Kombat Time!

 

This is a picture of myself at about 2 years of age and my Mother. I bring this up out of the blue because my Mom was always there for me when I was growing up, and that included determining what type of things I would be allowed to experience. When I got into video games around this age she made sure that I knew what was 'real' and what was 'fake' as well as okay to play. That's why she automatically gets 'kick ass' points for letting me not only get into Mortal Kombat when it came out in 1992 while I was 7 years old, but found that she would become a fan of it too. We'd both grow up seeing how Mortal Kombat would change as a franchise and even now I let her in on MK-related news to stir up old discussions we used to have on it.

Thank God for Netherealm Studios finally stepping up to the plate in lieu of Midway dying then, because who knows what we'd do if we actually never saw Mortal Kombat again!

 ~Get Over Here~

This is a photo taken from Tumblr of what the place would still look like. Right now the building is still there but it's mostly for pool and/or Football games, so I no longer go there. :(

I remember it vaguely, but I'm pretty sure my introduction to Mortal Kombat involved an episode of "GamePro TV" and a trip or two to the local arcade "Flipper McCoy's". It was thanks to this location and some awesome parenting from my Mom that I got a chance to try out this would-be-Street-Fighter-killer that had some interesting artwork on the side of the cabinet named "Mortal Kombat". That encounter there helped me grow up a big MK fan so I would play almost every single MK game I could get my hands on throughout the generations of consoles.  Mortal Kombat 4, MK "Gold", MK: Mythologies Sub Zero, Deadly Alliance, so on and so on. But then came the lull that was supposed to be the "last Mortal Kombat game ever". Mortal Kombat Armagheddon: a title for the Xbox that I played where it involved everyone from previous games looking for one final shot at victory to literally end everything.


That was back on the Xbox though, and the Xbox 360 has seen many years of use since then but with no Mortal Kombat presence until in 2011 the entire series was rebooted.


Enter Netherealm Studios: a developer team with Ed Boon (one of the creators of Mortal Kombat) at the helm who came back and helped the series get back on its feet and took the entire video game industry by storm when they announced they would bring another game to the current generation of consoles. The premise was simple: strip down all the unnecessary add-ons that the franchise had accumulated over time and go back to the basics. It was planned as a reboot from the beginning, and if you're going to reboot anything properly then "Mortal Kombat", as it's aptly named, is a perfect example of how you go beyond the expectations of fans and give them exactly what they want and THEN some.

The key thought for Mortal Kombat here is it's the game you can come into already if you're a veteran but if you're completely new to the series that's perfectly fine because not only does the story reboot itself but the game gives you every single possible chance to LEARN the game mechanics and know how to hop in regardless. There's even a difficulty setting from "Beginner" to "Expert" on the Arcade, and you get rewarded for playing on ANY difficulty! More on the 'reward' part later.

First off, the game is back onto a two dimensional fighting plane. No longer are fights pushed onto a three dimensional arena, no, we're going back to how the original 3 Mortal Kombat games played. There's now also an inclusion of a meter on the bottom that can allow up to 3 different types of strategy for use. Lighting up one part of the meter allows you to break out of the opponent's combo, two parts allows you to use an enhanced special move (Which gives extra damage over just using it regularly), and lighting up the entire meter gives you a possible game-changing "X Ray Attack". Succeeding in linking this attack on the opponent results in your fighter doing a number of things to them for massive damage...but whatever it ends up being, it's a 100% result of bones being broken and let me tell you...if Mortal Kombat can -still- make you wince from the possible pain being put out onscreen then you know it hasn't lost its touch.                                                                                                                                                                         

Most of all welcoming to Mortal Kombat veterans in this game is that the multiple styles from previous titles are completely gone. You are now given a move set, combo list, special move list, tag move list, fatality list: basically everything you would want to know in how to control your fighter. Now that we've discussed the basics of the game, let's dive into the other reworked part of the game: the story.

Mortal Kombat and "story" in the past was handled a little haphazardly. It was only the recent Mortal Kombat titles that really tried to dabble into telling thorough stories that could go into detail about it outside of "Here's the opening sequence, now here's the ending. Go beat it again with some other character now". Before this title specifically there was an open-world sub-game that detailed the story events, but now it's a streamlined experience.   

Players are treated to the beginning of this game's story which continues immediately in the wake of the events from Mortal Kombat Armagheddon. To be blunt: everybody has been killed, we're all doomed, and not even Raiden, the Thunder God and Protector of Earth Realm, is capable of stopping Shao Kahn from doing whatever he desires now. We see the two fighting (and Raiden losing quite thoroughly) on top of a pyramid as Shao Kahn gloats about his oncoming victory; visibly filled with enough energy to take out Raiden in one more critical hit. But before he deals the final blow Raiden says a quiet chant on his amulet that he wears which rewinds time so his past self can perhaps prevent these events from occurring. Players realize soon that what happened is that Raiden has rewound events back to the very first Mortal Kombat tournament and must now experience as the story unfolds. Raiden (in the new timeline now) receives a vision from his future self as a result of this, and from time to time uses that knowledge to change the course of history.

Now we have our reboot.

