Tldr: It's the tournament format and personal rivalries.
At its core, before throne grabs or inventive fatalities, Mortal Kombat has always been about engaging in personal rivalries, and tournaments are fantastic ways to frame them.
1995’s Mortal Kombat understood this, and that’s what makes it a great movie, even 30 years later.
Recently finished it, I really liked it but was hard for me to follow the plot, it feels like a spaghetti at first but it slowly unravels as the show progresses and it gets really better.
Maybe it was because I don't have an very good English and the Scottish accent is a challenge for me even if I love it.
That's on us, we set the bar too low.