So I managed to snag myself a copy of the new Mortal Kombat after hearing from many different sources that it was awesome. So what do I think?

Well despite the fact that it’s been hyped more than belief and people at E3 (and similar events) have stated that this is the real deal AND the fact that it’s been very public about having a new developer for like the first time in like fifteen years… I still wasn’t excited. Let’s face it every Mortal Kombat game since Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (back in like 1995) has been a disappointment.

Mortal Kombat 4 was the last one in my opinion to make a proper impact, and the last one to be good. At the time I didn’t like it because it was an early point for 3d fighters and at that point I still wanted my fighters to be completely two dimensional. Later on games like Tekken and Battle Arena Toshinden would show me the error of my ways and I did in fact warm up to Mortal Kombat 4. There was even a Mortal Kombat 4 arcade machine that I lovingly abused in my college. Even still it had absolutely nothing on the first 3 core games in the franchise despite being a classic in it’s own right.

Then the Mortal Kombat titles starting coming out on the PS2 and the next gen consoles of the time and were all terribly underwhelming. Starting with Deadly Alliance the series was making more of a shift to 3rd dimensional gameplay. The reason why Mortal Kombat 4 works as well as it does is because the movement for that game was still mostly restricted to the 2d and still felt like a Mortal Kombat game. However with all the titles after 4 you could really start to see that they were really trying to mimic franchises like Soul Calibur and Tekken. For a game like Mortal Kombat, a trendsetter and innovator of the time, being a second rate clone was inexcusable.

I spent some serious time with Mortal Kombat Deception in particular. They started bringing in sword fighting and the ability to switch martial art styles on the fly… That all rocks on paper don’t get me wrong but it makes for a confusing and overly complicated fighting game that isn’t intuitive in any shape or form. There were so many extra modes it seemed too like an adventure sidequest and let’s not forget… Puzzle Kombat. Later on this mockery would be topped with Motor Kombat. To name some positives however the dynamic and multi-layered stages and stage fatalities were really well done and some of the character designs evolved really well.

Ugliest design ever.

Speaking of character designs, even back in the Mortal Kombat 4 days I started seeing previews in magazines of characters like Reptile with his face exposed and wearing a weird bikini thing… Added to this were a slew of new characters such as Reico and Jarek that didn’t really feel original and were just boring. Nothing about them brought on that mystery and anticipation of seeing Kabal or the robot ninjas for the first time. In fact it would seem with each newer game they put out the fewer classic characters there would be. Pretty soon over half the cast would be made up of people I’ve never even heard of. And not in a good way like Street Fighter 3.

In the PS2 age it seemed like a new Mortal Kombat game was always on the horizon each one distancing itself further from the classic formula and each time we all anticipated the newest title of the time being “the good one”. Even by the mid 2000′s Midway had completely burnt out Mortal Kombat to the point where I didn’t even care that Mortal Kombat: Armageddon was coming out. I never looked at it, never watched trailers, and I never played it. It was just another mediocre fighting game called Mortal Kombat and I was done.

That is until Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe came out a few years after. First of all, this concept of a game was thought up by millions of people after Marvel Vs Capcom had come out about ten years prior and was a pretty late attempt on Midway’s part. Secondly, Mortal Kombat had reached such a low that they actually had to resort on DC’s namesake to instill faith in it’s own fans that it’d be at least decent. At least that’s how I saw it. It was obvious that it was a desperate last move to keep this franchise alive. The nail in the coffin of course is the fact that DC didn’t allow for excessive gore and fatalities. So what we got is a Mortal Kombat game that’d finally took that last little shred of what had stayed in the franchise up till that point. The blood and guts was gone and now this series was completely neutered of anything that made it iconic.

The rest leads us up till this point. Midway tanked and now Mortal Kombat belongs to other developers. Though Ed Boon is still somewhat involved (as he should be). I know I went on for quite a long time about my personal history with Mortal Kombat but I felt I had to justify why I didn’t care about this game. I didn’t think this game was going to be any different and hopefully you can understand why. All of the press in the world couldn’t change the fact that Mortal Kombat, even to me, was not relevant anymore. But thankfully all of it’s good press convinced me to at least give it one last try.

I expected to completely hate this game, and boy do I love being proved wrong. I’m shocked that I’m even saying this. But after like FIFTEEN years of shitty titles there’s finally a good Mortal Kombat game? HOLY CRAP. It’s surreal to even be playing something that both pays homage to the ideal Mortal Kombat of my childhood and feels like something completely refreshing and new.

