User:Shard/MK9
This review contains some spoilers. If you haven't gotten the game yet and care about the story, don't read this.
Mortal Kombat has been controversial since its inception, largely due to its high level of violence and realistic graphics. After Trilogy, the franchise went through a series of mostly bad 3-d gameplay formats such as in the Soul Calibur games. The new one returns back to a 2D format and to all the original mechanics. No silly arena-weapon pickups, no premortem stage fatalities.
The opening cutscene begins after the events of Armageddon, where basically everyone is dead. Shao Khan is about to kill Raiden, just before Raiden sends a message to himself in the past. Mortal Kombat plays through the first three games, with some alternate events taking place instead of those that happened in the canon of Trilogy.
Most of the characters from Trilogy come back. The only exceptions are Rain and the boss characters, some of which are in the game but are just unplayable. Motaro isn't in the game at all as a character (though he is in story mode). The basic controls are almost the same as they were in Trilogy. You have 2 punch buttons, 2 kick buttons, block, and throw. Instead of a run button, there is dashing as per Street Fighter 3+. There is also a special meter at the bottom which you can use for powered up specials, combo breakers, or an X-ray attack. Special moves leave you very vulnerable if they are blocked or miss. Playing it should feel almost exactly like the old games.
I was surprised that NetherRealm made a conscious effort to make each characters' specials less gay. In Trilogy, you could spam a single good special of some characters and cheese your way to victory. Most of these cheese moves have been toned down and are much easier to deal with in the new game. The overall balance is very good considering MK isn't intended to be a serious competitive game.
The Challenge Tower is a new mode of 300 trials containing interesting or strange scenarios. Some of them are minigames like Test Your ____, and others are actual combat matches with unique situations. A few of the scenarios are frustratingly difficult, especially the ones where you have to avoid taking damage for 25 seconds, and the ones that make you lose life the longer your character stays in the match (in a tag team battle). Also, Shao Khan cheats.
My friends have found what is probably the most awesome mode of a fighting game ever, called Test Your Luck. In this mode, a slot machine comes up before the match and selects a set of random modifications that gets applied to one or both characters. Some of these include no blocking, no jumping, turbo mode, random meteors from the sky, overpowered mode, no arms, no head, and even cosmetic changes like rainbow kombat (where blood is prismatic). Setting this mode to 7 slots ensures total chaos between you and your opponent and is really fun for parties.
The only downfall of the game (so far) is the lack of stuff to do with your earned koins. I finished the challenge tower in three days and unlocked everything at the Krypt earlier this week, and now have nothing to spend Koins on. I would hope that future DLC releases will support buying them with koins, or maybe the developers have other plans for koins. We'll see.
The graphics and sound are outstanding. The sounds give you a clear idea whether or not you've hit your opponent, and the frame rate of 60 stays constant except in rare situations where the screen is filled with particles. The characters and environments are just beautiful. When my friends and I switch out and have to watch, we spend more time looking at the background than watching the fight.
Overall, this is a game all MK fans should buy. It's possibly the best game in the franchise to date, with lots of stuff to do, and (hopefully) even more stuff people haven't found yet.
