What is the time merge really all about? Thoughts.

Nickolaidas

Member
My personal opinion is that NRS made some things to the story they now regret, and the time merge is their way of making some fans happy.

The revenants arc has dragged for far too long. Yes, I guess it was a way to make the controlled character in story mode fight someone other than Reptile, Erron Black and Baraka, but the fact remains that a dozen of fan favorites are now (narratively) stuck in zombie status and can serve the story for nothing other than antagonists. And that, for fans of Liu Kang, Kung Lao, Kabal, Smoke, Kabal and other characters, sucks.

Also, the Kombat Kids have forced numerous fan favorites to age to their fifties which again, for fans of Johnny, Kenshi, Sonya and Jax, sucks.


Finally, they killed off numerous bad guys who are fan favorites (Baraka, Mileena, Cyborgs) and now there wasn't a narrative sound reason to bring them back.


So what purpose does the time merge serve? Threefold. It gives characters like Liu Kang again the opportunity to be good in the story, it gives the aged characters their younger versions once more, and it resurrects dead characters like Baraka and Mileena. So now we both have good Liu Kang and bad Liu Kang, young Johnny and old Johnny, Baraka nice and healthy, etc.

So what do you guys think? Is this the real reason of the time merge, or is it something else?
 
It's simply a way for them to bring back old characters--in the context of a narrative. That, and it might even allow them to slack off on character designs: if players have two Johnny Cages to choose from, they might be less likely to complain if the gameplay underpinning them isn't revolutionary.

I wouldn't over think it. It's a frivolous game, and they can concoct whatever nonsensical narrative subtext they like... Just as long as the product sells. Moreover, being a fighting game, anything that NRS do that isn't a SFV / SCVI "story" mode, will be praised.
 
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