Let me talk about the positives before I get into the negatives and there are quite a few. The positives and I think this is a positive is that now EVERY ending in canon. Every single character is canon, and the reason being is that you can simply say that Kronika saw that character's ending and was like "Nope." and reset everything. I think that's an interesting train of thought going in. That's about it for the positives, now let's talk about the negatives. So since the announcement of the game Kronika was established as the ultimate boss, she's now labeled as a Titan and a being more powerful than The Elder Gods (as she's sired 2 of them, Cetrion & Shinnok, with who, who knows) so Kronika IS the most powerful being in Mortal Kombat lore next to the One Being. Kronika's power is time manipulation which in the case of "Mortal Kombat" is LITERALLY story breaking power and that's essentially what she does, breaks the story.
How? Well let me talk about the story at large, for starters some characters are missing, namely, Takaeda and Kung Jin and their absence is glaring considering they were the new blood of legacy characters Kenshi & Kung Lao, secondly old characters were coming back, namely character who've been dead since "Mortal Kombat 9" like: Kabal, Kitana, Jade, and Noob Saibot and thirdly, new-new characters were added to the roster, Cetrion, Geras, and Kollector. With such an odd roster, the story seemed to hint at maybe the death of Takeda and Jin...but unfortunately neither are mentioned despite being members of Johnny Cage's Special Forces team meaning to bring SF, The Shaolin & The Shirai Ryu together. So they make no appearance in the story and aren't even mentioned as if they didn't exist. That's a problem. The only new blood characters that do make the cut are Cassie Cage (with an amazing redesign) and Jacqui Briggs who in keeping with her father gets redesigned to look like a different person in every game.
That aside the new characters add nothing critical to the game and have no real reason to be present. Geras while a fun character has no reason to be in the game because his role as Kronika's enforcer isn't even that heavy as he doesn't accomplish much of anything. Kollector while a character I like way more than I thought I would with such a generic name served no purpose in the story other than to be Shao Kahn's lapdog but did we really need Shao Kahn's Taxman in this game? I feel like he'd have been better served in "Mortal Kombat X" as Mileena's lackey rather than having Rain get his ass handed to him by Kotal, despite Rain having that badass line "I was not merely declared a god by befuddled commoners, Bullic!". So Kollector does nothing, and Frost...ugh...why is Nether Realm Studios so insistent on putting this bitch in these games? Whatever, she's basically Kronika's #2 (once again making Geras completely useless) and does nothing except lead the Cyber Lin Kuei.
But let's talk about the story proper. The story is essentially Kronika manipulating time to bring allies from the past and the present to conspire to create a "New Era" (take a shot every time she says that) in which Raiden does NOT exist. But in pulling allies from time she is apparently unable to pick out specific people because despite destroying the Raiden in the current timeline she pulls in another Raiden...and Liu Kang...and Kung Lao. From this we can guess that Kronika isn't omniscient and she is incapable of seeing the future (because when Raiden merges with Liu Kang she's surprised), so Kronika despite having story breaking power is a complete moron because she brought in a different version of the very being she's trying to destroy.
So Kronika plans on restarting the timeline from scratch, not as revenge for the decapitation of Shinnok, but because Raiden ruined her master plan, which we can all assume is Shao Kahn claiming victory, consuming Blaze's power, conquering all the realms and then going mad after having nothing left to conquer (as per his ending in "Armageddon"). So Kronika needs her Hour Glass protected because despite having all this power, to completely restart the universe she needs allies and she needs (of all things) time to work. Shao Kahn, Emperor of The Netherrealm Liu Kang and The Cyber Lin Kuei are recruited to Kronika's side..and here's the question; wouldn't it have made more sense to merely rewind time before Shinnok was defeated, kill Cassie and then use Shinnok, a resurrected Shao Kahn and Cetrion to aide in defending her Hourglass?
And that's the biggest problem with "Mortal Kombat 11", aside from the strange character choices is the game raises too many questions and makes the character choices not only meaningless but makes the characters look stupid. There is some major character development, most notably with Johnny Cage (having to kick is own ass for talking out of turn) and Baraka (of all people) gets development now joining forces with Kitana and essentially Earth Realm which makes very little sense (less sense than Sheeva respecting Kitana's opinion because after all Sheeva was all for executing Kitana, and it's not like Kitana hasn't been dead for oh say being generous 25 years now, according to Sheeva and Baraka, so instead of respecting her opinion their first reply should have been "Kitana, didn't you die like 25 years ago? Aren't you a revenant now? Didn't you betray Shao Kahn and join forces with Earth Realm?",) but I digress. But all of that development goes out of the window by the game's climax as Liu Kang and a now mortal Raiden (and Kitana depending on what ending you get) are the only 2 beings in existence and that's a major people when the game's story is completely negated by the end. Everything that happened now doesn't matter. And it cheapens the characters the reason behind the characters.
"Mortal Kombat" has ALWAYS stood out as a fighting game because there was a reason behind the fighting, the characters had their own backstories and reasons for being in the game but now, it's just another fighting game. The story doesn't matter and the characters have no reason to be there anymore. I've said it once that after "Mortal Kombat" stopped being about the tournament the games have more or less lost their focus and now have no story to tell, but here's the thing instead of making up new things they can enhance the things they've already established. I was certain Onaga was going to return in this game and be set up as the big bad of the next game but low and behold that didn't happen. Despite The Order Realm and Chaos Realm being mentioned in other games characters from neither realm appear to do anything. "Mortal Kombat" has a rich lore and tons of established characters they can use and MAKE BETTER and they've wasted all of them now.
This reboot was not only an opportunity to establish a legitimate story but was an opportunity to take characters that were rough and refine them and make them fit. An opportunity to reintroduce us to characters we know and make them work as characters rather than just being extra bodies. "Mortal Kombat X" had that going for it, after the events of "Mortal Kombat", it was who's going to take over for Shao Kahn? Answer. Kotal. And Kotal Kahn had his entourage: Erron Black, Ferra/Torr, D'Vorah, Reptile, and Ermac. Aren't Johnny Cage and Sonya old now? No problem here's 4 new characters to represent the changing of the guard in terms of Earth's defenses against Outworld and Extra Realm threats. What about the old characters? They're all back, the important ones anyway as Revenants. COOL!
"Mortal Kombat 11" feels like it was rushed and slapped together with a roster that hardly makes sense and a story that didn't build on what happened afterward. I know I said I wasn't looking forward to Dark Raiden but I'd have welcomed a Dark Raiden storyline if it meant The Dragon King coming back or Taven and Daegon showing up to warn Raiden of a bigger threat or Blaze or something that didn't blow up the entire "Mortal Kombat" world. Now here is where we are, Liu Kang and Kitana are essentially Titans (Like Kronika) their children will be The Elder Gods...is Liu Kang gonna create Mortal Kombat? Doubtful? And that's the thing. How do we continue? I won't throw the baby out with the bathwater and say I'm done with Netherrealm, but just like "Mortal Kombat X", I feel like this game is also transitional. Despite the changes to the characters, I don't get the feeling that a new status quo has been established. If they would have expanded upon "MKX", Kotal Kahn is the new Emperor of Outworld and then The Chaos Realm or Order Realm decides to attack that'd have been interesting. In the end, the previous game has been marked by the ad "Who's Next", for this game it was "You're Next", the next game should be "What's Next?" and for that I have NO idea. I'll catch you guys later.
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