Madam Bo gets knocked the F*CK out, Johnny Cage squares off against Kenshi, and for the first time, our friend Jack is a Kameo on the podcast. Join us for a conversation about our favorite fighting game of the year, Mortal Kombat 1.
Madam Bo gets knocked the F*CK out, Johnny Cage squares off against Kenshi, and for the first time, our friend Jack is a Kameo on the podcast. Join us for a conversation about our favorite fighting game of the year, Mortal Kombat 1.
In this episode, we dive into the story of Mortal Kombat 1. Somehow—and even after 30 years—Netherrealm Studios is still weaving together a compelling narrative. The MK universe has gotten pretty complicated up to this point, but Mortal Kombat 1 (mostly) resets the timeline and rewrites the story. Taylor didn't play the game, so Willie and Joseph try to get him caught up. Jack breaks down the Invasions game mode, praises the game's visual graphics, and throws shade at the Dragon Crystals used for microtransactions. We also cover the main story beats, talk about voice-over performances, and highlight some of our favorite moments in the game. Overall, we all enjoy playing MK1, and it's super fun to watch competitively. We 100% recommend playing through the main story, and if fighting games aren't your thing—watch the cutscene movie on YouTube. FRIENDSHIP!
Here's the full transcript for this episode.
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00:00:00
[Alienated by ELFL plays in background]
Willie: But the thing about that is, so when you're in her, what's, what's the right word? It's not a tavern, but her like tea shop when you're in her tea shop-
Joseph: Uh-huh.
Willie: -and, uh, fighting there. I'm pretty sure it probably is her voice who says fight. I don't actually know if that's true, but throughout the game-
Joseph: Oh, I don't know.
Willie: -later in the game, when you get to Queen Sindel's court, it's Sindel who, who says fight at the beginning.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: So it like changes throughout the game based on the location of where you are.
Taylor: That's cool. And it kind of gives you a taste of each of them. I like that.
Joseph: Right.
Jack: But just like in regular, like offline or online-
Willie: Right.
Jack: -whatever, like you can change the announcers and I think even the one you can buy right now is J.K. Simmons, [Willie chuckles] but he doesn't really say anything interesting.
Taylor: Why?!
Joseph: He's Omni-Man. Taylor?
Willie: Right.
Taylor: Oh, that's right. Okay. I... I just imagined him talking shit about Spider-Man [Jack and Willie laugh] on there for some reason. [Joseph laughs] Damn it, Spider-Man is coming through. [all laughing]
Fuckin up these Mortal Kombat guys!
Joseph: Dude, dude, dude. Do your best, J.K. Simmons.
Taylor: Oh man, I can't do it on command.
Joseph: Okay, okay. That was pretty close. Well, if you think of it later, do it.
Taylor: Thank you.
Jack: But it's interesting hearing J.K. Simmons saying stuff like, Liu Kang. Like, okay. [chuckling] [Joseph, Taylor and Willie laugh] That's not something I ever expected to hear in my life.
[Alienated by ELFL fades out]
[Intro theme plays - Tiger Tracks by Lexica]
00:01:30
Joseph: What's up? Welcome to Berries and Blades. Thanks for tuning in for a casual conversation about video games. My name is Joseph and I'm here with my friends, Willie and Taylor. And for the first time ever, our friend Jack, and we're just four regular guys, regular guys, meditating to the relaxing sounds of a digital wind instrument for 87 minutes, but I digress.
So, Jack, welcome to the show.
Jack: Hi!
Joseph: How are you doing?
Jack: I'm good. How are you?
Joseph: I'm good. Have you listened to that, that newest Andre 3000's album?
Jack: [laughing] I have not. I have not. I will. Nope. [Taylor and Willie chuckle] Where did that come from? [Jack and Taylor laughing]
Joseph: Did the whole digital wind instrument like mean nothing to you?
Jack: Yeah, absolutely nothing. I looked around at all of you to see what that was about. [Joseph, Taylor and Willie laugh] I was like, did I miss something in the past couple of podcasts that this is a thing? But no, I have not.
Willie: Like four days ago, I think, he announced that he had a new album coming out and everyone was like, oh shit. And, but immediately he was like, it's not a rap album. There's no, you're not going to find any bars on this album. It's, it's a flute album.
Taylor: [laughing] Really?
Willie: Yeah. Yeah.
Taylor: [laughing] It's a flute...
Willie: Yeah. I'm pretty sure, it was earlier this week.
Taylor: Bro, I'm not gonna... like when you said there wasn't going to be any rap, the first thing that popped in my head was it would be amazing if it was like a pan flute album. [Willie laughing]
Joseph: Dude, it is. It really is.
Taylor: Oh my God.
Jack: Okay, but is it good?
Taylor: Andre 3000. Yeah, that's the question. How is it?
Joseph: I haven't listened to it all. I really appreciate that he's just doing something he feels like he needs to do. You know, like he's obviously like, if you look at any news surrounding the album or the reception or anything about it, he's already pretty vocal about like saying that he's just not at a point in his life where he feels like he has things to rap about.
Jack: Super fair.
Joseph: So he's like, putting out the music that he's been enjoying creating over the years. So I really appreciate that he has new music and that he's just putting shit out that he wants to put out.
Taylor: That's awesome.
Jack: Hmm.
Taylor: Hell yeah, in a world of haters.
Jack: What's the name of the album? Let's plug his album. [laughs]
Joseph: New Blue Sun.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: There's eight tracks and the whole album is 87 minutes long. I'm like somewhere in, in the third track and this is maybe the first one that I've kind of like felt something from. It's got a lot of drums in it and it's got the flute. So I was like, okay, this is kind of connecting me back to my indigenous American ancestry.
Taylor: Nice.
Joseph: Like I'm getting a little bit of that from it, but overall. I don't think it's for me. Like, I'm like 0 percent inspired by the first couple of tracks.
Jack: Did you say 87 minutes long?
Willie: Yeah, yeah.
Joseph: 87 minutes long, dude.
Jack: [chuckling] That's a long album.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: [chuckling] Yeah, it's wild.
Willie: I was listening the other day while I was working on something, and I was like just seeing where I was, and I felt like I had been listening to it for a long time.
And I was like eight minutes into the second track. And the first track is 12 and a half minutes, basically. So I had been listening for 20 minutes already, but was only on track two. And I was like, Oh, okay.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: It was good. I mean, it's fine. It's good, like ambient [Jack chuckles] music for what I was doing at the time, for sure.
Taylor: It is ambient.
Joseph: Yeah, it would be good to have in the background, but for me, like, I listen to a ton of instrumental music. Probably more instrumental than music with words and lyrics. So it like, wasn't doing it for me, but I don't hate it. I definitely don't hate it. You should check it out. Both of y'all.
Jack: I'll check it out.
Joseph: Taylor and Jack.
Willie: Yeah, I definitely need to listen.
Taylor: I've been listening to it the whole time.
Willie: [chuckles] I need to listen...
Joseph: [chuckles] What'd you say?
Taylor: [chuckles] I've had it on the whole time. [Willie laughs]
I've been listening to it.
Joseph: Oh, nice. [Jack and Joseph laugh]
Taylor: I made it a quarter through the first song. [Jack laughs]
Joseph: Dude, we could literally play it underneath this entire episode and you would barely know it was there.
Taylor: Yeah. It's just a little UFO. [mimicking synthesizer sounds]
Joseph: [laughing] Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah, that's uh...
Joseph: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Taylor: That's cool.
00:05:04
Joseph: All right. So today we're finally going to share our thoughts about Mortal Kombat 1. And at the time of this recording, we've been playing for about three months and hopefully none of you out there need an introduction to this series. Mortal Kombat games have been around for 31 years, and that's literally, I did the math, 81 percent of my lifetime, which is fuckin wild to think about.
But, if you've never played MK before, Mortal Kombat 1 is actually a really good game to jump into the series with. Over the years, MK's lore has become pretty difficult to follow, but here's the important thing to know. The ending to Mortal Kombat 11 set up this game, Mortal Kombat 1, in a way that allows it to reboot the story.
So imagine a game with the same characters, but their backstories, motivations, and personalities have been rewritten, effectively restarting the timeline of Mortal Kombat. So, now that you're more confused than you were before, I want to warn everyone that we're going to get into some minor spoilers, and there's probably a good chance for major spoilers, so proceed with caution.
Alright, let's do this. Jack, we've got to start with you since you're our guest. What are your overall non spoilery thoughts about the game?
Jack: Overall non spoilery. Okay, so first can I say that I really wanted to be on this episode just because Mortal Kombat was big with me growing up. I think I listened to y'all talk about it before and I very much had the same experience.
One through three obsessed and then it all fell off from there. But yeah, so I love the series and I felt like this was the perfect time to jump back in because it was a reboot or it is a reboot. Given that, I very much enjoyed it. I think there are things that could be better, but...
Joseph: But good overall?
Jack: Oh, absolutely great overall. I'm still playing it, uh, which seems odd for a game that came out so long ago and there's been other stuff. I feel like it's a good way for people who are like me lapsed after a while to come back into it.
Joseph: Yeah, word, word, word. I, I probably should have said this before, but for everybody listening, Jack is a part of the Berries and Blades crew. Uh, he's part of the team that plays D& D just about every week on Twitch.
Willie: [chuckles] I like how Jack made that face, [Jack laughs] understanding that [Joseph and Taylor laugh] Joseph is definitely exaggerating when he says plays just about every week. It's not been that lately-
Jack: Yeah.
Willie: -but we do play D&D.
Joseph: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's on Wednesdays. [Jack laughs] Wednesday night. Probably at least two out of every month, but if, if you like what Jack says here today, then you should go listen to his, uh, D&D characters on Wednesday nights on Twitch.
Jack: And if you don't like what I have to say, you should listen to the other people [chuckles] who are playing D&D because [Joseph laughs] they're a lot better. [Jack laughs]
Joseph: Yeah, you can still go, you can still go there for Willie and a few other people, not for me and Taylor, but Willie's always there leading the charge and DMing all of the D&D episodes.
I agree with Jack man, I think this game is fucking great, I love it, I think it's super fun to watch.
Jack: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: It's really fun to play. I think in terms of the gameplay it's a little bit more simple than MK11, there's less customization, there's less, uh, picking different movesets and pairing them in different ways, so I love that that's streamlined, just because I'm more of a novice player. I have a feeling some of the pros miss that level of customization and that the game might be a little bit too simple for them, and there's been one major Mortal Kombat tournament already, like the Pro Komp tournament.
Man, I just, I had a fucking blast watching it. I even watched like almost all of the pool play, just because I think this game is so fun to watch.
Willie: Joey and I were talking back and forth during that tournament for definitely the the last few hours of it, I'm pretty sure. At least some of that time, because yeah, it is fun to watch.
I really dug this game, played it immediately when it came out, as soon as I had access to it, which I can't remember, was this one of those that we all got access to like a week early? Because, yeah, it is, right? For pre ordering?
Joseph: I think you didn't because you couldn't, play it. Oh, maybe it was, no, it was still early.
Willie: The pre order was still.
Joseph: That was the beta.
Willie: Yeah. Beta was not on PC, so I didn't get to play that. But you two played the beta.
Jack: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: And then as soon as it was available, I played through it. And I played through the whole thing in two sittings for the like main story. Which we'll get into the spoilers later.
Joseph: Yeah, it was pretty quick to get through, man.
Willie: It was. And it, I think it was just a story that was pulling me forward. Cause I was like.
Joseph: For real.
Willie: Wanted to know what the hell was going on. Cause it is a reboot.
Jack: Mm-hmm.
Willie: It is telling a different story. But also remixing some stuff that's really cool from the other games.
Joseph: Yeah.
Jack: One of the reasons that I got super excited about this was listening to y'all talk about the trailer and just admiring just how beautiful the game looks. Uh, because that was the thing too. I remember like one through three, again, those are the ones I played the most. It was all dark and you know, it's different style, but it just, it looks so spectacular and all lit and lighted up. Which felt different for Mortal Kombat.
Joseph: Mm-hmm , definitely a big change from MK11. Very dark MKX, MK11, and then this one's like super bright. For like a lot of the, the main story, it's like there's a lot of daytime scenes, which I fucking love. I love this brighter, more saturated version of Mortal Kombat.
Taylor, what do you know about the game? Just in general.
