@@FAiRWAYx I don't think this is a new spin on Scorpion. It's just putting Kuai Liang in Scorpion's costume and giving him his wife. I enjoy all the fresh takes in M1K with my favorite being Mileena and Kitana are actually sisters. But Scorpion/Hanzo is my favorite character in all video games, so the change really killed the game for me.
I think Reptile is more of an A tier character while he has potential he is always that character who you fight every now and then to make the chapters longer.
Noob Saibot was always so cool to me. I first saw him in Mortal Kombat Trilogy and I always liked how his sprite is a blank silhouette of a ninja. I also like how he has a clone
Reptile is ma boi since 1995 when I saw that iconic fight in the movie. Everything in his human appearance from the statue till the end of the fight was gorgeous! That fight impacted me so much that I main him almost in every game. Reptile and Liu are my favourite chars.
I 100% agree I think noob is one of the best designed ninja because he is so consistent in his design (except mk11, which I think is a little too slipknot, edgy, Batman who laughs)
I would not be upset at all if there was an MK game where the main story was Bi-Han dying, coming back as Noob Saibot, creates the brotherhood of shadow, and tries to overthrow the elder gods. If done right, that could make for an amazing story mode. Noob Saibot isn't just my favorite MK character, but my favorite fictional character. An after thought? Outrageous!
Ill never forget the first time we discovered Noob in mk2. We had our tournaments after school, and my buddy won 25 in row and it opened. We were all dumbfounded and highly amazed and just wanted to play as him
Please do a tier video of all female ninjas! -Kitana 💙 -Mileena 🩷 -Jade 💚 -Tanya 💛 -Skarlet ❤️ -Frost 🩵 -Khameleon 🩶 I personally consider Tanya a ninja despite never wearing a ninja mask since Khameleon did have Tanya's Surging Blast move in MK: Armageddon.
I already did my personal tier list for these seven above! What do you think? Imho polite criticism is more than welcome, just as long as we can keep civil conversation about it...
Tanya's mk4 design was based off of the Female Ninja design and in the mobile game she is considered a female ninja as she was featured in the Female Ninja pack for Women's day!
i agree with your ermac take; so much potential with character design but i really didn’t like the whole mummy aesthetic. i wish they would have stuck with the ninja base aesthetic with some additional green flare. great video!
Don't know why I like Tremor so much. I'm happy that Boon brought him back for MK1 even if it's just as a kameo. Would like to see him as a full character with an interesting backstory in future games.
Rain is the only Character that made Raiden fear him and render his abilities as neutral. Raiden is God tier so it's easy to say that Rain is God Tier maybe not in popularity but in Power ⛈️⚡
I argue that Scorpion is NOT S-Tier because..... I.... eh..... I dunno, I've been drinking. He's great. He's the first character people picture when they hear "Mortal Kombat".
Scorpion is the only S tier ninja. They screwed around with the rest of them so much in the following games after the original that even the ninjas who should have been iconic like Saibot and Smoke ended up being lame copies of other characters. Mortal Kombat only had two good games.
In UMK3 with Rain and Noob Saibot I did so many flawless victories. Their combos were so long and destructive and their tricks could give you so much control. Fighting monsters.
Wow im surprised you used my bad MK Special Forces gameplay for Tremor, lmao, but Its really cool to see that and seeing this Tier List of the ninjas of Mortal Kombat, with alot of it I would tend to agree with, very cool video indeed!
Hey! Thanks so much for being cool with me using it. I tried to play through to get to that point in the game but it was so unenjoyable. I appreciate the kind words as well!
@@FAiRWAYx tremor was supposed to be the orange one, but if we want to create new: Orange: takeda, his a fusion of yellow scorpion and kenshi, who originally trained under red ermac, so he is orange; White: khrome, metal; Pink: Floyd, wind power; just like purple rain is a prince, pink floyd.
This was pretty fun. Im glad I stumbled here. Can we all agree the MK9 Klassic Ninja Costumes are some of the BEST of the “modern” MK games. ESPECIALLY Reptile!
I think your tier list for each ninja is near flawless. I would argue that I think Noob is deserving of S because of his lore however I can understand him in A.
Yeah I strongly tinkered Noob and Smoke in S tier because they both are iconic. I can also see the argument for Reptile lower, but he was such an iconic inclusion in the OG game that I think he earned it
Honestly, i completely agree with all of your rankings. Tremor is probably my favorite of the lesser known Ninja's. Are you going to do a video on the female Ninja's at some point?
If I remember correctly, Scorpion was excluded from MK3 because Daniel Pesina, the actor that played Johnny Cage and Scorpion, made an unauthorized appearance as Cage for an ad for a similar game (Time Killers) in the 90’s without permission. They fired him and that’s why Johnny Cage and Scorpion weren’t in the original MK3.
As I was one of the best UMK3 players on xbox, I can personally say the community list is 100% spot on. All the S tier ninja were some of the best overall on UMK3 and MK trilogy 🔥🔥 That Ermac juggle use to go crazy😮💨
I can get behind this tier list. It's nice to see Reptile getting the love he deserves. Maybe not to the level of Scorpion and Sub Zero, but Reptile absolutely is an iconic ninja and one of the more iconic characters in the franchise. If there were separation in the S tier, S1 would be Scorpion and Sub Zero and Reptile would be S2, but they all deserve that tier for sure. The rest of the rankings are fair and honest, and I'm cool with it. Solid work, and great video.