Mortal Kombat goes through a retelling of the events of Mortal Kombat 1-3 (the original games) in the sequence of cutscene -> fight -> cutscene. While linear, I appreciate the approach they took, as players are forced into certain roles of characters in a certain chronological order only as those characters are deemed most important. I personally would have loved to have more time with my favorite fighter, Scorpion, but I won't complain since the experience of seeing Mortal Kombat being treated with a bigger respect than it was given before makes my inner fanboy's heart aflutter. You might as well call this its own "Mortal Kombat Movie" because even watching the cutscenes alone is enough to gauge what happens.        

But that would have been worthwhile alone had the gameplay not held up, nor come with loaded options. If you're looking for things to do other than experience the canonical story, then you are NOT short of customizing how you want to spend your time. There's Arcade Ladder (which allows for Tag Team options), Test Your Might/Luck/Sight/Strike, Multiplayer Vs (Online and up to 4-players on the same console), Challenge Tower (Which has a lot of specific challenge missions for you to do) and Extras included with the game that reward all of this time put on it. THIS is where I speak about the 'reward' I talked about earlier...and it's a pretty neat system borrowed from previous games. Basically for playing the Story/Arcade/Vs/Challenge mode you earn Koins (yes, with Coins spelled with a "K") that you can spend in the Krypt. Going to the Krypt to redeem your Koins welcomes players to a slice of Outworld: a barren cemetary-meets-part-forest-part-torture-yard-part-blood-lake. It's all yours for the taking as you blow up tombstones, explode stomachs, feed the fishes, or guillotine slice your way to fun extras such as unlockable costumes, secondary fatality codes, concept artwork, unlockable music, or promotional renders. I've invested thousands of Koins and I still have yet to unlock everything. There's also a simple sort of guilty satisfaction one like me obtains when hearing Shang Tsung's line for fighting him in Arcade Ladder is his quote from the Mortal Kombat movie "Your soul is mine!".

However with this entire game giving out so much as well as going back to basics comes a few things I must nitpick a little on. For one the AI in this game is very predictable as it appears at times you can 'trick' the AI to doing something it wouldn't normally do (like stand while you shoot projectiles at it) and if you fail at that, it can be punishing even on the "Easy" difficulty. For the Story Mode I chose to leave the difficulty on its default setting, so dealing with a Mortal Kombat on its 'klassic' setting means the game goes from naturally easy to controller-throwing-what-the-hell-was-that frustrating, and that goes TRIPLE for Shao Kahn.         

            

This opening cutscene where Shao Kahn beats Raiden within an inch of his life is also a subtle warning to how badly YOU TOO will be beaten if you don't take the fight with him seriously. He's a dick.

See...Shao Kahn is what my friend Derek calls a "SNK Boss": a direct reference to the trolltastic difficulty spike experienced in SNK published fighting games, and rightfully so because you can't fight Shao Khan as you would any other of the fighters in the game. For Shao Kahn your entire strategy has to completely change and for some that may turn them off completely. For reference, I've played plenty of fighting games since Mortal Kombat as I was a little child and I was able to usually gauge (one way or another) how to beat them. M.Bision, Seth, that one fire guy in the 3D Mortal Kombat games, Alpha 152, Master Hand, and whatever that computer's name was in Virtual On Oratario Tangram: I was able to beat them ALL after some studying. But Shao Kahn? He has quadruple the health you do, throws a hammer to stun you and says "YOU SUCK!" all before performing a staggering 75% damage X Ray attack. Oh sorry, did you plan to use that one combo and a quick dodge? lolno. Shao Kahn says "HA HA HA HA!", headbutts you with a forward charge twice, then slams you with his hammer so you're in a corner. To defeat Shao Kahn means re-learning what you have to do in order to defeat him and for a lot of people they would just turn off the console.

I would have, but then I remembered a fact: my younger self would never let my pride get eaten up like that because I beat Ultimate Mortal 3 a load of times and I never gave up back then. If I reached the credits sequence back then, surely I could do it now. So it was a hell of an experience when I entered Arcade Mode and ended Shao Kahn's reign with Scorpion as he dies very triumphantly in the same manner but that just wasn't enough for Netherealm Studios to merely insert him exploding. No. When players defeat Shao Kahn in story mode they get an appropriate scene where he falls in battle (or dies), but in Arcade Mode once the final hit and damage is done the game goes slo-mo then shows the character in which the player SPECIFICALLY CHOSE beating the tar out of Shao Kahn with a few heavy hits before sending him flying with an uppercut. Shao Kahn stumbles around, seeing his body glowing and then *KA-BOOM!* he explodes.

Ah, yes. THIS is the feeling I had missed from Mortal Kombat for so long.

You see, you can talk all you want about the intricacies of the series and I'll do so right back with you...but NOTHING beats finally defeating the #1 villain of the Mortal Kombat saga and watching him explode into a million pieces in high definition quality. For all the frustration players endure while playing against him, the satisfaction is paid back in full.

A shame that the ending of the game by its canonical story leaves me wanting a sequel but wondering how -exactly- the story could continue. I won't spoil here but let's just say that the ending is NOT what you'd expect and that goes double if you're a Mortal Kombat veteran.       

 

Because this game was everything I wanted, and more but also brought on the exact kind of difficulty I expected out of it, I say this game deserves nothing less than my highest rating. You'd be silly NOT to buy it if you have any ounce of Mortal Kombat in your blood.

     Thanks to this experience and being back into Mortal Kombat full swing I can say that I'm glad my Mom was cool back then and is cool enough now to still appreciate Mortal Kombat with me...even if she does go "Ewww!" at the bloody fatalities.