Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Mortal Kombat X is the new fighting game available from retail stores and for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS4.

The origins of Mortal Kombat began when the four founding members of the development including Ed Boon, John Tobias, John Vogel and Dan Forden were asked in 1991 to create a fighting game to rival Street Fighter in which the Bloodsport license was utilised to create a game with a serious tone which would have seen a digitized Jean-Claude Van Damme taking on villains, although the Bloodsport license unfortunately fell through and with it so did the use of a digitized Jean-Claude Van Damme as the lead character. However the entire situation inspired one of the most popular original lead characters in the series in the form of a martial arts actor called Johnny Cage. The Mortal Kombat series originated on October 8th 1992 when it was unleashed in the arcades followed by ports seeing release on platforms such as SNES, SEGA Genesis, Game Boy, Amiga and P.C. Midway Games could never have predicted the growing success of the series which has gone onto see multiple live action films, a cartoon and live action television series, comic books and music as well as over 20 games released across almost every platform when including spin-offs. Can Mortal Kombat X live up to the quality that has gone before it in the classic series and throughout the fighting genre?

The story mode is effectively the equivalent of a live action film which tells of the events following the Mortal Kombat tournament which took place in the previous game. It shows all of the connections between each of the characters in regards to who their allies and enemies are and who have changed their allegiances with the story spanning up to 25 years later and appropriately finding the pacing and balance between story driven cutscenes and seamlessly integrating fighting gameplay.

Towers pits the player against one enemy fighter per level which is presented in a similar premise to that of Bruce Lee’s Game of Death as the chosen character has to continue to progress up the tower. Towers comprises of three different types of gameplay with traditional towers providing a variety of towers which contain a series of opponents and challenges, while the living towers are unique towers that transform over time and tower challenges increase the competitiveness by allowing a player to set the benchmark for their friend by completing a randomly generated tower with the best score possible followed by challenging a friend to beat it.

Single fight sees the player having a one on one match against an A.I. opponent in any environment, while test your luck takes the single fight mechanic one step further by allowing the player to fight against an A.I. opponent in any environment with anywhere from 1 to 7 random gameplay modifiers such as a tilting camera, kabal assist, falling bombs, electric or flaming floors, poison rockets, random lock-on missiles, a range of moves such as blocking, throwing, dashing and x-rays are disabled, dangerously low health to create a one hit round, timer increase to add a further 30 seconds to the potential duration of each round, overpowered to increase the strength of attacks and much more besides which really changes the entire game mode, while providing it with a unique identity.

The training feature is the most appropriate starting position as it is split into three major categories including practice, fatality practice and tutorial with each of the three areas being important as each other as the practice allows the player to hone their skills against a customisable A.I. opponent who can remain as still or be as lively as preferred, while fatality practice allows for fatality moves to be practiced against a dummy A.I. opponent for the purpose of learning the appropriate combinations and the tutorial learns the basics of the game.

Faction Wars sees players joining one of the five factions including Lin Kuei, Black Dragon, Brotherhood of Shadow, Special Forces or White Lotus with an introduction video available for each of the five factions to help players make their choice. The faction who gains the most kills through the duration of a faction war collectively earning the victory for their faction and every individual player within the winning faction earning a prize.

The importance of gaining XP in order to level up is that it will provide bonuses for the Kombat Kard such as increasing amounts of additional personal XP, faction XP or koins per match win, per faction kill, per environmental interaction performed or per x-ray, brutality or fatality performed and much more besides. XP is earned naturally from winning matches which is extended upon greatly with performance bonuses for the quantity and type of finishers inflicted upon enemy fighters such as performing kombo breakers, x-ray, brutality and fatality moves; the amount of health remaining; the amount of time remaining; the amount of level interaction; achieving a flawless or double flawless performance regarding winning rounds without losing any health; achieving extra goals such as dragon challenges, no losses and a variety of tower goals, although XP will be lost by losing a match.

The Krypt provides an area full of unlockables and secrets in which the in-game currency of koins that are earned as rewards from successful matches can be spent on purchasing new in-game content. The Krypt is presented from a first-person perspective, comprising of multiple areas with tombs harbouring the unlockables and secrets within them and must be purchased in order for the gates to be unlocked to be able to explore further areas of the Krypt. The unlockables available for purchasing via the in-game currency of koins include additional brutality and fatality moves for every character as well as alternative costumes, concept art, fan art and music. A clock will provide availability of secrets which will only appear at a specific time on the clock and only remain for a certain duration until they disappear resulting in the player having to be rather quick to obtain some of the secrets as and when they do appear.

