GET OVER HERE –> to modern konsoles!
Our favorite fighting game ever
After the deservingly cold response to ‘Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe’ and the bankruptcy of Midway Games, the future of Mortal Kombat seemed pretty bleak. Netherrealm Studios wiped the slate clean and gave us Mortal Kombat in 2011 (Aka: MK9). I’ll skip the formalities and give it to you straight- this is the greatest fighting game ever made. Full stop. Yes, this is our opinion. If you disagree and wish to share your own- don’t, because nobody wants to hear it- … Mortal Kombat is a delightfully gorey all-in-one package with addictive arcade ladders, fighter progression, collectables in the Krypt, challenge towers, and a surprisingly engrossing Story mode to boot! You can try and enter online mode but nowadays it’s probably as dead as Noob Saibot’s opponent when he peels them in half like a giant piece of string cheese. Regardless, even if there are maybe 6 people left online then get ready to get juggled like a coked out pancake chef because you’re gonna get your shit kicked in six ways to Sunday brunch. Unfortunately, if you wish to actually play this blood-soaked masterpiece then you’ll have to dig out your old PS3 that you hopefully didn’t smash into bits Office-Space style when the new consoles were released. This superb fighter is still to date being held hostage on the Playstation 3 and Xbox-360 because someone enjoys making me suffer.
MKX, MK11 and MK1 are all solid games, very good games even… But what exactly gave MK9 higher staying power? While we enjoyed those games listed, why do we keep looking back at MK9 as the golden standard? Why did we dedicate the most hours into MK9 over the sequels that followed later? The answer is simple. Everything. The character roster, arcade mode, story-mode, tag-team mode, the freaking challenge towers! This is a delicious mangled meat sandwich from Shang Tsung’s Flesh Pit that most certainly warrants a bite. The entire game is so unapologetically its authentic self. It’s the game that Ed Boon must’ve dreamed about making when creating the original arcade games but was, at the time, limited by the primitive technology of the 90s. In 2011, this was THE most violent game I’d ever seen. I remember I was sold the moment I saw Kung Lao turn his opponent into a human deli meat slicer, dragging them through his buzzsaw hat like they were an unwilling participant in the world’s most brutal and unwilling circumcision. It’s a game that knows exactly how insane it is and leans into it. Every single character in this game has an impossible body type; the women are all murderous eye-candy sex dolls and the men are all more shredded than a mile-high stack of pastrami. The goofy quips, for example- Shang Tsung’s “YOUR SOUL IS MINE!!!” … It’s great. We love it. The game doesn’t shy away from silliness, it owns it! It’s just as deadly as it is hilarious.
Mortal Kombat, as stated above, goes back to the drawing board. Up to this point, the storyline in Mortal Kombat was a convoluted mess and all-around way too top heavy to sustain itself. This game essentially reboots the continuity. It keeps what works, and FINISHES what doesn’t. Mortal Kombat is a reinterpretation of the first 3-titles from the 90s, in a more concise and coherent narrative. Shang Tsung has his tournament, Shoa Kahn tries to take over the realm… Raiden’s constantly going “Trust in the Elder Gods”, blah blah blah “We must protect Earthrealm” … You get the picture… However, it’s not a straight up retelling, instead, it’s essentially a giant what-if scenario. What if this character died? What if character A became a cyborg instead of character B? It’s a unique and peculiar way to splice up what was to this point, a very stale and jarring narrative. Half of the fights in these games are sparked from simple misunderstandings. Constant poor communications mixed with paranoia. There’s one part where Smoke makes a wild assumption that Jade beat up Kitana, so instead of asking, he tries breaking her teeth out of her jaw like he’s collecting them for horror-movie props. Johnny Cage getting his ass kicked by Jax because Johnny’s just being a douche is always funny. The story mode can also behave as a demo to each fighter that you take control of per section. You don’t play everyone though (Sorry Baraka) or the game would be like forty fucking chapters, but it serves as an introduction if you’re new. Honestly, the campaign could’ve stretched out longer if they wanted as it’s pretty solid as far as fighting game stories go. I’m not the biggest fan of the way the story ends. I think the final chapter is really cool and epic but I’d wished for something more conclusive rather leaving us off on a cliffhanger for MKX which ultimately wasn’t worth the wait.
Everything else though is perfect. It’s easily the most hours I’ve logged into a fighting game. MK9 felt satisfying and approachable for casual players and not overwhelming them with overly complicated juggling mechanics later introduced in sequels. It didn’t bog down the experience with each character having different play variations ON TOP of their already intricate move-set like in MKX (I mean what even the fuck was that?!). A game has to know when it’s overdoing it and MK9 hit the right sweet spot. Every fighter is likeable too, even the cheesy cop character Stryker. The modes in this game are ridiculously fun. Arcade and multiplayer are your classic setups, with different difficulty levels so you can feel like a god one minute, then totally humbled the next. Especially with the introduced and yet-to-be implemented again, tag-team mode. (Why the fuck hasn’t this been made standard?) It’s awesome to team up your favorite characters and see which ones work best with one another; Cyborg characters, Scorpion/Sub-Zero, the Shaolin monk bros, Kabal & Freddy Krueger (fuck it- why not? They’re both burn victims). A grand attraction that was newly introduced is the challenge tower- A series of exciting and extremely varied mini-games. You have your old favorites such as ‘Test Your Might!’, ‘Test Your Sight!’, ‘Test Your Kite!’ -(that’s not one). Others will have you fighting a horde of zombies, taking on an opponent with stipulations; no special moves, no damage, reversing your move-set to temporarily screw with you, and so on. The final showdown of the challenge tower has you take on Goro, Kintaro, Mileena AND Shao Khan all in one go. For all of your efforts, your reward is just a slutty outfit for Mileena, but after your victory you’re too exhausted to care.
The gaming industry needs to remember who butters their bread. Whoever is in charge of calling the shots of what games get ported to newer consoles need to know what players want, and what we WANT is Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition to become available on modern systems. This has yet to be outdone by any proceeding title and deserves to be played by modern and newcomers to the series. Seriously, just make it playable. Shatter a spine, disembowel some poor sap, and stand triumphant over the mangled corpse of your opponent.
Fatally yours,
Mikhail & Fil
Verdict: 9/10