Mortal Kombat 11 is one of best fighting games that I have played this generation. While the series is most known for games’ cartoonishly gruesome fatalities, the real heart of the game lies in its rock solid mechanics. The game features a plethora of ways to play, including a story mode, a classic mode, timed theme battles, online battles, daily rewards, and AI battles, as well as a customization unlock system that is a mini game in itself, which should keep the average player busy for quite some time. I have not played a mortal combat game since Deadly Alliance, but this is one of the best ones that I have played, possibly my favorite.
Background
Mortal Kombat 11 was released on April 23, 2019. This title ends NetherRealm Studios’ mini-trilogy, which began back in 2011 with Mortal Kombat 9, which itself rebooted the series after Midway’s bankruptcy. While this game has faced backlash from the gaming community at large due to a perceived unfair grind to unlock customizables and a fear of micro-transactions, the game’s fighting mechanics themselves feel great.
Story
While fighting games are not traditionally known for a strong narrative, NetheRealm Studios has consistently bucked that trend with their entries into the Injustice and Mortal Kombat Universes, and Mortal Kombat 11 is no different. The story is broken into twelve chapters where you will play as a specific character (or choose between 2 in certain chapters). Each chapter is essentially a self-contained movie that leads to the star of that chapter fighting other Mortal Kombat characters. I generally enjoy the story telling in Mortal Kombat 11, however, it is a bit jarring to see so many characters use guns to kill one another, yet no one attempts to shoot any of the heroes/villains. Spoilers ahead, so if you want to avoid them, please jump forward to the next section.
The story begins with Raiden, Cassie Cage, Sonya, and Jacquie Briggs taking the offensive against the Netherrealm and destroying Liu Kang’s castle. This is the set up to introduce the major villain of this title, Kronika, who is an entity stronger than the Elder Gods, who controls the sands of time. It is revealed that she wants to use the sands of time to rewind time to destroy Raiden for being a thorn in her side. Using her powers she brings the who’s who, of the NetherRealm time line, of Earthrealm, Outworld, and the Netherrealm to help her with this task. Interestingly, this also includes bringing back past heroes like Liu Kang, Kung Lao, Kitana, and Jade. This leads to some interesting moments when the virtuous heroes from earlier games meet their now corrupt counterparts, or vice versa, when changed characters like Scorpion meets his hate infused past self.
Most of the story revolves around Kronika gathering military power and energy from other realms to rewind time. There is a twist in the story that I did not see coming, revealing that Kronika has done this numerous times and has consistently coerced Raiden and Liu Kang into conflict for multiple time lines. Finally realizing this, Raiden joins with the Liu Kang to create a new god of Fire and Lightening to finally take down Kronika. I thoroughly enjoyed the story and this game made me care about Liu Kang in a way that I have never have. It was good to see him finally have a happy ending for what seems like the first time ever. I am interested to see which direction Mortal Kombat goes next as at the end of this, Liu Kang and Kitana have the power to shape history, and I imagine another reboot is coming.
Sound/Visuals
The visuals in this game are superb. Through Mortal Kombat 10, NetherRealm Studios had been using a modified version of Unreal Engine 3 and finally upgraded to Unreal Engine 4, which is noticeable. While I have seen some controversy regarding the character models, I personally thought they were all very well done. The game constantly ran at a smooth 60 fps, the lighting is impeccable, and the stages are detailed and have things going on but not to the extent where you lose your fighter or what is going on in the match itself. You can tell the studio focused hard on their fatalities and they are definitely the most detailed and gruesome the series has ever produced. This iteration also includes Crushing blows, a variation of the x-ray blows, and fatal blows, a high damage attack that turns into a mini-fatality. Both of these are well crafted, even if I did get tired of seeing the same fatal blow after the third or fourth time. I do have to note that there is a Switch version of this game that is supposed to have markedly worse graphics to compensate for the game running at 60 fps. I have not played this version so I cannot comment on it, but if graphics are your thing, maybe take a second look at the Switch version if you are considering buying it.
Sound design was generally fine. The crunches and death screams were about what I would expect. I was not terribly impressed with the voice acting but for the most part it was passable. The only glaring standout was Rhonda Rousey. Rousey was chosen to do the voice acting for Sonya Blade and it fell flat. Maybe she could develop into a voice actor eventually, but her performance in this was noticeably sub-par compared to the others. Fortunately, she is only featured heavily in one chapter and as an ancillary character in a few others.