Taylor: About this one?
Joseph: Yeah, as being the only person here that hasn't played through the story of MK1.
Taylor: I've only seen the, um, the trailers as they've come out, and I've seen Omni-Man, uh, like I've watched any trailer on Omni-Man. Mostly because I like Invincible, and to see that crossover happening tripped me the fuck out.
Jack: Such a satisfying character to play as, too.
Taylor: Oh, yeah. Yeah. And the fact that, um, I was telling them that I still had PTSD from that last episode of Invincible, that first season, and then to see them rehash most of the things that he does to his son on there, like, it really brought back some trauma and, uh, but in a good way. It was awesome. I'm looking forward to it.
Joseph: Gosh, it did a good job recreating it too, man. You...looking at the side by side. Willie, I think you mentioned that at some point...
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: But I was watching it again, like just yesterday or something, that side by side. I was like, Holy fuck, man. They-
Taylor: They nailed it.
Joseph: I feel like they did justice.
Yeah.
Taylor: Yep.
Joseph: Yeah. And it's fucking brutal. Like in, in all the best MK ways.
Taylor: Yeah, exactly. He's a perfect fit for MK because of how brutal he is.
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: You know, whenever I first saw it, my first reaction is what [Jack chuckles] the fuck? And then, oh yeah. That is exactly the kind of character you want to-
Joseph: [mimicking Macho Man Randy Savage] Oh yeah.
Taylor: -bring into Mortal Kombat.
[mimicking Macho Man Randy Savage] Oh, yeah,
Joseph: [chuckles] That's got me thinking of, uh, Macho Man Randy Savage [Jack chuckles] and the Kool-Aid Man at the same time. [Taylor and Willie chuckle]
Willie: Yeah, somewhere in between [Joseph laughing]
Taylor: Sweet.
00:11:38
Joseph: Oh, I remember what I was going to say. I imagine we're going to, like, eventually kind of gravitate towards spoilers of the main story, because I think there's a lot to talk about there.
But if you if you don't plan on playing the game at all, just because you're not a fan of fighting games in general, find the movie of cut scenes for this game. It's only like three and a half hours.
Taylor: Pfft.
Joseph: So it is literally like watching a fucking movie and it's so cinematic. It fucking actually feels like you're watching a movie and it's great.
Taylor: Oh, really.
Jack: It's like two Andre 3000 flute albums. [Willie, Jack, and Taylor laugh]
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: The length of that. Yeah. But way more cinematic and, uh, and, and more music. It's good, Taylor, you should watch that.
Taylor: They better have some flutes.
Yeah, I will. Cause I, I'm not, this is not one that I'm worried about spoilers at all. So I will definitely check that out.
Joseph: So I played through the main story once and then I watched the movie through once just to kind of refresh my memory on what happened at the end of the game, but it's good man.
Like if you find one that doesn't have the fight scenes in it, which I think most of the movie cut scene movies will just strip out the actual, the combat and then you could just watch straight through-
Taylor: Okay.
Joseph: -and it's fucking really good.
Taylor: Okay, so I see there's one that's four hours long, that's probably the one with the cut, with the, uh, fights, and then-
Joseph: Mm-hmm . Probably has some extra stuff.
Willie: Yeah, the four hour one has, I know because I watched this one earlier, [chuckles] has, uh, it's like four hours and six minutes, right? Something like that?
Taylor: Yep.
Willie: It's the full movie, the full, like, story, plus all of the ladder endings, like, so whenever you, like, go to play the ladder version of the game, just, like-
Hmm.
Taylor: Oh, sweet.
Willie: -you pick a character and play through the, like,
Joseph: Ah.
Willie: -ten fights or whatever.
Joseph: The tower endings?
Willie: The tower, yeah. That's what I was trying to say.
Joseph: Nice, nice.
Willie: So you watch those, and then it has like those, all the tower endings.
Taylor: Interesting. Did the, did 10 or 11, whatever the last one was, did that one, I know that had towers. Did they also have endings for that or...?
Joseph: Yeah, just about every single Mortal Kombat game has had the towers.
Taylor: Okay.
Joseph: All the way since that original arcade release too.
Taylor: Oh shit, well.
Joseph: I think we might all be in the same boat, man, that we, we all played like one through like four dipped out on the 3d games and then came back in like around MKX or MK9 to like MKX.
Jack: I got reinterested again by nine, but I didn't pick it up again until this one. I will say that the, the Netherrealm or whatever studio it was, they brought me back for a little bit was Mortal Kombat versus the DC universe because it was like my childhood in a video game.
Taylor: Yeah.
Jack: Game wasn't very good though, but it was just, it was super cool seeing those characters in a game together.
And then the Injustice games, of course.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Willie, that's the fucking one that's number 8, right?
Willie: Yeah, exactly.
Joseph: We were like confused about which one is MK8.
Willie: Yeah, why is there nine MK games at that point, but it's because the MK versus DC, yeah, is considered-
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: -the eighth game because it was originally going to be another Mortal Kombat game and they like changed what they were doing.
Joseph: Willie, what'd you think about the game overall?
Willie: I mean, I did really like it. I got through it really quickly, like I said, because I was just enjoying the story. I played a little bit of Invasion and then I just never really got around to finishing it because other games like started coming up and then I spent way too much time playing Lies of P.
Cause those things came out around the same time.
Joseph: [in deep, raspy voice] Carlo. [Joseph, Jack, and Willie chuckle]
Taylor: [chuckling] Yeah.
What he meant it was, he was appeasing Geppetto. He was playing Geppetto appeaser and pleaser.
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: Yeah. And then-
Joseph: So childish.
Willie: -I went back and I played a [Taylor and Joseph chuckle] little bit of Invasions, but I didn't even get through beyond the second mesa, I think.
Jack: It's tedious.
Willie: But I did watch that today too. I watched the like four minutes of whatever the story was for that. I've been going back every now and then to just play like a little bit of... I think watching those tournaments has a different effect on me than it might have on Joey, because I watch those and then I'm just like, I should just give up.
I shouldn't even try doing any of that stuff. [Joseph chuckles] Watching people pull off ridiculous combos. [chuckles]
Jack: I'm like you, with that. Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah.
Jack: I know I'll never be that good. That's why I stick with Invasions just because like. Oh, okay. The computer's gonna let me win pretty much for the most part, but I'm not going to be able to offer much as far as if y'all talk about online stuff, cause I avoid that in general.
Willie: Yeah.
Jack: Do y'all? I know Joey does.
Joseph: I've played some, but not a lot, man. I meant to look at my hours that I've spent online, but online, not even ranked matches, just the casuals, I've probably played 35 online matches, but that's about it.
Jack: Hmm.
Joseph: Honestly, I haven't played the game in like the last month, like I haven't played since the patch where they nerfed like Cyrax and a bunch of other Kameos and like balanced out the damage and stuff like that.
I haven't played since that and I haven't even played Omni-Man since they released that character.
Taylor: What?!
Jack: Kind of came back for Omni-Man and it's been, it's been satisfying.
Joseph: Yeah.
Jack: You're playing as Superman, but it's not, it's a [Joseph chuckles] brutal Superman in that game.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Mostly because I just haven't had time to play any games,
Jack: Mm.
Joseph: But yeah, I haven't played in a good stretch.
Willie: Yeah, I think I played sometime last week, but it was just, I say it has the opposite effect of me of like watching those tournaments and stuff, but every time I do get on, all I do is go to training and like try pulling off combos and like, I'll like literally just watch a YouTube video and be like, okay, I'm just going to work through this, do this combo and see if I can't pull this off.
So I was working through some Smoke stuff the last time I got on. Getting up to like, 300 damage or something on like a decent combo. Not, I couldn't even pull off the whole thing, but I was still getting to like 330 or something like that.
Joseph: So I don't feel like the matchmaking is like spectacular. I don't really know how it works, but it doesn't seem like it's really finely tuned.
But if you jumped in with zero matches, what I think they do is they pair you with other people that have the same win to loss ratio. So like if your 0... coming in 0-0, you'll get paired up with somebody that might be like 7 wins and 7 losses. So it's like the ratio of wins to losses and how it seems like they pair people together.
But you won't come in as a new player, zero wins, zero losses, and be matched up with somebody that has like 90 wins and two losses. That won't happen, which kind of helps create balance in the online play. Which makes it fun. Makes it fun because like, when you find those competitive matches where you're like, Oh shit, both of us aren't really pro players, but we're really pushing each other in terms of the health bar.
Getting down to, like, the last breath and into the Fatal Blow range and stuff like that can be really fun because then you want to keep playing that same person and trade, like, wins and losses. So, I don't know, the competitiveness of that, even though, like, yeah, I know I'll never be on the EVO stage, you know, or probably never, like, win a local tournament, but, uh, there's so much fucking gray area in between playing some casual matches online and being a professional that there's a lot of fun to be had in there.
I recommend at least trying it.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Because it is pretty damn fun.
Jack: Hmm.
Willie: I mean, I definitely will at some point.
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: It's just not a thing that every time I get on, I'm literally just working through combos, so that one day when I do get on, and I'm 0 and 0, and then I just wreck somebody who's like... [Taylor laughs]
Joseph: Yeah, you're playing like you're 30 and 0-
Willie: [laughing] Yeah.
Joseph: -at 0 and 0. [laughs]
Willie: Yeah, we'll see.
Joseph: Yeah, another fun thing is just like being able to execute the things you've been practicing in the lab, or in training. Being able to pull those off in a match against another human player is a lot of, is a lot of fun and like also super rewarding for like spending that time in the lab. So I like that too.
Willie: Yeah. And I think nope, I forgot what I was going to say. Oh, the other thing that I think I've been waiting for, honestly, is just cross play to be implemented, right?
Jack: Mm.
Willie: Because we all talked about wanting to play.
Joseph: Heck yeah.
Willie: And I feel like that is something that we could just stream one night and just go back and forth on playing each other.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: If Taylor's still not playing, then like at least Joey and Jack and I could be on and just have a room where we just trade in and out.
Joseph: We could always bring Taylor in as a color commenter.
Taylor: [chuckling] Yeah, I was just about to say the same, [Joseph, Jack, and Willie laugh] but I could just be calling it.
Joseph: That would be great. Taylor calling the matches. Baraka over here.
Jack: Same combo.
Taylor: There'll be a lot of what's his nuts. [Willie chuckles]
00:19:24
Joseph: [chuckling] Yeah. Taylor, you've seen a lot of the trailers. Even though you haven't played the game, you saw most of the trailers, because we were passing them around pretty -
Taylor: Yeah, yep.
Joseph: -pretty religiously in the group chat before the game released. Who came across as like one of the best characters to play from like the move sets that you saw in the trailers?
Taylor: Scorpion he was just a Kameo, right? Is he not a playable character, or he Is?
Joseph: He's a full playable character.
Taylor: Okay, yeah.
Joseph: He's actually both, he's both.
Taylor: Yeah, I think, uh, I think Scorpion is always my go to in any of them. Seems like they've stuck to his core moveset, or at least his skillset. He still has the get over here and those moves, correct?
Joseph: Yeah, they've done a good job of keeping enough of like the original movesets,
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: -or like the historic movesets, and then obviously adding some air combos on top of that and some new things, but... they have stayed true to the characters, for the most part, yeah.
Taylor: I've always been a ninja dude, uh, Sub-Zero and Scorpion.
Jack: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Definitely like both of them quite a bit.
Joseph: Good thing, because there's like seven fucking ninjas in Mortal Kombat. [Jack and Joseph laugh]
Taylor: Sweet.
Willie: Yeah, it's great to have all of them back.
Taylor: Give me my Noob.
Willie: I feel like we should go ahead and open it up to spoilers because I feel like there's a lot of stuff we could talk about.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: So this is, this is the final warning for anybody who wants to play the game, is worried about spoilers because there is, there's some lore behind this whole thing.
And like Joey said in the intro, it's been confusing over the years and this in itself is also a little confusing, but I think it's a fun story. It's a good story. So if you don't want any spoilers, now is the time to duck out. Go watch the three and a half hour cinematic thing. And then come back and listen to us talk about the rest of it. [Jack chuckles]
Joseph: Willie, you have anything super spoilery that you want to get into first?
Willie: First? Uh, I think one of the most fun parts of the game was at the end of the game, literally just racing up the, uh, the ziggurat.
