Mortal Kombat 9/Tear Jerker

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


When the game goes into Wham! Episode overdrive, expect a lot of these moments:

  • Liu Kang. Dear God, Liu Kang. He goes through one hell of a Trauma Conga Line in this game. He witnesses his best friend get murdered, watches as his beloved dies in his arms, and ends up dying a horrible death, believing that the very god he revered had failed him and his friends.
    • There's added Fridge Sadness in Liu Kang's non-canon arcade ending, where he ends up surviving to kill Kahn, and, from the sound of things, at the very least a few other fighters in addition to Sonya and Johnny Cage survive. It gets sad when Liu Kang ends up seeing Raiden as a burden throughout the whole ordeal, and ends up killing him in order to usurp his position and protector of Earthrealm. The implication is basically that no matter the outcome, Raiden's meddling has permanently ruined one of his greatest friendships, and there's absolutely nothing that can change that short of simply letting Armageddon happen and losing everyone all over again.
    • And speaking of Kitana, her Died in Your Arms Tonight speech to Liu Kang was pretty heartwrenching, as she laments that she wished that she was able to meet her lover under different circumstances. Doubly so, when you realize that she had it just as bad, if not worse, in the original timeline (with Liu Kang dying and all). The girl's got it rough.
  • The ending of the game. All of the heroes end up dying save for Johnny Cage, Sonya and Raiden. To elaborate, Kung Lao gets a Neck Snap courtesy of Shao Kahn, Nightwolf does a Heroic Sacrifice, Sindel performs a Kill'Em All on the majority of the heroes, and Raiden accidentally fries Liu Kang to a crisp, with the latter's faith in him completely shattered as he dies.
    • And, to top it all off: Earth is now ripe for the picking for the Netherealm to take over.
  • One that applies via a Freeze-Frame Bonus: Kabal's life. If you look closely, he has a ring on his finger. He's most likely engaged/married, maybe with some children of his own. In the span of no more than a few hours, he's roasted alive, horribly disfigured, reanimated by Kano, and then killed by Sindel. And who's to say that his family wasn't caught up in the crossfire of Shao Kahn's invasion? The man genuinely wanted to turn his life around and renounced the life of a Black Dragon Clansmen to start anew, only to have this horrible fate befall him.
  • Quan Chi showing Scorpion the Shirai Ryu's destruction at the end of Chapter 3, especially considering that Scorpion killed the elder Sub-Zero after, thus breaking the deal Scorpion had with Raiden that would have brought back his family and clan. Oh, and canonically (this is, this particular bit is unnafected from the entire reboot), it's not Bi-Han, but Quan Chi himself the one who really did this.
  • Smoke's distraught over Kuai Liang!Sub-Zero at the end of Chapter 8.
  • The game's Bittersweet Ending. Watch Sonya desperately struggle to hold back tears.