This review contains spoilers
What if we took everything that people thought was fun about Mortal Kombat X, kept all the problems people had with Mortal Kombat X, made those problems worse, tried to make the next game into Injustice 3, but also removed everything that made Injustice 2 fun?
This game is irritating. It had a lot of potential, but seems to just miss the mark on almost every level. It just misses the big picture on why people like MKX so much in literally every single way.
I'll get some positives out of the way. The fatalities are great. They're really cinematic, and they really went all-out on the guest fighters. Fatal Blows are also a great trade for X-Ray attacks. A lot of the skins look really good, and the game isn't as murky and gray as its predecessor. I'm especially pleased to say this, because when it came to art direction, Mortal Kombat X looked like a smoker's lung. This game at least feels like it has an art style.
All that said... There's almost nothing else here I enjoyed. I got a kick out of the game for what it was when I first played, but I can't go back to it at all. The unlocks are so fucking complicated here I just didn't bother with most of them. Being able to unlock so many skins would usually be great, but a bunch of them are found on towers that no one bothers to play. If you like fighting endless raid bosses to unlock pieces of gear, this is the game for you, I guess?
You CAN have an AI fight for you... When it works lol. The AI fighters don't use power-up modifiers that you equip on them, which is a really annoying design flaw. So, in order to get a lot of the gear and skins, you need to just slog through raid bosses yourself. A lot of these bosses can be fought in co-op, but good luck finding anyone who feels like doing that. So, unfortunately, the Living Towers, which were a great concept in Mortal Kombat X that I had a lot of fun with there, are a huge thumbs down here.
The gameplay is about five steps back. I do appreciate Fatal Blow being its own meter, but, I still don't like the whole "Here's a move that does 35% damage as a comeback mechanic to reward you for losing" thing a lot of games do. I think it'd have been better to just make it a one-time use per match that you can use any time, but maybe that's just me. I like the idea of breakaways being their own separate bar with movement abilities, that's definitely a plus. Besides that, though... The gameplay's EXTREMELY barebones. It's especially apparent in zoner characters. You'll spam 3 projectiles (or 2, depending on your variation) the whole match, maybe do a charge move into someone to get them off, do the same 3 moves in a combo over and over... I don't like it at all.
The developers basically admitted to as much. They thought certain characters in Mortal Kombat X were "too hard" because it's the "casual" fighting game. There's genuinely more sauce to the combo game in Armageddon.
The launchers, jumping into combos, it all feels... Static. Totally devoid of any fluid motion. There's no running, which is SORELY missed here with the abundance of zoning. The animations look awkward with how the game itself moves.
The story is just nonsense. Which I'd actually be okay with normally. The idea of the time travel plot is actually fine on paper, it can have interesting consequences for the overarching story. With that said... The execution leaves a lot to be desired. The story follows the same characters I already didn't like in its predecessor, and works to assassinate even more characters. Cool that Sonya Blade just dies nonchalantly in the first 10 minutes, lol.
I like Scorpion and Sub-Zero's relationship a lot here. Seeing them work together is nice. Cyber-Frost sucks though, and she was the one character I was really looking forward to seeing return. Shao Kahn's been neutered, opting to work for Kronika instead.
Speaking of which, Kronika isn't a memorable villain at all, and her existence makes no sense. Titans, which were never mentioned at all before, are basically just Elder God^2. And yet, even though she's supposed to be stronger than the Elder Gods, she isn't a threat at all. She's actually kind of a chump given that she loses all the time. Which is actually one of my biggest pet peeves about this game - The villains are all TOTAL jobbers. They literally do nothing to help the story along. They don't even operate as macguffins. Erron Black was cool, but he doesn't do anything here. Kano has literally zero purpose being here. Kabal is alright, I guess, even though I just think his cosmetics look cool lol. Shao Kahn does nothing, D'Vorah does nothing, everyone who people liked is just a bam nonfactor in this story. There's also The Kollector, who's so memorable that I...forgot to mention him in the first draft lol. Everything feels so thrown together, like they just had to include everyone in it, even if it didn't actually add any substance.
Also, the premium shop system sucks. There's skins I'd be willing to buy, but they're not even available or unlockable any other way. What happened to costume bundles like in MKX?
The Krypt is fun sometimes, but too archaic for its own good. It's weird that the gameplay is so simplistic now, but everything else about this game is so archaic. The Towers of Time are insanely grindy, the Krypt is both grindy and confusing. Also, the Towers of Time being online only is such a fucking Warner Brothers moment, lol. 90% of the game can't be played online and you can't unlock skins any other way. I guess it's not a deal breaker per se, but when all of this can be done in single player, why the hell would I need a constant internet connection?
