Baraka407 posted:

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I think that MK7 should change things up from the last few MK games. Don't get me wrong. MK:DA and MK:D had some good things going for them, but for several reasons, I believe that MK7 should chart a new path. First, MK7 will most likely make its debut on next gen systems in the fall of 06 (if what Ed Boon has said in the past about an MK game a year is correct). With a new set of systems should come a new direction for the series. MK:DA and MK:D had a lot of modes, but only a few had to do with enhancing the actual fighting game experience. With all that said, these are my ideas for MK7. Please feel free to post your own!

1) Window Dressing: The MK series tells a story better than any other fighting game, period. What better vehicle for telling this story than the beautiful graphics of the upcoming systems? There should be intro movies, grudge match (I'll get to that) movies and ending movies for every character. A powerful, but not cheesy narrator telling each characters story as well as good, solid voice actors fleshing out the many twists and turns of the plot.

2) Controls: I've heard others complain about the 1, 2, 3, 4 button scheme. Let me suggest this (for X box):
X = Punch
Y = Kick
A = Escape/Reprisal*
B& directions=Evade
B+ left on D pad= flip backwards
B+ up on D pad= side step left
B+ down on D pad= sid step right
R Trigger = Throw (character style specific throws)
R+A = Joint lock
R+X = Flip throw
R+Y = Take down (not that all throws can also
use the d-pad for even more throws. So a throw
heavy character can have more than three throws.
They could use toward, toward R+A etc)
L Trigger = Stance switch
D pad Away = Block
*An escape (away +A) would deflect physical attacks (everything but special moves) and auto escape so that neither side has an advantage and only minor blocking damage is done to the defender. This would only work on high and mid attacks. Low attacks must be blocked by pressing away on the D pad.

*Reprisals would increase fight speed. Instead of a traditional counter, where a punch is thrown by the attacker and turned into a throw or automatic hit by the defender, like in Dead or Alive, this would be a system of counters. For example. The attacker throws a high punch and the defender uses a reprisal (up/toward on the D pad and A). This makes the defender automatically deflect the high punch and come back with high punch or kick. The attacker has now become the defender, and they can use a reprisal to hit high (up/toward and A) medium (toward and A) or low (down/toward and A) or attempt to escape (away and A) or evade in any direction (B and up, B and down, B and left). A reprisal would deflect the attacker's punch or kick and cause the defender to attack with a high, mid or low punch or kick depending on which reprisal is used. An escape would simply deflect the punch or kick and allow the player to flip backwards out of the melee so that neither has lost any power but the blocking damage. Evades accomplish this, but at the risk of giving the attacker the upper hand if they're using high or mid attacks. The evader has the advantage if its a low attack or on that takes a long time to execute. Reprisals can go on indefinitely, but they increase in speed with each consecutive successful reprisal performed, making each reprisal harder to time than the last. Now the fight looks more like a martial arts movie, where moves are exchanged at a rapid pace. Obviously, this couldn't go on forever, but the basics are these: No escape or evade after the 5th reprisal, and due to exertion of energy, the hit that actually connects takes off more than if the reprisal had successfully been landed earlier. Even the fastest thumbs shouldn't be able to perform a reprisal after the 7th or 8th time.

3) Maximum damage: There needs to be a rock solid system in place to prevent BS. If a player has had more than 40 percent taken off of them in combo or a series of moves, both players should be knocked backwards to the ground (ala MK4). This will go a long way to cut down the cheese of the last game.

4 New Modes: MK:DA and MK:D had some good modes that made MK more of a complete game, but not necessarily a complete FIGHTING game. Sure, MK Chess is great and all, but why doesn't MK:D have a tag mode or a survival mode? Do you see what I'm saying here? Here are my suggestions for MK7 modes:

Story Mode: This is where we have the cut scenes. Characters fight up a specific ladder based on their allegiances (so if Noob Saibot was in MK7, he wouldn't fight Smoke if they were allies). There would be a grudge match that I'd call it a vendetta match. This would be like Sub-Zero vs Noob or whatever characters are in the game that have unresolved storyline issues with certain other characters. I'd have an endurance match, followed by sub-boss, followed by the boss of the game. Probably about 10 matches in total.

