izigame.me

Mortal Kombat 1 is a game that I'm extremely conflicted on. It handled a complete reboot of the franchise wonderfully, established a unique but familiar combat system with Kameos, and has some of the greatest facial modeling and graphics on the market today, nearly on par with the graphical powerhouses in the gaming space. In spite of this, the game is plagued with some of the most horrendous technical issues of any available AAA game, and the disgusting monetization practices only Warner Bros. Games could've included in a game that's already 70 USD (110 USD with the DLC characters, potentially more if another DLC set is released). This review is cut into 6 parts: Graphics & Audio, Performance, Story, Monetization, Gameplay, and Final Thoughts/Conclusion. With that said, and without further ado, I'm going to write a colossal review about a fighting game I'm horrible at.
NOTE: I will be talking in detail about the story mode in this review, and to ensure I don't spoil anything, I will censor the entire section. I recommend you play the story mode yourself and derive your own opinion, but my thoughts are here if you don't care.

Graphics & Audio

As mentioned in the introduction, this game's graphics and animations are stunning. The cinematic shots and motion blur do it a lot of favors, but even disregarding this the facial animations and graphical fidelity are amazing, and comparable to Red Dead Redemption 2 and The Last of Us 2. Moves and fighting styles are thoughtful, deliberate, and motion captured by professionals, to make kombat as realistic and diverse as possible even with the superpowers every character possesses. Designs for every character are fantastic, many of which being my favorite in the franchise (Mileena, Kitana, Liu Kang, Sub-Zero, Ashrah, Smoke, Reiko, Geras, Sindel, Reptile, and Havik, just to name a few), and the three guest newcomers are designed extremely well. Gore is even more realistic than the previous game, and opens the gate for new, unique, and brutal Fatalities. As for audio, I think the team did well, no better and no worse. Music is good and fitting, but none were memorable in the slightest. I think action or pain cries were done well, and I especially like some of the otherworldly magic sounds, such as some of the sounds produced by Ermac's soul magic. Voice acting is a highlight, with very good voice actors for the main roster and the return of J.K. Simmons and John Cena to voice their respective characters. A big controversy of this game was Megan Fox, and her admittedly pretty rough voice acting performance for Nitara. Hot take, but I truly stand by the fact that I think she is a perfect choice to have played Nitara, considering her acting in Jennifer's Body, and simply needed a lot more time in the studio and a better vocal coach. Anything that hasn't been mentioned is fine, no complaints.

Performance

My biggest critique of this game. It is plainly one of the worst performing AAA games I have ever played. It was, and continues to be, so buggy and unoptimized that I am genuinely in shock at how it was greenlit by so many people and released in the state it was. It is an appalling file size, being over 100 GB by default and only being larger with 4k cinematics and DLC, being about 140 GB with all 3. This is not Red Dead 2; there's no enormous, detailed open world that necessitates such a large file size. In NO WAY should this game be larger than Red Dead 2. From some surface-level research, it seems that the bugginess is not nearly as bad on console; this is very much a PC port issue. For 70 USD, this game is straight up bad performance-wise. I don't have the resolve to figure out if this was on the publisher for setting an early deadline, or just on developers for choosing not to refine their game, but either way it is an issue that deserves the criticism. Regarding performance, I know next to nothing, but I'm certain you'll need a pretty hefty rig to run this at high graphical settings, as per usual with most large games but possibly more so with Mortal Kombat 1 considering the aforementioned bugginess.

Story

The story of Mortal Kombat 1 is engaging and lots of fun, but treads a path way too familiar, to the point that it's a bit exhausting. The start of this reboot, to my dismay, is another multiverse story. I've watched the MCU, I've watched Spider-Verse, and I'm burnt out, as are many other players. I thought the story would have been a self-contained, lowkey plotline with Shang Tsung and Quan Chi as the main villains, but then the second half shifts to convoluted, confusing alternate universe shenanigans that were decently handled, but already done before in so many movies, shows, and games. I think the lead up to Armageddon happening again is awesome, but even then I would have greatly preferred to simply have Shang Tsung as the main villain. The revamped Mortal Kombat characters truly carry the story, with their interactions having great emotional weight or entertainment value. No new characters were introduced in this game, only bringing back many classic or 3d-era characters. This isn't necessarily an issue; just something of note. I don't want to go into too much detail to save you the fun of discovering the characters and story beats yourself, so I'll end by saying the story mode to me is good but heavily downgraded due to being such an overused story niche that could have been worked around.

Monetization

Another heavily critiqued addition to the game. I should make it clear that a vast majority of this game is fully available without Dragon Krystals, this game's premium currency. As for what isn't, the Krystals are unlockable, albeit absurdly slowly, through character mastery for free, but there's a limit and thus to get every unique and notable premium item you will have to fork over some cash. This item shop is an unnecessary, scummy addition solicited by Warner Bros. Games, and has absolutely no reason to exist. Everything exclusive to the item shop could have been attainable through the Shrine, for free, and would draw in much less player frustration. The game is already at the new AAA price, and has a more expensive DLC than most other games; Mortal Kombat is a massive franchise and thus both the development and publishing teams are doing JUST FINE financially. Please, never buy Krystals. The other major monetization scandal was Shang Tsung, who is NOT AVAILABLE BY DEFAULT. You simply CANNOT make a pivotal story character a pre-order bonus, or now a 10-dollar purchase. CANNOT.

Gameplay

MK1's gameplay is great. Pace-wise, it's a nice middle ground between MKX and MK11, not feeling too intense or sluggish respectively. Kameos, when used properly, can shake up a fight drastically. They can start, extend, or end combos, and can form synergies that make characters considered "bad" perform far better. Character balancing is quite impressive, considering the complexity of having any combination of character/Kameo available. There are clearly broken characters, like Kenshi and Johnny Cage, but with skill and a proper Kameo, any character can be brought to the top. I can't really speak on this further since, as previously said, I suck balls at this game, but I think my enjoyment of the game's combat as a casual player speaks for itself.

Conclusion

Though this game has dreadful technical issues on PC and a stupid item shop, it is a really great game overall. I can look past this game's flaws to see a very passion-filled project within, and a great attempt at rebooting a franchise that ended up very overcooked by MK11. Whether you're a seasoned fighting game player or a newbie, I highly recommend giving it a try if you aren't put off by the high price and you're capable of running it on your device. Overall, I rate this game:

7.5/10