Mortal Kombat 11
 

Does anyone else play this? It's no secret I'm not a fan of them regressing the series back into 2D (though this is a gripe for 2 MK games ago, really)... but this is a really beautiful game. And it really shines on PS5.

For kicks, I also have Mortal Kombat XL downloading, too. Using the Alien and Predator is just too tempting not to check out.

I'm actually dying to, but I'm a couple of games behind on that series, on account of I'm not "allowed" to play them before my wife does, and all she's played is Red Dead 2 for two years. :lol: If I play "her" games before she gets a chance to she makes a whole big thing about it. She even bought herself a fighting stick when MK11 came out and hasn't even used it yet, which I keep teasing her about.

I was figuring when I get done with "Oblivion" soon I'd pick up from the reboot game, then finally play XL and 11. I saw most of her Story Mode playthrough on the reboot and really dug it, but I only really messed with the Arcade Mode a little bit, then got distracted by other games. Hard to believe that game was so long ago, already.

On the subject of 2D vs 3D fighting games, I wish that SoulCalibur wasn't pretty much dead. Those games were for the most part amazing. And I think they worked a lot better in 3D than some of the other fighting game series did.

The new movie has me sniffing out Youtube videos from games I've missed. I left Mortal Kombat behind back around number 4, and I've never been a fan of playing fighting games with a traditional controller.

I'd say at this point, although I'm curious I'm leaving the fighting games in the past. I don't even know that I'd have the patience, capacity or interest to even learn a fighter's moves anymore....

MK4 underwhelmed me as well, but I was a big fan of "Deadly Alliance", "Deception" and "Armageddon". That brought me back. The reboot game was really, really good. "Injustice 2" might be my favorite fighting game ever. Technically not MK, but same company. I generally suck at fighting games but they've become infinitely more easy to pick up and play than the "classic" ones of yore. So anyone who's been "out of the loop" needn't feel intimidated, they're arguably easier to play now than ever before.

I think most people are in agreement that MK4 was the nadir of the main series. Everything after that was a pretty strong return to form, though.

Are you talking about SoulCalibur, as in part 1? Cause people are all up on part 6 nowadays. They actually added Haohmaru was DLC, finally the star of SoulCalibur VS The star of Haohmaru.

I wonder how much of that was MK going to polygons instead of digitized actors. As a kid that made MK4 way less cool, and I heard that a lot.

nobody cared about 2D in the 3D era, had MK4 been digitized actors it would've failed even more. Fighting games in general were a dead genre by the time MK4 came out so that also didn't help things. It was just a bad transition time for MK. It didn't help that it didn't have many iconic characters from the previous games, just the main characters. That's why Deadly Alliance was mostly promoted as a "new" mortal kombat despite being a sequel, they kill Liu Kang, the main character and Shao Kahn, the main villain in the opening cutscene.

MK11 character designs are awful, SJW at its worst, and isn't the story that they go back in time? MK needs to explore the world after the original trilogy. That's what I loved the most about the PS2 trilogy of games, it was fresh new story of the MK world and not a rehash like it's been the last 3 games.

At the time, I remember it's launch in arcades - it looked good at the time. IT hasn't aged well... like N64.

But it was on fire for a while in arcades and the 3-D play mechanics were interesting - not quite Tekken, but added a dimension to the fighting just as much as the run button did in MK 3.

With MK4, I think it was just overall a clunky attempt. It's been a while since I've played it; I don't remember it being "bad" but it felt slower, more clunky and less fluid than the first three. It looked okay but graphically lacked polish, and other fighting games had been doing 3D (or 2.5D) for a while already and MK was sort of a day late and a dollar short in finally jumping into that side of the pool. They tried some new things with it but they didn't quite land, like adding weapons. Not a bad idea but they were usually more trouble than they were worth.

Basically, at the time it came out it didn't feel like it did anything poorly, but it also didn't feel like it did anything "better" than most of the other contemporary fighting games were doing.

