My Thoughts After the Aftermath

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 The story mode of Mortal Kombat: Aftermath was...A lot. This post is going to have spoilers so, don't say I didn't warn you.
First of all, I do feel like forty dollars was a fair price. The original game was like sixty dollars, if I'm not mistaken. Aftermath has half the chapters, so the story mode is worth thirty dollars to me. Shao Khan was six dollars if you did not pre-order. And we got three extra characters, Sheeva, Fujin, and American Triborg (just kidding, I don't mind Robocop, but I do think he adds nothing to the game as a whole. I would rather have Revenant Stryker instead of Terminator and Robocop.) And so if you multiply six dollars for the three characters, you get eighteen dollars. So if you add thirty dollars for the story plus the eighteen dollars worth of characters, that's forty-eight dollars. So, in a way, forty dollars is actually a deal. I did feel kind of cheated because I bought the original Kombat Pack and was kind of expecting to get more (exclusive content) than what I ended up getting. So, I can see where people are coming from when they feel like forty dollars was too much to ask for.   
I know the way the story panned out was a polarizing thing, and I'm not surprised.  To the surprise of no one, I didn't hate it. I liked most of it actually!  Here are my favorite parts:


01. Kotal Khan's Death

I have never liked Kotal. The only time he was okay was in the comics. But, I played MKX before I read the comics so I will always have kind of a negative bias against him. I am a Mileena fan, but it's not JUST Mileena's death that makes me dislike Kotal. I don't like that as a ruler he committed genocide against all of the Tarkartens even though they were his subjects, since he was the "ruler" of Outworld.
And I say "ruler" because Mileena was next up in every logical sense. That was Shao Khan's daughter. They might not have been related, but that was his daughter. High key unpopular opinion, but if not Mileena, the Scarlet or Ermac. The Khan should have been someone that Shao Khan created. And, let's have the argument that Shao was so bad a ruler (he was) that no one connected to him should rule. Ok, well Kotal Khan was Shao Khan's general. Which means, all of the BS that Shao Khan was doing was exectuted by Kotal. Not once was he like, "Oh, this is sh*tty, maybe I should stop." He just followed orders. Which is not a good leader to me.
Kotal Khan's legacy as Khan was keeping up Shao Khan's status quo in my opinon. In MKX, the first thing the Kombat Kids experience in Outworld was someone getting executed for bread which means
  1. There is not enough bread to go around. The economy is in SHAMBLES. There's no excuse for this as The Kollector is presumably imprisoned or at least not working on behalf of the government.
  2. People, people who have known nothing but war for at least twenty years die very violent and public deaths for minor offenses.

And, I want to like Kotal Khan. I think his design is one of the more unique designs of Mortal Kombat X. The sun...the blood....the totems...it's a vibe. But Kotal Khan as a person. Man, I hate that Shao Khan was right. Kotal was a pretender. He was a bad ruler, a bad boyfriend (no attempt to free his gf's homeland, probably f*cked D'vorah), and obviously not very commited to being Khan as after Kung Jin beat him up, he was going to give all of Outworlder to a random Earthrealmer who is only thirty years old at the most. And, I don't even like Jin, but he would probably be a better ruler than Kotal. That's the worst part!
Ultimately, I wish that they kept Kotal K'etz around instead of Kotal. His dad was likeable and I was sad when Goro killed him. When Kotal's head was thrown off the ship, I was like "love that for me".  I'm glad that Sindel was the one that killed Kotal. Even though she is very evil, she is still Edenian, and what Mileena, Rain, and Tanya wanted was a free Edenia. They wanted other things obviously, but that particular cause was noble, and I really wonder if anyone bothered to tell Jade or even Kitana that. In every single retcon of Kitana, her wanting a free Edenia has always been consistent. Even in her MK11 Tower ending she restored Edenia. In Jade's tower ending she is the protector of Edenia from outside forces. Like, they want a free Edenia too. An Edenian needed to kill him, although it would have been more ~compelling~ if it was Jade. I think that Jade really doesn't know the full extent of what happened when she was gone. I think everyone forgot how easily he was going to surrender all of Outworld to Shinok and betrayed the Earthrealmers. Weak leader sh*t. It's cool that he is not a one dimensional character, but it's just that all his dimensions are incredibly stupid.  Kotal the Pretender indeed.

