So I am done with the story mode of Mortal Kombat (9)...
Much of the praise of Injustice: Gods Among Us applies with MK(9) which is to be expected as both had the same developer. The fighting is tight and very satisfying. You don't need to be a combo master to get to the final fight in the game, and I really like that they don't do the same thing they did with Injustice and simply dumbed down the difficulty every time you lost. MK(9) says, "Oh, you lost? Well suck it up you p*ssy and try to be a man and beat me!" As a result, victories were MUCH more satisfying this time around. Speaking of the story, I wouldn't say it's on the same level as Injustice but it's one of the better ones. Then again, that isn't saying much when it comes to fighting games. And there were a few battles that really made NO sense, like the one time that two allies fought each other because one was being an assh*ole. Sorry, but we don't see that stuff even happen in the NFL, so we shouldn't see it happen in a battle to save the world.
As far as the plot goes, it's actually a retelling of the first 3 MK games. You start off seeing the end of the tournament, which didn't well for the humans, and Raiden tries, via visions, to not have a repeat of the outcome of the last tournament. The thing I liked about this was that it did fill in a number of plot holes of the first 3 games, and various stages are in arenas you fought in in the previous games, except they look much better. For old school MK enthusiasts this was a really cool touch. It really brought me back to playing the old games over 20 years ago. Damn, it's hard to fathom the series is that old.
I may as well get into what I didn't like about the game. Most of the issues are nitpicks. First off, for the PC version, for some reason they didn't up-res the cutscenes like they did with Injustice, so as a result the full rendered story cut scenes look like sh*t if you play on 1080p. It reminds me of how full motion video used to look on the Playstation, or how the cutscenes in the first God of War collection for the PS3 looked. I couldn't help but look at them and think, "Wow, that looks like crap!" At least the acting and storytelling was decent.
Speaking of storytelling, there is one part that both Yahtzee and I really didn't take kindly to.
Or rather, the game knows how to be cheap.
Finally, my last complaint. Apparently the programmers for this game never bothered to stay awake during the "Boss Battle" part of AI training. Mortal Kombat has had a history of simply putting cheap boss fights as opposed to difficult ones, but in MK(9) they went WAY too far. Shao Kahn is beyond cheap. He is in his own solar system of cheap. The first time you fight him the best method is simply to spam him with projectiles, which is hardly the proper way to handle a boss fight. In the final fight, you're supposed to teleport behind him every time he throws a projectile and then hit him. That sounds easy in theory, except that this success with this method is very sporadic. This isn't helped by the fact that at times SK (and Goro and Kintaro for that matter) have these parts where they simply don't react to you hitting them and will just plow on. They take a little bit of damage, but the fact that they aren't open for combos or fall down during this is the worst part. So if you end up beating Shao Kahn, it isn't a satisfying victory because you didn't outsmart the computer or recognize a pattern or come equipped with the right weapon. Instead, the stars and the planets aligned during this one match and you ended up winning. I ended up not beating the game and instead looked up the ending on YouTube, and I have absolutely NO shame in doing so. Don't get me wrong, I'm not HAPPY that I had to resort to that, but I'm not going to spend time that I could be doing on anything else to hope that the slot machine of MK(9) luck draws in my favor.
Still, with these complaints I can easily recommend Mortal Kombat Komplete. The PC version has all the DLC character and tweaks to kombat and it only costs $20. I ended up getting it for $5 in a sale, but I think it's worth the full price as well. I look forward to picking up MK X as well once the "Komplete" version comes out at a nice discount. Maybe that way I'll actually get to play as Goro.
Much of the praise of Injustice: Gods Among Us applies with MK(9) which is to be expected as both had the same developer. The fighting is tight and very satisfying. You don't need to be a combo master to get to the final fight in the game, and I really like that they don't do the same thing they did with Injustice and simply dumbed down the difficulty every time you lost. MK(9) says, "Oh, you lost? Well suck it up you p*ssy and try to be a man and beat me!" As a result, victories were MUCH more satisfying this time around. Speaking of the story, I wouldn't say it's on the same level as Injustice but it's one of the better ones. Then again, that isn't saying much when it comes to fighting games. And there were a few battles that really made NO sense, like the one time that two allies fought each other because one was being an assh*ole. Sorry, but we don't see that stuff even happen in the NFL, so we shouldn't see it happen in a battle to save the world.
As far as the plot goes, it's actually a retelling of the first 3 MK games. You start off seeing the end of the tournament, which didn't well for the humans, and Raiden tries, via visions, to not have a repeat of the outcome of the last tournament. The thing I liked about this was that it did fill in a number of plot holes of the first 3 games, and various stages are in arenas you fought in in the previous games, except they look much better. For old school MK enthusiasts this was a really cool touch. It really brought me back to playing the old games over 20 years ago. Damn, it's hard to fathom the series is that old.
I may as well get into what I didn't like about the game. Most of the issues are nitpicks. First off, for the PC version, for some reason they didn't up-res the cutscenes like they did with Injustice, so as a result the full rendered story cut scenes look like sh*t if you play on 1080p. It reminds me of how full motion video used to look on the Playstation, or how the cutscenes in the first God of War collection for the PS3 looked. I couldn't help but look at them and think, "Wow, that looks like crap!" At least the acting and storytelling was decent.
Speaking of storytelling, there is one part that both Yahtzee and I really didn't take kindly to.
So there's one part where like a half dozen good guys are planning a counter attack, when a character comes almost out of nowhere and wipes out 90% of them. The thing is that this isn't even a boss character and yet they wipe out nearly everyone, as if the writers just needed a quick way to push towards the end. Of course, you end up fighting this character, but honestly the fight was much easier than it should have been. A character that wipes out at least 6 people should be one of the harder conflicts in the game, and this game knows how to be hard.
Finally, my last complaint. Apparently the programmers for this game never bothered to stay awake during the "Boss Battle" part of AI training. Mortal Kombat has had a history of simply putting cheap boss fights as opposed to difficult ones, but in MK(9) they went WAY too far. Shao Kahn is beyond cheap. He is in his own solar system of cheap. The first time you fight him the best method is simply to spam him with projectiles, which is hardly the proper way to handle a boss fight. In the final fight, you're supposed to teleport behind him every time he throws a projectile and then hit him. That sounds easy in theory, except that this success with this method is very sporadic. This isn't helped by the fact that at times SK (and Goro and Kintaro for that matter) have these parts where they simply don't react to you hitting them and will just plow on. They take a little bit of damage, but the fact that they aren't open for combos or fall down during this is the worst part. So if you end up beating Shao Kahn, it isn't a satisfying victory because you didn't outsmart the computer or recognize a pattern or come equipped with the right weapon. Instead, the stars and the planets aligned during this one match and you ended up winning. I ended up not beating the game and instead looked up the ending on YouTube, and I have absolutely NO shame in doing so. Don't get me wrong, I'm not HAPPY that I had to resort to that, but I'm not going to spend time that I could be doing on anything else to hope that the slot machine of MK(9) luck draws in my favor.
Still, with these complaints I can easily recommend Mortal Kombat Komplete. The PC version has all the DLC character and tweaks to kombat and it only costs $20. I ended up getting it for $5 in a sale, but I think it's worth the full price as well. I look forward to picking up MK X as well once the "Komplete" version comes out at a nice discount. Maybe that way I'll actually get to play as Goro.