Gameplay
Mortal Kombat 11’s fighting mechanics themselves are tight. Along with your standard combos, the Mortal Kombat series includes inputs for special moves that generally deviate from your standard punches and kicks — for example, fireballs. New to Mortal Kombat 11 is that you can now amplify some of your special moves by tapping the appropriate button to do more damage. Similarly, you can now expand defense amplification points to get out of an air combo or to dodge some attacks while you get up from knockdown. Overall, if combat is all you care about in a Mortal Kombat game, you will not be disappointed.
Outside of the Story Mode, Mortal Kombat 11 packs in a variety of other modes. You have your standard Klassic Towers, which are the basic towers that have been in the game since the first Mortal Kombat. Completing each Klassic Tower will give you an ending for that character. On top of that you have your standard online components with Kasual matches, King of the Hill, Tournaments, and Ranked. I am not great at fighting games, so the only thing I have messed around on online with are the Kasual matches and the King of the Hill. Accordingly, I don’t feel qualified to go into any more details on the competitive side. Another feature is that you can now create teams of three characters to do AI battles. You can create one defending team for others to fight and one attacking team to fight other players AI in battles. This seems like there is a cool fantasy sports element to this, but I only messed around with it enough to get the corresponding trophy. If you’re into this sort of thing, then you may like it, but for me it was just a cool little distraction.
Outside of online, the real area where most players will sink their time are the newly introduced Towers of Time. You can now customize your characters with skins, weapons, and augments and put them into challenge towers. These towers are on a rotating basis and generally available for only a limited time. The towers have modifiers on the matches that make them much harder to complete. To compensate you can use consumables to improve your chances of completing the towers, and if you complete a tower, you unlock rewards for characters in the form of skins, gear, and augments. I am not particularly good at these towers and had a hard time with them. At the release of the game, many of these towers were claimed to have been impossible to complete without high level gear and augments or without using consumables. I was unable to get to those levels before NetherRealm Studios released a patch that is supposed to have alleviated the difficulty of those. However, from what I have played of them, they seem generally fair at the lower levels if you have the right consumables or augments to assist you. A lot of the backlash that Mortal Kombat 11 has received revolved around these, which if they were impossible to beat seems fair. However, I am a casual fan of this series and don’t really see myself playing the game long enough to unlock to many of these towers.
The other main controversy surrounding Mortal Kombat 11’s release was the idea that the game was forcing microtransactions on the players. I think that lot of the backlash that the game received for this was unfounded. Prior to the most recent patch fixing currency drops, I had finished the story mode, tutorial mode, and some Klassic towers and had unlocked a few skins for each characters and some gear. And while the rate drops of the currency seemed low, I never felt like the game was pressuring me to spend money to buy their premium currency, and I never did so.
I completely understand that people were annoyed that loot box locations were randomized and that you could not find your favorite characters skins right away, but I do not think that the game was designed this way to force you to spend premium currency. In prior games, if you were playing blind, you never knew what they were opening in the crypt. The only way to find out was to use an external source to look up what to open for what you wanted. It just seems like NetherRealm Studios made a choice to actually make doing that harder. I don’t necessarily agree with that choice but I don’t think they did it to encourage microtransactions. You can buy premium currency in this game to unlock skins but the skins are only on a rotating basis. The quickest way to unlock stuff is through playing the game and getting normal currency. While there is an element of luck, if you know what price chests to unlock for what you are looking for you can increase your chances.
Further, with the most recent patch, in game currency has begun dropping at a much higher rate for completing missions, and some of the early adopters even received bonus currency.
I also need to point out that I love the design of the crypt and running around Shang Tsung’s island but I wish there was some way to mark if you had unopened chests in a room. Once you open quite a few chests, unless you are doing it methodically, it can be somewhat annoying to run around looking for an unopened chest as the Krypt is pretty large and extends to several levels.
Conclusion
As a Casual Mortal Kombat fan, I thoroughly enjoyed this game and its mechanics. The only real drawbacks from the game are that if you are not playing for the online battles, the Towers of Time can be frustrating. Additionally, the grind to unlock skins, gear, and augments seems to be a deterrent for some players. If neither of those things really bother you though, this is a great entry for the series.
Rating: B
Mortal Kombat 11 is a very good video game, but a player’s enjoyment of it will depend on how much he or she likes fighting games.
