Mortal Kombat X Review

Prepare For Kombat!

Mortal Kombat X is the highly anticipated fighting game sequel from developer Neatherrealm studios. Formerly Midway games, creative director Ed Boon has been heading the Mortal Kombat games since the very beginning. There are a few things that come to mind when someone thinks of a Mortal Kombat game: iconic characters, blood and gore, and a gripping story. Mortal Kombat X is the next step for Neatherrealm studios. Their goals this time around was to create a deeper fighting game experience while giving players incentive to come back every day for rewards and online battles, and lastly to write a story about passing the torch to the next generation. Did they succeed? Mostly yes, but it's where it counts. 

The Fighting

  I'll start off with the one thing that everyone wants to know. Is the fighting solid? Yes it definitely is. While combos are more difficult to pull off in this game, most likely to keep exploits and long chain combos under control, the fighting feels smooth, mostly balanced and with many play styles to choose from. Mortal Kombat X introduces a new system called variations. Each character has three fighting stances called variations that change up their play style. Sometimes variation changes can be subtle only changing a few passives and maybe adding a special move or two, or they can completely change the fighters play style all together. The system allows for much more diversity among characters and allows for more strategy when facing other characters and their play styles.

Back for more

  Stage interactions have returned from Injustice while being a bit more balanced this time around. Injustice had some problems with stage interactions because certain characters would use the background differently. Now every interaction is universal among the roster, using an environment piece to get across the map will work the same for each character. Stage interactions can no longer be used to start or extend juggles which was necessary to balance the game. Most stages has plenty of projectile, mobility and corner escapes to make gameplay much more interesting while maintaining balance. The game also has a new running mechanic to allow characters to get across stages faster and connect combos with some skill of course. To prevent run, dashing or stage interaction spamming a stamina bar has been added. The bar will recharge as long as none of those actions are performed for a second or two. Overall this is the most polished fighting game that Neatherrealm has released and it's nice to see that they took extra time to balacnce gameplay and allow for multiple styles of gameplay rather than, "The person who pulls off the longest combos wins." 

The Story

 Story is hard to talk about in a fighting game. Most fighting games, save for a few, lack any kind of story mode whatsoever favoring instead to focus on fighting game balance and game play. Neatherrealm has proven time and again that it is possible to have a great story in a fighting game. The story takes place over a span of 25 years taking place right after the events of Mortal Kombat 9. Most of the heroes that everyone loves from MK 9 is dead and it's up to the survivors to fend off the hellish invasion and deal with the aftermath. The villian, Shinnok, is a fallen elder god that made his first appearance in Mortal Kombat 4 returns as the main antagonist. Using his sorcery, he corrupts the souls of some familiar earthrealm warriors to aid him on his conquest to destroy earthrealm. Shinnok is brilliantly written as a Palpatine like villain that views his earthrealm opponents as nothing more than, "Feculant Scum."

 The overarching theme in the story is about passing the torch to the next generation of fighters and how the new kids learn the ropes of diplomacy, teamwork and even love. Yes it sounds hokey and is, but not in the good way. First of all Mortal Kombat is hardly a setting that is really meant for that type of story. In a game where someone can stick his face through another persons chest, even possibly his own daughter's, and yells "Here's Johnny!" well it's not exactly the proper setting for a story like this. A story like this feels more appropriate as an Injustice sequel, not Mortal Kombat. While it is nice to see things shaken up in the Mortal Kombat universe and even seeing some of our favorite fighters grow and mature, the story feels all over the place. Things start off very exciting wrapping up the problems carrying over from Mortal Kombat 9 and showing how Outworld's current ruler, Kotal Kahn, rise to power. Exciting moments pepper the story from the exciting helicopter battle to Mileena's Coup de grace in outworld; However, the story begins to drag and while certain characters have an excellent back story, others just feel lazy. Jacqui Briggs felt devoid of much personality and she feels like a carbon copy of her father. Why have her in the game at all over fan favorites like Cyrax?

Will fight for food.

Certain characters I felt needed more screen time than they got while others got more than they deserved. The conclusion of MK 9 set up the possibility for some tense moments between returning characters. While some occur, others get sidelined in favor of the new blood. Some might love or hate the story but I do feel like will all the lore at their disposal, Neatherrealm wasted another good story in favor of handing some of the best moments over to the comic book writers instead of showing these moments IN THE GAME! 

The New Blood

In terms of character designs, Mortal Kombat X excells. Returning characters look wonderful with their respected redesigns. Mortal Kombat X also features 8 new characters, the most Neatherrealm has introduced since Mortal Kombat 4. It makes sense that these characters are going to pop up since the Mortal Kombat timeline has been changed. Most of these characters have excellent design and some some are easily going to become fan favorites, from Takeda and his lashing whips to Erron Black and his six shooters.     

You'd best shut up and draw.

Towers

 Instead of a 300 challenge tower or Star Labs that we got with Neatherrealm's last games this time we have the living towers. Living towers are Neatherrealms version of daily challenges. Each tower rotates at a certain time. There are hourly, weekly and premier challenge towers. 

It's alive!

