking with it through all the nonsense these franchises keep throwing at you. Looking forward to many more years of your discussions and analysisises and such! Happy late birthday and hope the influx of comments asking about the new MK Animated Movie die down quick lol.

I guess if we can give MK11 any credit at all (which is hard), it's that introducing the concept of Kronika rebooting the timeline a bajillion times can cover for all the inconsistency and fudged details by just saying these events have happened several times with slight variations to the people involved. It's no excuse for sloppy storytelling on this scale, but at the very least I can just go "well that game was probably one of the other timelines" if something is particularly disconnected across depictions.

gonna say, the transitions between characters is flawless

29:50 Two out of three clips show Johnny fighting Reptile and after that it transitions to Johnny Cage. Very nice.

I can think of 2 reasons for the retcon of Mileena being born around the times of MK2: One is that they designed the background with her failed clones first and then wanted to find a way to use it in the story; The other is that they retconned most characters as taking part in the MK1 tournament so they needed a reason to exclude her so she could have a more effective entrance in the MK2 portion. Neither sounds like a good reason.

14:03 speaking of Bo' Rai Cho being unable to compete, here's a blatant plothole I've never heard anybody discuss before: SHANG TSUNG IS FROM EARTHREALM! Think about it for a second.

I feel like i deserve a diploma for watching this. Shaolin monks was pretty good coop, i wish they made another one.

Mileena being childish was pretty fitting for me personally since I always saw her as the silliest fighter in 2 and 3. In 2 everyone has weapons and moves that feel like they're using their abilities and show their strength, but then you got Mileena rolling around, falling of the screen to teleport, and having the nail spitting fatality in 3, the bones fatality in 2 and even her fighting stance looks goofy in 3.

To be honest, I never understood why people found MK2 setting so interesting that it has to be revisited again and again and again. It was the exact same thing as MK1 story, just in different realm. I wish we actually got some expansion on Outworld invasion, Shinnok's invasion of Edenia (sounds way more interesting than just Earthrealm being invaded again) and post Shinnok stuff. It's almost like it's some sort of safespace for NRS. And before anyone says - yes, MK2 was a good game, no doubt, but it was far from the most interesting one).

The White Lotus Society has always confused me. I've always though it was a secret society set up by Raiden to help train fighters for Mortal Kombat. But it's said that Liu Kang leaves the White Lotus Society so that he can enter the tournament as a representative of the Shaolin / Order of Light. But the Order of Light is a sect of the White Lotus.... I think!? It's confusing. Sometimes it seems like the White Lotus, Order of Light, and the Shaolin are all just interchangeable names for the same thing. But other times they are all seperate entities. In my head-canon I've always thought Raiden (at some point) trained Liu Kang, before he was chosen to represent in the tournament and went on to train with Bo'Rai Cho. Where-as Kung Lao could've received training from Fujin, thus why he has a whirlwind attack, and can change direction of his hat throw mid-air (altering air currents?).

I actually met the MK2 actor for Kung lao and he wasnt the biggest fan of asshole kung lao but he did like MK11 lao

After this video, I’ve gained a lot of appreciation for Mortal 1 Kombat’s Baraka and Reptile. They’ve transcended their jobber role to more important and fleshed out characters

the level of "respect" people at NRS/WB have for MK was perfectly shown in that 1 and a half minute "celebration" video that essentially amounted to "buy our stuff". I said this under the recent Kombat Kings podcast, I feel like NRS are tired of making MK, and I don't want *this* team to make another one, at least for a while. the fact that they said "we'll announce our studio's next game after we've done celebrating MK's 30 years" fills me with hope that they're doing something else. this franchise has been with me for 23 years, since I was 6. thank you, Snake, for releasing this video today so I could be reminded of some of the cool MK stuff. god, even MK9 looks competently written now, compared to 11.

Pre-SM Kung Lao was the best. He was the Shaolin's original choice for the first MK, making him canonically stronger than Liu Kang. Narratively it made them equals, the protagonist and his superior.

Snake I’ve started writing my own fiction of MK thanks to your inspiration but I want to point out that your ideas are my favorite. I think my head canon is most of your writing. Keep up the awesome work!

I've been watching some of your work and I got saying it is impressive of your knowledge and detail that you break down during your segments. There are some things I do agree with you and others not so much but overall you definitely deliver on some of your own ideas to help improve on the story whether it's from the Mortal Kombat or other fighting games from different series. Best moment 2:50

Awesome video been watching your videos since your mk x retrospective 👍😁👍

Still find it strange how in MK11 not every major character was present when they were supposed nabbed by Kronika just before Shao Kahn killed Kung Lao, no Goro, no Kintaro, no Qaun Chi. But hey it’s Netherrealm what’s you expect!