Jack: Uh-huh.
Willie: Anybody who's played the game knows that there's multiple timelines that are like converging or like people are brought over from other timelines to participate. Or to help win this war at the end and all of the random combinations that happen as you like go up the ziggurat are ridiculous.
Taylor: Hmm.
Willie: I meant to go back and look at my gameplay compared to what I saw in the cinematic version that I watched because I don't know if all those fights stay the same for every person.
Jack: I think they do.
Willie: Okay.
Jack: I played it twice.
Willie: Okay.
Joseph: Hmm. Interesting.
Jack: Or I played the, uh, the last part twice. Who did y'all main the first time or when y'all did it?
Joseph: Like who did... the character select at the end?
Jack: Yeah. When you had to pick your, whoever you're playing.
Willie: I let it just pick Scorpion. I realized that like too late that there was a timer, but I was also just like, I think I'm going to pick Scorpion, and I was just sitting on him, and that's like the one that it starts on. So I think that's who I played.
Joseph: I did the same thing, but it was Liu. So I like, I knew I was going to pick Liu, but I was sitting there pondering and then it fucking selected it. So I was like, Oh my gosh, thank god I was sitting on him.
Jack: I picked Liu just cause that was the one I felt most comfortable playing at that point. But then I was like, I think that was wrong because it's like, okay, well, you're Liu, but also here's Liu next to you. So I was like, oh.
Joseph: Yeah, double Liu, double Liu-ing.
Jack: So yeah, when I went back, I played as a Johnny Cage just cause I think at that point I had picked him up as my main.
Joseph: Mm-hmm
Jack: Yeah, no, I really enjoyed that. I'm kind of over the whole multiverses thing and multiverse. [Taylor and Joseph laugh] thing in media so, [Joseph laughing]
Taylor: Oh my God.
Jack: That kind of got, I mean, I don't know, when I realized that was where we were going with this. It was kind of annoying, but it was super cool to see. Oh, there's like four Johnny Cages now and one, you know, and there was the mime Johnny Cage was a lot of fun.
Joseph: Oh yeah.
Taylor: [chuckling] Oh, nice.
Jack: I wish that was a playable character. Wish we could have gotten that.
Joseph: Yeah.
Jack: I think that was my gripe about that, is that there were so many fun variations that we didn't get to actually play as.
Joseph: Dude, it's still early though-
Jack: True.
Joseph: -so like, those, the mime costume, I could totally see that being a part of the seasonal stuff.
Jack: Would I pay ten bucks for a mime costume? I don't know. Probably not. [Taylor chuckles] That's something we, we should probably talk about is the dragon crystal stuff.
Joseph: Hopefully it's just part of the rewards from playing Invasions, man, like getting color palettes and like the customizables from, I mean, you get that from playing online too, but playing through Invasions, I hope that some of those costumes from the end of MK1 main story is like included in that, that'd be fucking rad.
Taylor: That seems like it'd be a no brainer, like an easy way to win with the fans.
Joseph: Dude, Taylor, you-
Taylor: Give them that.
Joseph: -You have to fucking see the end of this game, dude. The last chapter, last chapter in the game, it's called Armageddon, it's chapter 15. This is the, the moment of like AI integration, but not AI, but uh.
Taylor: Oh.ho, okay.
Joseph: What's the word? We've talked about this before.
Willie: Randomization, basically.
Joseph: Procedural generation.
Willie: Yeah, or yeah, that.
Taylor: Oh, cool.
Joseph: Dude, it is fucking, it is bananas.
00:23:53
Taylor: I'm already so surprised at the story, I just saw Madam Bo get knocked the fuck out.
[Jack, Joseph, and Willie laughing]
Taylor: I mean, she just got fucking slammed mercilessly.
Joseph: Oh, yeah.
Willie: Yeah, yeah.
Jack: Is Madam Bo from one of the original or previous games? Because again, I've walked in fairly...
Taylor: She ain't gonna be [Willie laughing] in the next one, dude-
Not... [laughing]
Joseph: Not to my knowledge.
Taylor: Madam Bo. Fuck.
Joseph: That's the first time I've seen Madam Bo.
Taylor: Man.
Jack: I think she's... you could pick her as an announcer too.
Joseph: Oh, interesting.
Jack: Which is kind of a neat thing. I think, I think I saw that somewhere.
Taylor: Oh, you can pick announcers?
Jack: Yeah.
Joseph: The voices.
Taylor: The announcer voices.
Joseph: Yeah, you can pick the voices, yeah.
Taylor: Whoa, that's so cool. That's a nice detail.
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: Yeah, so that's one of the coolest things about the game. As you go through the game, the announcer's voice changes based on where you are. So I'm already gonna spoil what you're watching, but she's fine.
Jack: Yeah. [laughs]
Willie: She does get knocked the fuck out in that scene.
Joseph: Right, right.
Taylor: Oh, okay, good.
Jack: She...she's in the end.
Willie: It's just a setup. They're basically testing Kung Lao and Raiden in that place. So she's like taking a hit so that they'll come to her defense and like-
Taylor: Ohh, okay.
Willie: -help this problem that's happening. So she gets up at the end.
Joseph: And proves themselves too
Taylor: That makes me feel a lot better.
[Jack, Joseph,Taylor and Willie laugh]
Taylor: I thought she was for sure dead.
Joseph: You're like, damn dude, this is fucking savage.
Willie: Yeah, right out the gate.
Taylor: Yeah, that was some good acting. Yeah, right out the gate.
Willie: But the thing about that is, so when you're in her, what's, what's the right word? It's not a tavern, but her like tea shop when you're in her tea shop-
Joseph: Uh-huh.
Willie: -and, uh, fighting there. I'm pretty sure it probably is her voice who says fight. I don't actually know if that's true, but throughout the game-
Joseph: Oh, I don't know.
Willie: -later in the game, when you get to Queen Sindel's court, it's Sindel who, who says fight at the beginning.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: So it like changes throughout the game based on the location of where you are.
Taylor: That's cool. And it kind of gives you a taste of each of them. I like that.
Joseph: Right.
Jack: But just like in regular, like offline or online-
Willie: Right.
Jack: -whatever, like you can change the announcers and I think even the one you can buy right now is J.K. Simmons, [Willie chuckles] but he doesn't really say anything interesting.
Taylor: Why?!
Joseph: He's Omni-Man. Taylor?
Willie: Right.
Taylor: Oh, that's right. Okay. I... I just imagined him talking shit about Spider-Man [Jack and Willie laugh] on there for some reason. [Joseph laughs] Damn it, Spider-Man is coming through. [all laughing]
Fuckin up these Mortal Kombat guys!
Joseph: Dude, dude, dude. Do your best, J.K. Simmons.
Taylor: Oh man, I can't do it on command.
Joseph: Okay, okay. That was pretty close. Well, if you think of it later, do it.
Taylor: Thank you.
Jack: But it's interesting hearing J.K. Simmons saying stuff like, Liu Kang. Like, okay. [chuckling] [Joseph, Taylor and Willie laugh] That's not something I ever expected to hear in my life.
[Joseph and Taylor laugh]
Joseph: Hell yeah. That's awesome, man.
Taylor: Liu Kang, you're working for the Bugle now. Yeah, that's a, I love him in anything.
Joseph: Back to Madam Bo for a second. I thought she was the second worst voiceover.
Jack: Who was first?
Joseph: First was Megan Fox.
Jack: Okay. Okay. Yes.
Taylor: That makes sense.
Joseph: I love the idea originally, and I thought it was fine in the trailers, but then after I played through the entire story, and I was like, okay, I was still 50 50, but then after I watched the cinematic movie. I was like, okay, no.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: No. Now that I have fresh ears and fresh eyes, I was like, this doesn't-
Jack: No, yeah.
Joseph: -this is not good.
Jack: I was going to say the one that stuck out the worst to me was the dude who was Sub-Zero. Cause I felt like he was just in another game altogether just with this over arching villain voice. [chuckles]
It sounds so...
Joseph: Yeah, like it might've been a little too Batman-y, kind of like deep.
Jack: Yeah.
Joseph: Christian Bale-ish.
Jack: Oh, yeah, I was like...I don't remember anything he said, but like, [in a deep, raspy voice] I'm going to get you.
[Jack and Joseph laugh]
Jack: What are you doing right now? But no, Megan Fox was the worst. It's not her fault, I guess. She didn't know.
Joseph: Well, the thing is, I think Nitara looks fucking amazing. Like her, them modeling her, like after Megan Fox, I think was a brilliant move. And also to get her to voice it too-
Jack: Yeah.
Joseph: -like match them, pair them together. That makes a ton of sense. I just felt like it was a little thin-
Jack: Thin, that's a good...
Joseph: -her voiceover compared to like the woman who voiced over Ashrah, I think was fucking amazing.
Jack: Hmm.
Joseph: Madam Bo, I think, I think she just sounded too young for the age she looks in the game. And that's really my only concern with her voiceover, but I like the performance.
Taylor: She just, I just saw the part [chuckkles] where they thought she was out cold [Willie chuckling] and she just sprung up on him-
Joseph: Oh, yeah. She's like, [Jack chuckling] Suprise bitches. Pysch! [laughs]
Taylor: -Dead? Not yet. Yeah, motherfuckers, I'm here.
[Joseph laughs]
Taylor: Let's have some tea. Like, damn lady, you just fell two stories and you're golden.
Joseph: Right.
Taylor: Yeah.
00:28:03
Joseph: Jack, I just want to, um, ask you if there was a favorite moment of the entire main storyline. Can you think of anything that just really stood out?
Jack: I mean, it was probably that end. I thought it was just an epic end with-
Joseph: It was fucking epic.
Jack: -I don't think it was like Avengers Endgame portal sequence epic, but it was still cool to see all those characters, you know, pop up. And then, you know, the good guys, quote unquote, going up the pyramid, whatever. So no, that was, that was a lot of fun.
Willie: I really like the combinations there that existed that were new, right?
Joseph: Mm.
Willie: Like Jack said, like, there's the Mime Johnny Cage, but like, I wrote the list down of the one that were in the cinematic that I watched, which is why I was like, I wonder if this is the same for everyone, every time, because it seems like just a random collection of stuff. You know?
Joseph: It definitely was, dude.
Willie: Yeah, there's, let's see...
Joseph: Sonya walking around with Kano's eye laser and shit.
Jack: Yeah, yeah.
Taylor: Oh, wow.
Joseph: That's what I'm talking about, Taylor. That's why you should watch the ending.
Willie: Yeah, so I'm watching it. So, the first one is Scorp Lao. It's Kung Lao, but he's Scorpion. He throws Scorpion's, uh, spear.
Joseph: Spear.
Willie: And then there's the Female Reptile, the Female Sub-Zero. And then there's Cassie Kano, who we see, but you don't actually fight her. But then you see, you fight Kitana Khan, who is Kitana, but she's got like the Khan headwear like on, so she's clearly like the new Khan, the new emperor of Outworld. There's Goro, but he's not in a fight, but I forgot what looks weird about him, but I, I didn't write that down.
And then we see like Mime Johnny fighting in that same scene. And then there's the Shock Priestess, who is actually Tanya, but it's Raiden instead. She's got like lightning powers for some reason. Then there's Stung Lao, which is also Kung Lao-
[Joseph, Jack, and Taylor laugh]
Willie: -but he's uh, Scorpion.
Joseph: Yeah-
Taylor: Oh god.
Joseph: -that's fucking amazing. Stung Lao.
Taylor: Oh, I love that they went all in, these are the actual names of them?
Willie: Yeah, yeah. 'Cause you can see them whenever they come up.
Taylor: Wow.
Jack: Wasn't the first one Scorpion and Kung Lao that you said? Or was that different? So they just re-u... so they changed it.
Willie: Yeah, exactly. It was, it was Scorp...his name was Scorp Lao, and then it was Stung Lao. I'm not sure why.
[Joseph and Taylor laugh]
Joseph: Fucking amazing.
Taylor: That's cool.
Willie: In the cinematic that happens right there, there's a Raiden. I don't know what the name actually is cause you don't see it in this. It's not the fight. It's just a cinematic, but there's a Kung Lao who's Raiden. He's got like the evil Raiden red fire, or red lightning instead of-
Joseph: Oh, like the Remnant version of Raiden?