Taking a long break between MK4 and Deadly Alliance was smart, as Deadly Alliance really did feel more like a reinvention than "just" a sequel, and I think by that point it was necessary.

I mean that whole series. It's dead. The good thing about Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat coming back is that their reboots were good, but the bad thing is that the market can only sustain so many fighting games and pretty much everything that WASN'T SF or MK (or Injustice) had to go away.

Too bad. The SoulCalibur series was great, overall.

Maybe at launch the character designs were...but there are plenty of non-SJW skins and costumes now. Skimpy ones for the chicks, even Sonya's MK3 outfit and so on.

MK11 is mostly about a new bad guy plucking MK characters from various times and places. In the story mode, a lot of older versions of characters meet their younger selves.

MK11 along with the DLC is amazing. There's a few missing classic characters that didn't return that are still stuck in X though like Reptile, Goro, Ermac, Sektor/Cyborg, etc. I'm hoping MK11 gets more DLC and becomes an evergreen game instead of making MK12.

I'm not sure I follow. Soul Calibur 6 only came out a couple of years ago and 7 may or may not be far behind at this point.

Wow, I hadn't even heard that they were doing any more of them. I know that the last few didn't make much of an impact and I hadn't heard anything at all since the last one. Huh.

Well, that's a spot of good news.

Yeah. Like, Soul Calibur's last game came out after Tekken 7... and Tekken 7 is still roaring. But the business model is changing. Rather than new #s every couple of years, now it's just more and more DLC for the last one. Apparently Soul Calibur 6 (like Tekken 7) will get another "season" of content soon.

I've been playing more of MK 11. Sheesh. Again, I always feel like I should preface any compliment of modern day MK with "It sucks they reverted from 3D to 2D gameplay!" (because it does -- there is no reason I shouldn't be able to dodge Scorpion's "get over here!!!" by just sidestepping, particularly in 2021 and particularly when something like Mortal Kombat vs. DCU got this so right years ago in 3D) but... this game is awesome. I was really worried it would feel like when I bought Deadly Alliance, or Deception ages ago... as in, I'd just quickly play the arcade/tower endings of all the characters and that's that, time to move on. Not so! The "Story Mode" of MK 11 alone is like a full on movie experience, with a good amount of interactivity. And it's good! And the tower stuff is fun, too. And the customization. Dabbing a bit into MK XL as well and it's pretty similar in these ways. I feel like this was money well spent.

Like, I just played Terminator vs. Rambo... and for my Fatality, Terminator got on a motorcycle and shotgunned Rambo to death. With the voices of both Stallone and Schwarzenegger at play. This is gold.

SoulCalibur 6 is active right now and there are some people online, which is also pretty good.

Sorry, but this is completely wrong: at the time of MK4 release there were multiple popular fighting games around, which were huge at the time: Tekken, Dead or Alive, Virtua Fighter. Heck, there were bunch of 3D fightings on PlayStation 1 and Sega Saturn. Genre was from dead.

One of the reasons why MK4 ended up with a bad reputation it got, was that there were much better fighting games around. So much for "dead" genre.

New characters for SC6 was released just few months ago, but its dead. What.

Something like Virtua Fighter is dead - no new game in 10 years. SC is alive. Not in the best condition and its certainly Namco treats it like an unfavorite child, but its here and breathing.

In my own defense, I don't ever play games online so I wouldn't have been aware of such things. Please take that into consideration before judging me too harshly. Thanks.

Given that I hadn't heard anything of SoulCalibur in a very long time, I'd assumed that it was dead. Clearly, that was an error. I appreciate that I was mistaken and also grateful to know that. I look forward to future games in the series. SoulCalibur II was the game that enticed me into giving fighting games another chance when it first came out, so I have great affection for the series as a whole.

Honestly, my least favorite thing about the Mk games are the mechanics, sometimes. Compared to many other fighters, it feels stiff in a way that is stifling.

