This series has been my life since I was little to my dad teaching me and my brother how to do the Johnny Cage nut punch on MK2 and my uncle letting me spend the night with him when he just bought Deadly alliance and later deception as well! MK 9, X, and 11 were all pretty damn great and had a decent amount of content which is why this one seriously disappointed me after completing the story mode. Invasions seems kind of cool, but from what I have played it feels a bit repetitive in terms of fighting multiple fights against the same characters over and over again. Getting rid of the whole krypt was one of the worst decisions they could of made and now its just a gacha system that you have to pay a shitload of koins for just to pull concept art most of the time. You can't invite your friends to practice with you anymore and you can't even invite others to King of the Hill which really made it wonderful. At its core the Kombat and gameplay is very addicting and fun, the Kameos seem pretty cool at first until you fight somebody online that does a 30 hit kombo with one kameo and thats all they do and making it more difficult to counter or reverse at all. It seems they are catering more to pro fighting game players instead of the casual MK fans.

The story mode was very well made and entertaining to experience, I just cannot believe how much was not changed in terms of rewriting the whole timeline and having the story go to a more unique place (so much for originality huh Ed Boon?). Johnny Cage was the highlight of the Story mode for sure.

Seems more of a challenge to unlock costumes and things for your fighters as well and alot of them are just palette swaps. It is still a fun time when playing it and I still will dabble with it every once in awhile and to clarify I am a Diehard MK fan when it comes to the series and plan to play Deadly Alliance, Deception, and Armageddon again in the near future, but I cant be happy with what we received and neither should you! Just the modern curse of AAA games with spending more money for less content. Releasing the Kombat pack for the game before it even released does not sit right with me in the slightest. Maybe if they did not waste their time with that dogwater switch port they could of focused on improving their base game and given the fans a way better product with more content and unlocks.

MK and I have had a strange relationship for many years.
I'm not the biggest fighting game fan nor am I the biggest MK fan but every single time a new piece of MK media comes out I feel this morbid urge to at least check it out to see if it's any good. Which I've always found very funny since I don't like MK as a game and I think MK as a franchise creatively bankrupt since MK 9 in 2011 which was a much needed reboot after Midway Game drove the 3D era into the fucking ground. After that I didn’t really like any of the MK games by NetherRealm, I've still yet to sit down and really play MK9 but MK10 was alright. It's not great and as a fighting game it's kinda dog water at times but it lets me play as Jason Voorhees so I automatically like it. (Yes it is that easy for me to look the other way of glaring flaws as long as Jason Voorhees is in it.)
That story though is pretty.............bad it's pretty bad. MKX's story is riddled with long strings of what feels like pointless character exposition toppled with a shallow narrative that never knows what it wants to do or where it wanted to go, until it just ends abruptly. The MK11 came into the picture where it promptly pissed me off so much I swear off from MK from that point forward (which didn't last very long). MK11's plot is so surprisingly convoluted and poorly written you'd think Ed Boon had handed off the story to some brand new intern who only had a vague idea of the MK characters and lore and tried to have them reboot the whole series not even 2 games into a brand new timeline. Along with fighting game mechanics that still annoyed the shit out of it, really annoying fan pandering, and disgusting live service bullshit MK11 left a super bad taste in my mouth; a taste that has honestly never went away.

So, why did I play this? Well for starters I rented it from my library so I didn't end up spending 70 bones for a game I knew I probably wasn't going to like. And mostly I was bored and I was kinda interested in how Ed Boon was gonna write his way around another reboot of the series. What I got was actually something I was not expecting, I got a piece of shit video game with a piece of shit story mode that gives the MCU a run for its money, and I'm not mad. Hell I'm not even pissed I wasted my time I could've used to learn a second language or something else productive.

MK1 (dumb name) is probably the most soulless MK game released by NetherRealm so far. It's chock full of the usual NetherRealm tropes that grind my gears, stiff combat with bad impact animation, bad UI, strange picks for the roster of fighters, and a really greedy live service system that ruins fun as we know it. I'm not gonna get into how the game plays since like I said before fighting games aren't my favorite genre so I have no interest in explaining my thoughts on why I don't like how NetherRealm does their games, I'm just here to talk about the story and why I think it's dogshit.

