Spider-man 2 is one of those weird sequels that makes legitimate improvements, while also taking some steps back, leaning almost on "sidegrade" territory. maybe i shouldnt have replayed the first game immediately prior to this, as it's only made me compare it more, but well, it is a sequel. anyway, spoilers ahoy.
let me start with a positive. i love, love, love, LOVE the web wings. its something ive wanted implimented in a spider-man game for a long time, since i was a kid (web pits for life) and it feels pretty much exactly as it should. i almost feel like more could be done with it however. sure, its great for getting around, but idk i feel like there could be more challenges across the map involving using them skillfully (will get back to those in a bit). actually, speaking of challenges across the map, lets talk about those for a moment... theyre not great. they're not terrible either for the most part, but they are really not that good either. there's the photography missions which is simple, you go somewhere, and take a picture of something specific. the first game was flooded with pictures you could take, including secret ones, but here you just take a handful and then youre done. and not only that, but they made it more annoying to get the pictures. you need to be at just the right angle and the right spot, and if you do anything wrong, like try to get it mid-swing, the game will glitch and youll need to try it again later despite snapping the picture when it told you to. the game is very buggy, but i'll get back to that. anyway, there are also these eco-friendly missions usually about saving the bees or whatever idc. they all either involve doing some minor puzzle minigame, or flying around as a robot bee with the worst vision spamming a shoot button until auto lockon takes care of other robots. sometimes you move the bee where it tells you to move it... noooot really fun. there are also the hunters and the flame missions which are just outposts where you can take out a bunch of guys by stealth, combat or both. these were basic but fun, although i really did love the final hunter outpost you got anytime you finished a zone where its just this massive abandoned building you can full stealth and you have other objectives to do too that was cool. then theres these missions where you chase a robot bird as you download data from it. you gotta glide in its slipstream for like 2 minutes or something, and theres just... no challenge to it. you dont really need to dodge anything, theres almost no risk of getting out of the slipstream unintentionally, youre jus... there for 2 mins. i cant help but feel older games from the ps2 era would handle that differently. there are also these sandman sand crystal missions, you go near one, a bunch of sandmen spawn, deafeat em all and get more of his memory. these were also pretty simple but effective. some of the side missions are requests from the in-game spider-man app, but theyre just glorified cutscenes most the time. then there are the mysterio missions. these are the ones that should be the most fun, but well... they aren't. you see, you gotta do these various challenges as the game puts you in an arena full of enemies. sometimes its dont get hit, other times its knock enemies off a roof, etc, you get the point. and it almost always comes with a time limit too, a rather strict one at times. the real trouble comes in 30 seconds in when you'll suddenly get this mini cutscene that throws some new gimmick or obstacle into the fight and if you dont adapt quick enough, youre either dead or otherwise wont get that gold medal. the spider-bots were probably my favorite side activity. as you swing around new york, you'll see these large glitchy bubbles throughout. that means theres a spider-bot nearby, and its just nice fun to web em up and collect them, seeing what cameo or easter egg will be in the next one. though oftentimes there will be a spider-bot dressed up in a costume that was available in the first game but absent in this one. that can be annoying. there are also these side quests for miles centered on his school, but honestly i hated those, didnt care for anyone at that school. you dont do much in these missions besides go from point A to B. miles also had these prowler missions where he has to find something invisible on some rooftops, scan it, maybe do some weird mildly annoying puzzle, and then head inside the building for the reward. the final activity are those symbiote nests. these arent great either. you put some time based sonic bomb on a symbiote core, a bunch of symbiotes show up, defend the bomb for a minute and a half. later on, there are 2 of the things at the same time that you have to defend, and while i never really failed at defending it aside from the times where i died, there were times where it felt like it was down to the wire, especially if a big symbiote was there. there are of course your generic crimes around the city as well. there's more variety to them, and you can still do those optional objectives such as dodge under an enemy 3 times or whatever when you do them, but all it does is give xp. i don't think any of them are required for area completion. but it's still fun to do them because miles or other characters can join in on a fight and after you can have a little interraction with them and its cute, usually pete and miles hug, and share they a nice dynamic that the comics really lack. i believe thats all the side activities, and it might sound like a lot, but honestly i think the first game had way more. theres not even any challenges that test your stealth, your flying, your swinging, your general maneuverability, or anything else. i understand the screwball stuff was a common complaint, but the screwball and task master challenges from the first game could be fun. maybe some challenges will be added in dlc, they seem to be saving a lot of things for dlc... too many...