Not that I hate the gameplay. I just prefer Street Fighter.
That said, I've always played and loved Mk way more because of the characters and aesthetics.

MK11 might be one the best playing Mortal Kombat games though. It feels like the games keep getting better as of the last decade or so, which is great.

That sounds awesome. But I'm stuck in the past with fighting games. I got into Street Fighter II in the arcade in, I think it was like 7th or 8th grade. Followed those for years. But even with that history of gameplay, there are only a few that I'd want to dabble in again for fun.

Maybe Tekken 3, which was an amazing game at the time. I might've had Tekken Tag Tournament on PS2 but after that, nothing. I'm curious as to how far along that series has come now. I just remember that Tekken's "counter and reversal" function was amazing and added so much depth to a fighter.

I was really excited when they added a version of that to Street Fighter IV as well - I wouldn't mind playing that one again too....

This damn conversation makes me want to find a Tekken game, SF IV. And then I saw this:

https://i.imgur.com/BSsLBCwm.jpg

Now that's something I could see having that would really draw me in to these again. Ugh.

Does anyone know if there is any kind of Tekken Compilation that houses maybe Tekken 1 - 3? Not that Tag Tournament games, but a legit comp.

Andrew, now that you mention it, I'm totally ready for MK to go three-dimensional again. I think the 2D style was a fantastic choice for the "rebirth" of the series in MK9, and I'm glad they built upon that formula, but I think it's time for them to freshen it up again and take us back to 3D.

The latest rumor is that Netherrealm is working on a Marvel game...and it's a pretty strong rumor, so that's probably what we are looking at next.

I'd also like an Injustice 3 that ties up the story and ends it in a more hopeful place. Maybe some time-travel shenanigans to go back and "undo" everything so that Joker never made Superman kill Lois and the whole "Superman going Evil" thing "never happened".

You'd be amazed just how many people purposely ignore and have never played those two truly awesome "Injustice" games, simply because they refuse to accept the storyline. They're like "I don't care if it's the best fighting game ever made; Evil Superman, I'm not touching it."

I personally love the series, but I feel like there's still some story left to tell AND that if they manage to tie it off as a nice little trilogy with a "Happily Ever After" to boot, that might be something that can satisfy a lot of people.

Regime Superman died pretty definitively at the end of the "Masters of the Universe" cross-over, but I don't quite think those comics are canon. :lol: So they could still do one more if they wanted to.

Ugh..... I really don't want a Marvel game with the MK style gameplay.... but whatever.

Why not? Might be cool. I'm not a "Marvel Guy" by any stretch but if it's a fun game I'll f*ck with it. I had a good time with those Marvel vs. Capcom games; totally different thing, I know.

I'unno... what's the problem, mang? If it plays anything like MK or Injustice it would probably be pretty fun.

I think it's just hard to imagine some of the Marvel characters having to fight like an MK fighter would. Spider-Man would feel somewhat restricted in a Mortal Kombat game, for example. The characters feel a bit more agile and freeform in something like Marvel vs Capcom, imo.

There are definitely ways to make it work and I think it'd be fun though.

I'd actually like to see the studio stretch it's wings here and give us something that doesn't play like the recent Mortal Kombat games. Maybe an arena fighter if they are up to the task.

Won't happen 99%.
Just like Street Fighter won't go 3D so is MK: developers have comfortable formula and taking to 3D will most likely ruin it again and push away fans and goodwill it had accumulated, since MK9. Fundamentals of 2D and 3D fightings are too different to simply transition from one to the other and keep fans around.

It should be remembered - MK had a pale shadow of its former glory, when it was 3D. And when NRS messed with MKX formula to create MK11 a lot of people left series since they didn't like new gameplay. It would the same thing but multiplied to 10, if they move to 3D.

I see your reasoning Sumac. Especially now that MK has stepped into the e-sports arena.

