The Mortal Kombat series first made its debut over 32 years ago with the actual Mortal Kombat 1, and over the last three decades it has seen a myriad of different titles released. The majority of these games have been competitive fighters, which means each one that was had its own set of playable characters, and naturally, high tiers and low tiers.
The masterminds behind the PND Ketchup & Mustard YouTube channel, Ketchup and Mustard, have put together another excellent video that closely analyzes the competitive history of a character from the series over the course of the entire franchise’s history. Today in the spotlight is none other than Mortal Kombat’s first-ever protagonist and hero, Liu Kang, and we learn how good (or not) he was in each game he was playable in.
As the condiment-named commentators / content creators note, Liu Kang in Mortal Kombat is traditionally and consistently a good character when it comes to competitive play.
The Earthrealm defender has been in every mainline Mortal Kombat title over the last 32 years with the exception of one installment. He was not a playable fighter in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance for… reasons (he was canonically dead).
In the games he does appear in, however, Ketchup and Mustard explain that the fighter tends to be fairly strong. Liu Kang is generally designed to be a character that is easy for newcomers to pick up and play, but also rewards players for putting in real time with him.
The original 1992 Mortal Kombat marked the debut of Liu Kang, and in this title he happened to be one of the best characters in the game. All of his normal attacks are decently good, and he only has two special moves in this game with one of them being his flying kick, and this attack is particularly strong due to how fast it is and how slow the game is overall.
Jumping all the way to the other Mortal Kombat 1, it’s explained that Liu Kang has never really been weak in this title though his placement on the tier list is often debated.
He’s still a jack of all trades, he jives well with a lot of different Kameo Fighters, and he still has his trademark attacks, though some function and even look a bit different, but with all of that having been said he is usually considered among the stronger characters overall.
You can check out the full analysis of Liu Kang’s competitive history throughout the Mortal Kombat series below.