Mortal Kombat 11 Review — Russell Troxel

May 4

May 4 Mortal Kombat 11 Review

Review, PC, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One

People don’t often do things for entirely pure reasons and I’m no exception. So when I heard that people were upset with Mortal Kombat 11 for featuring a story in which an African-American man goes back in time and stops slavery, I decided to buy the game out of spite for those contemptible degenerates. Unfortunately, I learned later about the terrible work conditions at NetherRealm Studios, creators of Mortal Kombat, and that they had hired Ronda Rousey to voice the character Sonya Blade. But it’s better to critique something after experiencing it, so I chose not to return the game and I mostly don’t regret it.

It is possible but unlikely that you haven’t heard of the Mortal Kombat games. In case you’ve just woken up from a 28-year coma, allow me to fill you in. Mortal Kombat is a fighting game in which two players duke it out until one character runs out of health. This could be done with punches and kicks, but MK raises the stakes with broken bones, dismemberment, and grisly murder. It’s been a permanent fixture in the arguments of people who say video games are turning children into murderers and seems overjoyed to be there. But it’s popular beyond its controversial nature thanks to renowned gameplay and characters. Mortal Kombat 11 continues that trend and mixes in a few new features.

The first thing I noticed about Mortal Kombat 11 was that it wanted me, possibly one of the worst fight game players to ever live, to feel like I understood how to play. The first step in that was to keep the controls simple. In many other fighting games I’ve played, I have to memorize long strings of button presses to be able to compete. But characters in Mortal Kombat 11 have moves that require only a few simple inputs while still doing damage and, more importantly, looking cool. This might be frustrating for fighting game veterans, but as an incompetent dullard I appreciated this immensely. Beyond that, Mortal Kombat 11 has the most thorough tutorial system I have ever seen. Practically anyone can jump into MK11’s tutorials and in 5 minutes understand every elusive fighting game concept. The tutorials are even divided up into specific sections with clearly defined subjects and individual lessons to help players learn. They also provide rewards for completing each tutorial, motivating people to really sink their teeth into the mechanics. There are even character-specific tutorials that teach players about the particular details of each fighter, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and what moves to use when. I have never seen a game more invested in player understanding than Mortal Kombat 11, which is doubly impressive because it is a fighting game, a genre notorious for impenetrability.

After players finish with the tutorials, they can modify any characters they enjoy playing with Mortal Kombat 11’s character customization, sorry, “kustomization” tools. Every fighter starts with a specific set of moves and special abilities that players learn in the tutorials, but these can be expanded or modified to fit a particular playstyle. Fighters have around 8 alternate move options to modify their moveset with, but only have three modification slots, so players have to choose carefully. On top of that, some of the more powerful alternate options take up two of the three slots. These modifiers can give characters new moves, modify existing moves, or even entirely replace them with something new. The prime example of this for me is a character known as Kollector. Kollector has a move where he throws an entangling projectile that renders the enemy unable to block or move for a second or two, allowing Kollector to attack uncontested. I am not good at fighting games so I am not able to take advantage of this momentary vulnerability, so I modified the move to throw a big knife instead of a snare, which deals much more damage but doesn’t leave the opponent vulnerable to a follow-up attack. Whatever level of skill players have, they can shape their favorite characters to be more in line with their abilities for greater enjoyment. Players are also able to modify the appearance of characters, but these options must be unlocked through various means and have little to no effect on gameplay.

Tragically, while the gameplay is fantastic, almost everything around it is either stupid, bad, or a combination of the two. First on the list for me is the story. I know people don’t play Mortal Kombat games for story, but I believe that if you include a story in your game, you should at least make it consistent with the tone and mechanics of your game. The story of Mortal Kombat 11, however, seems to be unaware that it is in a Mortal Kombat game. The basic plot is this: After the events of Mortal Kombat 9 rebooted the game timeline, the god of time is pissed. She doesn’t care for this new timeline that has been created, so she’s going to reboot the reboot. To aid her, she brings characters from the previous timeline into the new timeline. Players control the residents of or allies to the new timeline, fighting to prevent the oncoming time-wipe. The idea is interesting but is hurt by the fact that all the major plot points revolve around which characters live or die. This is problematic because every character is shot in the head or has their throat cut or is stabbed through the chest with a sword at least once every fight, often twice. When I chop an opponent’s head off then light it on fire, only to have them brush it off after the fight, the story has no stakes. The story is also frustrating because it lets characters play as a variety of characters to try out their playstyles, but ignores slightly more than half the full roster. I understand that letting players control all of the characters would have been difficult to design a story around, but when 13 of the 25 playable fighters are untouched, it feels lazy.

The other huge problem with Mortal Kombat 11 is The Krypt. The Krypt is how you unlock new aesthetic and gameplay customization options for characters as well as new finishing moves, behind-the-scenes artwork, and in-game assist items. The problem is that, instead of being a menu where you can spend some in-game currency to unlock different things, in The Krypt, you play as a character entirely separate from the playable roster of fighters and wander around a desolate island filled with loot boxes. These boxes can be opened by spending one of the three game’s currencies and most contain a random assortment of unlockable items. Additionally, as you explore you find items that give you access to new parts of the island to be able to open up new loot boxes for even more randomly decided items. Some loot boxes are even guarded by enemies or traps that kill you unless you press a button at the right time, but dying doesn’t set your progress back or apply any penalty, it just wastes time and feels frustrating. If developers want to jump on the loot box trend, that’s their choice, but I’d rather it just be a menu off to the side of the main game, not a poorly designed third-person action game that runs worse than the rest of game. Better yet, I’d rather developers not include loot boxes at all and just let me unlock the costumes and modifiers I want for the characters I want. But I suppose in this day and age that’s asking too much.

To me, Mortal Kombat 11 is a good fighting game the way Destiny 2 was a good first-person shooter. You need to focus on the incredible core gameplay and ignore all the terrible decisions that were made around the edges of that core game. If you can stomach all that garbage, MK11 is a really great fighting game that wants you to have a great time fire-punching your friend in the face.