The thing is though, Netherrealm have never been shy about mixing up the MK formula, so you never know what type of spin-off we may get.

Mortal Kombat now is arguably the biggest its been since the 90's. MK11 sold incredibly well.

MK's low-point is probably between 2001-2010. The whole early 2000's felt like MK was on the backburner, and Deadly Alliance hype fizzled fast. MK9 in 2011 rebooted the series and its been popular since.

It's kind of ironic, it feels like all 90's franchises lost their popularity in the early 2000's, and then had a rebound after the 2010 decade started. I wonder why it was, I guess 90's kids grew up, then 2000's kids didn't get into it, then come a decade later, it had a resurgence. Pretty much every 90's property went out for awhile I remember.

Deadly Alliance, Deception and Armageddon all got scores in the 8s and 9s. DA ended up selling almost four million copies and got the best reception since MKII. Deception was the first fighting game to have an online mode. They all won various "Game of the Year" and "Fighting Game of the Year" awards from multiple magazines and websites.

"On the backburner" my ass. Maybe you weren't paying any attention but the franchise was doing VERY well that decade. The reboot and return to 2D definitely got them even more attention - everything feels bigger and more urgent in the Social Media Era - but you are absolutely f*cking lying, here.

It probably is bigger Right Now but to say that it was "forgotten" during the 2000s is blatantly, provably untrue. Smack yourself.

Yeah, but the 2000's games definitely sold less than MK1-3 in the 90's or the reboots from 2011 onward. I had Deadly Alliance on Gamecube and played it a ton, and even back then it felt like MK's time had passed. Even Mortal Kombat 4 seemed to have more of a following despite the gameplay being much worse.

Armaggeddon is also pretty much what caused the series to eventually be rebooted, the game was meant to bow out the series but the huge cast meant poor fatalies and characters having copy/paste movesets. I lived through that entire era, it also didn't help that Soul Calibur and Tekken were far bigger at the time.

Consider:

MKII and III sold big numbers when the only competition was the 13th update of SFII.

DA, Deception and Armageddon sold big numbers and won Awards while Virtua Fighter, Tekken, SoulCalibur and DOA were all arguably at their peak.

And now, MK11 sells big numbers when once again, there's literally zero competition.

Not the same world, buddy.

You're not much of a Big Picture Guy, but you sure speak with a lot of unearned authority.

I'm not saying the MK games from that decade were necessarily "better", but you're saying they were practically invisible when in fact the complete opposite of that is true.

I don't like liars.

Are there sales figures for all the original games? Closest I can find is this:

https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Best...fighting_games

MKX and MK11, the two most recent games of the series, are among the top selling games. MK1-3 sales are also counting the sales of the Arcade cabinets and then all the ports that came later, so obviously that inflates things a bit for the classic games.

It's tough to measure the "success" in dollars and cents between the three eras (MK1-4 Era, DA+ Era, and Reboot Era, or whatever you'd call each of them) because arcade cabinet sales and quarter-drops were also factors towards how profitable the first four games were, and now they're not factors at all. Also, finding exact sales numbers for a lot of console games from that era is notoriously spotty, as precise records weren't often kept and even less often reported. Anything over a "million-seller" was considered "good", and past that they generally didn't talk much about specific numbers.

There's no doubt that the first three games were hugely successful, and there's no doubt that the reboot, MKX and MK11 have also all been very successful.

My point is simply that your statement implying that the three "Mid-Period" MK games also weren't very successful, or that "nobody was paying attention" to them, is patently false. They all sold very well, got very good scores, AND won a bunch of awards. All during an era where they had a LOT more high-end competition than MKII had in 1995, or MK11 does now. It's very easy to be the "big kid on the block" and get all the attention when there's literally nobody else worth talking about. It's harder to dominate the conversation when you actually have a lot of worthy competitors each taking their share of the pie.

