This review contains spoilers
So, Mortal Kombat 1. Usually I'm not the biggest fighting game guy, but MK has a way of getting me hyped to play one, especially since this game just looked like such a cool way of reinventing the series. A reboot in the most literal sense of the word, taking place in a new timeline written by the god Liu Kang. I'll save the rest of that for the story section, though. Took me about 8 hours or so to finish the Story Mode, the rest (approximately 11 more hours) were spent playing matches with my bro online and a bit of the Invasions mode. I'll try to cover everything in the gameplay section, like I usually do.
I'll make this a brief paragraph to describe my issues with the game. Particularly, this is related to performance and the like. I have no idea if this is more my computer's fault or the game's, since I think I might be reaching the point where my PC isn't strong enough to reliably play new games, but, whatever the reason is, I do know that this game takes quite a while to load stuff in. Whether its characters, screens, or cutscenes in the story mode, the game is just real slow for me. Again, no idea how much of this is the game's fault or my PC's, but I figured I'd mention this anyway.
This game just feels great. Its very fast and fluid. Its perhaps a little too speedy for an FGC noob like me, but man does it feel nice to start the very limited kombos I know how to do. The Kameos really add to this, there's so many possibilities that are added just through their inclusion alone. Its a new system that's sorta like tag-team assists in games like Marvel VS Capcom or Dragon Ball FighterZ, but they're not full fledged characters you can play as, so you don't need to learn two different characters to play the game (thankfully). I haven't really found one that synergizes with me the best yet, though. Also, the roster in this game is great in my opinion: there's no new faces, but every veteran is completely reinvented in some way that makes them feel unique to play from previous iterations. Some are more drastically changed than others, but I loved that they brought back so many characters - some of which haven't been seen in a Mortal Kombat game in a very long time - and totally changed them around like this. I consider myself a Reptile main and I've been most excited for him since his reveal, but there are other characters I'm interested in seeing. I think the only jarring omissions are some of the Special Forces characters like Jax and Sonya, but that's because they straight up do not exist in this new timeline so I can understand why they aren't playable. There's also Quan Chi and Ermac, who are being added as DLC but are two really odd cases in my opinion since they're prominent in story mode and they even have a full move set pretty much already made for them. I have no idea why they're being saved for DLC, but I am interested in being able to play as Quan Chi once the Kombat Pack releases. This game has a pretty decent amount of content, too: aside from the typical Story Mode, Versus, Online, and Klassic Towers, there's also a new mode called Invasions which adds RPG elements to the mix (things like leveling up, allocating stat points to your characters, and type weaknesses/strengths). I found that one to be really fun.
The story...well, it is a fighting game story, so things can feel rather rushed or awkwardly paced. I don't know why the NetherRealm Studios Mortal Kombat games all do this, but the game is divided into character based chapters, so the story kinda has to revolve around whoever you're playing at the time. Sometimes this works pretty well, other times it leads to weird scenarios where characters win fights that it doesn't feel like they should've been able to win, and it pretty much always results in some characters feeling super underutilized. It has a pretty good chunk of characters in it, though, so I suppose its only natural some of them go underused. As far as the characters go, though, the game makes some much needed touchups on long established veterans. In my opinion, Liu Kang is far more interesting as a god trying to keep the peace of this new world he's created than any other role he's had in the other Mortal Kombat games. I've never really cared that much about Shang Tsung aside from stuff like the first Mortal Kombat movie, but MK1 Shang is an absolutely amazing villain in my opinion; I loved his snide little expressions, smug voice, and great villainous presence in the story. I was also very happy to see Reptile and Baraka actually have plot relevance and things to do here instead of just being mindless grunts of Shao Kahn (now General Shao) since I've always been a fan of these two characters. Baraka in particular gets a big glow-up here in terms of personality, though I suppose that's not much of an achievement since he didn't have much of one before. The actual story itself...I think it starts excellent, focusing around Liu Kang trying to have this timeline's events go as intended only for Shang Tsung (and later Quan Chi) to be skulking around in the background ruining everything. There's a bit of a mystery for the characters trying to unravel everything that's going on, like the conflict in Outworld sparked by Shang Tsung feeding them lies about Earthrealmers. However, once the bombshell gets dropped that Shang Tsung got his powers back from a past version of Shang Tsung that came from the Mortal Kombat 11 universe, it just devolves into a bunch of multiverse shenanigans real quick. Admittedly, some of this was badass. I mean, I'd be a pretty joyless guy to not love this game's ending being a huge homage to Mortal Kombat Armageddon (a big game of my childhood and my first MK game), for example. Still, though, I can't help but feel some of that cool stuff from before got muddled with timey-wimey wibbly wobbly stuff and suddenly all hell breaks loose. Also it kinda bugs me that they didn't bring back Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa to play the MK11 Shang Tsung since that's literally who played him in the last game, but I also love the new Shang Tsung's face and voice a lot so its not too big of a deal. They seemed really inconsistent on which characters got the proper actor back and which ones didn't. Nonetheless, I do still think this was a really cool story and a nice clever way to reinvent the Mortal Kombat universe. Also, that ending bit teasing Havik as a Titan looks to be leading to an interesting sequel. I almost think Havik made the roster just for that teaser considering how he only shows up in the story like three times.
