“I wasn’t allowed to play the early installments of this franchise.” That’s the first thing that comes to my head when I reflect on the world of Mortal Kombat. But the fact of the matter is that I wasn’t banned from playing the games, because I never asked. I didn’t want to be the edgy kid who played “Mature” games that I couldn’t buy myself. It was hard enough to justify the expense to play Mario and Pikmin on our Nintendo Gamecube. It was my younger brother who would push the boundaries and look into games that were beyond our “maturity level.”
The release of the 2021 Mortal Kombat film unleashed a new short-term interest in the entire legacy of Mortal Kombat. It led me to downloading this game for my Switch. And I guess I was expecting it to be a rehash of the movie plots, which never take you past Mortal Kombat 3. I was blown away by the fact that there is a generation of MK fighters after Sonya Blade and Jax Briggs. And in the first few chapters of the Mortal Kombat 11 story mode, they make clear that there were consequences to the previous games and that there are consequences for people in this one.
In short, I’ve really liked it.
On a platform level this isn't 4.5 stars. I don't really give two rat bottoms regarding latest-gen graphical achievements, but what the Switch is doing with the hair textures here is distracting. The load times are bearable, but there's this weird churn when selecting your default character skins in the Fight mode. That said, the fact that this is possible on the Switch at all is kind of impressive. Regardless, I can't fault the core game for the platform's limitations and I really like the quality of the cutscene animations, so it is nearly a "perfect game" when you idealize its hardware.
Regarding all the metadiscourse on this game - the economy, the microtransactions; they don't really affect me since I have minimal interest in unlocking all the skins and customizing my characters for online play. I have zero competitive interest in this game as an esport, so connectivity and character balancing aren't issues for me either. The core experience for me were the two campaign modes in MK11 and Aftermath and those were what really impressed me.
This is a pretty pivotal game for me as it has taught me at an adult age that I might really actually enjoy the fighting game genre. Admittedly, as a Nintendo consumer, my main exposure to the game category was Smash and I've grown....disillusioned with it. Exploring the world of Mortal Kombat has kind of invigoriated me for games like Dragonball Fighterz and the like.
We'll see if I dabble in the Krypt next.
The release of the 2021 Mortal Kombat film unleashed a new short-term interest in the entire legacy of Mortal Kombat. It led me to downloading this game for my Switch. And I guess I was expecting it to be a rehash of the movie plots, which never take you past Mortal Kombat 3. I was blown away by the fact that there is a generation of MK fighters after Sonya Blade and Jax Briggs. And in the first few chapters of the Mortal Kombat 11 story mode, they make clear that there were consequences to the previous games and that there are consequences for people in this one.
In short, I’ve really liked it.
On a platform level this isn't 4.5 stars. I don't really give two rat bottoms regarding latest-gen graphical achievements, but what the Switch is doing with the hair textures here is distracting. The load times are bearable, but there's this weird churn when selecting your default character skins in the Fight mode. That said, the fact that this is possible on the Switch at all is kind of impressive. Regardless, I can't fault the core game for the platform's limitations and I really like the quality of the cutscene animations, so it is nearly a "perfect game" when you idealize its hardware.
Regarding all the metadiscourse on this game - the economy, the microtransactions; they don't really affect me since I have minimal interest in unlocking all the skins and customizing my characters for online play. I have zero competitive interest in this game as an esport, so connectivity and character balancing aren't issues for me either. The core experience for me were the two campaign modes in MK11 and Aftermath and those were what really impressed me.
This is a pretty pivotal game for me as it has taught me at an adult age that I might really actually enjoy the fighting game genre. Admittedly, as a Nintendo consumer, my main exposure to the game category was Smash and I've grown....disillusioned with it. Exploring the world of Mortal Kombat has kind of invigoriated me for games like Dragonball Fighterz and the like.
We'll see if I dabble in the Krypt next.