What would be more accurate to say, is that despite being very successful those three games divided the MK audience somewhat, since not everyone was a fan of the shift to more 3D-based fighting or the "dial-a-combo" mechanics those games heavily relied on. And that the MK reboot game did a lot to win back people who weren't in love with DA, Deception or Armageddon, with its shift back to 2D and a more "back-to-basics" approach.

That would be a fair and true statement. To say that the mid-period games weren't hugely successful or "nobody cared about them", however, is a complete and total lie. And even if they did sell less than MKII or MK11, there are mitigating factors for that which need to be taken into consideration.

2D and 3D are too different to easily move from one to another. Especially if you have popular franchise and bunch of fans.

This situation was complex: MK was pretty big, but it was not that hard, since 2000s decade was a time of death for fighting games - most franchises had either died or went into slumber up until Street Fighter 4, which revived the genre.

To put it simply MK was big due to its legacy, gore, but most importantly, the fact there was almost no competition in its segment of casual fighting games. Tekken was a very big thing, but it was more complex, SoulCalibur was making mistake after mistake up until it had almost died with SoulCalibur 5 and 2D fighting games were almost eradicated, safe for Japanese indie titles like Melty Blood or Guilty Gear, which obviously didn't attracted lots of attention from mainstream public.

In fact, when MK4 ended up competing with 3D fighting games in the middle of the 90s it was crushed.

And about numbers - I've heard that MKDA sold about 2,1 million copies and each successive MK game sold less and less until MK9. Where did you get 4 million copies number?

Not really: MK4 was maligned pretty hard almost from the start. AFAIK, most fans considered it misstep.
MKDA-MKD-MKA were considered pretty good for its time, though a lot of people wanted MK to return to 2D.

MKA was supposed to be storyless game, but higher ups at Midway forced developers to add story. Which in the end led to reboot (well, and Midway bankruptcy, which forced developers to start from scratch to prove their worthiness to new owners).

Sorry, but its simply not true - in 1995 MK had a lot more competition, than it did in 2000s or now. It was a time when a most companies could allow themselves to keep several fighting game series active, so there was strong competition from Capcom (Street Fighter, Darkstalkers, Marvel crossovers), SNK (Fatal Fury, Samurai Shodown, The King of Fighters), Nintendo (Killer Instinct (produced in part by Midway as well), not to mention rising popularity of 3D fighting games, like Virtua Fighter, Tekken and SoulEdge (SoulBlade). And crapton of lesser known 2D and 3D fighting games.

In 2000s it was basically only MK vs Tekken and SoulCalibur, which by mid 00s was not a factor anymore. Virtua Fighter was interesting only for hardcore players, Dead or Alive went exclusive for XBox and everything else was either dead or niche.

And nowadays MK belongs to higher end fighting games and its only viable competition is Tekken, with Street Fighter distant 3rd and everything else being for hardcore fans or 2D enthusiasts.

Wikipedia. And I said "almost 4 million".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal...eadly_Alliance
It sold 2.1 million within its first year, then continued to sell more after that. 3.5 is "almost 4 million", which is what I said.

Deception did sell less by most accounts, but probably not by a huge margin (exact numbers are hard to come by). It's recorded as having sold 2 million in the same span of time that it took DA to sell 2 million, though. So round up and figure in the end it sold between 2.5 and 3 on the high end. It also sold 1 million copies faster than any previous game in the series did.

Numbers for Armageddon are the hardest to find, but by January 2007 it had reportedly sold about 1 million copies on Xbox and PS2, less than three months after its release. The Wii version didn't come out until May of that year, so we can roughly tack on another million copies for that console, give or take.

So there was a bit of a slope downward after DA, but it wasn't a sharp decline. DA sold about 3.5, Deception sold roughly 2.5 or 3, and Armageddon probably did about the same or only slightly less, if we factor in Wii sales (which weren't reported that I can find) and allow for the fact that it also probably continued to sell on PS2 and Xbox after that three-month window in which it moved the first million units.

