See also the franchise-wide pages for:
- And The Fandom Rejoiced
- Complete Monster
- Hilarious In Hindsight
- Memes
- Nausea Fuel
- The Scrappy
- The Woobie
- Broken Base: The story in a nutshell. Part of what makes it so difficult to reconcile with the rest of the series is certain elements that would drastically change the canon if accepted as official, but which are never addressed elsewhere. For example, in no other game is it even remotely implied that, in this timeline (so any game released prior to the reboot), Jade ever got killed. If true, it would require she got resurrected later, as she has a pretty significant role in games like Deception; however, her getting resurrected is not implied either. Decisions like these would have huge consequences for the series, yet no attempt was made to deal with them, further clouding its canonicity. As of Mortal Kombat 11 there may finally be an explanation: Shaolin Monks is just one of the many timelines born from Kronika's Cosmic Retcon schemes. Hence, none of what occurs affects either the Classic or Rebooted Timelines.
- Character Rerailment: Towards Jax (retroactively from Special Forces and Deadly Alliance), the game seem to be closer in line with Jax's original characterization. Justified in that it's supposed to be a retelling of MK2.
- Crosses the Line Twice: An unintentional one. After Baraka slices and stabs a guy multiple times, he throws him over to Liu Kang and Kung Lao. Kang's reaction? "Are you OK?"
- Demonic Spiders: Shadow Priests. They "always" appear in pairs, can call down lightning, teleport, shoot energy bolts at you, grab you to drain your health, and, if you leave them alone, they "will" summon Tarkatans to fight you, and buff any other enemy around. Luckily, they aren't any more durable than the other enemies, so take them out first.
- Game-Breaker:
- Ermac, who is a non-playable in this game, can be playable if the game is modded. And boy, he's so useful in every fight, due to his hado energy shield move.
- Goro is another non-playable who could be playable if modded, and is also useful for dealing with bosses with his over-powered pillar spin attack.
- Goddamned Bats: Tarkatans show up in almost every stage once they're introduced. On their own they aren't any harder than any other mook, but they tend to come in groups.
- Narm: The pre-fight cutscene against Baraka has him messily impaling a Shaolin in the head before tossing him in the player's direction. Whoever the player is using kneels down by the dead monk...and asks "Are you okay?" Death may be rather cheap in this series but many feel that this scene is pushing it.
- Narm Charm: Whereas the voice acting in Mortal Kombat: Deception seemed to be unintentionally hilarious and terrible, there's a lot of moments in Shaolin Monks where they seem to be squarely aiming for deliberately corny acting and lines in a meta design, a la Black Dynamite.Kung Lao: (to Liu Kang, after Sub-Zero freezes the area around) You know what they say about a cold day in Hell... this is it.
- Surprisingly Improved Sequel: While not a sequel story-wise, it is the third action-adventure spin-off in the series, and is, by far and away, considered the best one.
- That One Attack:
- Shao Kahn's spinning swing with his hammer. It has a ton of reach, you fight in a small area so it's hard to avoid and if it hits you, you get hit repeatedly, so you can lose as much as half of your life bar.
- Kano's cannonball deserves some mention - It's quite deadly, unblockable and hard to avoid.