so lets talk about the gameplay for a moment. for the most part, the combat is the same as the first 2 games. its your typical arkham combat, square is a basic combo, holding square is an uppercut, triangle is either a zip to the enemy or a yank. circle is dodge, x is jump, r1 is webshooters. new to the sequel is the ability to parry with l1. i dont recall if blocking was in either of the previous games, but if you hold l1, you can block. time it right (same timing as the perfect dodge) you can parry the enemy. it takes some getting used to and there are some attacks that REQUIRE you to jump out of the way, and frankly the difference between attacks you can dodge/parry, and attacks you have to jump out of the way of isnt clear enough. there is a distinction, but in a split second, youre probably gonna notice too late most the time, at least on the higher difficulties. also new to the combat are these moba-like cooldown abilties. l1 plus one of the face buttons lets you do one of 4 things. tringle is usually a dash-like move. x is usually some jump that brings enemies to the air with you. square is some more basic attack. and circle either shoots enemies or pulls them in. there are 2 sets of abilities per character, each unlocked in the story and some not unlocked until the very end of the game for whatever reason, but they mostly felt the same. r1 plus the face buttons is one set of web-based tech abilities shared between both spideys. i never used them much. r1 and square is like a web pull, that brings enemies closer together. r1 and triangle is like some laser thing that shoots enemies for a while, good for bosses or crowd control. r1 and circle is like a blast that knocks enemies away. r1 and x is the least useful one, its something that just webs enemies as if youre shooting them. personally i never use the web abilities, webs feel like they got a massive nerf for this game, as enemies seem to take way more webs and god help you if theres a brute. i only ever used them when i was panicking and spamming attacks hoping not to get hit. honestly i didnt care for any of these abilities, they start out pretty terrible and useless, but towards the end you'll find yourself relying on them as they get upgraded, but i never found them fun to use aside from maybe the l1 attacks, but the cooldown on them was just so annoying. it really makes you miss the weapon wheel from the first game, i dont know why they changed it. insomniac does weapon wheels so well, its like, their thing, its why i didnt mind all the tech peter had in the first game, because i trust insomniac to handle weapon wheels of cool gadgets.
lets see, what else... the game is buggy as shit and borderline unfinished, it's like a 2010s assassins creed game. i frequently change costumes and sometimes the game will turn me into a white block, and not "rarely" sometimes. no this is pretty consistent. and if it happens, the game will just... not spawn some buildings in. or the floor. and if it happens in a cutscene, characters can disappear entirely. the game also just loves loves LOVES to crash on me. again, pretty consistent thing. it never happened during combat, thank god, but if im swinging in the open world, i can practically sense when its about to happen. actually, speaking of suits, you probably already know this, but there arent many suits in the game. the reason mostly being that they didnt want peter to have more suits than miles, and miles has so little to work with that probably half the suits in this game or more are made by insomniac themselves. peter on the other hand... about a third of his suits are from movies. mostly the mcu. about 5 of them are story related, and they didn't bring back most of the cool suits from the first game. instead of kaine, you get... that one scarlet spider suit no one liked. instead of future foundation or bag-man, you get some crappy fantastic four inspired suit that just looks bad. instead of mangaverse, you get the kumo suit. instead of the wrestling suit (which literally does have a cameo in this game) you get the mcu homemade suit. instead of any of the spider armors, you get... night monkey (i still say that sounds like a slur, why did they call it that). instead of last stand spidey, you get... the fucking astronaught suit from life story (as literally the last suit you can unlock). instead of the black cat dark suit, you get... the inside out suit from no way home... instead of the aaron aikman suit, you get... the mcu iron spider... instead of the white 2099 suit, you get... the mcu hybrid suit. they gave miles a toku suit, but peter doesnt get arachnid rider back so i cant synchronize them, this is a fucking crime... i could go on. and i will! so each suit for both peter and miles have 3 variant colors in addition to the main color. personally i feel like some of them could be better, but a lot of them are pretty solid so i won't complain much about that. what i WILL complain about is that despite taking up 10 of peter's slots alone, you can't color swap ANY of the movie suits for whatever reason. ,meaning the raimi black suit takes up a whole slot rather than just being an alt color for the default raimi suit. and its a real shame because ive seen suits ive otherwise hated redeem themselves with alt color pallets. even that godawful miles suit no one likes has a color pallet that makes it look okay aside from the stupid hair and shoes. i used to hate the track suit for miles, but theres a color pallet that makes the white part black and it suddenly becomes my more standard looking miles suit. i should probably stop before the costume rant takes up this entire review. anyway, what else... i like the new open world. not much else to say about that, though you can really tell the new area is better for gliding compared to the main area. the jonah podcast is back, but i never got to fucking listen to it because crimes always spawned next to me when i was trying to. the danikast on the other hand, another podcast that pops up when youre swinging, i never wanted to listen to that but for some reason crimes never spawned in and i could do nothing but listen to it. didnt care for that. oh the game also loves loves LOVES to tease dlc. the game ends on a cindy moon namedrop right before the credits as miles new neighbor and it was such a forced reveal that really should have just been a more organic introduction to the character either earlier in the game, or in the dlc. the flame missions literally have cletus kassady escape with a carnage symbiote for the dlc. the kraven missions end with chameleon for the dlc. theres multiple things teasing a daredevil dlc (he was even teased on twitter shortly after this game was ANNOUNCED how is he not in the main game), and there was an entire mission that teases doctor strange, likely for dlc. some of these may be teases for spider-man 3 or miles morales 2, but it feels like too much is being built up with not enough payoff. one more thing, theres literally 3 of peter's villains that have reformed in this game. sandman (who did relapse due to kraven), tombstone, and mysterio. but theres one point where peter is talking to miles seeing li as a good guy, and pete is questioning his own worth as a spider-man because he was never able to reform his villains, when like... there was literally focus on peters former foes being reformed earlier in the game and that just bothers me.

