Mortal Kombat (2011) And Mortal Kombat X: What Went Right And What Went Wrong


Let's focus on the two games, Mortal Kombat (2011) and Mortal Kombat X. I'd like ot make a comparison between the two games to which is actually better overal. 

Mortal Kombat (2011)


Mortal Kombat (2011) was the reincarnation for the Mortal Kombat franchise which was long intended for the Playstation 3. Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe was released in 2008, two years after the PS4 and XBox One came out. But both games were planned right ahead of time to be for both systems which had a lot of proper planning. But I'd focus on Mortal Kombat (2011) for the first discussion.

The Playstation 4 and XBox One systems came out around 2006-2007 and Mortal Kombat (2011) came out in 2011. The game promised to go back to its roots while introducing new innovations and I felt like that unlike Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, the game's reincarnation is seldom referred to as MK9 by fans. So one game was released two years after the release of the PS3 and XBox One while Mortal Kombat (2011) came out five years after those two systems were released. Was the promotion done right? It was set for those systems and those only. The success of Mortal Kombat (2011) may have also come because by then, a lot of people already bought a PS3 and an XBox One. It may have caused the games to have a massive purchases. If more people already own the systems and you have a cool game, it's worth the wait.

Mortal Kombat X

So the success of Mortal Kombat (2011) had another game called Mortal Kombat X released in 2015 just in time for the Mortal Kombat film's 20th birthday. The producers at Netherrealm may have gotten so cocky with their achievement four years ago they promised to launch Mortal Kombat X for PS3, PS4, XBox 360, and XBox One. Then the game came around April of that year then something really unfortunate happened.

The people at Netherrealm ended up releasing the PS4 and XBox One versions while trying to downgrade. The result was that reality slapped the faces of the staff at Netherrealm. They couldn't get the games to be downgraded so they ended up ordering all the stores to give a massive refund because they couldn't do it. Fortunately, a year later I guess Netherrealm felt that more people got a PS4 or XBox One already so they decided to release it with all the DLCs. The complete version had Sub-Zero instead of Scorpion as the poster boy. I guess Ed Boon must have received too many complaints about his favoritism for Scorpion. It's been a compensation to have a complete edition for those who weren't able to get the eighth generation consoles.

The gameplay of both games compared

Mortal Kombat (2011) was more or less a Mortal Kombat Trilogy or Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 remake. It went back to the 2D fighting plane while keeping Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe's Tekken-like attack system of using one button per limb. While I didn't think it was called for to make Rain a DLC character instead of a regular character but the game had most of the iconic characters you wanted. A lot of trademark moves, and some new and old stuff got mixed so well. Okay I may be "bitching" about the lack of Pit II, and Pit III, I wanted Friendship instead of the revised version of Babality, I wish Goro and Kintaro stood more upright than them looking like wrestlers but the gameplay is really that great. But I thought that the game should have had an endless tower or ghost mode for both regular one one one and two on two. The game almost had everything and the DLCs felt like they were more of bonuses. The game is more accessible while it goes deep whenever necessary. Plus, it introduced the legendary Story Mode which I hope Tekken 7 will have when it comes out.

Mortal Kombat X focused on trying to become less accessible. Mortal Kombat (2011) was more accessible to casual players while Mortal Kombat X tries to redo Street Fighter Alpha 3 with three variations per character. The game focuses 20+ years after the first reincarnation featuring new characters, a more Avengers-like storyline with Shinnok playing a more sinister version of Loki, Raiden playing the role of Thor and the four new characters (Cassie, Kung Jin, Takeda and Jaqui) seem to play the Avengers. Unlike the first game, the Story Mode was lessened while they added the Endless Tower which is similar to Tekken's endless mode found from Tekken 5 and hopefully will be in Tekken 7. Other issues was that the game had to keep downloading stuff from classic costumes up to the fact that during the first release, there were no stage fatalities. It's almost like having Killer Instinct (2013)'s first and second season in the form of Kombat Packs. Except that unlike Killer Instinct there was much rich content. But I can't deny that I'm glad I didn't get the game immediately because XL would be much more fun than having to keep downloading.

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