1:13 I can’t help but think of the song “Let’s fighting love” from the anime episode of South Park when watching that scene of everyone fighting in Shaolin Monks 😂😂😂

This is my favorite Mortal Kombat video you’ve ever made.

I'm so sick of mk2 nostalgia pandering. NRS needs to stop alienating fans.

This video has been anticipated for awhile now, snake first mentioned making this video I believe in his 2nd MK9 kritique or his Kung Lao wasted Plotential video. A great video man if you are seeing this and happy belated

Can’t say who did it best but I can say who did it worst, which is MK9, they butchered Liu’s character by making him overly paranoid and untrusting, Raiden was also butchered, “wise beyond compare” my ass, he made a mistake every 2 steps costing them SuB-Zero, the Sindel elimination squad, and Liu.

wow this video was so fucking good I didn't even realize how long it was till i was half an hour in keep up the good work snake

You're not the only one with a knack for insight on a video game series.

Just watched it, well... great video and happy birthday!

I really appreciate these videos. I'm the MK encyclopedia to my friends, but I've never been able to read the Malibu comics so I never really know where to connect certain dots, like Sonya and Kano's capture.

4thsnake:And now for our main character *Sees Cole Young* oh fuck you that's not funny. Me: *Laughs joyfully*

Your Segways into new characters is amazing

Happy birthday love your videos as always ❤🎉

In my honest opinion Even though shaolin monks wasn't canon,I still consider to be the best retelling of mortal kombat 2 events

NRS really used to love tiddays, they should bring that back

Damn we need new writers fr

I personally liked Shaolin monks it was really awesome and tons of fun.

It's seems no matter how hard they try, Mortal Kombat properties never seem to get past the MK2 segment of the franchise.

You're hilarious dude. Great outro. Subscribed.

Been waiting for this.

I always enjoy the passion and love you clearly show for the series. It sucks knowing the current team doesnt give a shred of a shit and we may never get such interesting and complex stories again. Im glad we atleast have you to make those ignorant to mk’s past glory aware and to show what could be with some effort.

26:37 I’ve been saying this for YEARS since MK9 and a few times under YOUR videos Snake. Thanks to MK2021 for getting u to acknowledging it. Never thought i’d say that 😵‍💫

Edenia being an old name for outworld is also something that was used in the MK4 prequel comic as the scenes in Edenia had Kitana mediating with the shokans and centaurs, did it change by DA? she did still negotiate peace between the shokan and the centaurs but since the sorcerers were working in outworld, and shao kahn coming back prior to that maybe edenia being outworld was already changed at that point? Interesting stuff keep up the good work.

Is it just me or are those MK9 costumes just FIRE

Nice video!! Happy Late Birthday 🎂

39:52 Something I want to mention is that the Red Ninja might be Sektor since the Cyber-iniciative wouldn't finish until MK 3 and he is the only red Lin Quei that we know.

Overall, I think MK9 had the best ideas but botched a lot of them either in-game or with the sequels. Minus: Mileena's infantilization and Quan Chi becoming God.

It’s definitely all neatherrealm studios fault and not WB not wanting spend the money on the 30th anniversary

This is a great video, I'd also like to credit you thumbnail for this one✊

17:11 - This ending becomes a Mind-Screw if the player fought sub-zero beforehand and finished him with a fatality.

still love shaolin monks and would still love to see more mk games like it

I have waited for so looooong

Ever notice that Mortal Kombat seems to like the whole "II" symbol nowadays? Think about it, "Mortal Kombat II", Mortal Kombat 20*11*, Mortal Kombat *11*.

You know, those informations might be useful for my idea for a Mortal Kombat tv show.

13:54 Bro that's fucking meme worthy, lmao

21:56 That shit was hilarious, HAHAHA

You are incredibly good at this if you haven’t been reminded

That ending was dope

"Can't take Kahn in a fight by herself..." Kitana beating Shao Kahn in MK11 was NRS bullshit.

This was a really cool video, liked the format and the delivery of the content as an MK fan it's dope looking through the differences between the generations of MK, I know it can't be fixed now but wish you didn't bash on the creators as hard at the end, it's your video you can do what you want but as a viewer and MK fan enjoying the content it kinda left a bad taste after what was a great video, you disliking the devs and their choices etc could be for another video or something, it just didn't fit or really serve this video at the end to kinda dump on the dev team. I would easily recommend/share this kind of content to friends but I again think the end commentary about the devs being so incompetent wasn't needed in this kind of video where we are actually celebrating different generations of MK.

Belated happy birthday. Also, gods, the continuity of these things is almost as awful as Raiden's face in _Shaolin Monks_ looks--brrr. Jade, Kintaro, Reptile, and Smoke getting constantly screwed over is one of the most wasteful things about the series, honestly. As disappointing as them making Goro a dumb brute is, he still generally has been an actual "Big Deal" threat when he shows up, which is more than you can say for even Shao Khan at this point. Also, yeah, given what a screw-up he was/is, Quan Chi being depicted as any kind of mastermind by NRS is definitely one of their weirder choices.

