Rain is known as both a fan-favorite and controversial character in the Mortal Kombat series, as despite his impressive weather-based moves and agile gameplay, he continues to underperform in Mortal Kombat 11. The royal purple ninja’s effectiveness could be considered inconsistent across the franchise at best. The recently confirmed and highly anticipated Mortal Kombat 12 has the potential to improve on Rain's appearance by shifting the focus to his new mechanics and shoring up some of his modern and classic weaknesses.
Originally appearing as a secret Easter egg character in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and officially in Mortal Kombat Trilogy, the Edenian prince Rain's signature elemental moves made him a powerful force in the simple retro era. He’s considered the more forgotten brother of other secret ninja characters like Reptile or Ermac, actually beginning his life in an arcade preview as a red herring reference to Prince’s “Purple Rain,” nothing but a joke by creator Ed Boon.
Once he was made officially playable though, he quickly became a dominant character due to his strong elemental special moves. Despite a promising start in the franchise during this time, he failed to dominate in his subsequent appearances in Mortal Kombat's 3D era and beyond. In Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, Rain struggled to keep up with the massive roster filled with characters who could dodge his neutered, linear special moves in the 3D space.
Rain's Mortal Kombat 11 Appearance as a DLC Character Leaves a Lot to be Desired
In Mortal Kombat 9, Rain was severely underrated due to the game's questionable online net code, making his expanded move set and capabilities unviable against more dominant fighters. An unfortunate reality, many players theorized Rain could have been top-tier if it wasn’t for how difficult he was to use with the input delay of the flawed 2011 online play. Finally, before being redeemed with a Mortal Kombat 11 character slot, Rain was demoted to a nothing but a story mode NPC in Mortal Kombat X.
After nearly a decade of irrelevancy, Rain was announced as Mortal Kombat 11 DLC, with this iteration being a highly mobile character that made versatile use of the game’s variation system. He returned with forms of all of his signature elemental moves and even some brand-new additions. Some of his elemental moves like “Geyser Palm” have great utility, but others such as his “Purple Pain” lightning strike and controllable “Water Ball” trap feel like shadows of their former selves. Rain’s new “Quantum” moves, however, offer a new mechanical depth to the fighter through their versatility in terms of his offensive and defensive potential.
In MK11, Rain serves as an advanced character that relies on exploiting his opponents' mistakes to compensate for his low damage output and high execution requirement. Due to the high demands from the player and the low returns he offers, Rain has ended up underperforming by the end of the game’s updates. He sees few tournament appearances and is generally ranked low-to-mid on player tier lists for MK11. A major component to keep in mind about Rain’s performance in Mortal Kombat 11 is that a fighting game character can only be good within the context of the rest of the roster.
The tier lists that have risen to internet prominence in recent years likely originate from the fighting game community after all. Rain might appear exceptional in isolation, but he is simply lackluster compared to much higher-performing top-tier Mortal Kombat characters. Combatants such as Cetrion, Jacqui Briggs, and Sub-Zero, for example, have had the strength to utterly dominate in MK11. A “versatile” low-damage character like Rain fails to fill the roles that more specialized characters such as these excel at. In order to rise above the rest of his roster, Rain needs to surpass his opponents at some fundamental level on a consistent basis, something he hasn’t been able to do for decades now.
Mortal Kombat 12 Needs to Make Rain as Powerful as the Classic Ninjas
With Rain teased as an upcoming character in Mortal Kombat 12, NetherRealm Studios could focus on expanding his exciting Quantum moves while expanding on the effectiveness of his classic elemental moves. For example, his “Quantum Rift” serves as a limited-use defensive special move that absorbs only one projectile. In Mortal Kombat 12, perhaps this type of move could be further explored and allowed to absorb multiple hits of different properties. His “Quantum Slice” is currently boosted by the proper use of “Quantum Rift,” and bolstering this unified effect would bring a greater sense of cohesion to his repetitive kit of many horizontal specials.
He would also greatly benefit from a boost to his unimpressive damage output so that his execution feels more worthy of the effort. Bringing back some “Storm Sword” stance moves from Mortal Kombat: Armageddon while making his “Weather Ball” and “Lightning” the viable bread and butter moves they used to be could go a long way in Rain regaining favor with players. With several improvements, Rain could rise above his peers and even possibly become a top-tier character in the next Mortal Kombat game. Despite being hyped over his announcement and appearance in the prolific Mortal Kombat 11, player support for this iteration of Rain waned as he was overshadowed by his fellow DLC character compatriots.
Limited by his lackluster, unfocused moveset that sees Rain middling in the game’s tier list to this day, it’s no wonder players would rather dive into the plethora of the now iconic Mortal Kombat guest characters and powerful newcomers. In order to stand out from the pack in the bloody future of the Mortal Kombat series, Rain needs to be treated with the same level of respect as his other ninja brothers. All players can do until then, however, is hope that NetherRealm Studios has a plan to finally let its Edenian prince shine as he once did.
Mortal Kombat 12 is currently in development.