I can’t give Reptile an S tier rating. He, like Baraka, never did anything of consequence in any of the games, save for when he was transformed into Onaga. Also, I think all of his looks post MK3 have been terrible, his latest being the worst by turning him into a fat giant salamander looking thing. Really like the character and his move set, it’s everything else that’s the problem for me.
The Reptile point is fair, and he’s had some low points, but I just think him being the OG secret character opened up so many possibilities. Also, not mentioned in the video, but Liu vs. Reptile in the movie is HYPE.
Brother, he was the FIRST SECRET CHARACTER (I’m really biased I love reptile). Also, he was crazy in UMK3 and was so cool they brought him back for an MK1 character . Also, his niche as a hard-zoner with combo tools has semi-consistently helped define the meta in some games. This is especially cool because in a lot of games he isn’t even a top tier, he just makes sure to fill a hole no other character can
Reptile's aspect as a secret character in MK was something I liked. His moveset was a mix of both Scorpion and Sub-Zero. And his colour scheme is also a mix of Scorpion and Sub-Zero.
I was around when the whole fighting game craze started (and yes Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter 2 were the best at the time! No matter where you're at Those were the two main games! Lol) But now being 43 years old fighting games are boring to me but I do like how in depth you went because I used to love Mortal Kombat! And I never thought about how all the different ninjas stood up to each other. That's a really cool idea 🤘🤘 Great job!
Yes they messed Rain up by making him a mage, he should stay as the son of argus. Yes Chameleon needs a juicier story, or maybe keeping his origins a mystery is how it should be and maybe he travels the realm trying to figure out who he is and why he has no memory. Perhaps make him a hero and him feeling the need to do good things ties back to his origins. The right writer has to do him
@@BigSmoke-ew5td I'm not saying he's not cool, but making him a water mage instead of the son of argus wasn't smart because we haven't really got the chance to explore that with rain other than him saying it and the arcade ending in MK11
Great job on making this video. I grew up playing ultimate Mortal Kombat three in the arcades back in the 90s. A lot of these characters I don’t even even know about until you taught me.😮
The ninjas are the mortal kombat staples. They are all such amazing koncepts, even if nothing gets done with them in the end. I love them all for vastly different reasons
My hot take is that they should have never spotlighted the Ninja character's as such defined individuals. The more that they defined who these characters were with individual looks and backstories, the more the MK cast was bloated with characters who were never going to *really* matter but the writing team was gonna keep pretending mattered. There's an air of coolness to the fact that they had these multi-colored shared designs that could have exclusively meant "Mook, Scrub, Complete Cannon Fodder" yet were all pretty uniquely capable in their own ways that made me respect them as palette swaps. Not all of them were great, but the less I knew about them they cooler they seemed.
These characters are a fun exhibit on the creation process. A pink recolored ninja with an in-joke for a name eventually became a distinct character with a backstory and several unique designs (mostly based on the common thread of the pink/green color scheme).
You kinda underestimated Smoke a bit in this ranking, Smoke is more loyal than Sub-Zero(Kaui Liang) significantly because when Sub-Zero was about to get cybernized by the lin-Kuei he was about to rescue Sub-Zero but Raiden told him “no”. In MKX story mode Jax, Scorpion and Sub-Zero were saved and he didn’t want to do anything with his old friend Smoke. It gets worse in mk11 because in sub-zeros tower ending he chose his brother over smoke because of his sympathy towards his family rather than his own friend that help sub-zero get his revenge against his killer and beat Shang tsung and kano. Overall, Smoke is an extremely underrated character in the mk universe with his loyality for Kaui Liang.
Reptile deff should NOT be S tier....MK1 made his character awesome but besides that hes been downhill since after mk3 and that reason alone is enough to put him in C rank at best. Smoke is most deff S tier though. Theres a reason fans have been asking for him since MK9
Me personally I always thought Reptile too be a B TIER Ninja because he was a jobber in the Midway games yeah he was cool looking but never wins fights and was just punching bag for the heros but great video bro
Definitely a fair ranking! Here's mine (but no Tremor because I haven't played as him yet): S: Scorpion, Sub-Zero A: Noob, Reptile, Ermac, Smoke B: Rain C: D: Chameleon
Are they Zatterans or Saurians? P.S. Deabatable ninjas 1. Takeda - trained by Scorpion and uses an armored version of what would be a ninja suit I suppose 2. Reiko - trained by Sub-Zero, knows Ninjitsu, and had shurikens 3. Human Cyrax - was a skin and character in story mode of MK9 4. Human Sektor - was a skin and character in story mode of MK9
@@deauxboysteeze8590 yep. Every story mode is just abt Liu Kang, Raiden, Kung Lao and some random villain Ed Boon chooses out of a hat before they start development
That first reptile encounter was so brutal, I encountered him by accident while learning the fatalities. I never beat him anytime after I learned about him 😅
This is mostly just speculation, but I would go as far as to say that Ermac advanced certain facets of game development, namely interaction with fans. In 1995, games didn't really acknowledge fan rumors or anything made by the fanbase. Once Ermac was created and everyone lost their mind, games started implementing ideas from fans into their games more and more.
