#1101
A playthrough of the unplayable character Johnny Kage in the PS2 version of Midway’s/Netherrealm’s Mortal Kombat Deception.
Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere’s Johnny.
Johnny Kage is yet another Deadly Alliance character to return. The original Mortal Kombat was actually going to be a Jean Claude Van Damme fighting game, which you can tell from its martial arts, tournament-aesthetic, heavy-Asian influences and the general exotica themes mixed with some dark underpinnings. It was obviously rather heavily based on Bloodsport and Kickboxer, which are some good influences to have to be sure. Once that idea fell through, they took a bit of Bruce Lee, a little of Cynthia Rothrock, a touch of Godfrey Ho, a huge dash of Big Trouble in Little China (most obviously seen in Shang Tsung, Goro and Raiden) and various other fighting movie stereotypes to amalgamate in a game which was both derivative and yet unlike anything ever seen before.
Van Damme would eventually be seen in a digitised fighting game with the release of Street Fighter: The Movie in 1995, which appropriately was meant to be an MK Killer. I love when things come full circle.
Johnny isn’t too bad here. He retains his nunchakus weapons, which were given to Liu Kang in the playable character department, as well as a couple of different fighting styles, with one of them going to the incredibly underwhelming Kobra. One thing I didn’t mention in the Quan Chi video which is also relevant here, is that with the Unplayables their combos sometimes don’t fully connect. We saw this back even with Onaga, but it’s funny howthe dimensions of the game obviously must have been altered when they were changing it from Deadly Alliance into Deception, it’s pretty fascinating. Like most of the characters, Johnny is pretty damn good, especially that Jeet Kune Do fighting style of his (the fighting style pioneered by the late Bruce Lee), which has some great knock-back in its combos. On the whole, decent character. Not a lot more to say.
Up next, another character who originated in the first MK game.