Why are some of you guys sticklers for MK canon? Even a couple of you who agree that the series is shit knows the comprehensive evolution of MK. Is it Shakespeare for the generically angsty? Hay-zooos.
I just remember everything from when I was into the series.
How did that affect the MK games? That's not a rhetocial question. I am genuinely curious. I don't know what John Tobias's role as co-creator was, what he was responsible for in the MK games.
He was the lead artist and character designer. Ed Boon did the programming while John Tobias was the artist. In 1999 he left Midway, so his last major characters were the MK4/MKM guys like Shinnok and Quan Chi. Nowadays there's several people who design characters but back then the team was very small. Everyone had input but basically the classic characters and story are his vision.
However, this situation is different. The movies, like the cartoon, like the TV show, were never intended to be canon, but a few ideas and influences crept into the games over time. Whereas Shaolin Monks' storyline contradicted sssssooooooooooooooo much of the canon (yes, even by MK standards) that it had to be made non-canon. Even if a few bits of the Shaolin Monks storyline creeps into the canon over time, I don't think that game will ever be accepted into the MK canon, ever.
They'll pick and choose whatever they like, just like they always do. Shaolin Monks' story was such a waste. Despite being the most popular game we've never really got much detail about what happened in MK II and it's become basically just a small footnote. Fans still can't even decide what happened to Kintaro and Kahn. They had a chance to flesh out that story and end the debates and unanswered questions. Instead they did a story that just everything even more confusing. Good job Midway.
I want to see them explain away Chi getting the amulet from Kahn's body. That will be funny.
If there's anything about MKA I am looking forward to it's the story. Not because I think it'll be good...but to see how much of a train wreck it'll be. With 60+ characters they should be able to set a new record for mistakes, contradictions and retcons. It'll be fun to see the arguments and what is declared non canon because it's impossible to make sense of it.
I lean more towards untrue/made up/embellished/distorted bragging that developed a life of its own.
That's what I'm saying. It started off with people assuming the listing for "ermacs" in the audits menu was a hidden character and it's so ingrained everyone has just accepted it as fact.
The Ermac story is a classic urban legend. Everyone just "knows" it exists but nobody has ever seen it, they just heard about it somewhere or they know someone who did. The story is basically the same(red ninja) but the details change each time it's passed on. Sometimes it's a red Scorpion, sometimes a red Reptile, sometimes you fight him, othertimes he just jumps down. Then there's the "proof" that everybody knows about but no one can ever cite, like the supposed interview where Ed Boon said he was real that no one can actually quote. No one knows what issue of what magazine it was in, you just see "Ed Boon said so in back in the day". The best part about the story is that since the explination is that it's "rare" few question that it's been over a decade. I honestly think the main reason it's lasted so long is that fans WANT to believe. MK fans love to hype up and get nostalgic about how "mysterious" and full of secrets the MK games are and since everything has long been found and the new games have weak secrets the best way to keep MK all cryptic is to get excited about a secret that's not even actually there. It's so accepted I bet if you took a poll the vast majority would insist up and down that Ermac is in MK1. Ermac has got to be the most widley passed on myth in gaming.