Ermac is at least A tier to me because his story is actually quite deep, a legion of souls conflicted yet trapped together by sorcery in one vessel. He's also been good and bad depending on timeline which is neat. His powers are also awesome and i must disagree with his finishers not being memorable. His 3d fatalities, MK9 and MKX fatals are sweet. His MKX fatalities are insanely cool and disturbing.
Fair points all around! MK1 knocked him down quite a bit for me, but I can definitely agree that him flipping between bad and good makes him more complex than the others. Inner Workings is a great fatality looking back on it!
@@FAiRWAYx I liked his MK 1 story better than his second timeline where stays loyal to outworld blindly personally. His first timeline and current I like better personally, but to each his own! Cool video though I don't see many ninja tier lists seems half of them most fans love a lot.
@@FAiRWAYx Yeah they can all do more but sadly aren't utilized the best sometimes outside of Scorpion and Sub-Zero. Especially Noob-Saibot, hea always built up this badass but is ultimately fodder the worst out of all of them. He's rumored to be DLC in MK1 at some point so if he returns im curious what they do with him and if he'll be Bi Han again or not in this new timeline
I only watched this for Smoke. Ngl hes my all time when i first learned of him back in the day at the bowling alley while my mom bowled. I used to always play Scorpion, until one night playing the machine, i actually did this stuff by random accident, and got to face him, i beat him and unlocked him, and then had one of the other kids come play me, and they were like "whoa who is that you're playing as???" and id be like, "I just discovered him, lets try him out!" That in my eyes he is S Tier everything else i completely agree with
Great list and agree with a lot of points. Scorpion and Sub-Zero are S Teir through and through. Reptile sits around that S to A Teir for me because in the middle to later series he suffered greatly from trying to phase old characters out for new ones but kept coming back plus being the original hidden character is why like Goro I could sneak him in to the top. Smoke I think has always had great designs over the years and has had a very rich history after a certain point which give how I fell in the 3D era never realized that even before MK 9 he had a real backstory. Smoke is firmly in that A Teir for me. Noob Sibot too me is the original lazy boy I can't think of anything better so just do this. Noob ultimately got a better backstory as the series went on he truly fell short and for that I'd put him in the B Teir. Ermac had a great design and moveset throughout the series and while he was never a main eventer expect when he found the soul of Lou Kang in Deception and was a vessel to help free our heros given he never came off a generic henchman plus a great move set Ermac is an A Teir for me. Tremor had good moves but suffered like many villains in MK 10 from a lack of development and continued today, absolutely C Teir for me. Rain while he has a cool move set and design through most games sadly falls between B and C Teir as most of the time creators don't know what to do with him. Chameleon is definitely D Teir as while he has a good moveset for one game he has no backstory and is nearly forgotten about.
I feel like Smoke's design would work best as a mix between his human and cyborg forms, where he's not entirely human but not entirely machine either. From there, you can get pretty creative with how he looks. Would also love to see Chameleon and Khameleon's relationship expanded upon, since apparently they're enemies. Maybe even his relation to Reptile, too.
Scorpion is so overrated, he looks cool and has good gameplay but he’s a jobber to quan chi half the fucking times and has never been the main character except for the animated movie
Wow I thought I was gonna get triggered when one of my favorite ninjas got ranked too low but I couldn’t agree more with this entire list. Solid reasoning & you love the klassic ninja costumes just as much as I do it seems like. Chameleon is the only ranking I don’t agree with since he is probably my favorite ninja of all time. I’m not even mad though because you explained how backstory is more important to you. Normally I would agree, but not for fighting games. I prioritize how cool the character looks, their moveset, style, etc. Basically all the physical aspects. Story isn’t that important to me since I usually only play fighting games to beat up my friends. I couldn’t tell you how much I loved being able to be a ninja that had the moves of all the others, how could anyone not like that? I can acknowledge that his MKT design isn’t kinda lazy for just being a more transparent version of all the ninjas but literally every other ninja was just a different color of the same design of each other up until MKDA. I don’t have a problem with his Armageddon design and think it’s pretty cool actually how his colors change to whatever ninja’s move he uses. For those reasons, I would have Chameleon be s tier (maybe A at the lowest) but I completely understand why you put him low when you include his backstory (or lack thereof really)
My favorite has always been Reptile 🐍 Then I like noob saibot 🥷 and smoke 💨 and rain ⛈️ Then scorpion 🦂 and subzero ❄️ and chameleon 🦎. Then Ermac 🧟♂️. Then tremor 🪨
Drop your tier list rankings below ⬇️⬇️
What do you think of Kuai Liang being Scorpion in M1K?
@@EnigmaticVayne I'm neutral on it. I love Kuai Liang and Scorpion separately and it's cool to see a new spin on Scorpion.
@@FAiRWAYx I don't think this is a new spin on Scorpion. It's just putting Kuai Liang in Scorpion's costume and giving him his wife.
I enjoy all the fresh takes in M1K with my favorite being Mileena and Kitana are actually sisters.
But Scorpion/Hanzo is my favorite character in all video games, so the change really killed the game for me.
@@EnigmaticVayneHanzo was Scorpion forever, so it’s interesting to see a different character there.