The story opens up with Liu Kang now lord of all space and time going along with the normal Mortal Kombat timeline. He's looking for earthrealm fighters to fight in Mortal Kombat for the honor of earthrealm only this time around Raiden is the chosen one and the champion of thunder and Johnny Cage's character only exist to spew MCU one liners. Along with that instead of Mortal Kombat being a competition to determine the fates of outworld and earthrealm; it's just a friendly competition between realms where no one dies. The reason why Mortal Kombat is like this is because Liu Kang propagated the idea to Sindel the current Kahn of outworld as a way to keep the peace between realms, and if your wondering why Shang Tsung wasn't the one who started Mortal Kombat; well in this timeline Liu Kang banished him into being a snakeoil huckster which doesn't last very long when some mysterious outside force brings out the true power of Shang Tsung and this timelines versions of Shao Kahn and Quan Chi. After the Mortal Kombat part of the Mortal Kombat game finishes the rest of the story is just centered around the fighters of earthrealm trying to find Shang Tsung and stop his plans to do.......something. It's very vague but it has something to do with Shang Tsung using his powers of deceit and magic to raise an army of the dead to overthrow Sindel so Shao Kahn can take the throne as ruler of outworld and wage war on earthrealm so he can..........umm....take all of their souls so he can become more powerful and then......."flips through pages'' I..I think that's it? Yeah, yeah that was it.
The base plot of MK1 is so fucking paperthin it feels like I'm playing through the equivalent of a DLC story for MK11 rather then it's own game, or even a continuation of the story from MK11. The story is so poorly structured characters will show up for the story and then leave as soon as they show up. There is a whole chapter dedicated to Baraka and Ashrah, a character reintroduced from the 3D era, these whole chapters do little to progress the story and the cutscenes in between fights are nothing but dialogue exposition between two characters as they slowly walk through a forest or in a dungeon. I swear to god that whole portion of the earthrealm fighters hunting down Quan Chi goes on for nearly an hour and almost none of it is worth wild for the story besides reintroducing Ermac into this timeline and showing how Quan Chi became pale white which.....I didn't think needed to be shown at all, he could've just been pale white because he lives in the netherrealm which is basically hell but....okay I guess. So nothing really happens for 3 chapters besides Sindel finding out about the evil plan, Shang Tsung creates his army of undead soldiers, and Sub Zero betrayed Scorpion, and the Lin Kuei clan; causing to Scorpion to disband from the Lin Kuei and creates the Shirai Ryu clan off screen.
Anyways, eventually secrets are revealed and we find out that mysterious outside force that's been puppeteering Shang Tsung and gang for the whole game is....."long exhale" Shang Tsung from MK11. So let me break it down, after Liu Kang defeated Kronika and took control of the hourglass which is the artifact that controls all of space and time Shang Tsung (through some DLC story shenanigans) tries to take the hourglass from Liu Kang so that he can create a whole universe where he's the god of all. At the end of the DLC you get to choice which person you want to win the hourglass, obviously the canon ending is Liu Kang winning with him creating MK1's timeline; but this Shang Tsung that's been meddling with Liu Kang's timeline is from the ending where Shang Tsung beat Liu Kang and took control of the hourglass and made his own timeline where he was a god. This then opens up a whole host of new problems because now that Liu Kang finds out that their exist multiple timelines of almost every conceivable MK character beating Kronika and taking the hourglass and rewriting the timeline in their mind, creating a makeshift MK multiverse........."extremely long inhale and exhale".
Now...I don't need to be the person to tell you that multiverses are an overused trop in Hollywood blockbusters let alone pop culture, but the way this game ends......."long exhale" calling it an MCUrification of MK is being generous, in my opinion once the multiverse shit is brought into the plot it just becomes noise.
So now that MK11 Shang Tsung knows about the existence of other timelines he now plans on using and manipulating all the other "evil" versions of MK characters from different timeline so that he can destroy all other timelines so that he can becomes god of all timelines and ruler of reality itself. So then Liu Kang contacts all the good versions of MK characters across the MK multiverse and then it ends with a huge fight with all the evil and good versions of all the MK characters across all of the multiverse battling it out on the MK Armageddon for some reason. You then fight and defeat MK11 Shang Tsung where then Liu Kang who is now a lord of time again erases Shang Tsung and Quan Chi from all conceivable realities. Then it cuts to the fighters of earthrealm (who've been out of the story since chapter 6) having a bite to eat talking about how crazy the ordeal they just went through was, then Liu Kang walks out congratulating everybody for basically doing nothing since they didn't partake in the battle of the gods of the multiverse, and then he walks out and says something about the realms finally being in peace............okey....so.......that ending was just nothing but a cacophony of noise and blood, it felt like Ed Boon stopped writing in the later half and pulled the Steven Moffat why of writing Doctor Who stories, which is basically just banging MK toys together and making that the finale.
If what I told you sounded like a half assed mixture of random assorted MK characters and moments thrown together with tired and lame plotlines that don't even feel finished then that's exactly what it is. I can't even hate this like I did with MK11. This is just sad now. It's just an embarrassingly pathetic attempt to keep the MK series afloat when it's very clear Ed Boon hasn't had a good idea since MK9, which was 11 years ago.

