boss character Kronika, the Keeper of Time, who expresses sadness at his current state. The game's story mode reveals that Shinnok is actually Kronika's son, as well the brother of fellow Elder God Cetrion. Character design and gameplay Shinnok's likeness in Mortal Kombat 4 was based on that of series art director Steve Beran. His skin tone is ash-white like that of Quan Chi, his palette features strong red, yellow, and teal tones, and his head is covered with a mitral headdress. In Mortal Kombat Mythologies, Shinnok was portrayed in the cutscenes and gameplay by theater actor Gary Wingert, and similar to Shang Tsung in the original Mortal Kombat game, the character was designed as a wizened sorcerer with a floor-length green robe that concealed his lower body, while his offense in the game's final boss battle is exclusively magic-based as he hovered across the playfield. This was altered in MK4 to Shinnok wearing simple battle armor with the headdress but minus the robe, while he walked normally like the other characters. He was first seen in the Mortal Kombat 4 attract mode standing with Quan Chi and toting a staff adorned with a replica of his amulet, but his assigned weapon in the game was instead a naginata-style spear, and the staff was not seen thereafter until it became his weapon in Mortal Kombat: Armageddon. Shinnok is able to mimic the special moves of his opponents, like Shang Tsung in the two-dimensional games, but the graphical limitations of Midway's then-new 3D software prevented him from physically transforming into the characters, and he was stripped of this feature altogether in the Game Boy Color port of the game, which was substituted by standard specials of a spear attack and dash punch. Mortal Kombat co-creator and programmer Ed Boon admitted he believed that Shinnok was not imposing enough as a final boss on account of the character having no special moves of his own, while lead storyteller John Vogel explained that Shinnok "wasn't as powerful as he should've been" in MK4 because of Quan Chi having given Shinnok the fake amulet, thus weakening him and enabling the Earth heroes to defeat him in the storyline. His Fatalities in MK4 and MKX involve the summoning of massive skeletal hands that kill his defeated opponents. Shinnok is unlockable in Mortal Kombat X upon completion of the story mode. Like the game's other playable