‘Mortal Kombat X’ Gameplay, Characters: My Honest Thoughts

Will the Mortal Kombat X gameplay live up to my standards? What about the characters?

I am personally on the fence about this game. I want to like it, but some things don’t seem right to me.

I understand why NetherRealm is using a lot of the same characters again for a sequel set 20 years after the reboot, but the idea that so many of them are still fighting into their late 30s and early 40s sounds ridiculous. There are more returning characters than there are new ones, so it looks like the same thing Midway did with MK2.

Mortal Kombat X characters like Liu Kang (apparently a zombie again), Johnny Cage, Sonya Blade, Kano, and most of the classic ninjas are aging surprisingly well for having fought each other so brutally two decades ago. The idea of seeing Cassie Cage fighting and probably killing her parents is actually horrible enough to make headlines in the real world. I think her parents should have been left in the background story, not made playable again.

Now what problems might I have with the Mortal Kombat X gameplay? I have heard that they took the combat (kombat?) from Injustice: Gods Among Us. I played the demo on that game and it was boring to me. It may be because I didn’t want to see the DC Universe characters in a fighting game again, but it didn’t feel right.

If NetherRealm is taking the gameplay straight from the last Mortal Kombat, I could probably enjoy it. It looks delightfully brutal on a level that might make those with a weak stomach queasy, but that’s what the series has been about from the start.

Ed Boon explained in an interview that he had been going for the most realistic fighting game he could get, even trying to get Jean-Claude Van Damme involved in the original, according to GameSpot.

Sadly, Van Damme never agreed to it, and his character was renamed Johnny Cage. Ironically, he was involved in a live action version of Street Fighter a few years later, even lending his likeness to an ill-fated fighting game based on it.

Mortal Kombat X Character Fatalities (MKX Gameplay): http://t.co/7hsjAZYr9u via @YouTube

— theRadBrad (@thaRadBrad) March 30, 2015

An aspect of the Mortal Kombat X gameplay that actually interests me is the option to make the fatalities easy to pull off. I can recall hundreds of times when I gave up trying to make them happen because the control sequences and timing were just insane. I loved Mortal Kombat: Armageddon simply because they made it easier, even though the custom finishers were slammed by the purists.

Between the recycled characters, the possible Injustice influence on Mortal Kombat X gameplay, and the easy fatalities that are as gruesome as ever, I’m not sure if I want this game. I want to like it, but I’m not sure yet.

That’s why there are rentals, I guess.

[Image via GameSpot]