So if Smoke was a quest giver in Shaolin Monks, how does him giving them Mortal Kombat 2 fit into the story?

I think what they mean by scorpion not knowing his family again in mk 1's ending was that he will never see them again. Idk which this was but I once read an older story and it used the phrase I will never know them again like a person now would use I will never see them again.

@The4thSnake, Hey if you don’t mind me asking that Shaolin Monk gameplay is that from the PS2 version of the game? Played via emulator? As it looks super clean as not even my original Xbox version looks that clean

Gotta say, I don’t think any adaptation of MKII is excellent. Some adapted parts are worse than others though. Completely agree on how other villains are pushed aside for Quan Chi is not great, yet I think that character does have potential. Except, maybe make him more distinct than a Pinhead version of Shang Tsung. For that matter, why not make Kintaro a separate Tiger Race and remove his extra arms? I know that’s a wild take, but it’s not like we ever see another Tiger Shokan so why not? Be more interesting in the Trilogy to fall back on other powerful races after Goro’s suppose death. On that note, they should write Goro similar to how Sagat is in the Street Fighter games. It’d certainly be an improvement, even if it’s a bit obvious. XP Fingers crossed that the next game, be it a sequel or reboot ends up better written.

This is one of the best gifts for the 30th

I personally like how MK11 did Liu Kang for the most part. I never liked how quick-to-anger and antagonistic the character was in MK9 and MKX, as well the non-canon web series. As for Kung Lao, I always detested that petty rivalry they started with him and Liu Kang. Sure it gives him more personality but it also makes him an egotistical, proud, obnoxious, overconfident ass-hat which he is at his worst in MK11. I still prefer the more noble and humble Kung Lao from the original timeline. Very much like his younger cousin Kung Jin lol. Though on a side note, I wonder how they'd do the long-missing fellow shaolin monk *Kai* if he ever came back? He'd be a blank slate I hope they'd do justice and have fun with. He was planned to appear in Deadly Alliance judging by concept art of that game and I wonder if the story would have had Kai traveling alongside Kung Lao to avenge Liu Kang's death at the hands of Shang Tsung and Quan Chi. Kai was also planned for Mortal Kombat X to make a cameo or so but was replaced with Bo' Rai Cho instead. Seems like the creators often wanna do something with Kai but never work anything out. Hopefully MK12 or whatever the next mainline game will be does something with all four of the shaolin monks.

I always thought the idea with the clapper board saying Take 5 and the Director saying it’s the first take was to showacase Cages ego and how he was treated by his colleagues and film crew, almost like theyre pandering to his ego and walking on egg shells to keep the arrogant talent on board? So it’s ALWAYS going to be the first take no matter what. I thought it was pretty clever way to show off his arrogance/deception. (30:14)

This is just Wasted Plotential…but in Canon Ball. Not for Quan Chi though. No reason for him to be a character.

Points of notice: Sub-Zero I could've defected to keep his son out of the Clan, like a depiction of Hanzo Hasashi tried to do before they were murdered. The grandfather was probably mentioned to explain who taught Shujinko, despite him being older than the brothers. 14:07 - If they drop out after defeating the other Earth realm fighters, Goro & Outworld wins by forfeit. 19:15 - We know that Quan-Chi can mind control people, so Scorpion mightn't've chosen to continue to serve him. 38:18 - If you pay close attention, it was never stated when he found the tomb. Also, Shang Tsung can only reanimate corpses with his necromancy, the only type of Necromancy *Quan-chi has never been shown doing.* 38:40 - False! He was only following Shinnok's orders. Shinnok was the puppet master manipulator, while Quan was the tool for said manipulation. 39:00 - Of course he was a colossal F up! Shinnok wasn't there telling him what to do in X!

This video is fantastic

Very cool video. Wery sad Nr not create interesting content for 30th Anniversary.

I have a theory about MK11 Shao Khan's dragon astetic. He served Onaga at on point and maybe he wore that armor while doing so. Given how Shao Khan is ruined there maybe he just never bothered tp change it.

Man, this shit is more complicated than Tekken XD

I loved the part where you ripped on Poor Quan Chi Do you have a video planned for MK Snowblind The movie is awesome Has some plot holes but is awesome start to finish

The4thSnake, I wanted to thank you so much. You are what got me into MK. I love MK, I watch all of your videos many times. I love your ideas for the franchise. I agree that NetherRealm's stories are terrible. I wish you would be the writer of NetherRealm Studios. And just thank you, thank you so very much for the entertainment I get from your videos everyday.

I'm just gonna say it, I don't blame you for not reviewing Snow Blind, unless you have.....? I'm an idiot lmao