It's almost ten years since Mortal Kombat reboot (or dubbed as MK9 by the fans) has been released. We had MK11 released this year and I thought, "Time does fly fast!" Then I thought about how older school MK fans are still nostalgic about MK2 -- it was a game that got so popular than its successor MK3, UMK3, and the incredibly imbalanced MK Trilogy. Then I think one game that may soon get into the, "It may be old school but it's still so good!" because it's what I'd call almost everything that MK Trilogy just wasn't. Besides, I don't even feel like playing MK Trilogy (and every other previous installment in the fighting format) after picking MK9 up. MK9 is just so good! So what really happened with MK9?
MK9 was basically that reboot and a very good reboot at that! MK evolved outside obsolete concepts such as digitized actors (which caused MK Trilogy to lose a dozen potential) and started using 3D models. The first game that came into my head when I heard of this game was MK Trilogy. I used to think MK Trilogy was still good until I picked up this game up as an adult. It was so good that I could really address with MK Trilogy -- imbalanced gameplay (especially with the versions that let you play as the bosses AND not to mention Noob and Rain are highly imbalanced) and the computer was just a cheating bastard in so many ways. Granted, it was the PSX era so maybe I need to cut some slack. I thought MK Deception was a good game until I picked up MK9. I just didn't care about MK Deception anymore after that!
What did MK9 do that made it memorable aside from the really good Story Mode? It fixed several mistakes in MK Trilogy and MK Deception. MK Deception had some rather forgettable characters. Multiple fighting styles per character sounds good on paper but it just makes the game less accessible. MK9 didn't only return to 2D but continuing MK vs. DC's back to one fighting style per character actually worked. The game's depth was just right. Remember how Tekken actually owned the deeper Virtua Fighter? I remembered Ed Boon in his interview regarding Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance said that Tekken is more accessible and I guess that contributes to popularity. MK9 is deep yet it's accessible for beginners. Having only one fighting style per character may sound boring until you realized that MK9 is deeper than you think. Should I mention that MK9 has also fixed the broken AI that MK Trilogy notoriously had? MK9's AI difficulty is just right even for beginners. Too much difficulty can kill the enjoyability and too little of it makes the game boring.
The game itself also had several new mechanics. I was glad that they actually copied Tekken's use of one button per limb in place of the overly redundant high and low attacks. The 3D era of MK could've used that but didn't. The one-button per limb attack scheme made it even more accessible with easier to do combos. Then there's the Super Meter which I'd call a more balanced version of the Aggressor bar of UMK3 or MK Trilogy. You can do enhanced moves, two bears would do the combo breaker similar to Killer Instinct, and at a full level would do the X-Ray attack which is better than the automatically triggered Aggressor. Okay, I kinda wished we still had the Aggressor feature for more powerful combos but I guess the feature was shunned by fans. What's better is that two-on-two combat here is real tag team play because of the power of the PS3. There's even a two-on-two tower with both cooperative (two players join forces) or a single-player one. The tag team mode is something I wish returned in MK11 but I guess fans didn't like it as much. Still, the tag team gameplay ended up making the 2 vs. 2 fights in MK Trilogy and MK4/Gold does not age well, right?
Maybe, I could mention the nostalgia factor minus the mountainous frustration of the classic games. MK9 has good throwbacks like the Arcade Tower's sequence. Although I wish we still had "Choose Your Destiny" but the MK9 tower may remind you of MK2's tower. Babalities have indeed returned with a twist -- they end up like the classic Killer Instinct's humiliation in some way. Though, I still wish it were Friendships and not Babalities that returned. I just wished they returned Brutalities without the ridiculous string to pull off -- they could make it a combo ender to make an Ultra Combo-like finish with the opponent beaten into a bloody pulp rather than exploding! The boss version of Shang Tsung can morph into any playable character (which the player can't for balancing reasons in tournaments which I'm glad they did) then you have a fight with either Goro or Kintaro (while MK2 had Kintaro as a sub-boss) then Shao Kahn. Shao Kahn may be a deathmatch (no timer there) but I really love how the game made him difficult while giving you easier controls and more arsenal to deal with than what you had in MK2 or MK Trilogy. Shao Kahn may have been painful with his stuff like his hammer spamming but I'd rather fight this Kahn than replay back the 90s games. Oh, and Kahn does get a bit of throwback from MK2 with the way he's defeated -- except the opponent does a combo before he screams "No!!!!" and explodes into rocks minus the arena shift.
All the factors above make me think I'm not losing much if PSN won't release Mortal Kombat Trilogy as a payable download. I don't even feel like replaying Mortal Kombat II anymore -- a game that caused me too much frustration as my quarters kept running out and won't care to get anymore via digital download. MK9 would soon be that good old school experience due to highly innovative the game is. More accessible with reasonable difficulty. Like, why would I want to relive the frustration of Kintaro uppercutting me way too much and defeating me in less than 30 seconds or Shao Kahn being too unreasonably difficult? The CPU may cheat at times but it's nowhere near as stupid as what the 1990s would bring.
Personally, I don't even blame people who may have said MKX and MK11 are good games with new deeper mechanics but still think MK9 is the best of them. MK9 would still stand the test for some time due to its accessibility for beginner players all the while giving advanced players a memorable experience.
Comments
Post a Comment