anyway, story time. so the game starts off with peter finally living his dream job as a teacher. day 1 he gets fired for running off into the bathroom with a student, leaving the school with nothing but both their clothes left behind... the game doesnt really delve into how fucked up that should be to the teachers, like peter should be getting arrested or investigated, that shit should be fucked up, but no, his backpack full of clothes is just handed to him and hes fired and thats it. anyway the real reason he left with a student (miles) is because sandman is wrecking the city after they thought he was reformed. hes acting out of his mind and causing chaos. its a pretty cool setpiece and boss fight that teaches you the mechanics pretty well and does a good job at having both spider-men. soon as thats over, peter gets fired...no questions asked... seriously does that part bug no one else? its not like he snuck out. miles announced that he needed help in the bathroom in front of his entire class and then 5 seconds later they were both gone with their clothes off, and abandoned... the clothes were then apparently found and put in his backpack and given to him, i cant get it out of my head thats so fucked up. anyway, peter visits mays house and goes down memory lane for some nice flashbacks even if young peter looked terrible (stop trying to give him ultimate hair, it sucks), and its a pretty boring section if im being honest. the game loves to give you slow walk-and-talk sections that really should just be cutscenes i mean honestly. its so boring if you make me move the stick and sometimes hit triangle to interract with something basic. harry comes back after getting treated for unnamed disease last game pete, harry and mj go to a carnival conveniently full of reformed supervillains along with miles. but miles gets freaked out by mysterio and leaves just before a supervillain attack which i dont know how he missed. so when pete cant save the day all by himself, harry comes in with these surprise new superpowers to the rescue. soon after, he starts a career as... a nameless spider hero. i would say "i guess spider-man was taken" but well i dont think theres a limit to how many characters can have that name. eventually kraven attacks more supervillains looking to hunt them with his army of people that really like hunting other people. i get its a game in a world of comic book enemies and they needed goons for the player to fight off, but one really has to wonder just what went on in these peoples lives, and why there are just thousands upon thousands of these hunters. this is like a small army and they just went unnoticed until now. perhaps im looking too far into that. anyway, one of the people kraven abducts is martin li, mister negative. he killed miles's father in the first game before miles was spider-man and this is really the first time we see them interract which kinda surprised me. seeing li puts miles down a somewhat dark path where he is ready to let martin drown, but thats when the hunters abduct him. this sets miles on a sort of on again off again path of revenge that miles only feel like doing when the story feels like focusing on it. so i should probably say this right now. this is a peter-centric game. miles, despite being playable, is a side character. he is involved in the main story, yes, he even gets a hint of an arc, but this is a peter game. and it could have been balanced better if theyre planning on making miles the new main character, because miles just gets so little, even in the side content, the most story focused ones are for peter.
so stuff happens, harry and peter get a good dynamic, then mj decides to do a classic insomniac mj move and just infiltrate a base of trained killers decked to the brim with high tech sci-fi gear, despite having no powers. unless plot armor counts. and its here we find out that... pretty much every boss from the previous game besides li and otto died off screen. there is a scrapped room featuring the heads of the previous games bosses on a mantle, so i cant help but feel like there was something more planned with that, at least some major reveal that they died, rather than a handwave. but whatever. eventually peter and harry arrive, kraven nearly kills peter, the symbiote attaches itself to peter to save his life. and they get out of there. and from then on out it becomes your typical symbiote spider-man story, you know the usual beats. you've seen the 90s cartoon. you've seen spider-man 3. you've seen spectacular. you've played the games. you know how it plays out for the most part, but with a harry flavored twist. he's dying without that suit, so there is a goal to get it off pete and on to harry again, and the only one that can probably do it is doctor conners, formerly the lizard. (another villain pete helped reform kind of), but when they try to get to him, the hunters have already turned conners back into lizard, and he's bigger than ever... kinda wish they went full kaiju with him as they do point out that he's growing massively as he sheds his skin. anyway big chase, big fight, conners is cured by spidey and they go back to the lab again. conners reveals the symbiote is an alien, and calls it dangerous, peter needs to get it off and it needs to be destroyed. then peter leaves, and again, usual symbiote stuff, peter gets really tired, passes out in his bed the symbiote controls his unconcious body. hunters come to the house and and the symbiote goes on a rampage on them. mj follows and calls miles for help. they follow the symbiote to some underground tunnel. mj follows peter into the tunnel with no real plan and tells miles to lock her in there with this monster peter. miles for whatever reason, agrees and just collapses the tunnel entrance ash she rides her motorcycle towards him and then is the only person to fumble the akira bike drift. then surprise surprise, things go wrong, the symbiote is after her. and she only escapes due to her plot armor. meanwhile miles got fucking captured by the hunters because he doesn't have mj's plot armor. he wakes up in a cell somewhere and sneaks his way through until he makes it to this arena where he is told to fight to the death with mister negative. after a rather annoying boss fight, miles decides to help martin li escape by throwing him out a window