MK1 is a pathetic excuse for a fighting game, it's a pathetic excuse for a live servies game, and it's a pathetic excuse for a Mortal Kombat game. The best visualization I can give you, is picture someone throwing in all the most memorable bits of classic 2D and 3D era MK into a blender, turning it into a fine and marketable paste, then slowly pouring it onto the skeleton horribly greedy live service mobile game tier game. But they didn't pour that fine nostalgic paste completely over the skeleton, they only poured enough to where you can only make out little fragments of that classic nostalgic MK you knew and loved while being drowned out by cosmetics and paid fatalities, and loot boxes, and a seasonal rpg style game and a item show and all of that AAA horseshit.
MK1 is an embarrassing, bland, and pathetic video game, and the death nail in the coffin that Mortal Kombat is a dead series in my eyes in the hands of WB Games and NetherRealm Studios.

🗣️🗣️🗣️ You put it down like New York City, I never sleep🔥
🗣️🗣️🗣️Wild like Los Angeles, my fantasy🔥🔥🔥
🗣️🗣️🗣️Hotter than Miami, I feel the heat🔥🔥🔥
🗣️🗣️🗣️Oh, oh, oh, oh (girl it's), it's international love🔥🔥🔥
🗣️🗣️🗣️Oh, oh, oh, oh (yeah), it's international love🔥🔥🔥

So the campaign was awesome, the ending though I was meh on. I preferred MK11 ending. I'm really happy with the rebooted designs they chose for Mileena, Nitara and Scorpion, they are truly my favourite characters in the MK series besides Jade but she isn't in this game. Hopefully she gets a future DLC like Mileena did for MK11! I love this invasion mode, it's pretty cool, the roster is kind of meh in this game compared to mk11 and mk x in my opinion, gameplay is smooth but the thing I hate is again another MK game with poor optimization on PC, we only had 1 graphic setting and couldn't even change the fps above 60fps. I am really excited to see the future of this game and what DLC's/Characters they add! I hope we get Jade in a future DLC, and I am pumped to play as Homelander, Omniman & Peacemaker. I will edit this review log once I have 100%/platinumed this game to put how many hours to 100% in steam achievements!

Not perfect, but still pretty good. Invasions is really disappointing and pretty bare bones, and the story, while being great for a good 70% of it, eventually just ends up being annoying by the end of it. But, at least this has gameplay so good that I never want to play MK11 again. Hoping lots more content gets added later on, cause it has potential to be one of the best Mortal Kombat games of all time. Just a shame that it’ll take a few years to reach that point as the state that it’s in currently, while still great at points, is pretty disappointing. Guess we’ll see.

End of the Year Catch up #2 Mortal Kombat 1

Mortal Kombat 1 is probably in my opinion the most refined MK Fighting Experience to date. It is very responsive and very fast. Everything feels punchy and satisfying when you are facing a opponent and getting kombos off as they feel fluid. With the new Kameos, I felt like they were a welcoming addition and the fatalities although some felt short were very satisfying to watch. It would be a tough game if MK did not have strong fatalities IMO. I had a great time with the kampaign, albeit there were some spoilers segments that I was kinda konfused on. It was kool to see but it really kame out of left field. I still had a fun time regardless, I did not feel I was robbed in anyway.

