Now, as someone who loves playing grindy Japanese games, I’m not opposed to spending time to unlock stuff. As I tried to unlock certain things and realized the amount of hearts or crystals I needed to progress, however, something became painfully obvious: The rate at which you earn these things was painfully slow. It didn’t seem bad at first as I went through my first tower and also explored the Krypt for the first time. Somewhere along the way, however, their implementation went awry in MK11. These modes normally allow Mortal Kombat to give its players added value and replayability over the stock fighting game experience. There’s also a Krypt mode that serves as a loot-based exploration where players open various chests with coins and various other resources to earn various rewards.
These include living towers that let you challenge fighters on each floor while dealing with various battle modifiers. But Mortal Kombat’s recent iterations also introduced several modes, which typically add to the fun of the franchise. If MK11 were to stop at this point, it would already be an excellent representation of the fighting game genre. Whatever that is, all I know is that it isn’t as fun. But as you dig deeper into its other modes in the quest for unlockables, you find your time being primarily devoted to dealing with non-traditional fighting mechanics that slowly grind you down. Eventually, that initial sense of enjoyment gets replaced by something else altogether.
MORTAL KOMBAT 9 PC STORY MODE CUTSCENES LOW QUALITY INSTALL
How do you score a game that does so well in laying down its foundation but goes on to install thin walls and some of the tackiest finishings around? This easily could have usurped Mortal Kombat 9 as my favorite MK game on the basis of its mechanics, story and visuals.
It makes MK11 one of the tougher games for me to review. But then there’s a second game within the game - one that emulates Shao Kahn and the seedier characters of its narrative by stabbing its otherwise virtuous combat and stellar presentation in the back. You have the tried-and-true core fighting game that’s arguably the best it’s ever been in the series.