that was open. then after mister negative is out, enemies run in and swarm miles, and instead of just... going to that same open window, he fights back and passes out? its pretty plot convenient. its done for no reason other than to further the stuff with miles and li. li gets spider-man to help rescue miles, and then after a boss fight with kraven, the symbiote pete is fully out of control and miles has to help stop him and get the symbiote off him. the suit is contained and pete heads to oscorp to destroy the symbiote, but harry sees it and after an argument, the suit breaks free of its containment tube and attaches on to harry, who knocks out pete. we get a pretty neat escape sequence as venom where he just thrashes through osborp, tearing up everyone and everything in his path in a sequence that goes on for just a little longer than it should if im being honest. venom is overpowered but plays rather limited and feels clunky. if we ever do get that venom spinoff, im sure this section will end up feeling like a rough alpha of that. anyway, kraven comes in for a boss fight and venom gives him one last hunt where he eats kravens brains. the game kinda jumps the shark after this section, as venom begins spreading itself all over new york and maybe the entire world? im not clear on whether or not the entire earth being covered in symbiote goo was literal. but after that, pete wakes up and new york is full of symbiotes, theyve taken over a good chunk of new yorkers. harry shows up at peter's house, wants the 2 people closest to him to be by his side as king of the world and forces mj to wear a symbiote. pete and mj have a lovers quarrel and after a bit of domestic abuse, their relationship is stronger than ever, just like real life. pete goes after venom alongside miles, but gets overtaken by some symbiotes and some of his symbiote residue comes out from him, putting the black suit back on him. mister negative helps out though and uses the full extent of his powers on peter, turning him into anti-venom, completing his arc and removing his powers. with his new abilities and the world on the verge of an alien goo apocalypse, its endgame time... but first, miles has to switch into some new sponsored adidas costume that looks fucking hideous and grossly out of place, and flirt with a deaf girl while peter is fighting for his life... good thing time isnt a factor or anything. pete encounters venom and is about to get converted until miles FINALLY makes his way to him, and they get out after peter gets a glimpse of where the meteorite symbiote hivemind thing is. finally its endgame time and we get this cutscene where everyone coordinates their plan of attack and we see peter begin to face off against venom... but he swings away. then we see miles ready to take down a swarm of enemies... but then the cutscene focuses on mj sneaking into the hive and the camera zooms out as the hud fades in and i cant describe the noise i made. i wanna play as spider-man bro! i hope you like the cover-based sections of resident evil 5 because her last level in the game is pretty much a condensed version of that. it suuucks. but mj gets the crystal, pete heads to the old high school for a final boss fight with venom on the football field at night, kinda like the opening of ultimate spider-man. you know it's funny, this is not the first sequel ive played where the final boss is a black world ending monster infecting the entire planet fought on a high school football field as blatant sponsorship is in your face. and also despite its improvements, it doesnt quite live up to the first game. i am obscure 2's strongest soldier. a pretty solid fight ensues and partway through, venom gets his wings. side note, much of this game is directly inspired by donny cates venom comic... he recently recovered from a coma and did not see one dime from this game. scummy af ngl. not sure if sony, marvel, disney, insomniac or whoever is to blame, but goddamn its shitty. anyway after a lengthy but cool boss fight, venom is defeated, harry is saved, the rock is destroyed and all the symbiotes are gone except for the ones that arent i guess. and then for whatever reason norman blames spider-man for his son's near death condition despite him going out of his way to seperate harry from venom non-lethally. i guess its so norman has an excuse to hate spider-man and go full goblin in the third game but i feel like it would make more sense for that and be more emotional if harry just died as a result of spider-man failing to save him. after that, the theres a bit of an epilogue where peter takes a break from spider-man, and miles is finally ready to be the only spider-man of new york... which feels like a bit of an arc that we never got since it started out with miles needing peter's help to take on sandman, but now he's ready to go solo. i guess he did so some things on his own, but overall, it feels a bit out of left field. it feels like i missed something. miles really needed a bigger spotlight on him for the story, especially if they want him to take over as spider-man. i'm not the biggest miles fan, i dont really dislike him, and i do like him in spider-verse, but nothing's ever really sold me on him. but if i was a miles fan, i feel like i would be a bit annoyed at just how little he truly got in this game despite being co-spider-man, despite sharing the spotlight with peter, despite being pushed as the new main spider-man... he gets next to nothing. hopefully the dlc is more miles-centric as he deals with the old dangling threads the main game left. let peter stay on his break for the duration of the dlc, make it fully miles. hell i wouldnt mind if instead of dlc, we got a sequel to miles morales. just give some spotlight to him after he was shoved aside in this game. there are 2 other post credits scenes. one with norman visiting otto in jail, and otto looks to the camera and says "i'm writing the final chapter" as he holds up a book titled the final chapter, that got me to cringe a bit. the other is the one with cindy moon i mentioned earlier.
and thats it, thats the story of spider-man 2, but i do have one other thing i would like to mention before i finish my review. i brought it up on my discord, and i really have no organic way of talking about this, so i'm just going to copy-paste what i said.

