Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-28501958-20160529004015/@comment-5035900-20160611012338

InkSpider wrote:  when I say MK power levels are inconsistent, I'm referring to the inconsitency with which characters are able to defeat each other. Sindel effortlessly curbstomping half the cast in MK9 comes to mind. I especially agree regarding that. Bi-Han, the elder Sub-Zero, managed to pull off everything in Mythologies, which carries a lot of impressive feats... and is defeated by Sonya. When you get down to it, it's for two purposes: 1. they have to stretch out every character's playable section of the story to 4 fights, so they decided to use him. 2. this showcases Sonya's skills in combat to be able to survive a battle with such a combatant.

One problem with this is that not all the battles have decisive victors so to speak.

When playing as Jax in MK9, he gets annoyed at Johnny Cage and the two fight, but Cage isn't shown KOed or seriously drained by their brawl: they just let off steam with Cage taking a few punches to the face.

When playing as Scorpion in MKX, he believes Sub-Zero (Kuai Liang) had tricked him into meeting him so that his student Frost could end his life, and forces Sub-Zero to fight for his life. Sub-Zero appears defeated with Scorpion about to go for the kill, but when Frost goes to kill Scorpion once more, Sub-Zero not only freezes her in ice, but also gets up without any apparant injury or sign of exhaustion. While Sub-Zero did not hold back due to his life being in danger, the fact he still managed to freeze Frost in place and got up off the ground without either limping or needing help from Scorpion shows that Sub-Zero was nowhere near even close to defeated during that battle (and no, I'm not just saying that because I'm a Sub-Zero fan).

The games won't allow you to proceed until you have won, but those two examples are cases where, even with the player input in gameplay, there was no clear winner. When a character is KOed or shown to be greatly beaten to the point of either retreating or calling on help from someone else, then that could be considered a victory. When the characters fight and the "defeated" character does not appear particularly effected by the fight and/or neither character appears to be dominant in the cutscene afterward doesn't show anything definitive regarding who was the better fighter in that instant.

And yeah, Sindel's sudden power-up in the new timeline was plot-induced to move up the stakes by killing off most of the heroes, particularly since they essentially did the kung fu movie henchman schtick of attacking her one at a time instead of just attacking all at once.