Versus: 1 on 1, 2 on 2 switch (The new character comes in when the old one is defeated, no tag), 3 on 3 switch, 4 on 4 switch

Tag: 2 on 2 Tag, 3 on 3 tag (use white button and black button to tag in players on Xbox)

Online: Online fighting like in MK:D

Survival: Fight until you lose. Defeating each character unlocks health, points, krypt keys or items depending on who you're using, how many wins you have, who you're fighting, what buttons you used etc.

Tournament: Up to 8 players with wireless controllers at home or up to 64 players online. Using a bracket style.

Watch: Watch people fight online to learn from the best.

Character Editor: Kind of like killer instinct. Not a mode, so much as the ability to change the colors of characters clothing at the select screen by selecting character, then hitting up or down to change colors and then confirming.

5) Create a Character: Some people will hate this, but I think that this idea screams MK. Lots of MK fans are very good at coming up with ideas for their own characters, well, I think that this should be the one and only minigame for MK7. You pick the race (human, demon, shokan, god, vampire, reptillian, oni etc). You pick the gender, eye color, hair style, physical build, tatooes, scars, etc. You start off with standard clothes, but you can change them to whatever you want and customize your character by unlocking:

Move Sets: Judo, Hapkido etc. Everything from MK7 and then about 25 others. These can be found in survival mode, story mode etc. Plus more to be downloaded online later.

Special moves: All special moves from MK7 plus about 100 more that can be found in the other regular modes. Plus more to be downloaded online later.

Clothes: Everything from shinguards, pants, boots, chest plates, masks, belts, insignias, etc can be unlocked in survival mode, story mode, and every other mode in the game. They can come in the form of keys to the krypt or simply unlocked.

Styles: Hair styles, tatooes, etc can also be unlocked in other modes.

In total, about 1500 items should be available with which to customize your character. But that's not all!

Create your own bio: A blank slate is provided that allows you to create your own characters bio of information. You choose the background, provide the list of Name, Age, birth place, style, weapon, allies and enemies. You get 5 stock templates to use for the background, and you can unlock 10 more in other modes.

Create your own action frame: Kinda like killer instinct (again) where once the characters are selected, an action scene of the two characters shows up as the versus logo appears. You pick from the background (1 of about 10) and the movement of your character (1 of about 20). Some of which can be unlocked.

Create your own ending: It won't be a movie sequence or animated, but you can choose templates with which to write scrolling text of what happens to your character.

The best part is that all of this stuff will be accessible online by other players when you use that created character against someone else.

6) Fighting styles: My final idea (man this is a long post!) is to reduce the number of fighting styles from 3 to 2. One weapon style and one regular hand to hand style. Simplify the dial a combos and make them more character specific (so if Jax uses Judo he can throw a takedown and do a combo etc). Use uppercuts and roundhouses and pop up moves, but don't make the game juggle happy. A special move or two after a pop up is fine, but no combo should be more than four or five hits in total.

Make the fighting styles more realistic to the character. A strong character should use an aggressive style etc. But also make the styles more unique to their roots. In other words, not every style should have standard punch punch kicks, but rather simpler combos that go with the style. If it's tae kwon do, they should be a certain style of punch that's different from wrestling. Plus their should be regular special moves that don't involve gravity defying, teleporting or projectiles that work with certian styles. Double jump kicks, back flip kicks, certain types of throws or locks, etc. Then of course, their should be the special moves. Scorpions spear, Rayden's lighting etc. I was just referring to moves unique to each characters fighting style.


I have more ideas, but I'll stop here because I think I just wrote a book.

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