Personally, I don't really care if people keep saying that MK11 or MKX is the best of the reboot trilogy for the franchise. For me, the honor will still go to MK (2011) which is fondly called MK9 by the fans. I feel this game needs to be REMASTERED at all costs especially since its tenth anniversary is arriving. I was thinking about this game made me drop almost every MK game ever made in the past except for MK Shaolin Monks. Shaolin Monks was a good adventure game that made MK Mythologies Sub Zero feel it never existed and was possibly a retcon of MKII. However, after MK9 came in - I didn't even bother playing MK Deception a game that I did praise so much. MK Deception actually fits its title with deception very much - it would be better to play MK9 instead. It's because MK9 is the franchise's entry that nearly brought everything together.
The nostalgia the game has is rather heavy since Netherrealm was aware that some children snuck away to play the game. The game's main cast of playable characters and bosses is almost complete from the first three games. The characters that were rightfully omitted were Chameleon, Khameleon, and Motaro. Yes, I'm talking about how Motaro was infamously crazy. It could be cool on paper to give Motaro a boss that was immune to x-rays and projectiles but I think the programmers just hated him. Also, I think a lot of combos wouldn't work on Motaro either. I guess that's why the game designers focused on Goro, Kintaro, and Shao Kahn. The three of them were made not playable. Though what bothers me is that they gave us that the game had an OP Shang Tsung to play against in Arcade Mode - why weren't we given depowered versions of Goro, Kintaro, and Shao Kahn to play as instead of adding Kenshi and Freddie Kruger? Also, Rain was only included as a DLC character but never appeared in Story Mode. I mean, Rain had an important backstory in Trilogy and that was missed. Though the UMK3 playable cast is complete and some classic fatalities have returned. Some fatalities though felt overly senseless such as combining a decapitation with mutilation. I mean, Kung Lao performs his classic hat decapitation then slices the corpse in half? I see no point to mutilate the already dead body but that's MK for you. Though, there were some I wish returned such as Kano's skeleton rip or Shang Tsung's soul steal.
What do I like about the game?
Instead of bringing back the high and low attacks - I just love how they incorporated the one button per limb system from Tekken while making it more juggle friendly. Though, I'd still be caught playing both Tekken 6 and Tekken Tag Tournament 2 over MK9. I love the use of the one-button per limb since it balances accessibility with deepness.
I also like how a lot of irritatingly overpowered characters from the first three games got toned down. Sure, one can complain that Sonya and Kabal are somewhat broken but it's better than what MK3 did with Kabal. Both Noob Saibot and Rain are now nerfed down to a certain extent. Noob's Ghost Ball only disables the blocks and the enhanced version is only good against human players. Rain's water ball can only cause damage in the enhanced version and is no longer as spammable as it used to be. The removal of charging a button to perform a certain special move is GONE. Yes, that one was very irritating. As a trade-off, the damage done by Liu Kang's bicycle kick and Kano's cannonball are now toned down. It's also noteworthy how Kitana's fan lift combos aren't as spammable as they were back then.
Tag Team Play isn't perfect but there's a lot of fun discovering how to do long-string tag combos and the assist mode. Though, I still think Tekken TT2 really still takes the cake with more fun with tag throws, tag combos, and unique outros possible with the character. Still, I don't deny I had fun with MK9's tag team in figuring out which tag team you'd want to play with the most. Though what I wanted as an endless tower could've actually made the ridiculous achievement stats (which is a downer for me) a lot easier. It's the lack of an endless mode that made me play the Tekken games I mentioned more than this game.
So why am I liking MKX and MK11 less?
I'd like to say that those games got too Internet heavy. MK9 may require online for some features but they aren't that heavy. Consider the fact that you don't really need to get the Internet connection to play the 300-long challenge tower. You also didn't too much mobile game style grinding which adds to an advantage. I think MKX's Faction Wars are just ridiculous in the long run or just too addictive.
MK11 does get too grindy and it can come in the way of your schooling or work. MK9 almost knew how to really be not that addictive, the right balance of online vs. offline, and you could return to the game without your score being affected at all. Right now, I even wonder how my score in MKX's Faction Wars has become at this very moment. But I don't worry about MK9 with my score since I usually just play its offline content.
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