@@EnigmaticVayneExactly
I believe Reptile is the first hidden character in fighting game history not just MK
You might be correct
there are hidden characters all around you.
You are correct sir
I think Reptile is more of an A tier character while he has potential he is always that character who you fight every now and then to make the chapters longer.
@@Sektorax not wrong
"Reptile snuck his way into S Tier"
Seems fitting.
😂
Funny when you consider he's the worst playable character in MK2.
@@VRHyoumarureptile was a god in mk2
He was also good in MKSM
@@VRHyoumaruokay? 😂
Noob Saibot was always so cool to me. I first saw him in Mortal Kombat Trilogy and I always liked how his sprite is a blank silhouette of a ninja. I also like how he has a clone
He 1st appeared in Mortal Kombat 3 Ultimate
@@beardieshamm9800 Mortal Kombat 2 if you wanna be a know it all
@@claysoggyfries
That makes sense as to why they made Bi-Han become Noob Saibot in Khaos Reigns.
NRS was trying to warm-up for MK2.
Scorpion and Sub Zero are iconic.
I thoroughly enjoyed Reptile.
I love how they creatively expanded upon Ermac.
Fair points all around!
Fr his design in MKX is definitely one of my top 5 designs in MK history.
Reptile is ma boi since 1995 when I saw that iconic fight in the movie. Everything in his human appearance from the statue till the end of the fight was gorgeous! That fight impacted me so much that I main him almost in every game. Reptile and Liu are my favourite chars.
Best fight ever!!
Same bro. Hes my fav... especially as green was my fav color.
To date thats the best fight scene in an MK live action or series movie.. liu kang vs reptile mk 95 movie nothing beats ita
And you know you are badass when you get a Shao Khan introduction followed by the best techno theme in the movie.
🦎🦎🦎🐍🐍 💚💚🍏💚💯💯💯💯
Not enough gameplay on Noob honestly. The dude is chillingly beautifully designed. He deserves more screen time for sure.
But noob is sub zero
I 100% agree I think noob is one of the best designed ninja because he is so consistent in his design (except mk11, which I think is a little too slipknot, edgy, Batman who laughs)
I would not be upset at all if there was an MK game where the main story was Bi-Han dying, coming back as Noob Saibot, creates the brotherhood of shadow, and tries to overthrow the elder gods. If done right, that could make for an amazing story mode. Noob Saibot isn't just my favorite MK character, but my favorite fictional character. An after thought? Outrageous!
noob is the real subzero... the one w/o the red scar, red scar subzero is his brother....
Ill never forget the first time we discovered Noob in mk2. We had our tournaments after school, and my buddy won 25 in row and it opened. We were all dumbfounded and highly amazed and just wanted to play as him
Please do a tier video of all female ninjas!
-Kitana 💙
-Mileena 🩷
-Jade 💚
-Tanya 💛
-Skarlet ❤️
-Frost 🩵
-Khameleon 🩶
I personally consider Tanya a ninja despite never wearing a ninja mask since Khameleon did have Tanya's Surging Blast move in MK: Armageddon.
👀
Female ninjas suck
Tanya wears a mask in Mileena's ending in Mortal Kombat 1
I already did my personal tier list for these seven above! What do you think? Imho polite criticism is more than welcome, just as long as we can keep civil conversation about it...
Tanya's mk4 design was based off of the Female Ninja design and in the mobile game she is considered a female ninja as she was featured in the Female Ninja pack for Women's day!
i agree with your ermac take; so much potential with character design but i really didn’t like the whole mummy aesthetic. i wish they would have stuck with the ninja base aesthetic with some additional green flare. great video!
Thank you for the kind words!
Ermac, because he has several warrior spirits within him, can possess an arsenal of fighting techniques.
W take
Don't know why I like Tremor so much. I'm happy that Boon brought him back for MK1 even if it's just as a kameo. Would like to see him as a full character with an interesting backstory in future games.
I agree. Ever since I found out about Tremor I thought he was really cool. I'm glad that they at least brought him back to some extent in MKX and MK1.
Tremor easily the coolest ninja then rain ermac noob etc
Rain is the only Character that made Raiden fear him and render his abilities as neutral. Raiden is God tier so it's easy to say that Rain is God Tier maybe not in popularity but in Power ⛈️⚡
This was fantastic. Well done. I agree on your S tier selections. I love Noob Saibot but the dev team didn’t show him enough love.
Noob saibot deserves S tier
Noob saibot deserves S tier
Rain's roundhouse kick was my favorite kick lol
That thing was deadly on Trilogy & MK9
Rain made for such a great combo in Trilogy.. if my memory suits me: Orb, roundhouse kick, lightning bolt, uppercut.
I need that mk 9 smoke skin back tho so underrated🔥
Facts!
Your comment has been heard, they're coming back with that MK9 costume! :D
Everyones costume in Mk9 was fire 😂
Smoke is definitely S tier
Dont make Sense 2+ on S tier
I called the brown classic ninja in the thumbnail “poop” because I didn’t realize Tremor was officially part of the whole Ninja thing
Lol
I argue that Scorpion is NOT S-Tier because..... I.... eh..... I dunno, I've been drinking. He's great. He's the first character people picture when they hear "Mortal Kombat".