Willie: Remnant, yeah. Revenant, Revenant version of-
Joseph: Revenant, yeah.
Willie: -The Revenant version of, of Kung Lao, but also with Raiden's powers. And then there's Ninja Mime is Johnny Cage's name, I guess. [chuckles]
Joseph: Sick.
Willie: And then there's this weird Quan Chi character that sort of looks like he's wearing a jester's outfit in a cinematic, [Joseph chuckles] but I don't know who he is.
[Joseph chuckling]
Willie: And then there's Fire Cage, who is Johnny Cage-
Joseph: Scorpion and Johnny Cage.
Willie: -but he's the Fire God, I'm pretty sure, actually.
Joseph: Oh.
Willie: And then there's another Scorpion versus Quan Chi versus Liu Kang Shang Tsung fight, which is the actual people that you are. And then it's The final fight is whoever you picked versus Shang Tsung, Shang Tsung and Quan Chi and like, uh, in order.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: But it's just like a random collection of people with their powers all smashed up and just being whatever.
Joseph: You know, what I really love about it. And this is pretty true for like, um, Ed Boon and just like the entire history of Mortal Kombat that. They really pull in their own kind of fandom, like the stuff they're really fans of and the characters that they really would love to see in Mortal Kombat are the characters that they try to bring in-
Jack: Hmm.
Joseph: -and get licensing for and stuff like that.
I like how authentic that is, that they're just kind of like having fun with their decisions. I feel like this ending to this game is another one of those moments where they like all got together and they're like, Hey, just like fucking submit your ideas.
Jack: Hmm.
Joseph: Nothing is off the table, but think about how we can mash up different characters with each other and like trade abilities and aesthetics and stuff like that.
And like, just come up with this fucking bucket of Lego pieces, MK characters or something, like I fucking love that they have that much fun with it.
Willie: I do think it's different for each play through. I went back to my Twitch playthrough, and I'm looking at it right now, and my first enemy was someone named Firefly-
Jack: Hmm.
Willie: -who looks like-
Joseph: Hmm.
Willie: -is her name Li Mei? Is that how you say it, or is it Li Mai?
Joseph: Li Mei, yeah.
Willie: Li Mei.
Joseph: Li Mei.
Willie: It's Firefly, but it looks like Li Mei's character model, but as Scorpion.
Jack: Interesting.
Joseph: Nice.
Jack: Okay.
Willie: And my second fight looks like, his name is Quantum Chi, which may be the-
Joseph: Ohh. [laughs]
Willie: -said person I look like-
Taylor: Oh. Oh wow. [Jack laughs]
Willie: -looks like a jester because he's wearing some very flowy stuff. But, uh, it's Quan Chi, but he's like obviously traveled through time with some quantum whatever.
Taylor: Oh, wow.
Joseph: Quantum Chi-
Taylor: That's cool.
Joseph: -that's fucking such a cool name. [Jack laughs]
Taylor: Yeah, it is.
Joseph: Damn.
Taylor: I'm rethinking rap names right now. [Jack laughs]
Joseph: Yeah. [chuckling]
Willie: Then uh, Female Ermac-
Taylor: [in MK announcer voice] Quantum Chi.
Willie: -and then, uh,
Jack: Huh?!
Taylor: Oh wow.
Willie: Reiko Star.
Joseph: Ah.
Willie: He's like-
Joseph: Like a Ringo Starr?
Willie: Yeah, except it's, it's Reiko.
Joseph: Nice.
Willie: Like Johnny Cage, basically, like the mashup of those two.
Jack: Oh.
Joseph: Mmm, Mm-hmm , Mm-hmm . Dude, man, I love it, dude.
Willie: Yeah.
00:33:00
Joseph: I love it. I mean, I kind of, main storyline, I kind of felt like it went off the fucking rails in, in, uh, Act 15, Chapter 15. I was like, okay, this shit is just kind of like getting bonkers, but I fucking enjoyed playing it-
Jack: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: -so much that it was like, all is forgiven. And then when I realized that this is probably some kind of parallel with Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, the movie, and the pyramid scene at the end of that movie, and how fucking trash, garbage-ness that fucking movie is.
I was like, are they trying to right that wrong? And I think I mentioned this to you, Willie, like, way, like, the night I finished it-
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: -I was like, oh my gosh, dude. The chapter's called Armageddon, and there's the pyramid, and it's totally badass. And this is completely opposite from the movie, Mortal Kombat: Armageddon. I was like, there has to be some kind of fucking connection there.
Willie: Yeah.
Jack: Which one's Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, the movie?
Willie: It came out, right...
Joseph: It's the second one.
Willie: It's the sequel to the original Mortal Kombat.
Jack: Wasn't that Annihilation?
Joseph: Oh, you're right. You're right. You're right. It is called Annihilation.
Jack: Wasn't that Annihilation? Sorry, that felt like a dick thing. [Jack and Taylor laugh]
Joseph: Yeah. Yeah, my fault.
Jack: But Armageddon was a game though, wasn't it?
Willie: Armageddon was a game too. It's like 6.
Jack: But did it have a pyramid?
Joseph: I don't think it did? Maybe?
Willie: It had some temple like structures, but I don't think it was the same. There is a scene definitely where they're rushing through the desert in the same sort of way that there are a bunch of characters-
Joseph: That's what I remember, yeah.
Willie: -racing towards each other. And I think that, yeah, that is I think six or something like that.
Jack: Y'all saw the most recent movie, right?
Willie: Yeah, yeah.
Joseph: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Jack: I thought it was kind of funny how even in the multiverse, Cole Young [chuckling] wasn't invited to play with the Mortal Kombat characters.
[Joseph laughs]
Jack: That character is awful.
Joseph: I thought it was awful too.
Willie: That movie, I wanted to like it and it was fine,
Jack: Huh, wanted to like it. [chuckles]
Willie: But it's like, not... I would rather watch the original Mortal Kombat live action.
Jack: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: I would rather watch the cut scene movies for any of the fucking MK games. [Willie chuckles]
Jack: But you know what? The very first scene with the Scorpion and Sub-Zero characters fighting, that was almost worth it.
Willie: Yeah.
Jack: That was great. But yeah, everything after that was...
Joseph: Yeah, man. I don't know. Because like, the story in like, MK1, it's so fucking good.
Jack: Hmm.
Joseph: MK9, dude, when like, there's the time shenanigans starting. MK11, when there's like, all the younger versions of themselves and also their like, offspring and stuff. Like, these stories are fucking good.
Like MK stories are well crafted and man, so much respect for building stories around all these fucking characters and giving them reasons to fight each other. [Jack chuckles] That's fucking hard to do, man. And to make it as appealing as they do, I think is a huge fucking success. And in Mortal Kombat 1, like I think that is a great thing about this game is that they all feel authentic in their drive.
Jack: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: To exist in this world and like a good example is Ashrah dude, like I love her motivation throughout the game, you know, like I fucking love that and Baraka... this is the best Baraka I've ever seen, in MK1. What they did with his story-
Taylor: He looks great.
Joseph: -Dude, he looks amazing.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: -And his voiceover-
Taylor: Yeah, they really gnarled him out and made him look like a beast.
Joseph: Dude, his voiceover is amazing.
Taylor: From what I've seen so far, the cut scenes. This feels a lot like the first movie, whenever they all meet on the beach, like, like you said earlier, Joey, like the lit scenes, like how good the lighting is everywhere and the cinematics. It really gives the feel of the original Mortal Kombat movie.
I'm wondering how much they tried to dive back into that. Recapture that feeling because they definitely did a pretty good job.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Jack: I forgot what I was going to say, but I. But what you said reminded or remind me that I wanted to bring up the dude that they got for Shang Tsung's voice. And also his look was perfect.
He had that look of the guy from the movie, but younger. And he just, he just had that perfect look-
Joseph: Yeah.
Jack: -spoiler when it was revealed that he was like the Big Bad, the multiversal, like the Fire God version of Shang Tsung was the big bad. I thought that was perfect because it always comes down to Liu Kang vs. Shang Tsung, it was just the perfect idea.
And even the Liu Kang guy, he was good.
Joseph: I love that he disguised himself as Kronika.
Willie: Yeah. Or someone who looks quite similar. Yeah.
Taylor: Huh.
Joseph: Yeah. I love that because there was a part of me like for a while that was like, man, how is Kronika like back? You know, like surprised that she's even involved in the story.
Like Liu Kang, when he's reshaping history would like even include her as somebody in the universe. You know, like that was super interesting to me. And then when it was finally revealed, I think that was good. And the voice acting is fucking just, that's a hundred percent dude for Shang Tsung.
Jack: Mm-hmm.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: So good.
Taylor: He looks interesting in this one. I came across a scene where I don't remember who he was talking to. He was talking to, maybe it was Kronika, he was talking to someone and she reveals something to him. And, and it starts doing these weird cut scenes on his face where he's like, "ha, eh," and he looks more insane with each one.
Like. I'm not sure what the scene was exactly. It's just one I came across, but I just thought that was interesting. Like, uh, a lot of, um, a lot of depth to that character. Almost like a rebooted Joker or something, if that makes sense.
Jack: Hm.
Willie: When Barbara was, I think she watched me play a little bit, but she like actually was watching the cinematics when I was watching them today.
Joseph: Nice. Nice.
Willie: I don't know if she said she's my favorite character or she said, but she, what she did say was, he seems like he's having the most fun out of anybody in this game.
Jack: Mm. Mm-hmm. [Taylor laughing]
Willie: She was like, I don't know if sassy is the right word to describe him-
Jack: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -but like everything he says is like, in my opinion, I would say like, it's very like arrogant the way that he talks a lot of the time. It definitely does seem like he's having the most fun carrying out this plan the entire time.
Taylor: It's awesome.
Joseph: He knows what the end goal is, dude, like what his agenda is. And like, I agree, arrogant is probably my best word to describe it.
Willie: And I'm not even talking about, this is just the version of Shang Tsung that exists in Liu Kang's world that has been given this gift of sorcery, right?
Joseph: Right.
Willie: That he's like, he thinks he's the mastermind behind all of this.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
00:38:47
Willie: I do... I think we should take a second to catch Taylor up on the story as quickly as we can, like not the whole thing, but what's really cool about this game is the tournament happens very early on in the game.
Taylor: Hmm.
Willie: Liu Kang is gathering Earth's warriors to go to this tournament in Outworld. One of the funniest lines in the early part of the game though, is that he says like, no one has ever died in this tournament or been injured.
Jack: I love that.
Willie: He's telling the earth defenders [Taylor laughs] like no one has ever died or been injured in this tournament because he recreated this world where they have this tournament-
Taylor: Oh god. [chuckling]
Willie: -and it actually is just a friendly tournament between Earthrealm and Outworld.
And ultimately he thinks, Oh, if outworld does win another one, there are forces there talking about, General Shao and people who were under General Shao, that will take that as like, oh, Earth is weak and we should destroy them. So it's like, we have to win.
Taylor: Oh.
Willie: But it's not as serious as. We have to win this one because Outworld's gonna win ten in a row, and then they get the right to come conquer us. It's like, not that at all.
Taylor: Hmm.
Willie: But they get the tournament out of the way pretty early in the story, and Liu Kang realizes that Shang Tsung has somehow escaped the fate that he gave him. He, like, when he reshaped the world, he didn't give him any actual sorcerer powers.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Huh.
Willie: But someone came to him who looked like Kronika, who, or Kronika and like said, I can make you powerful again and have the realms at your feet sort of thing.
Taylor: Hmm.
Willie: And so he's like going along with his plan throughout the entire game. And then at the end of the game realizes this is just an alternate version of himself. It's actually the version of... at the end of MK11, there's two endings to the game. And this is basically one of the endings. It's the other ending where Shang Tsung wins the whole thing.
And he becomes the Keeper of Time.
Taylor: Wow.
Willie: And so like, this is him now invading one timeline from another.
Jack: It's a cool idea.
Taylor: Yeah, it is.
Willie: And it's cool that-
Taylor: Great reboot.
Willie: -they got to keep both endings from MK11, right?
Joseph: Yeah, and that's fucking brilliant the way they weave that in, man.
Jack: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: Just the fact that at the end of Aftermath, you can side with Liu Kang or side with Shang Tsung. And that they've kind of turned both of those endings, like that decision you make as a player into canon-
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: -just both of them into the story in MK1 is fucking brilliant.