"i cant help but feel like if this was in a ps2 era game it (the bird flying side missions in this game) would actually be cool and fun and intense
and it would make me try to stay in the slipstream and make me avoid obstacles
honestly i think that a lot when playing modern AAA games
so often ill see something, lets say the ground crumbles and theres a sliding section. a ps5 game will have some twists and turns that looks like it should feel intense, but really theres no threat of dying and itll give you a massive window to jump as well as a prompt in advance and a big jump button appearing on screen as time slows down for you to jump like youre some toddler thats never touched a controller
ps2 game would throw you into a hard as balls level with a million obstacles you actually need to dodge, 3 hits and youre dead unless you get the health the half second it was on screen surrounded by a million obstacles, and it would be full of ultra precise jumps, high speed, no mercy
thrilling without being "cinematic"
rewarding without being handholdy
they dont make em like they used to
its all flash and pizzazz now, no room for skill, challenge and fun
(later)
god these robot bird missions are so dull
3 mins of literally nothing
per bird
repeated like 6 times
i wonder if they wanted to add more to it but didnt have time
(later)
im doing a side story that ends up with spider-miles being dragged agross town by a robo dog using his web like a leash. i can move left and right, dodge, jump, etc, but again, its all just cinematic. theres no obstacles, nothing that makes me play the game, its a glorified cutscene
going from nothing but oldschool games to modern sony games really gives you whiplash
(later)
i entered chameleons lair
he left a gas trap, and i didnt even notice bc i got distracted by adventure time on my phone
miles health wasnt depleting, i was just coughing. there was no cool escape, you just yank a door and leave the room
(later)
another "ps2 woulda handled this better"moment
when peter is riding the lizard up a building via a webline, obstacles are being thrown at you that the game expects you to avoid... nothing happens if you dont dodge"

