Mortal Kombat: Ranking All the Characters

We’re months away from Mortal Kombat X and I’m pumped as hell. The series has been able to exist strongly for over two decades, and among the many games, it’s built up quite a mythos and cast of characters. The new game will introduce a bunch of new fighters, as we move years forward into the new timeline (time travel and all that). Before we get acquainted with the likes of Kotal Kahn and Cassandra Cage, let’s look back at all the other kombatants.

I’ve decided to rank all the Mortal Kombat characters from worst to best. I’m counting everyone, but with some exceptions:

- It has to be an actual Mortal Kombat character and not a guest fighter. That means no Freddy Krueger, Kratos, or anyone from the DC Universe.
- Dark Kahn doesn’t count for the same reason.
- It has to be someone who was playable in the one-on-one games. I’m not going to get into boss characters from, say, Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero or Mortal Kombat: Special Forces.
- I’m lumping alternate versions of characters together. No reason to split Human Smoke and Robot Smoke.

Also, I’m ranking these based on style, storyline, and personal preference. Not over who has the better infinite combos and all that jazz.

Let’s get it started with the worst of the worst.

64. REIKO

First appearance: Mortal Kombat 4

It’s one thing to be lame. It’s another to be built up as something exciting, only to be anything but. Reiko was introduced in Mortal Kombat 4 as Shinnok’s general. In actuality, he was just a reworked Noob Saibot given a different design in order to have more original characters in the game. In the arcade and Nintendo 64 versions of the game, his ending would simply show him running into a portal. That was it. How mysterious.

Then in the PlayStation and Dreamcast versions of the game, we got to see the full ending. He went into the portal where he then put on Shao Kahn’s helmet. OH SNAP! Reiko is Shao Kahn?! I mean, it doesn’t make a lick of sense, but that’s still a big deal! Then Midway swept it under the rug and said he wasn’t Kahn. He was just wearing the mask. Um...good for him.

Reiko is like opening the biggest gift at Christmas only to see you got a pair of used socks.

63. HSU HAO

First appearance: Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance

The bulky Hsu Hao was created for two reasons: 1) They came up with the Red Dragon organization as a rival to the Black Dragon, and Midway needed Red Dragon to catch up. Just having Mavado wasn’t enough, so they came up with another, lesser member of the group. 2) Since Kano’s laser eye was so cool, they figured it was worth expanding on with other body parts. Hsu Hao was given a laser heart.

In Mortal Kombat X, Kano has the same laser heart. Hao is completely redundant and is ultimately forgettable. Makes sense that they already killed him off in the Mortal Kombat X comic.

62. CHAMELEON

First appearance: Mortal Kombat Trilogy (PlayStation)

In a time when Midway was abusing the hell out of their color scheme ninja party, they introduced Chameleon, a male ninja who constantly changed colors and move sets. Unlike his female ninja counterpart from the Nintendo 64 version, Khameleon, Chameleon didn’t have anything resembling a storyline. This wasn’t until appearing in Armageddon(which he originally wasn’t going to until fans got on Midway’s case), where he got the most generic ending/explanation ever.

61. MEAT

First appearance: Mortal Kombat 4

Meat was one of the lamer concepts for a hidden character. He was just a bloody skeleton model used as an unlockable player skin. No moves or gestures of his own. Just a costume.

With Armageddon, they gave him some backstory. Meat is an escaped experiment created by Shang Tsung with no sense of identity. So yeah, he’s just a gross, bloody dude.

60. JAREK

First appearance: Mortal Kombat 4

Rather than use Kano in Mortal Kombat 4, they just grafted his entire move set onto a really ordinary-looking stand-in named Jarek. Jarek was the last remnant of the Black Dragon organization, who, unlike Kano, sided with Earthrealm against invading forces. Other than Kano’s moves, Jarek lacked anything interesting that Kano brought to the table.

He was a major part in the most hilariously bad Mortal Kombat ending, though, but more on that later.

59. TANYA

First appearance: Mortal Kombat 4

Yet another Mortal Kombat 4 character who was just an example of, “Eh, we need more new characters. Let’s just alter an existing one.” Tanya was different enough from Kitana that that wasn’t a problem, but since then, she’s been a one-dimensional villain whose only quality is betrayal. They never came up with anything interesting for her to do.

58. DAIROU

First appearance: Mortal Kombat: Deception

Chances are your response to this is less, “How dare you rank Dairou so low!” and more, “Wait, who the hell is Dairou again?” This bland-looking mercenary is part of the whole Chaosrealm vs. Orderrealm subplot in Mortal Kombat: Deception that didn’t go anywhere. Dairou came from the realm of Seido, where order rules all, and was a prison guard. He found out a prisoner killed his family and went against the rules by exacting revenge. Since then, he became an outlaw with no regard for what Seido represents.