Willie: That's what I think I was most impressed with, is that they pulled that off. That they had a game that had multiple endings, but it's like, both of these are true.
And-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -you're still playing Liu Kang's version of the story, right? You're still seeing it from his perspective. But Shang Tsung is still out there still like gathering forces and invading the timeline to manipulate, to manipulate himself-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -in another timeline.
Taylor: Hmm.
Joseph: What happened, uh, Taylor is that so there's Liu Kang's timeline where he kind of envisioned the world and shaped the history of the universe. Shang Tsung finds out, the Shang Tsung from Mortal Kombat 11 finds out that the fabric of time has been torn and that there are now multiple timelines. Shang Tsung finds out that he can infiltrate Liu Kang's timeline and that's what he does-
Taylor: Oh snap.
Joseph: -to like manipulate the events in Liu Kang's timeline. Which is fucking sinister dude.
Willie: Yep.
Taylor: Yeah it is.
Joseph: This is like let's fucking watch the world burn.
Willie: And it gets even more sinister because what happened...
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: It gets more convoluted right because Liu Kang then realizes like oh well what if there are other timelines. Shang Tsung only found one other but what if there's lots more and then he goes to find that like-
Taylor: Hmm.
Willie: -their Kitana won the fight in MK11 at some point. So she's actually the Timekeeper now.
Taylor: Oh wow.
Willie: And so did Raiden and so did Kung Lao. And like-
Taylor: Huh.
Joseph: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Willie: -I can't remember who else he brings in, but like other people.
Joseph: Well, everybody dude.
Willie: Well, so first he brings in those four and then they're like, Oh, well we need to build an army from the rest of the timeline. So like, go get your people.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Wow.
Willie: And then they just all show up together. And the convoluted part is, is I guess where it gets more sinister is, Shang Tsung shows up and realizes, Oh, there's actually more than two timelines. It's not just me and you. It's everybody. He's like, well, that makes this choice to destroy your timeline completely. Okay. Because I know I have other timelines instead of yours.
Taylor: Right, there's plenty of other ones. [Joseph and Taylor laughing, Jack chuckles]
That's fucked.
Willie: Instead of yours, I'll just destroy yours and merge some other timeline with mine later.
00:42:56
Joseph: You mentioned Liu Kang figuring that out. It was Shang Tsung that figured it out.
Willie: Yeah, yeah.
Joseph: The current version of Shang Tsung is like, well, if there's two-
Willie: Right.
Joseph: -then why couldn't there be more? That's where you can go and find other Titans to use as allies. So it's like, dude, Shang Tsung is just like a head of the fucking game.
Willie: Yeah, I did.... yeah, you're right. I did really like that. Cause I also liked Liu Kang's response to that. Because when Shang Tsung starts talking about it, I'm not going to remember the wording, so it's not going to hit as much.
But Liu Kang says like, what is, what are you playing at here? He's like, what's like, what's with the mind games or what's with the, he says something very specific that I was like, Oh shit. Like he's like. Like, they can't think of the word when you, like, game out a problem in your head. He's like, he's just like, says that to Shang Tsung and Shang Tsung explains like, oh, well, there could be more timelines.
Like, aren't you following me?
Joseph: Yeah. Yeah. Something else that you reminded me of, Willie, about the MK Tournament, like the actual tournament, the civilized tournament between Earthworld.
Earth world, wow. Outworld and Earthrealm. The most surprising thing about the game to me is that the tournament is done by the end of chapter three-
Jack: Hmm.
Joseph: -and there are chapter, 15 chapters in this game, and they-
Taylor: Wow.
Joseph: -somehow created the entire game after the whole tournament is finished.
Taylor: That makes sense because the tournament has always been the biggest focus.
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: It's always been the tournament, the numbers, the, you know, take over.
Joseph: Mm-hmm. Especially in the first Mortal Kombat movie, dude. In the first Mortal Kombat movie, it's literally all the way to the end, Liu Kang versus Shang Tsung.
Taylor: Yeah.
Jack: But the thing that kind of, I didn't kind of like about the tournament part was it wasn't really a tournament. It was like, okay, you're Raiden and just fight all this string of people. All these other people we're bringing, they're not, you're not really playing.
Willie: It was basically just the tower.
Joseph: They cut a couple of people out.
Willie: Yeah, it was just the tower version of the tournament, right?
Joseph: Yeah.
Jack: Yeah.
Willie: Where you just like, Raiden has to fight through 10 people.
Jack: But like, why bring everybody else there?
Willie: Yeah.
Jack: If you're not going to do anything until after the tournament.
Joseph: They did explain it in the game. So like, why does Earthrealm only have one champion versus Outworld that has like six or seven?
They explain it as Outworld ha... Outworld having the advantage because they are the host realm. So they get multiple champions-
Taylor: Hmm.
Jack: Big ass advantage. [laughs]
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: -versus all other realms that only get one... yeah, dude.
Willie: Had to fight through ten people.
Jack: That doesn't seem fair.
Joseph: And they didn't even show all the fights. So like in the game, they mentioned like Raiden also beating Shiva and Motaro.
Jack: Right.
Willie: And Kotal, yeah.
Joseph: So there were like other fights... Yeah, and Kotal. There were other fights that didn't even happen in the cinematics.
Jack: You know what, I guess if there's no chance of death or being hurt, then it's fair. But still like Raiden has to fight. What, 50 people by the end of it?
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Man, I'm loving the design. Uh, Shao looks, what's his name?
Joseph: General Shao.
Taylor: General Shao. Oh my God-
Joseph: Yeah, dude.
Taylor: -what a badass looking character.
Joseph: Oh, his voiceover too, man.
Taylor: Oh, man, his armor. Like the details in all of the, really all of the clothing and everything are incredible. And you really notice it on the cinematics. You get to see all those fibrous textures. Everything looks incredible.
Joseph: I agree, man. I would say this Mortal Kombat has my favorite costumes in maybe ever.
Jack: Hmm.
Joseph: Except for just like the real old school classic stuff from like MK 1 through 3. This MK I think has the best costume design out of all other Mortal Kombat's.
Taylor: It's amazing. Set design. There's so much good going on with this. They really gave it the touch.
Joseph: Taylor, you probably don't know this, but when you play in the game, like, um, not, not the main storyline, but when you play either online or you're training. You can select the stage, right? Yeah, I mean, uh, yeah, yeah, you can select the stage, but they have night and day options for every stage.
Taylor: Ooh. Man, it's crazy how so many games you really have to, like, twist an arm and have a bunch of feedback to even get maybe a night or a daytime version of some maps. That's pretty cool, that they've got it on all of them.
Joseph: I love it, dude. Yeah, it's super cool.
Taylor: That's really nice. And, and the difference, like the variety and the lighting and everything, I assume, is probably pretty awesome.
Joseph: Mm-hmm , Mm-hmm .
Taylor: Like when you switch from day to night.
Joseph: What I love about it is, I think the reason they did it is because they put so much time and effort in those stage designs.
Jack: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Hell yeah.
Joseph: They fuckin know they're good. So they're like, we're gonna give you daytime lighting and nighttime lighting because we wanna fuckin flex the stage designs the level designs.
Taylor: It seems like they went all out on this one. It really does every... everything I seen about it, seems like they gave it 110 percent to make this the best game that they possibly could.
Jack: So again, I didn't play 11, but did 11 have stage fatalities?
Joseph: Uh, that's a good question.
Jack: Or is that something they got rid of a while ago? Because I kind of missed those in this game.
Taylor: Oh, there aren't any.
Joseph: I don't know if 11 did.
Willie: I don't-
Jack: No stage fatality.
Taylor: Interesting.
Willie: -It feels like it might have only because 11 had interactable items, right?
Joseph: Yeah, like in combat, mid-game.
Willie: In combat you could hit a button to pick up an axe that was stuck in the ground and throw that at somebody or something.
Taylor: Oh, wow.
Willie: So it feels like there should be, but maybe there weren't there either. I don't know when the last one was.
Jack: Maybe like Kameos took part... or took that over.
Joseph: Yeah, Jack, what you said, I think they were gone for a while and then that they came back in one of the more recent games, but I don't, I don't know if it was in 11. And then some of them, some of those games I just didn't play enough of.
Willie: There's an article called how to do all stage fatalities in Mortal Kombat 11 Aftermath.
Joseph: Hmm.
Willie: So there might've been in, at least in the-
Taylor: Maybe, might be one of those fucking AI articles-
Willie: I mean, it looks like it is. I'm pretty sure. [Jack and Joseph laughing]
Taylor: -where it walks you down a path, and it's like, so basically what's going on is there aren't any in here, sorry. [Jack laughs] Oh my god, I hate it so much. [Joseph laughs]
Joseph: Oh man.
Willie: Yeah, it is bad.
Joseph: I asked Jack about his favorite moment in the game, and I think I do really have a favorite moment of the game, and it's in Fuckin chapter four, three, uh, I don't remember.
It could be chapter five. It's chapter five. Okay, so Baraka is chapter five. And the moment when Johnny Cage gives Sento back-
Jack: Hmm.
Joseph: -or gives Sento to Kenshi, man, is my favorite moment of the entire game. I got a little emotional at that moment because they did a fantastic job of building up the conflict and the tension between those two characters all the way from Chapter 2 in Johnny Cage's Mansion.
The arc of that, I think, was fucking expert. Love that so much.
Willie: Yeah. Obviously, Johnny has no idea, like, what he's giving him or, like, the power that he's about to have. Cause he's also, like, telling him at the same time, I'm gonna give you this, but stay out of the fight. Because you're blind right now. You can't see-
Jack: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -like you need to protect yourself over here.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: And then sees Kenshi go off with it and be like, Oh shit-
Taylor: Awesome.
Willie: -I didn't realize it could do that.
Taylor: Yeah. So Kenshi is just starting out as normal, right?
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: Like I haven't noticed him having any special powers. He has a sword and some sick hand tats.
00:49:46
Joseph: Taylor, this is what happened. So in chapter two, you end up in Johnny Cage's mansion. Kenshi shows up demanding Sento back because Johnny Cage has paid 3,000,000 for Sento-
Taylor: Oh wow.
Joseph: -and Kenshi is basically saying, Hey, this is, this belongs to my family.
Taylor: And that's his sword.
Willie: Yeah. Yeah.
Joseph: Sento is a sword.
Taylor: Okay. All right.
Joseph: So then he's demanding it back and wants it back. So then they fight and it's Johnny Cage's chapter so you beat Kenshi. And then like Liu Kang and fucking company showed up, which is fucking amazing. Liu Kang rings the doorbell, which is awesome, [Jack and Taylor laugh] to get Johnny Cage's attention.
Taylor: He seems like his the second, most fun for sure in this-
Joseph: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway-
Taylor: Understandable.
Joseph: And Sento [he meant Kenshi] believes it belongs to him and his family and ancestors. So anyway, we get all the way...
Taylor: Also, understandable.
Joseph: Yeah. Yeah. We get all the way to Baraka's chapter. The bickering is going on through chapters three and four. And then finally in Shang Tsung's laboratory in Chapter 5, which is Baraka's chapter, or actually in Chapter 4, Mileena fucking stabs out Kenshi's eyes with her sais, dude, like brutal.
Taylor: Ohh. So that's how it happens.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Yes.
Taylor: Oh my god.
Joseph: In brutal fucking fashion, dude. And then they get captured and they end up in Shang Tsung's laboratory as prisoners. And then when they're in there, Johnny Cage is like helping Kenshi. This is like the turning point. And Johnny Cage is helping like apply medication to the bandana that Kenshi wears-
Taylor: Oh.
Joseph: -over his eyes to help Kenshi like deal with the pain. So like that's the moment like the friendship seems to like take a turn and then in chapter 5, Johnny Cage is essentially protecting Kenshi because he can't see and he can't fight in battle-
Taylor: That's cool.
Joseph: -and like really holding him back, holding him back from getting involved because Johnny Cage is worried about him-
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: -and then finally, as things kind of really ramp up and like Quan Chi and a bunch of... Nitara and a bunch of other fools get involved, Johnny Cage is having a hard time convinching, convincing, convinching?