Can't argue with that. @blahblah659, you're on my S Tier comments list and welcome to join my debate team (should I ever need one).
I personally think johnny cage is be- oh wait wrong video
Scorpion is the only S tier ninja. They screwed around with the rest of them so much in the following games after the original that even the ninjas who should have been iconic like Saibot and Smoke ended up being lame copies of other characters.
Mortal Kombat only had two good games.
In UMK3 with Rain and Noob Saibot I did so many flawless victories. Their combos were so long and destructive and their tricks could give you so much control. Fighting monsters.
And in Trilogy, Noob was banned in tournaments LOL
Wow im surprised you used my bad MK Special Forces gameplay for Tremor, lmao, but Its really cool to see that and seeing this Tier List of the ninjas of Mortal Kombat, with alot of it I would tend to agree with, very cool video indeed!
Hey! Thanks so much for being cool with me using it. I tried to play through to get to that point in the game but it was so unenjoyable.
I appreciate the kind words as well!
@@FAiRWAYx You're so welcome man! and yeah thats understandable, hahaha!
@@Lawrence237got $10? In hungry
Needs more views. This was really well done.
I'm glad you enjoyed it!
@@FAiRWAYx Absolutely loved it. Calm voiceover, informative, concise criteria and agreeable results. I could listen to you all day lol
@@erregete I really appreciate the kind words! You keep watching and I’ll keep making them!
I’m such a sucker for the UMK3 ninja uniforms. Color swap them all you want, that costume is top top tier.
My Top 3 Color Choices For Palette Swapped Ninjas:
1. Orange
2. White
3. Pink
What names would give them?
Hahaha
@@FAiRWAYx Orange: Duncan Hellfire
Pink: Pinkshi
@@FAiRWAYx tremor was supposed to be the orange one, but if we want to create new:
Orange: takeda, his a fusion of yellow scorpion and kenshi, who originally trained under red ermac, so he is orange;
White: khrome, metal;
Pink: Floyd, wind power; just like purple rain is a prince, pink floyd.
@@benetnasch1774 Khromeeeee
This was pretty fun. Im glad I stumbled here. Can we all agree the MK9 Klassic Ninja Costumes are some of the BEST of the “modern” MK games. ESPECIALLY Reptile!
Although I agree with you ranking for smoke, I love his mk1 design. It’s probably my personal favorite.
I don't like the default mask but his alternate costumes are fine.
@@FAiRWAYx I hope we can get his 'Order of Darkness' skin soon, it's his best skin in MK1.
@@tekkencentre Just looked that up and that skin is fire
I think your tier list for each ninja is near flawless. I would argue that I think Noob is deserving of S because of his lore however I can understand him in A.
Yeah I strongly tinkered Noob and Smoke in S tier because they both are iconic. I can also see the argument for Reptile lower, but he was such an iconic inclusion in the OG game that I think he earned it
Honestly, i completely agree with all of your rankings. Tremor is probably my favorite of the lesser known Ninja's. Are you going to do a video on the female Ninja's at some point?
Yes, eventually. It took me a loooong time to put this together, but it's definitely on the list.
Ninja with earth powers is such a simple yet amazing idea
I totally agree with your list. This was a really fun video.
Maybe my only change would be putting Ermac up one more tier.
Isn't Reiko technically a male ninja, his appearance in mk4 had him in a maroon ninja outfit without a mask
Loved his ninja design. Easily my favorite character.
If I remember correctly, Scorpion was excluded from MK3 because Daniel Pesina, the actor that played Johnny Cage and Scorpion, made an unauthorized appearance as Cage for an ad for a similar game (Time Killers) in the 90’s without permission. They fired him and that’s why Johnny Cage and Scorpion weren’t in the original MK3.
Ermacs 2nd outfit in mk9 is my favorite
It’s very good
As I was one of the best UMK3 players on xbox, I can personally say the community list is 100% spot on. All the S tier ninja were some of the best overall on UMK3 and MK trilogy 🔥🔥 That Ermac juggle use to go crazy😮💨
Very great tier list 🫡
Thank you
I can get behind this tier list. It's nice to see Reptile getting the love he deserves. Maybe not to the level of Scorpion and Sub Zero, but Reptile absolutely is an iconic ninja and one of the more iconic characters in the franchise. If there were separation in the S tier, S1 would be Scorpion and Sub Zero and Reptile would be S2, but they all deserve that tier for sure. The rest of the rankings are fair and honest, and I'm cool with it. Solid work, and great video.
Thanks for the kind comment! Glad I’m not the only one who appreciates Reptile beyond how the devs have treated him
In my opinion all of them go in S tier
Fair
I can’t give Reptile an S tier rating. He, like Baraka, never did anything of consequence in any of the games, save for when he was transformed into Onaga. Also, I think all of his looks post MK3 have been terrible, his latest being the worst by turning him into a fat giant salamander looking thing. Really like the character and his move set, it’s everything else that’s the problem for me.
The Reptile point is fair, and he’s had some low points, but I just think him being the OG secret character opened up so many possibilities. Also, not mentioned in the video, but Liu vs. Reptile in the movie is HYPE.