Where I certainly felt robbed was the games modes and features. Single player activities were quite lacking and felt very grindy. A board game mode where every map feels the same and repeating the same thing felt like a chore till the end. Where was the Krypt? The dragon that gives me a RNG pull does not feel the same and unfortunately I felt like really dumbed down the Single player replayability and overall experience.

At its kore, MK1 might be one of the best in the series, when it comes to gameplay but it certainly has drawbacks in how it approaches SP kontent and Monetization. Grinding and Aggressive Monetization of Costumes that are sometimes simple recolors. I find it hard to recommend at full price when costumes are sometimes 1/3 of the cost of the game. Good time, but I just recommend just sticking to the Story mode.

I write this as someone who is bad at fighting games but feels strangely compelled to play their story modes, so take everything I say with that grain of salt.

The past few Mortal Kombats have inhabited a schlocky, campy B-movie vibe that haven't been the deepest of stories but have mostly been fun. With how the previous game ended (along with its DLC) and the possibilities it represented, I was keenly awaiting to see what they chose to do with this new outing.

Unfortunately, they chose to do nothing meaningful with the premise until maybe the last 30 minutes and by that time, I was very much over the game. But maybe I shouldn't be surprised - this is very much the world that someone like Liu Kang would create - one with a very limited imagination of what could meaningfully be different. Insert the pithy saying about how when your only tool are your fists, you treat every problem like a skull waiting to be pulverised.

This extends to the cast of characters and even the violence in the game - it all feels a bit rote at this point.
- We're going through the motions of all these x-ray bone breaking special moves because, well, we did it in the last game so we need it here too. Even as someone who occasionally enjoys a gory fatality, these mid-match effects have grown tiring for me, slowing down the paces of a match for no real benefit.
- We have most of the same characters because it would be weird if we didn't have them. Which is a real shame because, as mentioned, the last thirty minutes shows a different world that would have been a lot more fun and dynamic as a player. Perhaps this is because more sweeping changes to the roster and gameplay would have greater implications on competitive balance but I do wish they had found a way for the single player content to be more varied.

The new Invasions mode seeks to deliver this variety by introducing stages with random modifiers but these felt more like chores than anything which made the game more fun to play. Invasions is a big playground designed to eat up my time in conjunction with the daily and weekly challenges for minimal cosmetic differences. I could see this being a lot of fun if its iterated on in future seasons, with more emphasis on player empowerment rather than dealing with weird stage debuffs or other things which aren't really explained well in the UI, but as it is today, I couldn't think of a worse way to spend my free time.

Speaking to positives though,
- the new actor for Shang Tsung really steps up and does a great job of being smarmy in the best ways. He had big shoes to fill and I think he mostly does a great job with what he's given.
- the environment details are pristine and helped inject some life into a game I felt was quite sterile.
- I appreciate there is some meaningful variation in the Asian-themed cultures shown in the game - Mortal Kombat has fumbled this in the past by painting with a very broad stereotypical pan-Asian brush. I was worried based on how similar some of the characters looked in trailers for the game but they've mostly executed on subtle differences of details in clothing and character design in a way I appreciate.

All in all, this game suffers from coming out in the same year as Street Fighter 6 which dared to try some new, fun things and while it didn't all work, it was a breath of fresh air. I'm here wishing for a different timeline where Mortal Kombat 1 was less of a whiff.

Sempre fui um grande apaixonado pela franquia Mortal Kombat e fiquei bem ansioso quando vi o anúncio desse game. Logo que adquiri meu PS5, eu já tinha colocado nos planos pegar ele. E devo dizer, não me decepcionei. Mortal Kombat 1 continua um game de luta sólido, do jeito que sempre foi. Ainda que com algumas novidades.

O sistema de Kameos é bem interessante, ainda que eu sinta que alguns personagens limitados apenas a Kameos deveriam ser personagens jogáveis. Como alguns clássicos e o Shujinko. Gosto de como cada vez mais a Netherrealm aumenta a barra do gore, tornando a parada tão exageradamente violenta que as vezes fica até cartunesca. E Os personagens ganharam redesigns que me agradaram bastante, cada um tem sua própria identidade e alguns, que em suas encarnações originais tinham uma sensação de personagem genérico, hoje fazem jus ao elenco ao qual se juntam. E sobre os gráficos, nem preciso comentar muita coisa. Facilmente o MK mais lindo que temos.