like, this is a more prevelant problem than just spider-man 2, or even insomniac games, or even sony games. this has become a trend in AAA games in general lately and i would just notice it all the time, anytime i play a modern game or look up gameplay, it'll always have these setpieces that are movie-like that would have been actual cool fun levels in a ps2 era game and it drains me seeing what modern games have become

all in all, i do like spider-man 2 quite a bit. but tl;dr, i don't care for many of the gameplay changes, even if i do love some, it feels like they weren't utilized either well, or enough. the story lacks much of the emotional punch of the first game and often felt a little too much like a retread of stories we've had before. miles really could have been handled better. the side content feels lacking, there are too many dlc and/or sequel teases, i miss the weapon wheel from the first game, too many suits were cut, its buggy as shit, and overall just feels like there could have been more to it. good game but could certainly be better. i almost want to give it the full 4 stars, but it has too many things overall dragging it down for me.

Mortal Kombat X is not a good game in my opinion. The story is filled with SJW propaganda, featuring unlikable new characters that we should "love" because they are "diverse". And the story mode has too much filler chapters. The gameplay is strong as always but I still prefer the previous game over this one.

The Full Review(No Spoilers):

Woke Kombat
Ugh, I can't believe we will talk about this but okay. Let's start from the beginning. After replaying Mortal Kombat(9) and really enjoying it, I decided to continue the series before going into MK1. Yes, yes I know that some hardcore fans are angry at the game but I will buy it during the Black Friday sales.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. I was feeling good after Mortal Kombat(9), I was like "Yes, I am a Mortal Kombat Lore Guy know, I know everything and I love it.". Mortal Kombat X not only murdered my love of the franchise but it also showed me that even if the series got a soft reboot with the previous game, Netherrealm were just not interested in having newcomers to this franchise.

Oh my god, I will explain it all in time so let's just start with the story. And let's actually start with a good thing. The story here is full of twists and turns. Weird things happens. Especially in the first couple of chapters. This is NOT going to go the way you think it is. So I will have to be careful and I will also have to lie to you about the story summary a little bit. A teeny tiny bit. I am trying to protect you.