Now, obviously none of that compares to the 8 million or so that MK11 has sold, but it's kind of an unfair comparison when we remember that nothing but Grand Theft Auto sold those kinds of numbers back then. NO fighting game in that era was going to sell more than 4 or 5 million copies, max. By the standards of the time, the numbers that MK was doing were considered quite successful.

And once again, ignoring sales completely, all three of those games were well-reviewed and received awards from numerous magazines and websites. That's a fact.

I'm not trying to say that the newer games haven't been more successful. They are. That's not up for debate.

But Cubed more or less said that the "mid-period" MK games were pretty much invisible and left no impact. Which is factually impossible, considering that they collectively moved about 10 million units altogether and won a bunch of awards. They got a lot of attention, and were very well-received by the standards of the day. That happened. "New games sell more" isn't the point of the argument.

Mortal Kombat's interest died in the late 90s, by the time Mortal Kombat Trilogy came out 2D fighters were dead and people were tired of fatalities/digitized graphics. Mortal Kombat 4 and MK Mythologies did not help things for the franchise and those were the darkest years from 97-2001. Deadly Alliance revived it, it was different from the old stories, it was in 3D and it had a lot of hype, Deception continued the trend and by the time armagedon came out, it didn't feel new anymore and people were ready for next gen consoles so it failed. But in general the 3D era was successful in keeping the brand alive and to a new generation even if not as successful as the first 3 games, it did far better than the late 90s.

MK does seem to be at a height of popularity now but I wouldn't say it's bigger than in the 90s.

I'm not sure if living in different regions is playing a factor or what, but over here the only fighting games that were popular with anyone except "hardcores" in the 90s were SF, MK, Marvel vs., Tekken and Virtua Fighter. The other stuff was pretty "niche" and not a lot of people were playing them at home, and I'm not only looking at how popular things were in the arcade but in general across the board. If anything I'm focusing MORE on home console versions because the sales numbers are easier to nail down. Most of the franchises you bring up were more popular in the arcades than at home - and it's very hard to measure those numbers because there are too many variable factors in play. So to try and simplify the conversation I'm purposely focusing more on home console numbers.

It's true that the number of fighting game franchises shrunk in the 2000s after the arcades died down, but the number of fighting game series that instead had high-quality home ports went UP. Even though some games like the Marvel vs. series did have home ports in the 90s, most of them were crap and they didn't do well. A LOT of arcade fighting ports in the 90s weren't so hot. But in the 2000s, home console versions were the standards, and were even beyond what arcades at that time could offer. Sure, it was "only" MK, SoulCalibur, Tekken, VF, DOA and Guilty Gear, and a couple of others, but ALL of those games were GOOD, which was a brand new thing for home console fighting games, and that's what I'm talking about when I say there was "more competition". Instead of someone having their pick from a larger crop of mixed-quality fighters from two dozen franchises, they had a much smaller selection but everything they could pick from was A+ quality, which simply wasn't true in the 90s. The 2000s were "Quality Over Quantity" when it came to fighting games. ALL of those franchises were incredibly well-received and sold well across the board.

It's one thing to say, "The fighting game genre had a bit of a lull after the arcades died, and about a dozen or more series went away when everything shifted to home consoles." That's a true statement. But again, every single fighting game that came out for home consoles in the 2000s, just about, got huge scores and sold millions of copies. SC, Tekken, KoF all did good business. It's not like there was a lot of crap coming out; if anything, the games in the 2000s were better than those in the 90s, there were just fewer of them all-around.

THAT's what I mean by "The mid-period MK games had more competition". MKII and MK3 were up against a bunch of mostly-niche stuff that wasn't anywhere near as popular and a lot of which suffered greatly when ported to home consoles. Whereas DA and the others were coming out at the same time when every home fighting game got scores of 8/10 or higher and sold at least a million copies as a default. Darkstalkers and Fatal Fury weren't eating up any of MK's profits back in the 90s, that simply wasn't happening. The race between franchises in the 2000s was much, much tighter. There was much more parity in that era.