Mas ainda assim, o game tem algumas falhas. O modo história começa muito promissor, talvez seja a história mais cinematográfica de Mortal Kombat até então. Gostei muito do retratamento que deram pra personagens e as origens deles, acho que são muito mais pé no chão sem perder a essência de fantasia que a série emprega. O problema é que tem alguns personagens que entram na trama, tem um papel de importância e depois somem sem motivo aparente, pra aparecerem no final ou nem aparecerem mais. O capítulo final também é um clusterfuck da porra, é uma parada completamente jogada só pela referência e resulta em um final totalmente anticlimático. O que é uma pena, pra uma campanha que prometia tanto.

O Modo Invasões também é maneiro de início, acho legal a ideia de criar um pequeno enredo e mudar por temporadas. Mas uma vez que tu joga ele, tu só vai querer jogar de novo se for pra ganhar troféu ou se tu curte muito a série e quer acompanhar as histórias de cada temporada. Ele com certeza se torna muito repetitivo. E até entendo a Netherrealm querer dar uma sobrevida pro jogo, mas ser obrigado a upar personagem por personagem pra desbloquear mais fatalities e brutalities é de uma sacanagem sem tamanho. Desbloquear cosméticos e outras baboseiras até vai. Ainda que esse modo facilite a tarefa de upar os personagens, sei lá, não sinto que vale a pena. Sem falar que infelizmente, MK tá caindo naquela trend de vários jogos onde personagens ficam trancados por trás de um paywall. Porra, ter que pagar pra jogar como Pacificador, Omni-Man, Capitão Pátria, mesmo o Takeda que estreou no MKX eu até entendo. Agora cobrar por personagens Legacy como Quan-Chi e Shang Tsung, que tem um papel de importância grande na própria história do game? Aí fica complicado.

E agora aproveitando pra fazer uma review básica sobre a Platina. É de longe a mais fácil desde o MK vs. DCU. Mas não deixa de ser trabalhosa. Um ponto que me fez querer comentar sobre ela, é justamente um troféu que exige tu upar 5 kameos até o nível máximo. E até aí beleza. Só que procurando dicas de como farmar XP pra eles, notei muita gente em fóruns e guias comentando que a Netherrealm constantemente descobria sobre essas maneiras de farmar e nerfava todas elas, fazendo com que o grinding desse troféu se tornasse extremamente tedioso. Eu precisei ficar pouco mais de duas semanas farmando a mesma luta depois de finalizar o modo invasão pra poder upar os cinco Kameos. Sendo que eu ganhava só 390 de XP por vez. Então sei lá, achei uma prática meio babaca do estúdio. Como agora já finalizei a Platina, resta ver se vão fazer isso novamente na próxima temporada.

MK1 é um game de luta competente. Com uma história com bastante potencial, gráficos lindos e que diverte sim, não só se tu for fã da franquia, mas se tiver atrás de um game pra trocar porrada com os amigos. Infelizmente, algumas decisões criativas acabaram fazendo com que o jogo não atingisse o potencial que tinha, deixando a experiência apenas boa. Aconselho jogar sim, mas de preferência quando tiver em uma promoçãozinha. Resta saber agora se o game vai ter uma sequência direta ou uma DLC estilo a Aftermath do MK11.

I hope the eventual expansion is called Mortal Kombat 1 2.

I feel the narrative story mode is roughly as strong as that in Mortal Kombat 11, although I prefer MK1’s martial arts focus to the past two games’ obsessions with the boring special forces characters. In fact, the re-contextualization of the characters and backstories is one of the more interesting aspects of the story; nobody wanted to see Raiden fumble the realms a fourth time. The dialogue can be grating and Marvelesque, especially with Johnny Cage, and unfortunately the last two chapters dissolve into a predictable mash of multiverse shenanigans and in-jokes.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that the references were pointed at me, basically saying “Conman, this one’s for you.” I mean, Havik’s presence in this game alone feels like a direct Conman appeal. Not to get ahead of myself, but SHUJINKO is a Kameo fighter in this game and his fatality is the five point palm exploding heart technique from Kill Bill. Anyway, the majority of the campaign was quite enjoyable and the new spin on things felt refreshing. Playing the Earthrealm characters without their powers for the opening portion of the game was particularly cool to me. The end is a mess, but there was a novelty to it which I didn’t mind. Also a fun tip, I didn’t turn it off but the Test Your Might stuff can be disabled in the options menu.