Bros angry that a character named reptile looks like an actual reptile
Ok fare point agree to disagree
Smoke better than reptile
Brother, he was the FIRST SECRET CHARACTER (I’m really biased I love reptile). Also, he was crazy in UMK3 and was so cool they brought him back for an MK1 character . Also, his niche as a hard-zoner with combo tools has semi-consistently helped define the meta in some games. This is especially cool because in a lot of games he isn’t even a top tier, he just makes sure to fill a hole no other character can
Sub-Zero + Scorpion= Fire 🔥 & Ice ❄️ ❄️
Reptile's aspect as a secret character in MK was something I liked. His moveset was a mix of both Scorpion and Sub-Zero. And his colour scheme is also a mix of Scorpion and Sub-Zero.
"I don't think Smoke has enough substance" Ahahahaha!
😂
He clearly showed a lack of knowledge of the lore about Ermac and Smoke. That "i dont likez smoke maskz in MK1" is stupid.
It also bothered me that he was essentially a gray Scorpion. That’s why I’m so glad they eventually gave Noob his own unique moves.
I was around when the whole fighting game craze started (and yes Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter 2 were the best at the time! No matter where you're at Those were the two main games! Lol) But now being 43 years old fighting games are boring to me but I do like how in depth you went because I used to love Mortal Kombat! And I never thought about how all the different ninjas stood up to each other. That's a really cool idea 🤘🤘 Great job!
Human Smoke = goat
Great video.
Now im up to date with the ninjas.
Yes they messed Rain up by making him a mage, he should stay as the son of argus.
Yes Chameleon needs a juicier story, or maybe keeping his origins a mystery is how it should be and maybe he travels the realm trying to figure out who he is and why he has no memory. Perhaps make him a hero and him feeling the need to do good things ties back to his origins. The right writer has to do him
Yeah I’d be fine keeping Chameleon mysterious, but give us something at least
I like that they made him a sorcerer
What are you on Rain is still awesome
@@BigSmoke-ew5td I'm not saying he's not cool, but making him a water mage instead of the son of argus wasn't smart because we haven't really got the chance to explore that with rain other than him saying it and the arcade ending in MK11
This was a great video and I loved the way it was paced and narrated, but I would have loved a game by game breakdown of everyone’s storylines.
Yeah this was my first real tier list video. I go way more in-depth in the ensuing videos.
@@FAiRWAYx been watching a lot of them, love your work, keep it up! The way you narrate concisely and don’t ramble is actually really good!
@@Kleetus_Van_Damm I try my best not to ramble
@@FAiRWAYxyou’re a good feller, love the videos and your appreciation for the games
Let's be real here, they were already scraping the barrel with the ninjas after scorpion, sub zero and reptile .
Nahhh they're all awesome.
Great job on making this video. I grew up playing ultimate Mortal Kombat three in the arcades back in the 90s. A lot of these characters I don’t even even know about until you taught me.😮
Noob Saibot is definitely s tier
The ninjas are the mortal kombat staples. They are all such amazing koncepts, even if nothing gets done with them in the end. I love them all for vastly different reasons
I feel the same way
My hot take is that they should have never spotlighted the Ninja character's as such defined individuals. The more that they defined who these characters were with individual looks and backstories, the more the MK cast was bloated with characters who were never going to *really* matter but the writing team was gonna keep pretending mattered. There's an air of coolness to the fact that they had these multi-colored shared designs that could have exclusively meant "Mook, Scrub, Complete Cannon Fodder" yet were all pretty uniquely capable in their own ways that made me respect them as palette swaps. Not all of them were great, but the less I knew about them they cooler they seemed.
Yeah I think you make some good points
SCRUB ZERO LOSES. BANALITY.
These characters are a fun exhibit on the creation process. A pink recolored ninja with an in-joke for a name eventually became a distinct character with a backstory and several unique designs (mostly based on the common thread of the pink/green color scheme).
Hard agree on not liking reptile being purely lizardman.
The lizard designs just always looked so stupid. I’ve always wanted him to come back as a ninja for so long.
You kinda underestimated Smoke a bit in this ranking, Smoke is more loyal than Sub-Zero(Kaui Liang) significantly because when Sub-Zero was about to get cybernized by the lin-Kuei he was about to rescue Sub-Zero but Raiden told him “no”. In MKX story mode Jax, Scorpion and Sub-Zero were saved and he didn’t want to do anything with his old friend Smoke. It gets worse in mk11 because in sub-zeros tower ending he chose his brother over smoke because of his sympathy towards his family rather than his own friend that help sub-zero get his revenge against his killer and beat Shang tsung and kano. Overall, Smoke is an extremely underrated character in the mk universe with his loyality for Kaui Liang.
Scorpion is Mortal KOMBAT not Liu kang
Cole Young would like a word
And remember scorpion is not only the logo for netherrealm studios it’s also the ceo of the company’s favorite.
This tier list is good, everything that you said was true
Chief you have failed to include Cyrax and Sector! They are also Ninjas, Jade, Kitana and mileena
This was just for the Klassic palette swaps. I’ll do the others in separate videos most likely!
11:40 wait wait wait.. I thought this Fatality belonged to Cyrax?
