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Ok, full disclosure here, I thought Mortal Kombat was going to suck. I hated on it for quite some time. I played the demo on the ps3 (ya know, back when the PSN wasn't a catastrophe) and it just felt awkward and slow. After sinking a lot of time into it I can safely say I was wrong. The game is good, in fact, it's very good. The depth is a lot better than I had anticipated and the gameplay is very fun.
Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 (MvC3) is still a better fighter, but I'll get to that.
The overall package of MK is surprisingly large. Between the story mode, the challenge tower, arcade mode, fatalities, a gigantic amount of unlockables including alternate costumes and characters, MK is a very large game. There are more features in MK than Capcom has ever put into either MvC or Street Fighter, and for that Netherrealms studios deserves a lot of credit.
The story mode of MK takes about 3-4 hours, and for a fighting game, that's kind of ridiculous. The reason for this is because NetherRealms Studios re-tells the story of MK. If you've seen the bad (Awesomely bad?) film from the 90's then you kind of already know this story, but they do a pretty good job of getting you interested in the characters and the plot. The only gripe that can be made about the story mode is that you can't skip cutscenes. I know this may seem minor to someone who hasn't experienced it but having to watch/listen to Nightwolf talk to Scorpion about honor and respect and not being able skip to the point where I get to beat his face in can be quite excruciating. Games like Mass Effect and Grand theft Auto have spectacular cutscenes and they still let you skip them, so why do games like Mortal Kombat force you to watch theirs?
The challenge tower really sets MK apart from other fighters the most. With 300 levels, it's a daunting task. Some levels involve simply beating your opponent with different attacks, others are like mini-games within the game such as the classic test your might. Beating the challenges is usually pretty easy but there are some difficult ones in there. (Full disclosure again: I'm only at level 102 as of this time. It might get a whole lot harder)
The arcade mode is the classic ladder from the old games. Beat one, move up, fight the next guy until you get to Shao Kahn. It wouldn't be necessary if the story mode wasn't as big as it is.
All the features in MK are significantly better than the select few that MvC3 offers, so why is MvC3 still better? One word: Gameplay. Mk is a very fun fighting game. There's nothing like seeing Scorpion cut someone in half after you win a match, but the core gameplay itself just isn't on the level of a Capcom fighter.
Put simply, it's unbalanced. Some characters have more moves than others, and more importantly, some characters just have better moves than others. Characters who have a teleport move have an advantage over ones who don't. Characters who have a projectile have a huge advantage over those who don't. Some characters are pretty useless (Sheeva says hi). Some x-factor moves are way easier to pull off than others. Some characters are stronger than others, which would be fine if the weaker characters were faster. But they aren't. And finally, no matter who you are, the best attack you can land is almost always the uppercut. There's no point in pulling off great combos because the same amount of damage can be done by one or two uppercuts. I could go on, but I don't want this review to be about what Mortal Kombat isn't, I want this to be about what Mortal Kombat is.
And what it is, is a fun game. Unlocking all the material in the game is very rewarding. Pulling off fatalities is greater than it's ever been. The game is brutal with blood flowing by the buckets. The fan service is through the roof with classic costumes, fatalities, and arenas. The roster is pretty good, and the series mainstay characters all feel updated and yet familiar in a perfect blend.
The main thing to take from Mortal Kombat is this: Mortal Kombat is back! It's been an awful 16 years for this franchise that appeared to be dazed and waiting for it's inevitable fatality, so it's great for the industry and the fighting game genre to see it rise from the dead the way it has. Congratulations to the studio and to the many fans who held out hope for another good MK game.
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