Could these guys look any more alike?

I think the final culprit that made me try this game was a video review I had watched at IGN. I didn’t really listen to what the guy said but was carefully watching all of the footage. Much to my shock I recognized every single character. So no longer did I have to scratch my head and wonder who the hell the guy made out of puzzle pieces was. For once Mortal Kombat wasn’t leaving me in the dust. In fact the only characters that aren’t from Mortal Kombat 1-3 that are in this game is Quan Chi and Kratos. Kratos of course being the gimmick console exclusive for the PS3, and Quan Chi being a main Mortal Kombat villain starting with Mortal Kombat 4. More newer characters will likely come with DLC. I’m hoping for Rain.

I feel like Quan Chi was a nice choice for this game as he’s a really interesting character and one of the only characters after 3 that proved to be memorable. AT ALL. However my only problem with him is his main outfit, he’s shirtless with a shoulder pad. He doesn’t really look like Quan Chi anymore, it’s not that he looks bad it’s just he looks really similar to Kratos. An unrelated character who happens to be in this game. And plays quite well.

I guess another complaint I have is the title of the game. ‘Mortal Kombat’. I know the series had reached a really low point and they wanted to reboot it but to just call it ‘Mortal Kombat’ feels a bit lazy. But then again what else do you call it so that people don’t associate it with all the shitty games from the previous generation leading up to this point?

Hot damn.

When those are my biggest complaints regarding the game you know that the developers did right. What I especially enjoy is the story. Not only is it extremely well produced but it goes back to all my favorite moments of the early Mortal Kombat games. Particularly that moment right before Mortal Kombat 3 starts and Stryker has to fight off creatures in the city and in the subway. That was incredible. You see what’s great about the story is how simple it is. Raiden pulls a 2009 Star Trek, goes back in time, and tries to prevent disasters of the future. It’s hard to get more poetic than that.

The entire story mode for this game is incredible forcing you to play nearly every character and is really good training as a whole. It may just be the best story mode for any fighting game that I’ve ever played. Though you can’t skip a single cutscene in the story. It’s minor but still annoying.

It’s amazing how right the gameplay is in this game. It feels like Mortal Kombat 2. It’s even made some long overdue improvements to the core games. Like I thought at first the absence of the “run” feature would annoy me but the “dash” actually works much better for fighting games as proved by many Neogeo classics. There’s an in-game move list which Mortal Kombat 4 technically introduced but it’s still nice to see it here in the classic setting. Also fatalities are MUCH easier to perform. Doing a fatality was never something I could consistently do, because there wasn’t a real way to practice and the margin of error was SO high. Plus I had noone to show those off to but myself. Finally and most importantly if you don’t like how characters do the moves you can tweak the controls to your liking.

Cage's character is especially hilarious in this game.

The only real misstep in the gameplay is the Xray mode. It’s easy to do and cool to look at. But it’s appeal quickly goes away after like the 6th time you see it. Characters will rip out hearts or break your legs mid battle and there will be zero consequence. Sure it’s comical and fun to look at, but it serves very little purpose and is just an animation that you have to watch and cant skip. If there was an option to disable it (other than a Kombat Kode) I’d be much happier with it. Or if there was a clinical way to actually break your opponents legs or instantly kill somebody ala Bushido Blade… Though that might’ve broken the game.

As far as fighting game reboots go I think this might be the best one. I know that Marvel Vs Capcom 3 and other titles in that vein didn’t hold my interest for nearly as long as I expected them too. I can’t speak for Street Fighter 4 however and how well this holds up to that as I haven’t played it. In the back of my mind I’m hoping that this will help elevate Mortal Kombat back into competition with Street Fighter just like the good old days. And maybe inspire even more fighting game comebacks. Like Killer Instinct… Or Clay Fighter?

The select screen is all the evidence you need. This is the MK game that gets it right. Cyber Subzero kicks ass btw.

The scary part about this game is that I’m completely in love with it, but I’ve barely scratched the surface of it. There’s online play, there’s kollectibles, unlockable outfits, classic outfits, unlockable moves, trophies/achievements, dlc, a challenge tower, arcade modes, test your might, test your sight, test your strike and on and on. I really can’t ramble on about this enough.

All I even have left to say is that this title may go over the heads of a lot of current and casual gamers on the scene, but this is FINALLY the game for that long time fan that was yearning all of these years for a title to take you back to the glory days of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 when the MK legacy was untouchable.

Flawless Victory Netherrealm.

9/10