The videogame as machine of death. In which you must become a machine to survive. One so precisely calibrated that flow is not optional. It’s the only way through.

Its difficulty isn’t about triumph or accomplishment. It’s about recognizing the machine for what it is, recognizing the machine that is you. One will adapt to the other. And 1001 Spikes does not adapt.

It is, not coincidentally, a game of fathers and sons, of anxiety and repetition. In the end it feels complete, the final word on its own masochism.

The final words of the actual game? ~ Thanks Mom

so, so, SO close to 5 stars. it had everything going for it. the animation is incredible, the fighting engine is the best its ever been, the writing is horrible (in the best way, most of the time), there's just a lot of small issues that pile up and take it down that one notch from perfection.

firstly, the microtransactions. obviously. not just the idea of them this time, though, because there are a lot of things core to the mortal kombat franchise (from a casual perspective, at least) that it takes away. the thing i hate most of all being the gear. gone are the days of unlockable costumes with either really cool or charming designs, and in come the very slight changes that make a character look completely stupid instead. an absolute charm vacuum that sucks out all the fun of a character's look and replaces it with contrived rarity and greed.

secondly, the krypt. the place you acquire this wonderful treasure. what was once a cute shop where you could get costumes and once upon a time even characters, is now replaced with a grindy, monotonous mess of walking and fucking common gears and skip fight tokens. skip fight tokens. ill say it one more time: skip fight tokens. you can pay for the ability to not play the game. fuck you, WB games.

thirdly, no ermac. should honestly dock the other four stars for that but im feeling generous.

and lastly, the story. i said before the writing is atrocious, which it is, and also that that was a good thing. which it is. for the most part. for the most part, the terrible writing can lead to some pretty good laughs and usually lead to the excellent core gameplay, but other times it's so self-serious that it makes me long for the days of deception's wacky overworlds and bo rai cho's or armageddon's fully fleshed beat-em-up konquest mode that put some action games entirely dedicated to that genre to shame. i understand its a lot to ask for, but so is sixty bucks.

in short, its light on content and on personality. it feels like the days of mortal kombat being "street fighter for normal people" are gone by, and while that gets easier to take as i get more into proper fighting games, it'll always feel like a core part of this franchise is missing. the gameplay improves, and it is an incredible fighting engine, but WB continues ruining everything good with the world along with it.

big ups on giving us a weekend of it for free, though. cant wait to buy it properly when the komplete edition is $20.

also, on top of all of this negativity, i want to say one thing:
the way they handled meters in this is genius imo. in MK9 and X the meter was basically just an X-Ray timer for any player that isnt in it for the style points (which i only started doing recently). and the x-rays themselves started getting a bit worn after a while, so having two different bars for defensive meter burn and stylistic meter burn is perfect, as well as the fatal blow system both only occurring when youre low on health and naturally a bit pressured, but can also only be used once per match. its the perfect compromise and it leads to matches being interesting to play and fun to watch no matter what.