This might be the biggest Mortal Kombat game yet and that is fine by me. There is nothing more impressive than a fighting game that keeps things new, fun and surprising. Mortal Kombat X is finally here and we at Kuma Kreations are going to share with you the good, the bad, and the gruesome. Does NetherRealm Studios have another hit on their hands after their successful reboot in MK9? We shall see.
The first thing I want to touch base on is the single player portion that also ties in with the Multi-player mode Faction Wars. In the video below I will touch base on how well the story mode is done, what new things to expect and how does it flow well with the previous story. This game is huge, so I had to break it down a bit, so please enjoy the Story Mode Review.
The writers at NetherRealm really out did themselves and I give them kudos on bringing us a deep and fun story-line. The best way to get players involved with the story-line is to give out rewards as you progress which I didn’t mention in the video. The other thing I didn’t mention is the option to skip a fight if you are having difficulty, but that is counterproductive especially for the Faction War feature. There are tokens you can obtain in the krypt to skip a fight, but I have yet to use mine. I was surprised by how things turned out, but I am looking forward to more as the story continues.
We are not done with the single player experience because I want to touch base on the new Tower Challenges. Now I don’t know how many of you finished the long 300 floor tower with different challenges as you progressed, but I will be honest; I did not finish the tower even though I was motivated to reach the top to unlock Mileena’s special costume. This time around the developers thought to make Living Towers, that update at different hours depending on which one you choose. This will drive players back to the game because it is just like dealing with a live event that you can’t miss out on.
Controlling the Game:
I will admit that side scroll fighters are not my strongest genre, but using the interactive environments to evade being cornered helps change the playing field. With that lets get into the Kombat and how well things flow, because I only touched on it for a bit, as some of you know the inputs in fighting games are crucial and I have seen some third party items to help with controller lag for MKX. I confess that I did notice some lag as I am trying to input some button functions. It is a slight lag and not sure if it was on my end or not, but I might invest in a new arcade stick or borrow one from a friend to see if there is a difference. Besides that slight problem I felt the combat flowed well if you practice enough to learn the different combo features. I have my select favorite characters that I will train with, but all and all it works well. The combo breaks, EX features and X-ray modes are still available to players which I am glad they did not change. MK9 didn’t have problems in the Kombat much and it didn’t seem they changed much for MKX.
Living Towers:
- Tier One Quick Towers: Updates every few hours and only has five fights
- Daily Tower: Last for 24 hours and the difficulty is much harder with eight fights to deal with.
- Premier Tower: This is the last tier that deals with 15 challenges that will probably drive some crazy. But this is a rare tower mostly on Holidays or something else special.
However this is information before release and since I have an early copy I have not gone through those towers as of yet, but looking forward to them. I have completed the main regular arcade towers which as you know gives you individual story endings for the characters. So be prepared for a challenging boss fight.
New Character Choices:
If you recall past MK titles giving you the option to change up the fighters style while in combat giving you an opportunity to change strategies on your opponent. This time around MKX features the same thing, but this is in the character select screen where you have three choices of Kombat abilities. I will use Scorpion as an example who has Ninjitsu, Inferno and Hellfire abilities. Out of those three which to pick is entirely up to you, but you will have to practice that respected martial art style. This gives each of the 29 characters three different personalities each, aside from Goro which I am not sure of yet until he is unlocked on release day. It was bad enough just learning one set of moves now we have to learn all three, but I can dig that since it gives you a choice to stick with your favorite or be elite and master it all.
In speaking of characters I have to commend NetherRealms on the costume choices. I have not unlocked all the costumes for everyone, but seeing as in MK9 the eye candy was very strong versus MK X where the ladies on the Earthrealm side are tactically covered up was impressive. No overly enlarge bust or revealing clothing on their part. It made me wonder why they chose the creative change? But it was nicely done. Don’t change Mileena though because she is hot the way she is fangs and all (laughs).
The More you Play, The More you Unlock:
This is where replay value shines with the points and the krypt. Your fighter will keep on evolving to unlock more abilities, costumes and Koins to progress through your journey. I noticed in the Krypt as I unlocked more goodies for my Kombat experience there are easy fatality coins. It is quite funny and great for those that have difficulty executing these wonderful finishers. You can either press R2 with Square or Triangle at the same time to perform a quick Fatality without all the directional buttons. I tested this out while I was in the tower and it was effective, but I felt dirty afterwards. That is just the gamer in me I guess.
The Multi-Player:
It is there with the same modes as before, but the added bonus of “ROOMS” which holds a room list of the factions. Other than that it is just an original recipe with Versus, Team Battle, King of the Hill and Tower Battle. These modes will keep you occupied for a while and you will be able to check online kombat history as well as the faction war page.
Props to IPrime_13 for a great match.
Final Verdict:
Mortal Kombat X caters to a lot of fighting fans by implementing some easy combat features, a great story to follow and an immense amount of replay value. This is one of those games I categorize as worth the $65.31 price tag and I can’t wait for the DLC characters to be unleashed. In the meantime Mortal Kombat X gets 5 out of 5 and yes I think a perfect score is justified, because I couldn’t find any problems outside of nitpicking the little things. After a few hours of practice the lag was not an issue anymore or rather I no longer noticed it. Lowering the score because the practice mode is missing a feature I enjoyed in another fighting game is just not fair. There were a few frame jobs, but not enough to bother me. I found this game to be very enjoyable and with the little online battles that I’ve experience, it has been a thrill ride.
I hope to see more of you come midnight Tuesday morning as it will be officially released and looking forward to finding out what factions you will join. I am Kuma and I shall be with the Special Forces and let’s win this war for the Earthrealm. Stay frosty gamers!