Yeah, this is Kenshi and convincing all wrapped in one word. [Jack and Taylor laugh]
Taylor: Kenshi the Convinchi.
Jack: He fights with his words.
Taylor: Yes. [Joseph and Taylor laugh]
Yeah
Joseph: Johnny Cage is having a hard time convincing Kenshi to stay out of the fight. So then he swaps swords with, with Kenshi and says here, like, give me your sword and then Kenshi can't see so Johnny Cage pulls Sento off of his back and gives it to Kenshi.
Taylor: Boom.
Joseph: Kenshi can immediately feel like his ancestry in the blade.
Taylor: Oh, sick.
Joseph: And is like, why are you giving this to me? And Johnny Cage is like, you saved my life so this is yours now.
Taylor: Oh wow.
Joseph: That fucking moment, dude. I was like-
Taylor: I'm going to go ahead and say it's fucked up that he waited [Jack laughs] that long to give it to him.
Joseph: Well, yeah, yeah. It was.
Taylor: Like, maybe this dude would still have his eyes-
Jack: I mean...
Taylor: -if he actually gave it to him, but okay.
Jack: For all he knows, he would have died within the next 20 minutes and he'd just take it right back so.
Taylor: Right. Right. He might've taken his own life with it on accident, just swinging it around, being a badass. He might've been too badass with eyes. [Joseph laughs]
Jack: That reminded me that I-
Taylor: Yeah, that's true.
Jack: -what I really liked about the beginning chapters is like, you've got the first versions of the characters. So like you fight as Kung Lao without the hat. [laughing] And he has to figure out-
Joseph: Aw, dude.
Jack: -he finds the hat, or he, you know, figures that part out. I thought that was kind of funny and fun. I also want to mention, uh, it made Raiden interesting again. As far as like, he's not just boring Fire God.
Joseph: Hell yeah.
Jack: He's like, he's like teen Raiden. Just a guy. Just a young guy.
Joseph: Dude, when Kung Lao throws his hat into the back of Sub-Zero's head, [Jack chuckles] at Madam Bo's-
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: -that's actually like, pretty good comedic moment.
Willie: Yeah, Sub-Zero's just like, annoyed with it whenever it hits him too. [Jack and Joseph laugh] He just turns around.
Joseph: It's so great.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: I love that. They're having fun with this shit.
Taylor: And the little details, showing the hat dented on the floor-
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: -things like that, makes a big difference. I do like that they start so light with it. Cause it sounds like it gets extremely heavy about halfway through and then the rest of the game, so they did a really good job.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: I think, at, um, varying up the feel of it. The intro feels everything's funny and laughing, and the tournament, and then things just go to shit from there. So that's awesome.
Willie: I don't know why I thought of this. I think, cause you were talking about that Baraka chapter, but can one of y'all confirm, or let me know if this is wrong, but the Test Your Mights that show up in this, one of them happens there in that Baraka chapter. I think at the end of it.
Joseph: I think it's the door, right?
Willie: Yeah, it's the door. The first one is like trying to break down this door-
Jack: Hmm.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -is you have to bust through this door with a Test Your Might situation. And then there's two others, I think. One is where Ermac is trying to break off your arms. I think he's fighting Kenshi at the time.
Taylor: Oh God.
Willie: Or maybe you're fighting Sub you're Sub-Zero? I don't remember. I can't remember who it is.
Joseph: Sub-Zero has a like direct fight with Ermac.
Willie: Yeah. And Ermac is pulling his arms back. Like he's going to pull them off of his body and Test Your Might is like making sure you don't get your arms snapped off.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: And then the last one is when you're fighting Reiko or no, Havik, sorry. And Havik is trying to force your face into some molten metal and you like-
Taylor: Oof.
Willie: -turn it around on him and shove his face in it instead. But I think that's it. Are there any other like Test Your Might situations?
Joseph: Only in invasions.
Willie: Okay. Yeah, yeah.
Joseph: So there's a ton in Invasions. But that, yeah, that's really limited in the main story, probably to just those.
Jack: There's a notorious one at the end of the first season of Invasions where, like, you do the seasonal tower and it is hell to get to the last floor, and it's a test of your might with, like, the tiniest little thing-
Joseph: Aw.
Jack: -and if you fail it, you fail the tower.
Willie: Ah.
Joseph: Oh, damn!
Willie: That's so shitty. [laughing]
Joseph: Like, you have to start it over?
Taylor: Wow.
Jack: Yeah-
Joseph: Aww.
Jack: -you don't get the credit. You don't... Oof.
Joseph: That sucks because I was kind of having trouble with the Test Your Mights, like just from like overshooting them.
Willie: Oh, yeah, I guess using the pen wouldn't help during overshooting them.
Joseph: I did something similar that I was doing with my fingers just like raking it across and that's why I kept overshooting it because I was like [mimicking sound of finger pressing buttons rapidly]
Jack: I'd overshoot but then bring it back down [Taylor chuckles]
Joseph: And you can just like let go like let up off the keys and it comes back down
Jack: Yeah.
Joseph: And then you're like boom.
Jack: You just gotta time that.
Joseph: Try to smash it like right in the range.
Jack: I luckily, I was able to do it first try so if I didn't-
Joseph: Ooh.
Jack: -that last seasonal tower is the worst.
00:55:49
Willie: You said you beat season one Invasions, but also already beat season two.
Jack: Yeah.
Willie: I haven't played too much of those. And I know Joey's played some. How have those been for you, Jack?
Jack: They're not fun. They're tedious, but it's more like a, just to complete it kind of thing. I love the skins. So I'll, I'll keep going to find skins or palettes or whatever they're called. I forgot what it's called, but I'll keep doing it. And also it's, I feel like ranking up characters is tedious, but at least you're doing, when you're doing it this way, you get something for it.
Willie: Yeah, because you have to master each character to get certain parts of their palette or certain items in their inventory, right?
Jack: Yeah.
Willie: Like, because you can change out Sento blade to look like something different or, you know, Rain's staff can be something different, but it only comes, some of those things will only come if you master that character, meaning you have to complete a set of tasks, right?
Jack: Luckily, all the brutalities are unlocked before, like, season, or before level 15, so at least that's not awful.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Jack: And you can do all the fatalities before unlocking whatever the last one is, just if you know, if you look up whatever the buttons are. But yeah, if you want the fun palettes, then you have to go, because I finally leveled up Omni-Man, who has a level 20 cap, and it's an invincible color scheme, or whatever, and that's a lot of fun.
Willie: I assume there are plenty of people who have everything, but I wonder how much time it takes to, like-
Jack: I can't imagine getting everything.
Joseph: That's a good question dude.
Willie: -just get everything.
Jack: I've, like, maxed out Johnny Cage and, like, Omni-Man and kind of got to Liu Kang, but I'm just, I can't, it's too much grinding, it's too tedious.
Joseph: It's really fucking grindy, dude.
Jack: I've only leveled up one Kameo all the way because those go even slower.
Joseph: It makes you wish that the characters move faster on the game board.
Jack: They do now. Season, or level, or, yeah.
Joseph: Oh, nice. Nice.
Jack: Increased it.
Joseph: They sped that up?
Jack: Yeah, sped that up.
Joseph: That's good. Because you can spend a lot of time, did they add a map? Did they add any kind of mini map?
Jack: No, and that sucks.
Joseph: Yeah, because you can get lost in Invasions on the board, just forgetting what you've covered and where you've been. Like, you can get lost pretty easily, so I think it would be super helpful for that.
Jack: I mean, they give you an arrow, just like which, whatever the main...
Joseph: Yeah, but they're colored, man. They're colored, and I had fucking trouble seeing that shit.
Jack: Oh, that's right.
Joseph: So I don't think that's the best solution, but.
Jack: But you also can't go through every part until you unlock the last one. And get like the special item to unlock everything else. So then you're like, where the hell is all this other stuff, so.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: I guess that happened to me cause I only got halfway through. I got to Shang Tsung's laboratory in Season 1 with Scorpion. And didn't finish, but there were a ton of unlocked, ton of locked stuff that obviously I didn't get to because I didn't get to the end.
Jack: I think like the main thing you get was pretty cool scorpion skin or whatever. I think you could also end up buying if you wanted to, but not a fan of the store.
Willie: Yeah, you started to say something about that earlier, didn't you, Jack? Did you finish that thought about paying for...?
Jack: Not really. I thought we'd come back to that. Yeah. Cause like a lot of the cool stuff is just, is definitely like a pay for kind of thing. I bought that edition that came with, I think it was like 1500 dragon crystals and day one I was like, I need this Sub-Zero, um, day of the dead.
Joseph: Oh, the day of the dead. [Joseph and Taylor laugh]
Jack: [laughing] Which I don't regret that at all. I think it's awesome.
Joseph: Yeah.
Jack: But yeah, then it's like, Oh, everything else costs stuff.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Jack: I think there's that controversy about the, the seasonal fatalities-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Jack: -now all three of them can be bundled together for the 1500 crystals, but before it was just one fatality, like the Halloween one for the 1500.
Joseph: Right, Right. Yeah, I guess that's good that they're at least adjusting in some way. But-
Jack: But still, it's-
Joseph: There's something about Mortal Kombat that has micro transactions in it that, I mean, we're fucking, we're thinking about 30 years of games, dude, like 30 years of games. Don't fucking, don't pull up with that bullshit.
00:59:22
Taylor: So is Omni-Man the first DLC character that's released for it so far?
Jack: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Okay. And do we know who's next?
Joseph: I don't. Does anybody know?
Taylor: I saw the full lineup with, uh,
Jack: I know Homelander's last.
Taylor: Oh, really?
Jack: Yeah.
Taylor: Oh, they're going to [Joseph laughs] make us wait for Homelander. Okay.
Joseph: Yeah, that would be cool.
Taylor: Cause man, Homelander versus Omni-Man just seems, hell yeah, I want to see that. So who are the other people?
Joseph: I'm super interested in, geez, I'm forgetting his name.
Jack: Ermac and, um...
Taylor: Okay, Ermac-
Joseph: It's not Takahashi.
Taylor: -is the yellow ninja.
Willie: Takeda. There's Takeda Takahashi.
Joseph: Is his name Takahashi?
Willie: Yeah, his last name is Takahashi, yeah. Takeda Takahashi.
Joseph: That's who I'm most interested in.
Taylor: And then John Cena. John Cena is, uh-
Willie: Is Peacemaker, yeah.
Jack: Oh yeah, Peacemaker.
Taylor: Peacemaker, right? Yeah. Wow. That's an interesting one.
Joseph: Yeah, dude.
Taylor: I guess it's gonna be gun and grenade based, mostly.
Jack: Corporate synergy. [laughs]
Joseph: I'm interested in hearing his voiceover, or I assume he's voiceovering, uh, doing the voiceover.
Taylor: Oh, of course.
Willie: That'd be weird if he didn't.
Taylor: You know he wants to do that.
Joseph: Yeah. Especially if they use his fucking face.
Willie: Yeah.
Jack: Well, the dude who's Homelander said he's not doing it, but who knows?
Taylor: Oh, really?
Willie: Interesting.
Taylor: Huh.
Joseph: I mean, then you got J.K. Simmons, you know, in the mix.
Taylor: Hmm.
Joseph: So, I mean, it's not the worst thing in the world, but I hope it is.
Taylor: That's an interesting choice though for him not to do it. I guess maybe that dude's just got enough going on that he's not even worried about it.
Jack: I think there's still hope, but he just commented on some sort of Instagram post where someone asked him and it was just a quick no. So, who knows? [Taylor laughs]
Joseph: Interesting.
Jack: Maybe he's just pulling a Homelander.
Joseph: Yeah. You know who they need to get into the game. Fucking Bautista, dude.
Taylor: Aw, dude. [Jack and Willie laugh]
Joseph: Like they got him into that trailer.
Taylor: As Drax. Get him in there as Drax The Destoyer, or what?. [Joseph laughs]
Jack: Or wait, just as him? [laughs]
Joseph: That'd be great, yeah, yeah.
[laughs] Shit, man.
Taylor: Just Bautista. He's wearing like a cool, uh, just a cut off, a sleeveless cool vest or something.
Joseph: That live action trailer with him in it was just fucking gold.
Taylor: I thought he was going to be in it just because he was in that.
Joseph: I did too.