While I’m happy NRS decided to pander specifically to my nostalgia for the 3D era MK games, I wish they’d actually just bring back Konquest mode. The new Invasions mode is basically Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s World of Light, which is better the last game’s multiverse gear-grinding towers, but I would've hoped to see them expand on MK11’s Krypt mode instead.

Where this game shines above Mortal Kombat 11 most is in its gameplay. The Kameo assist system/gimmick is the shot in the arm this needed to become more dynamic and interesting than its predecessor, combining different characters with different Kameos leads to different match-ups and unique matches in a way 11 simply never achieved.

I think Street Fighter 6 being so incredible takes the wind out of MK1’s sails a bit (it even basically has Konquest mode), but just because another game is better doesn’t mean this game isn’t good. I like it. I’m gonna stop rambling and go back to playing it.

Just beat the story mode and did a couple other things, going to go back to do some arcade/more invasions/deepen my understanding of the mechanics.

Loose observations:
-Story mode is great. Continues whatever was happening in 11, but since I didn't play 11 nor remember 9/10 very much, I felt like this was a fine jumping on point. "Liu Kang became the time god in 11 which means he's the Raiden of the series now, he did a restart of the universe to try to make everything more chill, and someone is un-chilling it." With my spotty knowledge of MK lore, I was more than fine to fully enjoy the story. The whole back third is AMAZING, and I think they did a really good job in the early moments focusing on making you care about the new old characters.

-The 20 minutes I've spent with Invasions makes it seem fine but really I just want the tower from MK9 and the Krypt back. Invasions seem like a worse version of the story mode from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

-Abandoning scene interactions in favor of the Kameos was a great decision. The Kameos (ie assist characters) are great fun and give you new options to build your mains out that don't require messing with customizations. I wish there were a few more Kameos though. This is probably the most I've jived with a Netherrealm Studios game since MK9.

-Looks great, sounds great

-I don't know if easier fatalities is an MK1 or 11 thing but I think that's a great decision.

I paid $27.99 for it in a recent PSN sale. Feels like the right price! Fun game.

Story mode was so fun. Shang Tsung the absolute fruitloop he is was an absolute highlight, and I ADORE how the tower endings are all continuations of the story mode, it made getting them so fun, and a majority of them were great continuations and setups for the future.

I suck at fighting games so I can’t say much for the gameplay, I’ve had my fair share of online matches and am decent I guess.

Invasion is a great new mode, walking through the whopping 6 different maps got a little tedious after a while but the cosmetics you get (especially the last one) make it all worth it, fun mode and can’t wait for the future seasons.

Overall as a relatively new MK fan this is probably the best first game on launch I could’ve asked for. Really fun game even though I suck ass

By far the worst game NetherRealm Studios has put out since rebranding. I'm not sure what happened in development that caused this to be such a train wreck, whether it being the publisher forcing microtransaction-heavy modes or if there was truth to the rumors about it originally being Injustice 3. But on a macro and micro level, the game is completely flawed.

Story Mode is where the small bit of good in the game is. The story is certainly absolute nonsense with nonstop plot holes and dumb decisions, but it was refreshing to get a more grounded and sometimes reimagined take on many characters. If anything they didn't take this far enough and could've switched up a lot more. The graphics and especially facial animations are some of the best I've ever seen in a video game. Top notches performances all around... Except for the hilariously bad Megan Fox as Nitara. Were they scared to ask her to do a second take?

Invasions mode is pushed as the driving force behind the game and is basically the only thing to do in single player once you finish the main story. And unless you care about unlocking costumes in 35 different shades of the same exact ugly color, there is 0 reason to do so. Nonstop boring grindy content, no fun to be had.

Even the classic towers are somehow ruined. Each character's ending, rather than being the story of what would happen if they were the one to beat the big bad boss as it is traditionally, instead shows what they do after the main story of the game. Not only is this boring, but it causes multiple characters' ending to be the exact same thing due to being involved in each other's epilogues. And speaking of the big bad boss at the end of the tower? It's literally just Shang Tsung in a dumb looking outfit, he doesn't even get a buff. There is no challenge whatsoever. He's literally just a regular character in the game.

