The Backlog: Mortal Kombat 11

 

Following up on my review of Mortal Kombat X from a few weeks ago I'm here now to put into words my thoughts on Mortal Kombat 11. I don't think I'll have AS much to say about this one as Mortal Kombat X but I still wanna put this out there.

I'm not going to say too much about the story. I don't like spoiling stuff even for a game this old but the basic premise of the story this time is the past and present colliding. This is an excuse for dead characters to suddenly re-appear and for some characters to interact with the past versions of themselves. Personally, I'd say my opinion of the story is that this one is tied with X for the best overall story since the series rebooted with MK9. For those curious, I don't rate 9 that high because while it was nice to see it done in a cinematic manner, it is just a retread of the original 3 games with a few twists thrown in.

The gameplay is an interesting topic of debate among fans of the series. It is in a way an evolution of the gameplay from X however not everyone is going to agree with how it has evolved. Combat is slower than in X which is good for me as someone who is more strategically minded then being particular good at gameplay that hinges more on twitch responses.

Stage interactable return from the previous game (at present for the final time) but now don't just simply have unlimited use. They removed the supermove gauge and replaced it with offensive and defensive gauges that slowly refill on their own rather than needing to be built up. Offensive gauge is for doing what used to be considered meter burn moves and defensive gauge is needed for breakers and stage interactions.

X-Ray moves have been rebranded as Fatal Blows. While they are essentially the same thing, the removal of a super meter has changed how they are activated. You can now only use them when your health drops below 25%. If the move misses or is blocked there is a cool down timer until you can attempt to use it again. If you get KOed and the next round starts you can't use it until your health drops low enough and any time you successfully connect with the attack it becomes unavailable for the remainder of the match regardless of your health or what round you are on.

I do overall prefer the gameplay in this one over X or MK1 but I still can't do any of the insane long combos in the game. In fact some of the more absurd ones they decidedly to randomly include in the later parts of the tutorial are the main reason I'll never have 100% achievements in this game.

The main single player mode outside of story are what is now known as the towers of time. All the faction junk from the previous game is gone in favor of what is essentially an expanded version of the Living Towers from that game. Something similar to this was in Injustice 2. Living Towers in MKX had 3 towers available at a time that rotated in different towers. The towers of time however have several floating islands to pick from each of which have multiple towers on them. The islands rotate based on a timer but many of the islands each contain as many or more towers than the living towers section in MKX. Just like Injustice 2 you basically get loot rewards from doing these towers.

The loot brings us to the topic of customization. Each character has a variety of costumes they can unlock and equip as well as 3 gear pieces that can be customized as well. Gear can range from things like Raiden's hat to Scorpion's spear. Also, rather than preset variations they had in X, this game each character has a list of extra moves that you can choose to equip up to 3 of to further customize what your chosen character can do.

Though admittedly the customization in this is less than what we got in Injustice 2 where each character character got to mix together 5 separate costume pieces where the color shaders were a thing completely separate from the costumes themselves. This leads to often unlocking costumes that look cool but hating the color they are.

The last thing to discuss would be the Krypt. Probably the most interesting it has been in any of the games. It's an entire island you explore in third person as an original character called "The Traveler" where you have to solve various puzzles and find items of power from other characters. Overall it's still similar to the Krypt in MKX but it's presented in a way that makes it feel more like its own game that makes for an interesting change of pace to take a breather from the main game modes.

While many may disagree with me, this is my favorite Mortal Kombat game overall. A big part of that is the roster. It has many of my favorites from the past and present. Shao Kahn isn't the main villain but having him present as a character instead of the boring by comparison General Shao version of him is nice. Having Cassie Cage, Mileena, Raiden, and Shang Tsung all present in the final version of this game just solidify it as a fun time for me. Even if they were to add Cassie to MK1, I'm unlikely to like it as much cause well... I'll talk about the Kameo system in my next review.