It might be. Maybe not in terms of "hype" but 8 million copies for MK11 is nothing to sneeze at. MK2 never came close to selling 8 million copies of all its home ports combined. Again, arcade numbers and inflation muddy the waters significantly.

As I keep saying, it's really tough to compare apples and oranges because so many things are different Now vs. Then. There's no other fighting games that anyone cares about right now, and that certainly helps feed MK11's success. Plus a huge chunk of MK1-3's money came from a business model that is now extinct. So there's no way to possibly do a 1:1 comparison to see which is more "popular" or "successful".

I think MKII had a lot more hype, but I think MK11 probably made more money. But I could be wrong.

I disagree with MK having more competition at home consoles in 2000s. Extinction of arcades and popularization of First Person-Shooter and availability of good network connection led to extinction of fighting games, so only few titles ended up being popular - MK, Tekken, SoulCalibur and Dead or Alive. But DOA was an exclusive at the time, SC was getting worse with each next game, so it was between MK and Tekken.

Everything else was so irrelevant and low key, that it is strange to compare, say Guilty Gear or Melty Blood to Mortal Kombat. Until recently Guilty Gear was extreme niche, no better than some one off titles, which never left Japan. I am not saying they were bad games, but they had nowhere near enough presence, unlike MK.


I think that at home consoles MK in the 90s was almost unrivaled - its only viable rival was Street Fighter and everything else at home market was too niche (SNK games, VS Marvel and the like, mostly due to the shoddy ports). That's up until quality ports of 3D fighting games started to appear. That's of course relevant to US only.

Other regions had different stuff being popular, like SNK being more popular in Latin America than Capcom titles or MK or MK having no presence in Asia.

I like the cut of your jib, Sumac. It’s also true that Street Fighter, another rival, was essentially dead on home console around that time.

You're actually agreeing with me more than disagreeing with me, for the most part, except in a place where we're talking about different things. I'll address that part first.

- You're talking more about "quality" of fighting games in the 2000s and I'm talking about popularity on home consoles and the parity that existed between the "Big Brand" fighting games at that time. It wasn't "just between MK and Tekken" because those other fighting game franchises still sold a lot of copies and generally got good-to-great reviews. Nobody's speaking to whether or not the quality of SoulCalibur slipped. It was still a very popular franchise that moved a lot of units. Even the DOA franchise, despite being console-exclusive, sold a lot of copies. It had a movie made. If it wasn't "popular", that couldn't have happened.

- I don't recall saying that Guilty Gear ever sold a lot of copies. I know that I said Tekken, SoulCalibur etc. did, because they did. I'd put Guilty Gear with BlazBlue, in being a "good game most people never heard of." You're saying it's niche, and I don't - and didn't - disagree with that.

- "I think that at home consoles MK in the 90s was almost unrivaled - its only viable rival was Street Fighter and everything else at home market was too niche (SNK games, VS Marvel and the like, mostly due to the shoddy ports). That's up until quality ports of 3D fighting games started to appear."

This is literally exactly what I've been saying, sir. That MKII had an easier road to "success" in its day because there was less competition at home, whereas in the MK: DA era there were more choices of better quality available for home users. You're literally agreeing with me, here, almost word-for-word.

- "Other regions had different stuff being popular, like SNK being more popular in Latin America than Capcom titles or MK or MK having no presence in Asia."

I've already clarified that I can't speak to the happenings in parts of the world I don't exist in. and that regional differences exist. E.G.: Nobody in the U.S. cares about Darkstalkers, for the most part, but it does well elsewhere. So yes, obviously differences in regional popularity exist. That doesn't do much to move the needle on the broader conversation, though.

