NRS have consistently outdone their previous games in Mortal Kombat series. Competitive longevity is poor because of virtually non existent support from the publisher.
I wasn’t necessarily saying the newer games weren’t good, but MK was still selling well during the the crappy 3D (PS2/Xbox/GC) era. The games will sell well regardless off of brand name alone.
Personally I became a fan of the Netherrealm games with MK9. It had a great roster, and it was fast and fun to play.
Injustice was interesting, but the game balance was kinda fucked, and trying to go back to it nowadays it’s very slow and clunky. I gave them the benefit of the doubt since it was their first fighter that didn’t have a block button.
MKX was fun as hell. A lot of characters had bullshit (I always main Sub-Zero, and Grandmaster Sub is probably my favorite version of the character in any of the games), but it felt interesting because it was all about finding every characters OP game plan. I liked the run mechanic too. The game was fast, but the “new gen” roster was kinda meh compared to MK9, so I didn’t have as many characters I liked to play.
Injustice 2 is more or less a straight up improvement of INJ1. But it’s also where NRS significantly upgraded their character models/art style and animations. It’s a nice looking game, faster and less clunky than 1, and better balanced (I think, could be wrong).
MK11 had a better roster than X, but they toned down a lot of the stuff characters could do and slowed the game down. I appreciate it tried new things but it’s not as fun and frenetic as X or MK9 even.
MK1 kinda just looks like 11, but with assists. Also it’s seems kinda lame that they’re
only assists. Making a tag team game would’ve been more interesting, especially since I’ve been missing tag team mode since MK9.