Overall, I really like this game. I will likely be trying to play the multiplayer stuff or Invasions more since I just like this game that much, but I doubt I will really try to be a pro at it or anything. Just never been how I've rolled with fighting games. Still, though, its a fun time and a great way to reinvent Mortal Kombat (I know I keep saying that but I really do think the way they pulled this off was so cool). Earns 4 stars from me.
I'll make this a brief paragraph to describe my issues with the game. Particularly, this is related to performance and the like. I have no idea if this is more my computer's fault or the game's, since I think I might be reaching the point where my PC isn't strong enough to reliably play new games, but, whatever the reason is, I do know that this game takes quite a while to load stuff in. Whether its characters, screens, or cutscenes in the story mode, the game is just real slow for me. Again, no idea how much of this is the game's fault or my PC's, but I figured I'd mention this anyway.
This game just feels great. Its very fast and fluid. Its perhaps a little too speedy for an FGC noob like me, but man does it feel nice to start the very limited kombos I know how to do. The Kameos really add to this, there's so many possibilities that are added just through their inclusion alone. Its a new system that's sorta like tag-team assists in games like Marvel VS Capcom or Dragon Ball FighterZ, but they're not full fledged characters you can play as, so you don't need to learn two different characters to play the game (thankfully). I haven't really found one that synergizes with me the best yet, though. Also, the roster in this game is great in my opinion: there's no new faces, but every veteran is completely reinvented in some way that makes them feel unique to play from previous iterations. Some are more drastically changed than others, but I loved that they brought back so many characters - some of which haven't been seen in a Mortal Kombat game in a very long time - and totally changed them around like this. I consider myself a Reptile main and I've been most excited for him since his reveal, but there are other characters I'm interested in seeing. I think the only jarring omissions are some of the Special Forces characters like Jax and Sonya, but that's because they straight up do not exist in this new timeline so I can understand why they aren't playable. There's also Quan Chi and Ermac, who are being added as DLC but are two really odd cases in my opinion since they're prominent in story mode and they even have a full move set pretty much already made for them. I have no idea why they're being saved for DLC, but I am interested in being able to play as Quan Chi once the Kombat Pack releases. This game has a pretty decent amount of content, too: aside from the typical Story Mode, Versus, Online, and Klassic Towers, there's also a new mode called Invasions which adds RPG elements to the mix (things like leveling up, allocating stat points to your characters, and type weaknesses/strengths). I found that one to be really fun.
The story...well, it is a fighting game story, so things can feel rather rushed or awkwardly paced. I don't know why the NetherRealm Studios Mortal Kombat games all do this, but the game is divided into character based chapters, so the story kinda has to revolve around whoever you're playing at the time. Sometimes this works pretty well, other times it leads to weird scenarios where characters win fights that it doesn't feel like they should've been able to win, and it pretty much always results in some characters feeling super underutilized. It has a pretty good chunk of characters in it, though, so I suppose its only natural some of them go underused. As far as the characters go, though, the game makes some much needed touchups on long established veterans. In my opinion, Liu Kang is far more interesting as a god trying to keep the peace of this new world he's created than any other role he's had in the other Mortal Kombat games. I've never really cared that much about Shang Tsung aside from stuff like the first Mortal Kombat movie, but MK1 Shang is an absolutely amazing villain in my opinion; I loved his snide little expressions, smug voice, and great villainous presence in the story. I was also very happy to see Reptile and Baraka actually have plot relevance and things to do here instead of just being mindless grunts of Shao Kahn (now General Shao) since I've always been a fan of these two characters. Baraka in particular gets a big glow-up here in terms of personality, though I suppose that's not much of an achievement since he didn't have much of one before. The actual story itself...I think it starts excellent, focusing around Liu Kang trying to have this timeline's events go as intended only for Shang Tsung (and later Quan Chi) to be skulking around in the background ruining everything. There's a bit of a mystery for the characters trying to unravel everything that's going on, like the conflict in Outworld sparked by Shang Tsung feeding them lies about Earthrealmers. However, once the bombshell gets dropped that Shang Tsung got his powers back from a past version of Shang Tsung that came from the Mortal Kombat 11 universe, it just devolves into a bunch of multiverse shenanigans real quick. Admittedly, some of this was badass. I mean, I'd be a pretty joyless guy to not love this game's ending being a huge homage to Mortal Kombat Armageddon (a big game of my childhood and my first MK game), for example. Still, though, I can't help but feel some of that cool stuff from before got muddled with timey-wimey wibbly wobbly stuff and suddenly all hell breaks loose. Also it kinda bugs me that they didn't bring back Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa to play the MK11 Shang Tsung since that's literally who played him in the last game, but I also love the new Shang Tsung's face and voice a lot so its not too big of a deal. They seemed really inconsistent on which characters got the proper actor back and which ones didn't. Nonetheless, I do still think this was a really cool story and a nice clever way to reinvent the Mortal Kombat universe. Also, that ending bit teasing Havik as a Titan looks to be leading to an interesting sequel. I almost think Havik made the roster just for that teaser considering how he only shows up in the story like three times.
Overall, I really like this game. I will likely be trying to play the multiplayer stuff or Invasions more since I just like this game that much, but I doubt I will really try to be a pro at it or anything. Just never been how I've rolled with fighting games. Still, though, its a fun time and a great way to reinvent Mortal Kombat (I know I keep saying that but I really do think the way they pulled this off was so cool). Earns 4 stars from me.