It’s a Cyber Smoke original
Reptile deff should NOT be S tier....MK1 made his character awesome but besides that hes been downhill since after mk3 and that reason alone is enough to put him in C rank at best. Smoke is most deff S tier though. Theres a reason fans have been asking for him since MK9
fr
rip scorpion tho
You trash bro reptile is s+
Reptile in S tier but not smoke is the biggest L with this list otherwise I agree
@@chilwil07 that's what I'm saying!!!
since MK Armageddon for real
OMG, FINALLY SOMEONE WHO PRONOUNCED SUBZERO'S NAME CORRECTLY THANK YOU GOOD SIR
No sweat!
Me personally I always thought Reptile too be a B TIER Ninja because he was a jobber in the Midway games yeah he was cool looking but never wins fights and was just punching bag for the heros but great video bro
I agree, but I think he is just so important despite getting dumped on in the story. Thank you for the kind words as well!
Definitely a fair ranking! Here's mine (but no Tremor because I haven't played as him yet):
S: Scorpion, Sub-Zero
A: Noob, Reptile, Ermac, Smoke
B: Rain
C:
D: Chameleon
Great list!
Video was great, the tier list … couldn’t agree more 👍💪
Here's my rankings:
S-Tier: Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Noob Saibot, Ermac
A-Tier: Reptile, Smoke
B-Tier: Rain, Tremor
C-Tier: N/A
D-Tier: Chameleon
Trash rankings
@@francismanancis4186 Thanks for your opinion
Garbageeeeeeee
@@hahahajackmyswag thanks for your opinion
I love the look of reptile and smoke in mk1. They finally gave reptile a good human look. Not a fan of smokes mask but love the karambit ❤
Tremor should've been a playable Character instead of a Kameo
All of them should have been playable, maybe besides Janet
This was an amazing video. Put together nice 👍🏾
I feel like Scorpion and sub zero should be in a tier of their own
S+ tier
Are they Zatterans or Saurians?
P.S.
Deabatable ninjas
1. Takeda - trained by Scorpion and uses an armored version of what would be a ninja suit I suppose
2. Reiko - trained by Sub-Zero, knows Ninjitsu, and had shurikens
3. Human Cyrax - was a skin and character in story mode of MK9
4. Human Sektor - was a skin and character in story mode of MK9
great rice
I hate how the ninjas are slowly being under used as the games go on
Me too 🙁
Yea they waste slots on characters that have nothing to do with mk AT ALL
@@deauxboysteeze8590 yep. Every story mode is just abt Liu Kang, Raiden, Kung Lao and some random villain Ed Boon chooses out of a hat before they start development
@@iemv8900 im talking characters like peace maker and robocop
Right they were the main staple of the games.
Scorpions MK9 Costume is S++ tier 😩🔥🔥🔥
Sub-Zero Kui Liang > Sub-Zero Bi Han > Scorpion Hanzo Hasashi > every other ninja character in MK series.
That first reptile encounter was so brutal, I encountered him by accident while learning the fatalities. I never beat him anytime after I learned about him 😅
Wish they kept all ninjas the same, just a different color. Ermac used to be my favorite until they turned him into a zombie mummy.
Well not the same same, but you know, all ninjas.
This is mostly just speculation, but I would go as far as to say that Ermac advanced certain facets of game development, namely interaction with fans. In 1995, games didn't really acknowledge fan rumors or anything made by the fanbase. Once Ermac was created and everyone lost their mind, games started implementing ideas from fans into their games more and more.
Definitely a generational character from that perspective
Ermac is at least A tier to me because his story is actually quite deep, a legion of souls conflicted yet trapped together by sorcery in one vessel. He's also been good and bad depending on timeline which is neat. His powers are also awesome and i must disagree with his finishers not being memorable. His 3d fatalities, MK9 and MKX fatals are sweet. His MKX fatalities are insanely cool and disturbing.
Fair points all around! MK1 knocked him down quite a bit for me, but I can definitely agree that him flipping between bad and good makes him more complex than the others. Inner Workings is a great fatality looking back on it!
@@FAiRWAYx I liked his MK 1 story better than his second timeline where stays loyal to outworld blindly personally. His first timeline and current I like better personally, but to each his own! Cool video though I don't see many ninja tier lists seems half of them most fans love a lot.
@@MKF30 yeah I do love them all in a different way, but wish some had more to offer the overall story.
@@FAiRWAYx Yeah they can all do more but sadly aren't utilized the best sometimes outside of Scorpion and Sub-Zero. Especially Noob-Saibot, hea always built up this badass but is ultimately fodder the worst out of all of them. He's rumored to be DLC in MK1 at some point so if he returns im curious what they do with him and if he'll be Bi Han again or not in this new timeline
I only watched this for Smoke. Ngl hes my all time when i first learned of him back in the day at the bowling alley while my mom bowled. I used to always play Scorpion, until one night playing the machine, i actually did this stuff by random accident, and got to face him, i beat him and unlocked him, and then had one of the other kids come play me, and they were like "whoa who is that you're playing as???" and id be like, "I just discovered him, lets try him out!" That in my eyes he is S Tier everything else i completely agree with
Rank the shotos from SF next!
Great video. I miss a wind ninja, the only element missing. But since we have Fujin, I think it is very unlikely we'll get one
Sub zero,scorpion,smoke,noob saibot, rain,ermac,reptile, the only characters i care about literally never cared about the other characters
Really? Not even Jax and Johnny Cage?