Each tower rotates according to the timer displayed over the tower shown. Each comes with it's own challenges and rewards. As you get further up the tower, the challenges can get pretty hectic. From slow combat, to juggle combat or Stryker grenade assists. It's a ton of fun to hop on and just screw around with the towers. Skins, custom combat modifiers, experience and coins can all be earned by completing each tower. It is also worth noting that when new characters are released, they will be available to play in the premier tower. You WILL NOT need to purchase the character to play them in the premier tower. An interesting sort of "try before you buy" approach that Neatherrealm has taken and it's brilliant. 

Faction War & Online

  Neatherrealm has developed a new meta game that takes place even while you are busy killing A.I. opponents. In Mortal Kombat X you choose from one of 5 factions to participate in a war between players from around the world. Playing the game and completing daily challenges earns you points for your faction that contributes to the war. At the end of each week a faction is crowned champion and gets a nice reward along with some cash to spend in the krypt. Every week the game will also be invaded by the neatherrealm to offer up some opportunities to score some extra factions points and cash.

Pick a side, Nancy!

  Depending on what faction you join gains you access to a different menu screen, icons and backgrounds for your online profile and even faction kills. Yes that's right, faction kills. Faction kills are 1 of 3 new finishers added to Mortal Kombat X, the other two I'll get into next, and they have some devastating results. It's a nice touch to replace stage fatalities and it gives players incentive to try joining new factions and unlocking some nasty finishers. Any character can pull off faction kills and for those that aren't the best at pulling off fatalities, they are much easier.

Oooooo, nasty

  Online mode returns with some much needed modes added in revolving around the new faction war meta game. Returning from MK9 and Injustice is King of the hill mode with some additions of cute emojis to use during the match. Along with this mode there are 5v5 team battles where factions face off. There is also your standard 1v1 player and ranked matches. Unfortunately the online is unstable. I've had experiences ranging from slight lag to slow mo matches. Ed Boon has stated however that the lag is due to server overload and the next patch should alleviate some problems.

King of the Hill

The Gore Galore

  It would be impossible to do a review on Mortal Kombat without talking about the gore. Mortal Kombat is the whole reason why the ESRB exists today and let me tell you this game does not let up. I really have to give props to the sound department and the design team because some of the fatalities in this game actually made me a little sick to my stomach. The fatalities in this game are very disgusting and I shied away from putting any fatalities in this review that are a bit too extreme. But don't be fooled, this game deserves it's 18+ rating no question about it. Along with classic fatalities and faction kills, brutalities make a return; However instead of being a series of button strings, they are now quick finishers that have qualifiers that must be met during the match to pull off. Each character has 5 or 6 different brutalities each with different prerequisites to execute. Some are easier than others but they all have hilarious results and these are arguably more fun to pull off and show more skill to execute rather than fatalities. Disrespect incoming...

Brutality demonstrated   

Kreepy Krypt & Menacing Micro-transactions

  The Krypt returns in this game as your go to place to spend all that hard earn money. Unlike previous versions, this Krypt is a bit more interactive. Navigating is done through a first person perspective and the layout is much like a maze. There are 4 sections to the Krypt but you'll have to do some exploring and light puzzle solving to access each area.

One of many locked doors

   It would've been nice for the puzzles to require a little more cognition rather than just go here, pick up this item, take it here. They aren't so much puzzles as much as finding keys to unlock doors.

   Many people who played Mortal Kombat 9 will remember the terror they experienced going into the Krypt and being scared half to death  by that jump scare. The jump scares return this time in the forms of wolves, zombies and......spiders. As you trek through the various parts of the Krypt you will encounter these terrifying creepy crawlies; However this time you will have a chance to slay these terrors with a quick button press and if timed correctly you are rewarded with some extra coins. Luckily there's no penalty for missing the prompt, I've missed more than my fair share due to soiling myself. #Shame

Kill these things with fire please!!!

  However not all is well in the Krypt. No doubt many people have opinions about micro-transactions and how they ruin game progression etc. Sadly micro-transactions rear their ugly head in this game too. Not only can the entire Krypt be unlocked from the start with an extra $20, but Someone decided it was a good idea to capitalize on fatalities by making them easy, for a price. Fatality tokens and fight skip tokens can now be bought if you just can't manage to get those darn fatalities nailed down. I'll point out that faction kills are easy as dirt to execute, and they're free, this system just seems downright stupid and pointless. The entire thing just seems like a ploy to sucker some poor people into spending some extra money but what is the point? It's not like a skin that is permanent, you spend a token for each fatality performed and fatalities don't even effect the gameplay, it's simply icing. Who in their right mind would pay for this?

Really? Id rather have the spider in my face.

  It's also worth noting that Goro, the first DLC character, is behind a pay wall unless you preordered the game. The DLC practices in this game are underhanded but they don't cross the line for me because honestly this stuff can be ignored very easily. On the positive side, we have Tanya, Tremor, Jason and the Predator to look forward to down the line along with a bunch of skins. 

Yes this is happening.

 Final thoughts

If my review hasn't already indicated, there is a lot of game here. My gripes with the story and stupid micro-transactions aside, there is a huge amount of content to explore. There is plenty here to keep you busy whether or not you are big into fighting games. It might not be the easiest fighting game to get into but it is one of the most satisfying and strategically interesting fighting games I've ever played. I'm sure that Mortal Kombat X will keep fans glued their screens for a while before Neatherrealm no doubt blows our minds again with their next project. Until then, I'll wait to face off against the Ultimate Hunter.