I've seen people say that despite the game's flaws this is the best Mortal Kombat gameplay-wise. I get it, but personally I despise the whole Kameo system, so the gameplay is a major bust for me.

The whole thing feels like a giant step down from Mortal Kombat 11 (Which wasn't exactly amazing, but is great next to this garbage). The fatalities are totally uninspired. Even the character interactions before each match seem so cold - most of them don't even make sense, 2 characters who are friends agreeing on a point or something rather than explaining why it is that they're about to fight.

The first thing I want to say is that this game is BEAUTIFUL. These were some of the best backgrounds I have seen in any fighting game and each characters' redesigns are great. The base roster is really good too, it was nice to see so many old characters return, while still keeping some newer ones. The change in some character's backstories and personalities are also really well done. I can't believe I actually like Sindel, Shang Tsung, Reptile, and Raiden for once. Liu Kang is also an amazing character here, to me he finally feels like the main character he has always intended to be. The main story was also amazing for the most part. The final act had some goofy moments, but honestly, they were still fun and cool so I still liked them. Now as for Invasions, I'll see if I like them over time, but I much prefer this over Towers of TIme from MK11. As for now, this is honestly a perfect MK game in my book and I am really excited for what NR has in store for the rest of this new era!! (Also really excited for Takeda and Omni Man in the DLC)
Edit: $12 for a fatality is ridiculous...
Final score: 7/10

This review is mostly based on the single player content. I don't really like how the fighting mechanics feel so I can't comment on how good the multiplayer mode feels.

Anyway, the story is a nothing, cowardly multiversal mess that is better left forgotten and the DLC practices are absurd and scummy - Shang Tsung is a major character from the campaign and is locked behind a paywall (unless you preordered). The only thing positive I can say is that naming an alternate dimension version of Quan Chi "Quantum Chi" is hilarious.

O KOMBATE VOLTOU PRO INÍCIO

Mortal Kombat finalmente volta após um final intrigante no Aftermatch com a promessa de ser o reinício da franquia e realmente é mas ao mesmo tempo é uma continuação, semelhante ao que aconteceu no MK9 e posso dizer que é no geral uma ótima forma de recomeçar, vamos aos detalhes.

COMO TÁ A PORRADARIA?
O combate é MK, divertido de jogar e uma delícia quando pega o jeito (meu main é o Liu Kang), segue bem no estilo do MK11 mas com algumas adições e a mais importante sendo a mecânica dos parceiros que no início tive medo de ser muito quebrada mas até que não é tão apelona como esperava, claro com o online ficando mais forte provavelmente vai vir os mais apelões mas pelo menos na campanha ou nas torres até que está ok e adoro ver essa mecânica mais na ativa como no FighterZ.

TÁ BOM DE CONTEÚDO?
Temos entre os modos disponíveis o KAMPANHA que trás a História, um novo modo chamado Invasões com mecânicas de RPG num tabuleiro e as clássicas torres com 5 variações e vários modos de dificuldade. Temos o modo VERSUS que traz o local com um bom número de lutadores, parceiros e mapas, o online que tem a Kasual, Rankeada e Liga e o torneio. Opção de KUSTOMIZAR também está disponível com vários tipos de roupas para lutadores e parceiros e diferente do MK11 é tudo estético. Tem o modo APRENDER que trás os tutorias e modo treino. Tem também os EXTRAS com uma loot-box que usa moedas douradas pra conseguir as roupas ou artes conceituais e por fim a galeria que mostra as artes, vídeos de cada final dos personagens, kréditos e etc. No geral um bom número de coisas pra fazer, mas seria bom vai coisas pra uma vida útil maior, agora vou falar dos que achei mais interessante.

A HISTÓRIA TÁ DAHORA?
O modo história tá muito bom, os vídeos estão mega bem feitos, parece que estou assistindo um filme de nível cinema, MK11 já era impressionante e o 1 só eleva mais isso, curti muito ver às mudanças da história e gostei boa parte do tempo, eu zerei ela em 5h30 que achei um tempo bom, foi uma das campanhas que mais curti do estúdio junto com Injustice 2 mas o final.... achei bem pataquada, ele é legal até, tem um motivo de história mas senti meio apressado e principalmente exageradamente grandioso, eu tava rindo de nervoso, era só o 1° jogo dessa renovação, não precisava fazer algo tão colossal, era como esperar em Homem de Ferro 1 algo nível Ultimato, num faz sentido, sei que MK é meio doido com as histórias mas senti que foi um pouco demais, mas ainda curti.