@@RabblesTheBinx nope it's always been the ninjas for me. Never liked cage or lu Kang,Sonya Jax Kung lou barraka raiden shao khan
@@ranware907115 year old me likes me some Milena.
I would... without the mask... even if it meant ending up supper
Still would
I love that smoke is Czech
awesome list but you forgot Hydro
Oh right…he’s in S+ tier
@@FAiRWAYx 🤣
Great list and agree with a lot of points.
Scorpion and Sub-Zero are S Teir through and through.
Reptile sits around that S to A Teir for me because in the middle to later series he suffered greatly from trying to phase old characters out for new ones but kept coming back plus being the original hidden character is why like Goro I could sneak him in to the top.
Smoke I think has always had great designs over the years and has had a very rich history after a certain point which give how I fell in the 3D era never realized that even before MK 9 he had a real backstory. Smoke is firmly in that A Teir for me.
Noob Sibot too me is the original lazy boy I can't think of anything better so just do this. Noob ultimately got a better backstory as the series went on he truly fell short and for that I'd put him in the B Teir.
Ermac had a great design and moveset throughout the series and while he was never a main eventer expect when he found the soul of Lou Kang in Deception and was a vessel to help free our heros given he never came off a generic henchman plus a great move set Ermac is an A Teir for me.
Tremor had good moves but suffered like many villains in MK 10 from a lack of development and continued today, absolutely C Teir for me.
Rain while he has a cool move set and design through most games sadly falls between B and C Teir as most of the time creators don't know what to do with him.
Chameleon is definitely D Teir as while he has a good moveset for one game he has no backstory and is nearly forgotten about.
Subzero, Scorp for S tier,
Ermac, Noob, Smoke for A Tier,
Rain, Reptile, B Tier
Tremor, Chamelion C Tier
Good list!!
10:17 wasnt smoke stage the one with a hidden stage fatality?, the one that you get launched through the portal on the background
I pretty much 100% agree except I’d put reptile at B tier for being the butt of the joke of the lore until M1K
A MK ninja tier list with no ninja mime is wild
Lmao
Bro you literally had the final tiers up there for like 2 secs.
Do you wanna stare at a screenshot for 10 seconds at a time?
We need another MK game where all ninjas are playable. Yes, including Tremor and Chameleon.
Agreed
As long as they don’t nerf Chameleon
Also make a hydro a playable character as well
Human Smoke from UMK 3 has faster walk speed!
"Scorpion never had a bad costume"
Infrared Scorpion and MK 4 alt: Am I a joke to you?
I try to put Infrared Scorpion out of my head
Damn it, Ermac is so low.
MK movie
Scorpion : GET DOWN HERE!
always made me laugh
Only Scorpion and Noob Saibot must be in S tier
@@mahmoudgwarzo2843 Well, i think Subzero is a little bit weaker than the other two.
Bruh he almost destroyed in MK9 by subzero (QUAI LI ANG)
I feel like Smoke's design would work best as a mix between his human and cyborg forms, where he's not entirely human but not entirely machine either. From there, you can get pretty creative with how he looks.
Would also love to see Chameleon and Khameleon's relationship expanded upon, since apparently they're enemies. Maybe even his relation to Reptile, too.
Smoke > Reptile
facts
I think Smoke is way cooler than Reptile but Reptile is more important to the whole of MK.
Reptó>
Nice! Very informative
Scorpion is so overrated, he looks cool and has good gameplay but he’s a jobber to quan chi half the fucking times and has never been the main character except for the animated movie
Definitely a hot take, but I agree, he needs to be more prominent in the storylines.
Being a jobber does not mean your a bad character. Exames like reptile,Johnny Cafe in midway games,Baraka,kinship,milena,smoke
Wow I thought I was gonna get triggered when one of my favorite ninjas got ranked too low but I couldn’t agree more with this entire list. Solid reasoning & you love the klassic ninja costumes just as much as I do it seems like. Chameleon is the only ranking I don’t agree with since he is probably my favorite ninja of all time. I’m not even mad though because you explained how backstory is more important to you. Normally I would agree, but not for fighting games. I prioritize how cool the character looks, their moveset, style, etc. Basically all the physical aspects. Story isn’t that important to me since I usually only play fighting games to beat up my friends. I couldn’t tell you how much I loved being able to be a ninja that had the moves of all the others, how could anyone not like that? I can acknowledge that his MKT design isn’t kinda lazy for just being a more transparent version of all the ninjas but literally every other ninja was just a different color of the same design of each other up until MKDA. I don’t have a problem with his Armageddon design and think it’s pretty cool actually how his colors change to whatever ninja’s move he uses. For those reasons, I would have Chameleon be s tier (maybe A at the lowest) but I completely understand why you put him low when you include his backstory (or lack thereof really)
is* kinda lazy I meant
No way you put Ermac on B tier lol dude is A tier 100%
My favorite has always been Reptile 🐍 Then I like noob saibot 🥷 and smoke 💨 and rain ⛈️ Then scorpion 🦂 and subzero ❄️ and chameleon 🦎. Then Ermac 🧟♂️. Then tremor 🪨
Great Video 👏
This is a great video the Ninjas in MK are as Iconic as American apple pie. There is someone who wants to put anyone of these in S tier.
Very true