So yeah, the only real "disagreement" here is that while I'm speaking to the parity between the Big Brand fighting games available to home users in the 2000s - the fact that multiple franchises consistently got great scores and sold millions of copies - you've spoken more to the fact that some of those franchises "got worse" as they went on and that only MK and Tekken were "any good" (in your opinion) after a while. But that's different, that isn't the same conversation. Even if SCIII and IV were "worse" than SCII, for example, they still sold a lot of units and the series was very popular. DOA managed to become very popular despite being console-exclusive. And so on and so forth. And you agreed with me that during the MKII era, the only competition on home consoles was SFII, which is literally what I said from the beginning.

This all started when Cubed implied - wrongly - that fighting games were "dead" or invisible in the 2000s. And I've been saying, "That's literally impossible considering all the units sold and awards given out in that genre during that decade across the board." The genre didn't "die", arcades did, and with fighting games being the most popular staple of arcades then naturally their spotlight was diminished somewhat as the way people played games in general started to shift. But they were by no means "invisible". They remained very, very popular and the general quality of the various games went Up, not Down. And if a brand like MK was no longer a dominant topic of conversation, it was due to parity between its brethren moreso than "lack of popularity."

It sure was! And that always bothered me. That would have potentially changed the entire landscape of fighting games, if there was a sincere and dedicated SF game out during that time. But Capcom decided to just "take a knee" for the whole decade and only push SF as part of the "vs. SNK" games.

I guess it actually worked out well for them, though. Since when SF did come back with SFIV, it made a huge splash and revitalized the whole genre in a way reminiscent of what SFII had done originally. I guess "absence made the heart grow fonder" for most people. Can't really argue with it, the results speak for themselves. But I was definitely wondering "Why no SF?" during that whole era when MK, Tekken and SoulCalibur were dominating the conversation. Looking back it makes that decade feel sort of "incomplete". You had all these fighting game franchises cleaning up, but not the one that started it all. Didn't feel right.

I don't argue that they were not popular. But they didn't had the same mindshare as MK in the West.
Yes, they've sold a lot, but compared to MK and Tekken they were in background..

Neither amount of sold copies or high praise from critics can guarantee good word of mouth or good legacy for the franchise. Like, high box-office of the movie doesn't mean it will receive sequels.

For example, SoulCalibur 2 was very successful and was considered one of the best fighting games of its time, but SC3, thanks to its bugs and glitches lost a lot of fans. SC4 lost a bit more, until SC5 basically Fatalitied series into oblivion. With each passing installment series was losing fans and people were less anticipating next titles.

DOA was popular, but since it was exclusive and made more and more accent on cute girls as opposed to fighting component its reputation also worsened a lot, both among competitive players and casuals.

And everything else at the time is not even worthy of mentioning.

He was not very wrong - fighting games were barely there in 00s, compared to powerhouse genre was throughout the 90s.

I can't agree that they were "very" popular.
People remembered them, but it was definitely a far cry from the 90s. Not to mention how many titles had died out in the meantime or were put on hiatus.

Capcom didn't know what to do with the series.
Their most ambitious 2D fighting game Street Fighter 3 had failed commercially and they didn't want to move main series into 3D, since they (rightfully) assumed fans won't approve of that move.

They attempted to make another entry into in 3D subseries, Street Fighter EX3, but like the rest of EX series it was not successful and nowadays barely remembered.

They also attempted to make a 3D "Capcom vs Capcom" game called Capcom Fighting All-Stars, but during test runs, people found that game unsatisfying and it was canceled and remains of its budget were used to make Capcom Fighting Evolution, which was horrible piece of garbage, which, of course, failed.

With fighting games being neither as profitable or popular in the 00s, Capcom felt like there was no point in wasting budget on its revival.

If it was not for stubbornness of Yoshinori Ono, this days quite hated by Street Fighter fans, who pushed extremely hard for Street Fighter revival, we would not see new SF for quite some time.