Not the worst backstory, but nothing was really done with it. He was just a pawn for Darrius (who in actuality killed Dairou’s family and pinned the blame in order to twist him in the right direction), and he looks so unbelievably generic. Give him a mask or spikes or a fannypack or something!

57. LI MEI

First appearance: Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance

Li Mei was nearly as forgettable as Dairou, only distinguished by her ridiculous outfit of a bandana and underwear. Li Mei was a villager enslaved by Shang Tsung and Quan-Chi who was used as a guinea pig by having her soul shoved into an undead soldier’s husk of a body. That was undone, but it ultimately corrupted her by the next game.

So at least her betrayal was more organic than Tanya’s every waking moment. Still, she’s hard to care about.

56. SHUJINKO

First appearance: Mortal Kombat: Deception

God, I hate Shujinko. On the surface, the gimmick of an old man who could do the attacks of much of the cast due to years of wanderlust and training is pretty cool. Unfortunately, they explained this through Deception’s Konquest Mode, which proceeded to depict our main hero as one of the most gullible, susceptible dumbasses in video games. No matter what someone told him to do, including villains, he would blindly do it without a second thought.

Not only did he unleash the Dragon King onto the realms through decades of questing without questioning, but then he stepped on Scorpion’s toes. This game touted Scorpion as the new marquee hero character, only to say, “PSYCHE!” and put Shujinko in his spot. No thanks.

55. MOKAP

First appearance: Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance

Well, that joke didn’t age well. Mokap was included as a hidden character in Deadly Alliance, based on Carlos Pesina, who did the game’s motion capture. Mokap is the guy responsible for doing the motion capture for the CGI in Johnny Cage’s movies and is constantly wearing the mocap balls on his outfit because of it. He didn’t really work well as a comedy character because the game did little to differentiate any of the characters in terms of personality, so he didn't do anything silly outside of wear his motion capture uniform. He’s no Dan Hibiki is what I’m saying.

Mokap did have his moments in Deception’s Konquest Mode. Not only does he walk around like a doofus, practically BEGGING you to punch him out, but at another point, if you do punch him, he’ll crouch down and yell, “OW! MY BALLS!”

54. KHAMELEON

First appearance: Mortal Kombat Trilogy (Nintendo 64)

The female catch-all ninja may not have the variety of her male counterpart Chameleon, but at least they put some semblance of effort into her character. She had a bit of a storyline about being part of Reptile’s endangered race and is the only honest chance at bringing his people back to prosperity. She’s still forgettable and became little more than a footnote in the franchise.

53. ASHRAH

First appearance: Mortal Kombat: Deception

Ashrah is a character with promise. A demon born in the Midway, her conscience got her in trouble with Quan-Chi and while trying to escape assassins, she came across a heavenly sword that purified her soul based on how many demons she killed. Her whole thing became about ironically earning salvation through outright slaughter.

There was nothing special about her “female Raiden” design or play-style that grabbed anyone, so she faded into the background. With a new coat of paint, she might become worth revisiting in the new run of games, but otherwise...meh.

52. BO’ RAI CHO

First appearance: Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance

It’s hard to believe that you can make a character so embarrassingly lowbrow for a game series about over-the-top murder porn, but here you go. Bo’ Rai Cho is Liu Kang and Kung Lao’s master, retconned into the story with a pretty great explanation: he probably could have taken out Goro and Shang Tsung in the Mortal Kombat tournament back in the day, but he’s from Outworld and that would only count in their favor. The best he could do was train a worthy Earthrealm student to do the job for him.

To liven up the sage master trope, Midway decided that Bo’ Rai Cho needed to be a fat, drunk guy who farts and pukes all the time. He’s basically a Shaw Brothers Boogerman, and the gag wears thin after the third time you use his puke attack.

51. FUJIN

First appearance: Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero First appearance (fighting game): Mortal Kombat 4

Fujin has a good foundation. Why should Raiden be the only heroic god fighting for humanity? Fujin is the God of Wind and has a unique enough look along with a crossbow that shoots energy blasts. That’s pretty cool. Too bad they couldn’t come up with anything for him other than Raiden’s sidekick. Mortal Kombat 4 set it up that he’d be taking Raiden’s place, but then Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance was all, “Nah.”

Even Rodimus Prime got a better deal than this guy.

50. HOTARU

First appearance: Mortal Kombat: Deception

In the battle between order and chaos, order tends to be the more boring, but Hotaru has just enough of a cool factor from his insect-like samurai armor to at least break into the top 50. Otherwise, all he really has going for him is his zealot-like behavior in following Onaga. A man who worships order sounds like he could be almost admirable, but then he goes and follows a demonic dragon man because he’ll put all of reality under his thumb and therefore create order.

But yeah, he’s still plenty vanilla once you get past that.

As you can see, this is a massive article, so we've broken it up into a few pages...