See also Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm.
Trope examples include:
- Adaptational Curves: Sonya is much more muscular than she was in the game.
- Back-to-Back Badasses: This happens with the trio when they get ambushed by some Tarkatan Mooks.
- Battle of the Still Frames: The fight scene against the Tarkatan army is done like this. Oddly enough, in some shots the Tarkatans move normally while another visible character is "fading from one spot to the other.
- Barehanded Blade Block: Every good guy does it.
- Catchphrase: Scorpion says "Get over here!", whilst Shang Tsung says "Flawless Victory!" and "Finish him!" in one of the many, many flashbacks.
- Combination Attack: Liu Kang and Johnny manage to pull one of these off in the Multi-Mook Melee.
- Costume Inertia: Inverted for the Multi-Mook Melee - Johnny Cage actually takes his Cool Shades off... then they're back on again.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: Johnny Cage spends most of the cartoon as just a Deadpan Snarker, but when the Power Trio are faced with an army of Outworld warriors, he takes off his shades to kick butt.
- Limited Animation: This was one of the first instances of digitally produced 2D animation. It shows.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: Shang Tsung knows he can't attack the trio before the Tournament, in risk of forfeiting. So he has Sub Zero use his powers to freeze the deck so that they would die in a slip and fall. It doesn't work and even then Raiden was well aware of it.
- Mister Exposition: Raiden. Literally 90% of his dialogue is just exposition.
- Motion Capture: How they achieved the CG animated sequences.
- MST: Retsupurae takes a crack at the entire video starting here
. - No Ending: Though the film claims that the live action film that this was released for will pick up where this left off... Only it didn't.
- Off-Model: The 2D animation can be wildly inconsistent from frame to frame, much less shot to shot. As a result, Johnny's six pack will often be either flat or misshapen and Sonya can develop some very mannish facial features. Scaling issues happen frequently due to the poor integration between the 2D characters and CGI backgrounds.
- The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Shang Tsung exploits this to get Scorpion to help Sub Zero ambush the trio. As he points out, if one of them were to kill Sub Zero, Scorpion will never get his chance at vengeance.
- Outside-Context Problem: As Raiden explains, while Kung Lao was the best fighter Earth had, no one had ever seen anyone like Goro. "Punishment that would have killed a mere man seemed to anger the shokan warrior."
- Recycled Animation: Quite a lot of the 2D animation is this. It's most obvious in the climax, when the same fight sequences are repeated two or three times over the course of a few minutes. The most obvious example is the animation of Johnny Cage crab-walking away from some mooks, even though they try to hide it by first reversing the animation and then playing it in blurry slowmo.
- Save the Villain: One of the backstories Raiden tells involves Goro and his brother fighting for the right to their father's throne. Goro's brother spares Goro falling off a cliff, but Goro doesn't return the favor when his brother is the one dangling.
- Say My Name: Raiden towards the end: "Shaaaaaang Tsuuuuuuung!!!"
- Speed Echoes: In the mook battle.
- Spell My Name with an S: Much like the then-current console ports of the games, and the live-action movie, Raiden's name is misspelled as "Rayden" in the "Meet the Fighters" sequence.
- Whole Episode Flashback: The whole thing is pretty much Raiden explaining the events of previous Mortal Kombat tournaments over the aforementioned CGI.