Willie: I think we thought, we were talking about that in our text thread at some point, speculating about it. And I was like, I-
Taylor: Yeah.
Jack: Ohh. [Joseph laughs]
Taylor: Oh yeah.
Willie: And I was like, what if it was just that character?
Taylor: Senor creeper.
Jack: Yeah. Couldn't be Drax cause that's Disney. But out of all of his characters, it would probably be. [chuckles] Is it really just Knock at The Cabin that [Willie chuckles ] he's also known for doing?
Joseph: [chuckling] I have no idea, dude.
Jack: [laughing] It'd be the funniest.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah, it would.
Joseph: I mean, it could just be his wrestling persona.
Willie: Yeah.
Jack: Yeah.
Joseph: Just straight up. We'll just, [laughs] we're going to put him in the game. Fuck it. I am really interested to see what other guest characters they include.
Jack: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: So not like the DLC that's already been announced, but like. The Rambos and Terminators and Robocops, like what other guest characters are they going to bring into MK1 to just keep the fucking train going?
Because everything I've heard, they're planning on supporting this game for years, which makes sense for a fighting game.
Taylor: Are they going to bring any of those characters forward? I mean, that seems to be a, a theme that some people are doing now. I know Call of Duty, it was a big one for them to bring all the past DLC characters for... which I understand, especially if you spent 10 or 20 on a character, that's ultimate value to be able to bring them forward.
But also it could really harsh the look of the game, you know, if they're, if maybe they don't match the vibe or something. But, I'd be curious to see, I mean, with all the new graphics and how good everything looks, it's also an extra bonus to bring them in because the character models are going to look that much better too.
Joseph: Anybody they bring in is going to look fantastic.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: This game, the graphics are just fucking top notch.
Taylor: So when you got RoboCop, was it one skin or did you get like the new RoboCop as well? The, the black skin that they had? Um, I forget the guy's name that played the newer RoboCop, but that one looked pretty badass.
Joseph: There's a lot less that you can customize on fighters in MK1 versus MK11, but I don't know if they did it for all of the additional guest characters in MK11-
Taylor: Hmm. I'll have to check it out.
Joseph: -but there was a lot you could customize, that... you'd customize weapons, you could customize just the outfit, the mask, if the character had a mask.
Taylor: Wow.
Joseph: What'd you say?
Taylor: Oh, I just said, wow.
Joseph: Oh did you say...I thought you...oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Taylor: I didn't, yeah, I had no idea they had that much customization going on.
Joseph: A lot in MK11, not so much in MK1. There's like three things you can customize on every character in MK1. So it's like a huge downgrade, but I think the stuff they're making is super cool.
Taylor: It looks amazing.
Joseph: And it honestly doesn't bother me. I like that the game is a bit more simple in that aspect, because I think the stuff that they are actually putting out is really fucking cool looking.
Taylor: Yeah. I guess that's, that's what matters, right? As long as what they do give you and put out is interesting and has enough variety in it.
01:03:56
Joseph: Willie, you kind of started to get into the, the story of the, the multi dimensions and stuff like that and the reveal in the main storyline, but the unsung hero of this fucking game is Geras, dude.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Geras is the fucking... Dude, just solid. I love how they transformed his character and like now he's just like super fucking level headed and he's the rock. He's the rock behind Liu Kang and power in the entire fucking universe.
Taylor: Yeah, is he kind of omnipotent or something? I haven't watched that much of his part of the story, but he definitely seemed to have some, what was he in the hourglass or something is, is what he's...okay.
Willie: Yeah, he's the guardian of the hourglass. Like Liu Kang-
Taylor: That's interesting.
Willie: -The thing is Liu Kang became the Keeper of Time and then got rid of those powers. He, like, gave them up because he saw that Kronika had, like, become mad with power, basically, in being the Keeper of Time.
Taylor: Okay.
Willie: The catch is, that really, Joey's alluding to, is he gave Geras the power to be the guardian of it, but he gave up the powers completely, and Geras put them into a Jade Jaguar-
Taylor: Hmm, I mean that's what you do.
Willie: -And stored those powers in there so that if Liu Kang ever really needed them again, they would be there. And Liu Kang is like It's really, he's basically like, it's kind of really badass that you held this power the entire time and you could have taken it for yourself and you didn't do it.
Taylor: Yeah, that is badass.
Joseph: So, like, literally, like, Liu Kang thought Geras deleted these powers and instead he just kind of stored them away because he had the foresight that Liu Kang might need them back.
And then Liu Kang asking him, his response, fucking brilliant, dude. His response, so simple, so simple. It's just like, I just believed in your vision.
Willie: Yeah. Like when, why didn't you take the powers yourself?
Joseph: Yeah. Why didn't you take the power? I just believed in what you're doing, man. That's fucking perfect as an explanation for me.
Willie: Yeah. So I haven't played through all of those towers for every character to get each of their stories, but I had started watching them after that other thing ended, cause they were just on the end, like I said. And there is a version that I don't know if it's Liu Kang's or if it's, if it's Geras himself, there is a version though that I think he becomes, he might even become the Keeper of Time.
Joseph: Oh shit.
Willie: I'm not 100 percent certain because I was just scanning through it, you know, when I was like at the end of it.
Joseph: Mm-hmm. I've only seen two. I've only seen Liu Kang, because that's the only character that I've like really played. And then Rain, because I saw you play that online.
Jack: Huh.
Joseph: Those are the only two that, the tower endings that I've seen.
Willie: What have you seen, Jack?
Jack: I've seen them all. I just don't remember.
[Jack, Joseph, and Willie laugh]
Jack: I... [chuckles] I...
Joseph: Yeah. They're all short and kind of just like, you know, they're all like, uh, kind of still animations, right?
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Still, like they always have been.
Jack: Yeah.
Willie: There's like some ani.... Yeah, exactly.
Taylor: Ah.
Willie: There's animations in them. It's a still like stuff moving.
Jack: Things billowing.
Willie: Yeah. Like flames like flickering or...
Joseph: Some parallaxing or something.
Willie: Yeah, exactly.
Joseph: I guess that would be taking it to the next level if they brought some cinematics to that, that could be fucking cool. Even if they were still short, but-
Jack: I mean, for what it is, it's fine.
Joseph: -there are so many characters. Oh yeah, yeah. I agree.
Jack: Yeah. Nothing's really stood out to me as far as those go. They're just like, okay. Then I'm moving on.
Joseph: That's why maybe they should like evolve that aspect of the game is because when I saw the ones, those two, Rain and Liu Kang for Mortal Kombat 1, it very much felt like MK2, but it wasn't just text on screen like it was in those earlier NES games. I feel like what they're communicating in those stories could be way more impactful if they looked more impactful and they were more dynamic visually.
Willie: Yeah, I was just sort of looking back through. I think it is Liu Kang's. He's just like, I'd never given thought to choosing a successor. Who is it that could replace me and protect my new era? The answer, of course, is Geras. It's just him sitting on, I guess this is not, he's still just being the guardian. He's just like sitting there. Being the protector of it.
Joseph: Mm-hmm . I liked how they reshaped his character.
Jack: Oh, absolutely.
Willie: That's a character that I want to play more. I want to, like, get better at.
Joseph: Oh my gosh, dude. There's a, there's a pro player named Grr. Like, just G R R R R R. [Taylor chuckles] Dude, he fucking wrecked shop at East Coast Throwdown. And this was the night, Willie, that I was, like, messaging you. And I was like, this is, like, the Northea... or no, the tri-state versus Texas and Florida.
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: And they were going head to head. And it was bonkers, dude. People were wiling out, talking shit on stage, and like, it was madness. [Willie chuckles] And Grr, Grr took out like half of the other team by himself as Geras.
The commentators were like, oh my gosh, like, everybody's gonna need to go back home and reevaluate Geras, Geras as a fucking character to play because Grr just put on a frickin clinic, dude, with everybody.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Hmm.
Joseph: And Taylor, like, he has the ability to rewind time, in the middle of the match. So like, if you take a lot of damage-
Taylor: Oh, ho, ho. Wow.
Joseph: -if you take a lot of damage, you can rewind time and regain your health.
Taylor: Oh, wow. And it's, uh, it's a combo move to do that.
Joseph: It's not a combo, but it's like a special move.
Taylor: Okay. Wow.
Willie: You have to set out an hourglass yourself and then...
Joseph: Three, like three times, yeah.
Taylor: Ohh.
Willie: And then trigger that and it'll go back to when the like first hourglass was set or whatever.
Joseph: Yeah, it's sick.
Jack: Hmm.
Taylor: Oh, one of those kinds. Okay. That's, that's really cool.
Joseph: Dude. He was just beating down everybody.
Taylor: He's got a lot of different levels going on with just the diversity and everybody's movesets and powers.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: And it's definitely not the olden days when everybody just had a single thing to throw.
Jack: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: And, uh, a leg sweep.
[Taylor and Willie laugh]
01:09:25
Joseph: We haven't even talked about the biggest change to gameplay in general, which is the Kameo system.
Jack: Right.
Taylor: Right.
Joseph: How much of a mix of that is and how much diversity and variety it brings to strategizing. So I think a big difference between MK 11 is that there's not a ton of customization in that you can choose custom build loadouts. Of like special moves and pair them in different ways.
That's not in MK1 and it's almost replaced by the Kameo system where you have a second kind of like backup character that you can call in to extend combos, or end combos, or act as a projectile, and all that really cool shit so. It just feels super fresh man and it's super fun to watch, and like see the different Kameo picks for whatever the main characters are and stuff like that.
I'm definitely loving just watching this game.
Willie: The one thing I, I think we should close out soon, but I think we need to talk about some of our favorite characters first. And I will say from watching tournaments, one of the things that I know Joey and I noticed was like a lot of people at that last tournament were really loving Raiden-Cyrax as the combo. That seems to be the one-
Joseph: Hell yeah.
Willie: -that people are gravitating towards..
Joseph: Or Baraka-Cyrax.
Willie: Or yeah, but Cyrax in particular, who did get nerfed with that one patch, but it cost more to do a thing, but he's just got this combo extender that basically just locks people up and gets them in place for you again, to continue combos. Like that little whirlwind spin thing.
Joseph: And the chip damage, dude.
Willie: The chip damage is the thing from that.
Joseph: The chip damage is insane.
Willie: Yeah. He does the little spin attack at you. And if... you're going to take chip damage from that, no matter what.
Taylor: Hmm.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Jack: I like how logically the cops wouldn't be in the main story of Mortal Kombat 1.
[Joseph and Willie laugh]
Jack: So it's like, we'll just [Taylor laughs] make them all Kameo people.
Taylor: Yeah.
[Joseph and Taylor laugh]
Jack: I feel like Liu Kang is just like, we don't need these guys. [laughs]
Joseph: Yeah.
Jack: These aren't my champions, but we'll put them in there. We won't explain why they're there as your Kameo, but they're there. [Jack and Taylor chuckle]
Joseph: There's three cops. Willie, you mentioned favorite characters. So do you have... what, what, what's the followup to that?
Willie: I don't know if I have one yet cause I haven't played enough, but I, like I said, I was practicing with Sindel and I really liked Sindel and I can't remember. I think I was doing a Sindel-Jax combo.
Joseph: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Willie: And then there was, uh, I was playing with Smoke a lot, and I'm trying to remember. It's somebody I wouldn't normally use as that Kameo, but I was trying some combo stuff.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: I'll look at the Kameos and I'll think of that in a minute. Jack, do you have any, like, favorites?
You so...You...I think you sort of said some of them.
Jack: When I started, it was Liu Kang and I mean, I'm really, I don't even, I'm not good at this game. So it's like, I have the Kameos in there, but I rarely use them. But I wanted to talk about how awesome his spaghettification fatality [chuckles] is.
[Joseph laughs]
Jack: It's so great. I don't know. It's, it's just a fun thing that he makes a black hole and he spaghettifies someone through it.
Joseph: Right.
Jack: It's great.
Taylor: Oh, wow.
Joseph: That's that God power, dude.
Jack: I just, I love that idea. I think I became like a basic Johnny Cage player after a while, just cause, I don't know, his moves just seem fun, and I'm not much of like a projectile person, just put me right in the middle of it and, you know, have fun with that, and then just lately it's been Omni-Man.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Jack: I really want y'all to go back and play as Omni-Man, it's so satisfying, stuff that he can do, all his brutalities are great. Yeah, I think those three have been playing well. It boggles my mind that some people have like leveled up everybody because when you were telling me about Geras just now, [Joseph exhales sharply] I had no idea he could do that. I would...I didn't even.
