Mortal Kombat 1 released this month, and the team at NetherRealm Studios has knocked it out of the park. It manages to take the slower game that was MK11 and blow it out of the water. The game feels solid and the characterization is tremendous. It is easily one of the best Mortal Kombat games of all time. I may be a longtime fan and player, but I am extremely casual when it comes to the titles. I usually can only do simple strings and don't go much further than that. The only game I know a full combo in is MK4 with Tanya. And funnily enough that is who I have picked early on to run the new Invasions mode and I am having a blast.
On my list of things to discuss, I have the story-mode, Invasions, and some other little tidbits here and there. I don't usually play ranked, so I won't be talking about it. I'm not that good at the game and I don't feel like wasting time on it when I have other games I would rather be playing. Regardless there is still plenty of other meat to go around.
To start off, I have beaten the story-mode for MK1 two times now. Once for unlocking Havik for a console that runs tournaments and once for my own copy of the game. After playing through it twice, I can say that the game has a lot of heart and charm that is not present in some of the other games. Many times, the story in Mortal Kombat games will focus too hard on Liu Kang and Raiden while leaving other characters on the sideline. But this time around, we only got moments like these a handful of times. When promoting the game, Ed Boon kept emphasizing that this timeline would be different. And he wasn't wrong, many characters were put into different situations and given the love that they deserved for years.
So, you have characters like Baraka, Syzoth (Reptile), Mileena, Tanya, Ashrah, and Shang Tsung who managed to break out in terms of characterization for me. With Baraka, he's not a villain, but a man who has lost his family to Tarkat, a disease that slowly turns people into bloodthirsty monsters. While he does know the dangers of the disease in terms of transmission, Baraka still manages to help out in any way that he can. Even showing regret for not helping enough despite never being asked to go that far. I was so happy to see him get some love because the character has simply been jobbing for his life.
Another jobber to get that new lease on life was Syzoth, otherwise known as Reptile. A character that has typically been billed as the last Zaterran, yet now Syzoth is an outcasted Zaterran because of his ability to shapeshift into the hottest man in the game. Being able to get this softer version of the character who is trying to act in his best interests is endearing. He may be shunned by his own species, but he is not held up on it. And he even manages to charm his demon girlfriend, Ashrah. Not too bad for everyone's favorite fantasy lizard.
Speaking of Ashrah, she's back. For the first time since MK Armageddon, Ashrah is playable and looks so good in design. Ashrah even got her big hat back for one of her alternate outfits. This time around she is connected to Sareena of MK Mythologies: Sub-Zero fame, who has also not been in since Armageddon. Other connections are Jataaka and Kia from the same debut title as Sareena. And let's just say that there is some tension between the Sisterhood of Shadows, Ashrah and Sareena, courtesy of Quan-Chi. This strained relationship leads to a cute moment with Ashrah expressing joy at the thought of getting a place to call home for the first time in her life. It is both in the delivery of the line and facial depiction from the character that make this moment for me. She is clearly elated and the gesture means a lot to her. But the hits don't stop there.
The new and improved Mileena is fantastic. Her storyline, motivations, and insecurities are done extremely well. It seems that after years of making Mileena this jealous clone of Kitana has finally led them to giving her the flowers that she was getting from fans regardless. Prior to this game, I was never sold on Mileena because she was so one-note. And now she has stellar relationships with her family and is also not a clone, but a whole, unique person. It only took almost thirty years, yet Mileena finally got great writing, a loving family, and a beautiful girlfriend. The community finally got what we've been asking for, gay characters. And it is most certainly not subtle.
Mileena is in a secret relationship with Tanya, who is the leader of the Umgadi. The Umgadi are the palace guard that are trained from birth and from what the game tells us, have strict vows that prohibit romantic relationships. Some spicy stuff indeed. It is extremely noticeable with how these characters speak to and look at each other that you can tell how smitten they are with one another. This leads to some tender moments with each other later on in the game and even Kitana acknowledging the relationship as extremely blatant and for Mileena to wait until she is empress so that she can rewrite some rules.
But that's not all that Tanya brought to the story. Her character was well showcased as this overprotective guard that is simply trying to act in the best of interest of her lover and the rest of the royal family. It was nice to not have Tanya be a backstabbing traitor. She's a good villain, yet we can now see that the role of hero can suit her even better. The face turn for many of these characters has done them better than one could imagine. While I adored the lesbians, I think the standout for MK1 has to be Shang Tsung.
Surprises, surprise Shang Tsung is a piece of shit. However, the catch now is that he is so goddamn sassy and bitchy. If this is someone's first experience to Shang, they might be shocked that he is usually some angry, old wizard. But now he is young and done with everyone's shit. He and his bald boyfriend have no time for Liu Kang and his band of champions.
Like come on, are you going to tell me that Shang and Quan-Chi manage to find each other in each timeline by coincidence. They are destined gay lovers at this point. They know each other so well that they know what the other is thinking. I never would've come to this conclusion before this game, yet Shang just presents himself as this catty bitch and Quan-Chi is fully onboard. No other conclusions can be found at this point. I love what they have done here. Perfect facial expressions and dialogue have formed the best version of Shang Tsung. No more notes, keep going with this one, I love him. He dumpstered Kuai Liang so hard for a simple strategy and I will never forget it.
The other characters do not slouch either in the writing department, but I want to talk a little about Invasions because I like it quite a bit. A fun, little RPG board game that helps you unlock cool palettes, gear, and work on character mastery. There are ways to make the systems feel easier, but they let you build stats how you want them and that can lead to some interesting routes for character builds. This also helps you figure out what Kameos you want to use in some cases as well because some challenges require specific Kameos or fighters. All in all the single player content is remarkable, yet not perfect. It is absolutely a step in the right direction. And I hope that direction is Konquest mode.
With all of these pluses, you might be wondering if the whole game is perfect . I would say that it is so close to perfect, but not quite. The game still hovers around the 10/10 range for me, yet the Invasions mode has some weird level scaling and the tutorials are not the best. Many of the sections teach you the mechanics properly and some stuff comes down to timing. But dropped inputs and the whole blocking tutorial was pretty egregious.
With the inputs, it comes down to the game not reading your move because you accidentally added a direction or it simply didn't like you that time. Annoying, but it is expected from the NRS games. As for the blocking tutorial, I thought that it would be patterned for certain block string sections, yet some of them would 50/50 you on overheads and lows. Which is pretty fucked up when you would guess wrong and have to start over the whole section. It's a tutorial, not a challenge mode. I think that something like this would deter people from playing or learning the game who are new. I kinda hope that they tweak some of them in a patch, but I'm not gonna hold my breath. It's just a nitpick for the most part.
All in all, Mortal Kombat 1 is the best MK game in years and one of my favorites in the franchise. A game that has cooked exceptionally well and deserves any praise that it is getting. I hope they keep making this game better and better instead of jumping to another title. This game doesn't deserve to be replaced in three years. It deserves to be expanded upon until the well runs dry.
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