Mortal Kombat Review

A few years ago when Midway Games dissolved, NetherRealm Studios rose from the ashes to ensure the continued production of Mortal Kombat games. With Warner Brothers Games now running the show, Ed Boon and NetherRealm Studios made the decision to reboot the series, an act which is becoming more common these days in long running franchises. Bringing the series back to its roots, this new Mortal Kombat game aims to strip the series of some of the more ridiculous concepts (animalities?) and develop a solid 2D fighting game, while still retaining the staples that make Mortal Kombat so unique.

As a fan of the franchise, a story reboot for Mortal Kombat was more than welcome. From my very first game of the original in the arcades, I followed the poorly written stories of each character and their involvement in this fighting tournament to save “Earthrelm.” The newest Mortal Kombat does something that is unique and smart with the story. Raiden, now canonically defeated, sends a memory back in time to the very beginning of the very first game. Here, he has the opportunity to change history that occurs throughout the timeline in the various games. For fans, this is a very exciting because the game very closely retells the stories from the first four Mortal Kombat games. It’s fun to relive all the events of the previous games, and the changes that they make to the story along the way.

However, the story in Mortal Kombat has always been poorly written and campy, and the characters one dimensional. When updating the franchise, nobody at NeitherRealm decided to update the characters. It becomes obvious fairly quickly that this was a game birthed out of the early 90s, with its rampant ninjas, demons, and big-breasted bimbos. When playing through Story Mode, you start out as Johnny Cage first. Not a great way to kick things off, but at least they get him out of the way. Johnny Cage is still a stereotype wrapped in a cliché. But, for a story that is bland and sometimes nonsensical, NetherRealm actually tells it in a compelling way, with good pacing and flow, as well as a great presentation. But who really plays Mortal Kombat for the story?

There is always a lot going on in the stages.

NetherRealm managed to do something great with Mortal Kombat. In keeping the characters and their moves the same, they kept the nostalgia factor high. However, the fighting mechanics have been revamped, made faster and more solid. The controls are tight, and there is a real fluidity to the fighting. And each character feels different and unique when playing. And most importantly, Mortal Kombat is well balanced, with no character standing out as being too powerful or weak. NetherRealm managed to slip a competent 2D fighter into the gimmicky socks of Mortal Kombat, which is quite the accomplishment. Unfortunately though, problems that existed in previous incarnations of Mortal Kombat still blotch the surface.

Most specifically horrendous are the boss fights. Not only are the bosses incredibly hard due to their increased health and defense, as well as the shear amount of damage they do, but they actually break the rules of the game. There will be times, completely at random, that when you land a blow on one of the bosses and they will simply flash with a yellow light. When this happens, your attack landed, but it has none of the interrupting qualities it normally would have. That means that, at random, you can’t interrupt a combo, or knock them across the area with an uppercut. It’s complete bullshit. The bosses are hard enough when the game doesn’t cheat, with their cheap attacks and repetitive behavior. It’s been a long while since a game has caused controller flinging fits of rage like the bosses in Mortal Kombat.


Klassic kharacters return to kombat.

Almost equally rage inducing is the two-on-one fights you are forced to endure. Your character is pitted against two characters with full health bars. It’s not as frustrating as the boss fights, but it’s a close second, and it’s just inexcusably bad game design. Don’t even get me started on the time when the game pitted me against two bosses at once. That was the absolute worst. It’s sad that in such a solid fighting game, I had to resort to cheap tricks to progress to the next fight.

Luckily there are many modes in Mortal Kombat to distract from the bosses. Along with the standard Arcade, versus, and of course, story mode, there is the new challenge tower. This tower is a series of 300 challenges where the game asks you to complete a fight a certain way, or do a specific challenge. For example, armless kombat pits you against your opponent without arms. So naturally, you are limited to kicks only. These challenges provide a fun diversion and an interesting challenge to the normal gameplay. Additionally there is a tag battle mode, where you can select two kombatants for some two-on-two battles. Especially nice is that you can team up with another player to tackle an arcade style ladder in this mode, creating a nice co-op play session. The only shame is that there aren’t tag team fatalities.

Two-on-one battles are rage inducing.

The presentation in Mortal Kombat is impressive. The graphics look sharp with intricate character detail and interesting, animated stages. Most notably, the fatalities and new x-ray attacks (attacks the let you see the bones you are crushing in your opponent’s body while dealing massive damage) look fantastic. And these fatalities are the most brutal yet in any Mortal Kombat game. The voice acting is solid, and the actors do what they can for the silly script. I couldn’t tell you how many times I heard someone mention that they formed a “Deadly Alliance” when two kombatants teamed up. We get it, there was a game called Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. It’s not funny.

Dressing a solid 2D fighter with the franchise’s ninja masks and extra arms really created a solid, entertaining fighting game. And while it can be frustrating at times, the variety of modes lets you shake off nerd rage and find something else fun to do. The fatalities and gore are consistent with the series roots while removing a lot of the silliness that started to plague the series in its more recent installments. For fighting fans, it’s worth checking out. But if you are a fan of the Mortal Kombat franchise, it’s a must buy.