Our story here is set 25 years after the events of the previous game. Just like it was teased, Shinnok is here with Quan Chi and the resurrected good guys at his side. And he has launched a full on assault at Earthrealm. However, our remaining heroes are still doing their best to defend us. Johnny, Sonya and Raiden were the survivors of the previous game and we also have Fujin and Kenshi being introduced.

Or maybe introduced is a bad word, because they are just added to the game and we get no explanation as to who they are. And that's my biggest problem with this story. Mortal Kombat(9)'s story was written for newcomers to the franchise as well. Every character, literally every single one of them got their origin stories and explanations as to who they are, what they are, what they want to do.

This game does this for some characters as well but definitely not all. Some of these characters are just pushed into the story with no explanation of where they came from. There are also some other not explained things as well. Kuai Liang is a human again, how? He was a cyborg. Scorpion is Hanzo Hasashi again, how? It kind of has an explanation if you really force yourself to it but there is nothing clear said in the story or dialogues.

There is also a second thing that I really don't want to talk about but we have to do it. While the story here introduces a bunch of legacy characters without telling anything about their origin which kills the experience for newcomers, the story here clearly tries to include a new group of heroes and passes the torch to them.

We have Cassie Cage, Jacqui Briggs, Kung Jin and Takahashi Takeda who are all a relative of our favorite classic MK characters. And oh boy, they don't work. They really don't work. The best one among them is probably Takeda because of his own personal story was very good.

But the other 3 are basically, I'm very sorry I usually don't swear, assholes. They are very annoying, they have that weird "Gen Z" attitude and as a Gen Z person myself I can definitely say that we are not like that. These characters are just not likeable and they are too bossy to everyone they see.

This is truly the sequel-ification of Mortal Kombat. But it's even worse than those characters to be honest. We at least had BB-8 in the sequels, none of these new characters are likeable. I would go so far in fact and say that they are unwatchable.

And of course, SJW. They are a very "diverse" group. I'm fine with diversity when it's not forced. This here, is forced. All of them have "something" to them. We have 2 women with one being black. And we have 2 men with both being asian and one being gay.

Yeah, just stop please. And again I want to say this again and again. While I am okay with diversity, it's definitely forced here and these characters are also very poorly written. Their dialogues are absolutely terrible.

Okay, I think I am done. Wow, yeah. I hated the story here. And I hated all the new characters. This was bad. But what about the gameplay? Surely that's good right? Well the core gameplay is good. It's very similar to the previous game but now we also have environmental items we can use like Injustice. And X-Rays are back as well.

There is a new stamina bar too but I really don't know what it works. I am a casual fighting game fan, sorry. Compared to the previous game, I would definitely say that this combat is better. It's not too different but it's an upgraded and expanded version of that.

However, I do have one big complaint about the gameplay. Actually, the story mode structure. Similar to the previous game, we have chapters. We had 16 previously, in this game we have 12. Each chapter focuses on one character and after we do 4 fights with them, chapter ends and we go to the next character. That's all nice. But the problem is that many times, these 4 fights are forced.

There are chapters, not many but still 1 or 2 where all fights happens at the exact same location. So you do 4 fights with 1 character in 1 map. That's ridiculous. And in most cases by the way, like 7 or 8 characters, you do 3 of the fights in 1 map. The story just doesn't move forward. This story here is a much shorter one actually but it's stretched with filler fights. Previous game had a few of these as well but compared to this one? There is also the fact that while the previous game had 2-3 filler chapters, it had 16 chapters.

This game has 6-7 filler chapters and only has 12 chapters. I, I just really didn't like the structure as well. It got old very quick. Technically, the game is fine. I don't know why but Netherrealm must have thought that the previous game had too much color so they basically added a PS3-era grey filter.

Female characters looks much better but I wasn't a fan of the male characters' design. Raiden looked too much like a futuristic robot for example. In music department, nothing caught my eye. Or should I say ear?

Mortal Kombat X is not a good game in my opinion. The story is filled with SJW propaganda, featuring unlikable new characters that we should "love" because they are "diverse". And the story mode has too much filler chapters. The gameplay is strong as always but I still prefer the previous game over this one.