[Willie chuckles]
Jack: There's a lot of characters. I really have no interest in going back and playing and he was kind of one of them. And now I'm curious, you know, that time thing.
Willie: I will say Rain is the other one for me. Rain is the other person I was working on some combos with that I really liked it. I just like the ability to teleport, right? So, like, I was trying to get the hang of doing that and actually using that in a way that makes sense. And Rain was doing pretty good at that last tournament, too.
Joseph: Oh, pfft. Yeah, I mean, SonicFox won the tournament with Rain.
Willie: Yeah, won with, with Rain, but I'm never going to be playing like SonicFox, so.
Joseph: Right, right.
Jack: If you like teleporting, Omni-Man pretty much has that, just with the super speed stuff.
Joseph: Oh, right.
Jack: He goes to like, what's it called, like, Vitruvium stance or whatever-
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Jack: -and he just hovers and he can do whatever. It's... he's so much fun.
Joseph: That's sick.
Jack: It's fun, y'all.
Joseph: I've played mostly Liu Kang for like all of my online matches. I played around with a few friends online and like tried Kung Lao, who's been a favorite, like a series favorite for me, both him and Liu Kang.
And then, I can play with Johnny. I have experimented a little bit with Nitara and then a little bit with Rain. But for the most part, if I had to, like, fight somebody right now, I would choose Liu Kang because that's definitely who I'm most competent with and can, like, pull off 40, 40 percent combos and stuff like that pretty consistently with Liu Kang, but no one else.
And he was one of my favorite characters in the game, like, in the main story. Johnny Cage, I like him way more in the actual main story than playing against people that are really good with Johnny Cage, cause like that shit is frustrating as fuck.
Jack: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: Cause he's like such a rushdown character, and the Johnny Cage pressure is fucking, it's relentless dude.
Jack: He's kind of a toxic, toxic player to play as too, cause a lot of it is just, he wants to mock you-
Joseph: Yeah.
Jack: -until he can get his meter up and then, you know, just be a dick for the rest of his meter. But he's fun.
01:14:31
Joseph: I loved him in the main, in the main story, dude. Like, I think this is the best Johnny Cage. Like, this is the Johnny Cage that they actually brought Hollywood to in Chapter 2 when they do the whole, like, Raiders of the Lost Ark-
Jack: Mm.
Taylor: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: -or whatever, um, kind of Indiana Jones thing.
Taylor: Yeah, that was a fun intro.
Joseph: That shit was so fucking good, but then they carry the Hollywood stuff, like, all the way through and into the Fatalities-
Jack: Yeah.
Joseph: -to Van Damme, like-
Jack: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: -I think this is definitely the most Hollywood Johnny Cage that has existed, even though he's always had that background, like, I feel like this is the first time they really brought it into the game.
Jack: I love the Van Damme skin and... that Van Damme skin and that they brought his voice into it-
Joseph: Yeah.
Jack: -but he, he seems like he's kinda checked out.
[Jack, Joseph, and Willie chuckle]
Jack: He's just saying the lines, but it's nice that he was there.
Joseph: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ed Boon, they've been dreaming of this since like nineteen ninety fucking two so... good thing for them that they finally were able to make it happen.
Taylor: Yeah. While they could.
Joseph: Exactly.
Taylor: Like where I'm seeing... what I saw, like Bruce Willis recently. And, uh, It's so wild to see these-
Joseph: His age.
Taylor: -a lot of these actors, yeah, a lot of them are reaching that age that they simply cannot do it and can't blame them. It's just straight up age-
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: -nothing, nothing wrong with it, but it's, it's always tough to, so I am glad they got him in here to do that.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: It's really cool to get those legends in there and just use them in cool ways as much as you can not degrade everything that they've built, but it's kind of like a sweet ending to it, you know?
Joseph: Word.
Willie: I do want to reiterate the Johnny Cage Hollywood sort of aspect because he definitely had a lot, he had so many good lines that he just pulled into stuff. Even like early on in his apartment or whatever, his condo, where he's just like, hey, you get your damn hands off her or off him.
[Jack and Taylor laugh]
Willie: He does it once, or half does the line, and he's like, wait, no, let me do that again. And then he like-
Joseph: Yeah. [chuckling]
Willie: - [chuckling] and then he does it better.
Joseph: Yeah, the most he's been an actor in the story, too.
Willie: Yeah.
Jack: You can make him an announcer, and he, he's funny. He, you know, he says funny things. He gives everyone, like, nicknames and stuff.
Joseph: Oh shit.
Taylor: Oh, that's great. That's cool.
Joseph: Oh, wow. I hadn't done that.
Jack: It's better than the other ones where it's just them saying names. But yeah, he's fun.
Joseph: Oh, shit. That's cool.
Taylor: That's a real cool touch.
Willie: I think I saw like an Instagram reel or something of like a few of those and I was like, Oh shit, I didn't, had no idea.
[Taylor laughs]
01:16:49
Willie: Any like final thoughts that you want to add, anything we didn't talk about that you want to, or any questions that you have, Taylor, about the game?
Taylor: No, no, this was great and I'm going to finish watching the cinematics at some point and just try to get all the story soaked in, but yeah, this was a great breakdown.
Willie: Jack, any, uh, or yeah, go, go for it Joey.
Joseph: If you're not interested in playing this type of game, I think the cinematic movies are worth watching. You know, if you have three and a half hours of spare time, I think it's just fun to watch. It's really well executed, not only in the story, but the visuals and graphics, and just the way it's all woven together I think is pretty brilliant and they've done a fantastic, a fantastic job with this game and it's just a lot of fun.
You know, and especially if it's not something you want to get heavily involved with, then that cinematic movie is the perfect thing to watch just to kind of stay up with the times and take the edge off the FOMO if you need to. But yeah, fantastic job, a fantastic game, super fun to play, to play casually, you know, and also super fun to watch.
Willie: Jack, how about you?
Jack: I had a lot of fun with this. Um, I feel like it did bring me back into the world. I would play a sequel to this. I don't know what could it be at this point since they already did the multiversal thing. Like what's next? Although I just thought of an idea. Like if you, if in the sequel, you could just make your own multiversal Mortal Kombat character to compete in the multiversal combat tournament.
Joseph: Oh shit.
Jack: That'd be fun.
Willie: You could literally just mix and match, match powers like in character skins and all of that.
Joseph: That would be sick.
Willie: That would be sick.
Joseph: Oh my gosh, dude.
Jack: Bring back the DC universe.
Joseph: Ultimate customization.
Willie: Yeah.
Jack: And then, you know, redo that game. That'd be a lot of fun. Cause those Injustice games are just as fun.
Taylor: Yeah.
Jack: I don't know if y'all play those, but like, they do the narrative thing in those as well and they're great. I'm tired of evil Superman, but those are good narrative games as well.
Joseph: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:18:35
Willie: Well, that reminded me of the thing that we didn't talk about at all was the, the very last cut scene.
Jack: Hmm.
Willie: That is at the end of the game, which I don't even know what character-
Joseph: Oh.
Willie: -we're supposed to be seeing in that, [Jack chuckles] honestly, if I think about it.
Joseph: The Havik is what I would say.
Jack: Havik.
Willie: Yeah, it's Havik, but he's uh, emperor now or something
Jack: That didn't really do anything for me.
Willie: I just don't know what it means, right? Like, I don't know if that's like, is that going to be DLC for this?
Joseph: Same.
Willie: That like follows up on this story a little bit. I don't think that's like the whole plot for the next game. I think that's probably some DLC if that exists.
Joseph: My interpretation is that they're trying to shift who, like, the main antagonist is, so they're trying to shift away from General Shao or Shao Kahn and Shang Tsung and trying to find somebody else that is gonna be that big bad, but they opened a huge fucking can of worms with, like, all the multiverse stuff. So like, now it can literally fucking go anywhere, and they've given themselves the license to take it any fucking where they want, which is amazing, but also, super mysterious and leaves me wondering like where the hell this is even gonna go.
Willie: I like Jack's idea. Now I'm gonna be disappointed if it's not that.
[Jack chuckles]
Joseph: I have high hopes, man. Like in what they do next, I have really high hopes.
Willie: No, I do too. I really enjoyed this game and I definitely am, same way, Jack. That I, I'm like into whatever they do next. I'm gonna check it out.
Jack: Uh-huh.
Willie: And yeah, if there's DLC for this, ultimately, like an actual expansion of the story, I'll play that too.
Jack: Isn't like the, the original canon, wasn't there like a dragon emperor or something?
Willie: Yeah. The Dragon King.
Jack: Dragon King. Okay.
Willie: He's in one of those endings that I saw, in one of the tower endings, and I didn't like actually watch it. I was like fast forwarding through it so I caught the end of it where it's either Reiko telling the story or Shao telling the story or Reiko's telling Shao's story, but I'm not sure.
Shao is looking for Onaga. He knows that Onaga is still out there somewhere, and he's looking for the Dragon King to, like, take his power and bring him back into the world. He was afraid to do it, I guess, previously, but he is like, no, it's time. Like, we have to. If we're gonna step into power, this is what we need. And he's looking for Onaga.
Joseph: Hmm.
Jack: I'm just, I'm trying to think, like, if they're gonna do a new Big Bad, like, having Havik feels uninspired, really.
Willie: Yeah.
Jack: I just didn't get Big Bad vibes off him. Um, so yeah, bring that guy, bring, I don't know, bring in Street Fighter. [chuckles] Just go crossover.
Taylor: Oh yeah.
Jack: Just go crossover.
Willie: Cool. Well, I, I think we did it. Obviously you can always talk about it more, but I think that covers pretty much everything. I do want to play more. Sounds like everybody wants to play more. I'm going to make an effort to do so. Soon, and check out Omni-Man.
Joseph: Heck yeah.
Willie: So, if you're listening to this, if you made it all the way to the end with us, we really appreciate it. Thank you for listening. Go, uh, leave a rating or whatever you do, wherever you're listening, and subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcast app. Check us out on Twitch sometimes at Berries and Blades, like Joey said at the beginning.
[Outro theme begins to fade in - Caribbean Arcade by Christian Nanzell]
Wednesday nights, sometimes we play D& D at 9 central, where you can find more of Jack playing his bard, Ramien Dice.
And, uh, yeah, that's it for us today.
Joseph: Thanks, uh, Jack for, for jumping in on this one.
Jack: Thank you for having me.
Taylor: Hell yeah.
Jack: I hope to be back to talk about very specific other games or franchises.
Joseph: Dude, we could talk about Sifu.
Willie: Yeah, we talked about doing Sifu at some point. So, like, we should do that.
Jack: That's one I will definitely want to talk about.
Joseph: Yeah, that sounds good. All right, y'all. Well, peace.
Taylor: Fatality. [Jack chuckles]
Joseph: Finish him.
Taylor: Toasty!
[Outro theme continues - Caribbean Arcade by Christian Nanzell]
01:22:04
Joseph: Berries and Blades is an independent podcast created by Joseph Bullard, Willie Garza and Taylor Garratt. Thanks for tuning in, and consider subscribing if you enjoyed listening to this episode. You can also support us by telling your friends about the show, and we hope to see you in the next episode of Berries and Blades. Until then, thanks again.
[Outro theme fades out - Caribbean Arcade by Christian Nanzell]
Joseph: Carlo, finish it.
Jack: I was kind of disappointed there were no friendships.
[Taylor laughing]
Jack: I [Joseph laughs] would've liked a friendship. [Taylor laughs]
Joseph: Oh right, right.
Jack: If there was ever an era for friendships.
Taylor: Oh yeah, those were cute.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah, bring back the friendships. Those were amazing.
Joseph: Dude, babe, Babalities. Babality.
Jack: I never understood [Willie laughs] that.
Taylor: The Babalities. Those were...yeah.
The Baby alities.
Jack: That was a cocaine decision. [laughs]
Taylor: Yeah.
[Jack, Joseph, Taylor, and Willie laughing]
Taylor: That was. Somebody lost a bet-
Joseph: Friendship.
Taylor: -or some shit.
Joseph: Friendship!