O MODO INVASÕES É BOM?
Eu achei legalzinho, a proposta é legal mas sinto que ele é muito básico e com o tempo fica entediante, o único motivo que me daria vontade de jogar seria pra variar o gameplay ou ir atrás dos 100%, além que as telas de loading pra cada luta são bem longas (pelo menos em HDD), o tabuleiro poderia ter mais coisas acontecendo, até tem mais é insuficiente pra querer continuar até o fim, diz o tutorial, 1° mapa e o início do 2° no nível 8 e não pretendo finalizar.

COMO ESTÃO OS GRÁFICOS?
Estão lindos, é uma evolução natural do MK11, não é um salto como do 9 pro X ou X pro 11 mas dá pra se notar a diferença principalmente pelos modelos serem mais realista e principalmente os cenários que são muito bem feitos com uma grande densidade de detalhes, é belo.

E A TRILHA E DUBLAGEM?
A trilha é boa, combina com os momentos mas não foi algo que me marcou ou diria como destaque. A dublagem está ótima e combina bem com cada personagem.

RODOU BEM?
Até que sim, meu PC tá longe de ser o melhor do mundo e mesmo assim arrisquei um médio e consegui jogar com uma taxa aceitável e tava bem satisfatório e com um ótimo visual, os maiores problemas que tive foram algumas travadas em certos momentos, quedas de FPS às vezes quando aparecia um parceiro e principalmente no início quando eu não tinha feito a compilação de shader inteira por precisar reiniciar o jogo toda hora por ele não conseguir terminar na 1° vez, foram necessário várias vezes de abrir o jogo até terminar e não garante 100% de performance e vai ser necessário compilação além da 1° vez.

MAIS PROBLEMAS
Tive outros pontos negativos e até que numa quantidade razoável, pelo menos na minha experiência na versão PC, entre eles problemas no áudio (algumas vezes a dublagem atrasa ou não sai), transição das cinemáticas pra gameplay às vezes não era tão natural com glitches ou travadas, modo invasão em inglês, travadas na tela de seleção de personagem, loadings grandes em HDD, parece ter sido otimizado só pra SSD (uma partida teve loading no meio), demora pra entrar no jogo, 2 crash no meio das torres pequenos bugs e glitches, ex: Cabeça decepada voadora após um brutality e menus que ficam um tempo a mais que devia e mancha preta.

MONETIZAÇÃO PESADA
O game custa 279,90 na Steam, mais caro nos consoles, além de uma versão Premium de 449,90 com conteúdo exclusivo como uma Skin pro Jonny que nem pode ser comprada separadamente ou com um upgrade, o Shang Tsung virou personagem da pré-venda ou você paga por ele, o preço dos personagens dobrou comparado ao 11, de 20 para 40 reais o que é um absurdo pra um boneco, o 1° Kombat Pack custa 169,99, também muito elevado, além de pacote para comprar Kristais de dragão, um moeda do jogo, são muitas coisas abusivas e que são importantes pro jogo como os personagens que dão a vida útil pra esse tipo de game, é extremamente abusivo e após o MKX só tem se intensificado e até rolar algo inacreditável que dê um boom na internet parece ser improvável de ser mudado, mas continuarei apontando.

MEU VEREDITO
Mesmo com os problemas curti bastante o reinício da franquia, tem bastante potencial de melhorar vários personagens, adoraria uma expansão da franquia pra outros estilos de jogo, ainda sonho com um jogo de ação ou um Shaolin Monks novo, no geral é um grande jogo de luta que vale a pena ficar de olho, mas pelo preço se você não liga tanto pra campanha ou em querer focar no competitivo/rankeadas recomendo esperar uma promoção pra valer mais a pena, principalmente quando vir uma versão Ultimate. No momento só joguei 13h30 mas pretendo continuar curtindo o game offline porque no online eu não tanko os pro-player kkkkk.