02. Sindel and Shao Khan Chapter
Okay, I can't say that I liked that Sindel betrayed Kitana. I hated it. Maybe it's because of my *personal* life...Like being betrayed by a parent is the worst kind of hurt that I would not wish on anyone. And, Sindel actually fooled me! At first, I was like Kitana and thought "Okay, they brought her back and she is good again, the retcon no longer matters". When I saw her conspiring with Shang Tsung, I told myself "At least she's not working with Shao Khan. that would break Kitana." When she went into the jail/beast pen, I was like "See, she's about to finish him!" And I was so gutted when she killed Sheeva instead. That whole thing was a roller coaster of emotions and seeing how things ended up for Kitana was so sad to me. Everyone told her not to trust her mom and she ignored them because, that was her mom, and moms don't do that. It seemed illogical for Kitana to be betrayed by her mother because it's so abnormal. Not being protected by your mom literally goes against human nature. I know they technically aren't humans, but you get it, right? Maternal instinct is a thing! Assuming Liu Kang didn't yeet Sindel from existence (thus erasing Kitana), a running gag could be Kitana trying to convince everyone her mother has changed when everyone else knows that Sindel is a selfish jerk. This chapter was so fun to play, and I was so shocked to see how it all turned out.  Even though (young) Johnny lost the fight, it was nice to see him get serious. In general, I like the emotional evolution of Johnny Cage through out the series and that may be silly but I don't care. Most characters remain pretty much the same, but he was changed over the series in a positive way. Old Erron and new Erron are indistinguishable, old and young Sonya have the same personalities, except she isn't in love with Johnny. Which made sense because they didn't even know each other like that yet. Baraka has the same values as his current dead self. Johnny is different. And, I like it.
Not to get all kooky on y'all but I would bet money that Kitana is an Earth sign and her mother is a Fire sign. Earth signs value loyalty so much. They love order. At the same time, A Capricorn, (which is what I think Kitana is based on everything I know about here) is the "father" of the Zodiac doesn't necessarily need a parent to thrive. Kitana bloomed as a person once Shao Khan was gone. However, I think astrology is ultimately subjective and so I can't use this as a reason that I feel like people can resonate with. Most of y'all will think I am projecting because I am a Capricorn too. If you're wondering, I think Jade is a Virgo or an Aries. So, yeah idk it be like that sometimes I guess. 
I've never really payed that much attention to Shao Khan's gameplay, because it simply did not interest me. I know that a lot of people wanted him to be buffed in the past. I don't know if he was buffed or not, but he was really fun to play in the story mode and I might pick him up. I didn't know there was a move where you could insult people! Sindel should have one of those too, except it says "You..............................................Will DIE!"
Not to remind you of my galaxy sized brain, but I named my Sindel "Mommy Fearest", based on the Powerpuff Girls episode where The Professor was dating Sedusa in disguise and the PPG kept telling him that she was evil and The Professor didn't believe them. That's pretty much what happened in Aftermath except that Kitana was The Professor.






Shang Tsung and his ending
(X)


I don't actually hate Liu Kang's ending. I wouldn't be mad if this was the ending they chose to go with, because it means we are going back in time. Before a lot of characters even existed. It's a reboot reboot. However, the Edenians would still be around and maybe the other Outworlders too. But none of the humans we know. Which opens up so many possibilities. We might even see Cassie's great great whatever as the originator of "the glow".
It would be neat to play as The Great Kung Lao and see him get trained up to the legend we know today. And, maybe with a better teacher, he may fair better this time around. Earthrealm might not even need to be defended in five hundred years. If this is the direction that they choose to go in, it would be interesting to see of Liu Kang can apply where Raiden failed as a teacher. Was Raiden a bad teacher/trainer? Absoluteness not. But, as we can see in later MK games, Kang and Lao do feel some type of way about Raiden. It would be a pleasant change of pace where master and student don't end up fighting to the death. What would be enjoyable af for me is for them to make an animal crossing type game when you would meet different people and learn different things for them. That's obviously a stretch and I don't think it would happen. But, it would be fun!
While all of that sounds mildly entertaining, I would love if Shang Tsung's ending was the one that was canon. We would finally get an evil Raiden, and we would get to visit other realms and just cause pandemonium. I know a lot of people say they want these random one off characters for DLC, (tbh I'm apart of it because I want Cyrax AND Havik). If we went to different realms would could logically do things like:
  • Revisit and battle Tremor and battle in the Dreamrealm
  • Darrius and Dark (!!!) Raiden and team up and make Orderealm fall to Shang Tsung
  • The Chaosrealm can be a place where the remining characters of the Black Dragon clan went after Kano died. We don't see any of them after that in MK11. I could see them fighting for the anarchy that Chaosrealm provides.
It's already established that there are a lot of other realms we have not seen. So they can just make some stuff up and make the random 3D people you guys seem to love as refugees in various realms. Which would explain why they have not been seen since the 3D era and would progress the story in a logical way.
I think Shag Tsung's ending was amazing and they could really incorporate other more forgotten characters in the New Era. I would like that for one (1) game and then go back to how it's always been when the same core group of people.


What did you think? Did you guys like Aftermath? Overall, I did! There were a few things I didn't care for. For example, I'm tired of the Dark Raiden d*ck tease. I really feel like that was heavily advertised to us, only for us to see glimpses of Dark Raiden. That actually makes me quite angry because that was one of the things that make me pick up the game again. I also didn't like how idiotic and cocky Kronika was. I feel like it just didn't make sense. And, I feel like Aftermath kind of proved if EVERYONE worked together against Kronika, they would have won. Shang Tsung took the power of all the "big wigs" like Raiden, Fujin, Nightwolf's revenant, and apparently Sindel, and could beat Kronika. So I'm pretty sure if The Cage Family, Raiden, Fujin, The Order of Light, The Special Forces, The Shokans, and the Tarkatans could have beaten Kronika. And I think that will always be the tragedy of Mortal Kombat. If all the characters could properly work together, the evil would easily fall.Even though it is sad, it's sadly  realistic in a world that is often unrealistic.



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