For me it would probably be the character design. I love the character design in the original games, considering it brought us greats like Rayden, Kano, Kung Lao, and the ever loved ninjas. But when we get into the modern games, they just ruined the characters. Take Sub-Zero. They took away his ninja suit! You just don't take away a mans ninja suit!!! And Reptile, poor Reptile!!! They made him a LIZARD!!! I know, I know, he was a lizard all along, but they took away his ninja costume!!!!!!!! You just don't take away ninja costumes!!!!!!

Super Mega Man 568 :  Probably the MK3. I didn't like ninja robots. Sindel was a ughh lame character, and it just seemed a let down after MK2.

endings : Honestly, Mortal Kombat 3 is one of my favorite games. Probably 3rd. Trilogy would be my favorite and Ultimate my 2nd. But I do see what you're saying. The robo ninjas seemed stupid to me, too. I don't mind them as much as I did at first, but they still seem a little off-putting. Sindel I'm okay with, honestly. I just don't like her because of how hard she is to fight. I can see why someone wouldn't like her, though.

I'll have to say the thing I dislike the most about the mortal kombat series is MK3 in and of itself.  Mortal Kombat was awesome when it came to the arcade.  We played every saturday and then MKII came out and we were in awe.  It improved everything about the first one and added so many secrets.  You can imagine our anticipation for MK3 and for the group and I it was a huge let down.  I don't like the combo system, some of the characters are just no...  over the years it has earned it's place among the group but it still remains my least favorite and least played Mortal Kombat of all time, well except for ones I never really played like the one for N64 and one for PS2.  I never played them so have no opinion.

I would have to say the lack of memorable new characters. Now, I know that if you continue to make games in the franchise and only use the same characters, it will get very old, very fast. I know you have to make new characters. But they don't do a good job at making the newer characters memorable. They don't really do much with their back stories, and they make them super generic and bland. For example, Jarek, Kai, Kenshi, Reiko, Tanya, just to name a few. Some of the games told us a little bit about them, but for the most part, they are just kind of there to be newer. But the problem is that not only do they not do much with them in the overall story, they don't give them that specific something that makes them uniquely memorable. They tend to be just forgotten characters. There are a lot of characters that are like that. Many which I have to stop and think just to remember their name, even when I have played the games numerous times. They are just that bland and unmemorable. It is sad.

Also, a lot of the newer characters are just different versions of already existing characters. Frost is just a female sub zero. Same abilities and whatnot, and mainly just gave Sub Zero pointy white hair and breasts. Different versions of the ninja characters in general. Chameleon, for example. Darius is basically a human Baraka, only the blades on his forearms are not a part of him.

They really need to do better at not only making their newer characters more rounded and developed, but they also need to be more original. Stop making characters that are basically the same as already existing characters.

I'm fine with changing the look to keep the existing characters fresh. That includes the ninja costumes. They haven't really taken them away anyway. They made them more complex looking, but the core look of their outfits still hold true to the originals for the most part.

Does too many sequels count? I'll admit I haven't played any MK games since MK3, but I think we're looking at 10 games now? That's a lot for a fighting game series.

rcarter2 : "They didn't really take the ninja suits away"

Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. The default costume for Sub Zero doesn't even include the ninja costume. To be fair, you can unlock the ninja costume, but it should really be the default. Even in Mortal Kombat 9, reptile is still a lizard, only he has a black mask that covers most of his face. Even then, you can clearly see that he's a lizard. I don't know, maybe I'm un fair, maybe my love of the ninjas is getting in the way of reality. Maybe it's just me.

I don't really like the newer characters that the creators have made. Some of them just seem like boring clones to me. I like the original characters better.

ghostfishy : My sentiments exactly.

tornadocam : The reason they removed the mask is because he rebelled against the clan. He betrayed them by killing Scorpion. They wanted to make it clear that he wasn't part of the ninja clan anymore, I suppose, but it still was really dumb.

Super Mega Man 568 : In deadly alliance, they didn't really take it away. Like I said before, they might have tweaked the costume throughout the games, but the core look is still the same.

This is him in Deadly Alliance


And this is him in a different one (don't remember which)


The main difference (besides the mask, of course) is that in Deadly Alliance, the outfit doesn't have the undershirt with the hood. But the outfit as a whole is still pretty much the same. Just because there is no undershirt and head covering hood does not make it not a ninja outfit (or at least the outfit Western culture associates with ninja).

I'm gonna get lots of hate for this but..


The entire series, Yes I said that. For me the most hated MK thing is the entire series. Sorry, but I always thought that it was a bad controlling game, I also felt that very few thought went in to it.  With the small exception of the character sprites in the original games.

I never got in to it.
Tekken and budokai for me

rcarter2 : Actually, I believe both of those are from deadly alliance, the one with the mask being the ultimate costume. I say they took away the ninja suit, because part of Sub-Zero has always been the mask, just like with the other ninjas.

rcarter2 : If that's how Sub-Zero looks in the current MK games...he has not aged well.

imamonster : Agreed, except, instead of Budokai for me, it's Soul Calibur. Mortal Kombat does often seem like it was just made to show off how much gore and violence a game can get away with and not much more.

Super Mega Man 568 : I don't disrespect the fact that you dislike it at all. If I was saying you were wrong to dislike it, that would be a whole different matter. You commented on the fact that I mentioned in my first post that I didn't feel they took away the suit and tried to prove me wrong. So I put two pictures up to clarify why I felt that way. I'm not sure I feel that it is a fair thing to make a comment on a specific thing that I said that basically said I am wrong, and then imply that I am not respecting your opinion just because I make a reply to explain my reasoning. If I don't agree, I am disrespecting your opinion?

rcarter2 : I'm sorry if I seem hypocritical, I didn't mean to come off that way. If we respect each other, then everything's alright, yes?

zrockquake : button mashing is in all fighting games, not just Mortal Kombat.

imamonster : not everyone likes the Mortal Kombat series or a certain game series. Everyone has their own interests and games that they all like. It doesn't mean that we have to like every game that we play or others are playing.

Super Mega Man 568 : everything about the games. The bots are too hard, especially in the first game. And scorpion has that hand-spear move that he slams, and every character is so cheap and hard and it is infuriating.