Three and Out – ‘Mortal Kombat 11’

Lush with buckets of blood and piles of torn limbs in tow, Mortal Kombat 11 weaved its buttons into my hands like a bad cold that gifted me a full week of paid leave, right on time for spring cleaning. As someone that hasn’t enjoyed many of the recent NetherRealm Studios fighting games, I’ll admit that Mortal Kombat 11 delivers an experience I find refreshing and more friendly to beginners than their titles have been in recent practice. Not without its shortcomings, this is a fighting game that missed a few spots in its polish and contains an honest intention to eat more time than the day allows.

In terms of content, Mortal Kombat 11 delivers enough content for both single player and multiplayer to keep everyone satisfied regardless of their preferences. I immediately rushed into the tutorial so that I could learn the new combat mechanics as well as get a decent feel for how the game plays, preparing me for main campaign of Mortal Kombat 11. NetherRealm Studios boasts a great track record regarding their campaigns since Mortal Kombat X, and follows up with another story hosting enough humor and body horror to make Peter Jackson wheeze out a nervous chuckle when he ponders if it’s safe to open that bag of chips he’s been saving for the climax. (It’s never safe.) It’s a story that was written for the fans and makes sure to deliver a quick experience that doesn’t waste any time, but is just a gateway into what comes after. Finishing the story gifts a fair bit of the in-game currency, tricking me into diving through the game’s biggest time sink: the Krypt. Much like Injustice 2, Mortal Kombat 11 has a lot of customization for each character and the Krypt is where you unlock about ninety percent of everything. It’s a sort of open-world map filled with chests, puzzles, traps, and even jumpscares, all of which are locked behind their respective currencies that are an absolute chore to gain. Gaining the main three currencies (gold, souls, and hearts) isn’t the big problem since almost every mode will have some sort of pay out, but that payout is all in tiny increments that amount to an one or two percent gain towards a chest that probably doesn’t hold anything you want. The only other way to unlock items is through the premium shop that only holds about six items a day and costs Time Krystals which enable you to pay for with real money. This is a shameless attempt to either inflate my time of play to the point of nausea or have me spend twenty dollars each day until I have everything I want. Neither of these are favorable and ultimately brought me to give up on having the pink Jax I always wanted.

Outside of having a terrible loot system that doesn’t bother to hide itself, Mortal Kombat 11 has a lot of content to check out for offline play. The Klassic Towers are back as well as Towers of Time, both of which are arcade mode style ladder fights that end with a final boss battle against Kronika, with the latter featuring augmentations that makes fights much worse than I ever expected. All of my complaints for Mortal Kombat 11 stop there though. The Klassic Towers are a good ladder mode that every fighting game needs to keep the single players happy. The AI battles are fun to have running in the background while looking up tech for a character. As for online, NetherRealm Studios usually does really well with their netcode and Mortal Kombat 11 is no exception, as I never came across an online fight that was hopelessly laggy or was stuck waiting for a match in general. Matches are very quick, mostly lasting about two minutes at max per round, and are always interactive. With a roster of twenty-four characters (give or take one Shao Kahn), Mortal Kombat 11 is a fighting game that doesn’t hold back in violence, humor, and just sheer fun. This is the best Mortal Kombat I’ve played since Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 in terms of combat and production. Even with some questionable animations, the game looks fantastic, and everytime a Fatality occurs, it’s a spectacle of its own. Ignoring the blatant loot boxes and terrible currency grind, this is a great fighting game that will never hunger for support whether it be from the kommunity or NetherRealm themselves.

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