Again, a consequence of making everything so archaic. It's the nature of this title, expanding things that didn't need expanding upon and dumbing down the things people enjoyed from other installments.
This game is irritating. It had a lot of potential, but seems to just miss the mark on almost every level. It just misses the big picture on why people like MKX so much in literally every single way.
I'll get some positives out of the way. The fatalities are great. They're really cinematic, and they really went all-out on the guest fighters. Fatal Blows are also a great trade for X-Ray attacks. A lot of the skins look really good, and the game isn't as murky and gray as its predecessor. I'm especially pleased to say this, because when it came to art direction, Mortal Kombat X looked like a smoker's lung. This game at least feels like it has an art style.
All that said... There's almost nothing else here I enjoyed. I got a kick out of the game for what it was when I first played, but I can't go back to it at all. The unlocks are so fucking complicated here I just didn't bother with most of them. Being able to unlock so many skins would usually be great, but a bunch of them are found on towers that no one bothers to play. If you like fighting endless raid bosses to unlock pieces of gear, this is the game for you, I guess?
You CAN have an AI fight for you... When it works lol. The AI fighters don't use power-up modifiers that you equip on them, which is a really annoying design flaw. So, in order to get a lot of the gear and skins, you need to just slog through raid bosses yourself. A lot of these bosses can be fought in co-op, but good luck finding anyone who feels like doing that. So, unfortunately, the Living Towers, which were a great concept in Mortal Kombat X that I had a lot of fun with there, are a huge thumbs down here.
The gameplay is about five steps back. I do appreciate Fatal Blow being its own meter, but, I still don't like the whole "Here's a move that does 35% damage as a comeback mechanic to reward you for losing" thing a lot of games do. I think it'd have been better to just make it a one-time use per match that you can use any time, but maybe that's just me. I like the idea of breakaways being their own separate bar with movement abilities, that's definitely a plus. Besides that, though... The gameplay's EXTREMELY barebones. It's especially apparent in zoner characters. You'll spam 3 projectiles (or 2, depending on your variation) the whole match, maybe do a charge move into someone to get them off, do the same 3 moves in a combo over and over... I don't like it at all.
The developers basically admitted to as much. They thought certain characters in Mortal Kombat X were "too hard" because it's the "casual" fighting game. There's genuinely more sauce to the combo game in Armageddon.
The launchers, jumping into combos, it all feels... Static. Totally devoid of any fluid motion. There's no running, which is SORELY missed here with the abundance of zoning. The animations look awkward with how the game itself moves.
The story is just nonsense. Which I'd actually be okay with normally. The idea of the time travel plot is actually fine on paper, it can have interesting consequences for the overarching story. With that said... The execution leaves a lot to be desired. The story follows the same characters I already didn't like in its predecessor, and works to assassinate even more characters. Cool that Sonya Blade just dies nonchalantly in the first 10 minutes, lol.
I like Scorpion and Sub-Zero's relationship a lot here. Seeing them work together is nice. Cyber-Frost sucks though, and she was the one character I was really looking forward to seeing return. Shao Kahn's been neutered, opting to work for Kronika instead.
Speaking of which, Kronika isn't a memorable villain at all, and her existence makes no sense. Titans, which were never mentioned at all before, are basically just Elder God^2. And yet, even though she's supposed to be stronger than the Elder Gods, she isn't a threat at all. She's actually kind of a chump given that she loses all the time. Which is actually one of my biggest pet peeves about this game - The villains are all TOTAL jobbers. They literally do nothing to help the story along. They don't even operate as macguffins. Erron Black was cool, but he doesn't do anything here. Kano has literally zero purpose being here. Kabal is alright, I guess, even though I just think his cosmetics look cool lol. Shao Kahn does nothing, D'Vorah does nothing, everyone who people liked is just a bam nonfactor in this story. There's also The Kollector, who's so memorable that I...forgot to mention him in the first draft lol. Everything feels so thrown together, like they just had to include everyone in it, even if it didn't actually add any substance.
Also, the premium shop system sucks. There's skins I'd be willing to buy, but they're not even available or unlockable any other way. What happened to costume bundles like in MKX?
The Krypt is fun sometimes, but too archaic for its own good. It's weird that the gameplay is so simplistic now, but everything else about this game is so archaic. The Towers of Time are insanely grindy, the Krypt is both grindy and confusing. Also, the Towers of Time being online only is such a fucking Warner Brothers moment, lol. 90% of the game can't be played online and you can't unlock skins any other way. I guess it's not a deal breaker per se, but when all of this can be done in single player, why the hell would I need a constant internet connection?
Again, a consequence of making everything so archaic. It's the nature of this title, expanding things that didn't need expanding upon and dumbing down the things people enjoyed from other installments.