The extras feature is quite extensive as it allows the player to view match replays of recent matches; view unlockables via the kollection menu including a character viewer which provides a bio of every character as well as the chance to view a 3D character model with variations of the character’s styling, see their taunts, zoom and rotate the character model, alongside concept art of characters, environments, cinema and NPCs, fan art, finishers and music and view statistics of every game mode from your customised Kombat Kard.

There is a wide range of 23 characters to choose from as well as unlockable characters and additional costumes to add to the original availability. Every character has their own unique look and personality from costumes to wise cracks and even an entire set of their own fighting styles and moves, while every character and faction has their own back story. The character roster sees the return of classic and popular characters including Johnny Cage, Sonya Blade, Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Liu Kang, while the roster of characters have such diversity in their character design from male and female fighters to otherworldly races and mechanical fighters.

The fighting moves are extensive from punches, kicks and grapples to x-ray, brutality and fatality moves which are all tailored to each specific character and their fighting styles. Every fighter has three fighting styles to select a particular one from such as Johnny Cage has A-List resulting in charging normal and special attacks for increased damage, while Fisticuffs provides fist bump, flashy kombos and normal attacks, alongside Stunt Double which provides the ability to create stunt double mimics in comparison to that of Scorpion who has Inferno to gain the ability of summoning a demonic minion and Ninjitsu provides unique attacks utilising dual swords, alongside Hellfire which provides such abilities as a fire ball, hell fire and flame aura.

The distinct differences between each fighter does not end there as every character has two brutality moves and five or six fatality moves which are a completely separate arsenal of extreme manoeuvres and attacks from Kano’s Head Case fatality of a laser beam shooting from his eye and burning through the skull of an opponent or Johnny Cage tearing through the flesh and ripping through the rib cage of his opponent before comically exclaiming, “Here’s Johnny”.

The environments are quite varied in their appearance with a total of 13 arenas to do battle in. Every arena features interactive elements such as objects which can be picked up and thrown at an enemy, objects which enemies can be thrown at or objects which can be sprung off to avoid an enemy attack. The environments range from an Emperor’s Courtyard to a Kuatan Jungle and even the Quan Chi Fortress to a Sky Temple and Lin Kuei Temple amongst many more dynamic environments.

The performance during remote play is excellent as the graphics, audio, controls and general performance are all of the same quality as the PS4 version with the control scheme remaining as fluent as the DualShock 4 controller, therefore providing the same home console experience when playing portably during remote play which is simply amazing due to the amount of combinations available to perform such a wide range of fighting moves.

Mortal Kombat X features downloadable content in the form of the Kombat Pack season pass which includes the return of some characters from previous Mortal Kombat games such as Goro who originally appeared in the first Mortal Kombat as a sub-boss, Tanya who made her debut appearance in Mortal Kombat 4 and Tremor who made his debut in Mortal Kombat: Special Forces, while alternative character skins provide a new look for such characters such as Ronin Kenshi, Samurai Shinnok and Jingu Katana, alongside new characters are introduced from outside the world of the Mortal Kombat series such as The Predator, Jason Voorhees and more besides.

The controls are well mapped to the DualShock 4 and always feel incredibly responsive, especially considering the quantity of combinations from the vast amount of fighting moves, brutality moves and fatality moves with four preset control schemes and two customisable control schemes to choose from. The default control scheme consists of pressing square to perform a front punch; pressing triangle to perform a back punch; pressing X to perform a front kick; pressing O to perform a back kick; pressing L1 to perform a throw; pressing R2 to perform a block; pressing R1 to interact with the environment; pressing L2 to flip stance; combining any of the basic fighting moves into a brutality or fatality move; changing the direction of the left analogue stick or pressing up, down, left or right on the d-pad to move the fighter and positioning them in accordance with the required move; pressing the share button takes players to the share feature menu and pressing the options button to display the pause menu.

The DualShock 4 controller vibrates after an attack has landed with the severity of the punch, kick, grapple, brutality or fatality resulting in a lighter or heavier vibration. The lack of touch pad implementation is surprising given the amount of detail in the preset control schemes and the amount of freedom offered to the player throughout the rest of the buttons in the 2 customisable control schemes. The touch pad could have provided an alternative to the analogue sticks and d-pad in regards to swiping in the appropriate direction to move the character, while tapping the touch pad could have played a greater part in any given move or could have even been utilised for walking and scrolling the map when exploring the Krypt. The lack of light bar implementation is also surprising as it could have produced multiple tones of colour to represent the remaining health of the fighter such as bright green for 91% to maximum health, dark green for 75% to 90% health, yellow for 50% to 74% health, orange for 26% to 49% health, light red for 15% to 25% health, dark red for 6% to 14% health and glowing dark red for 1% to 5% health in order to emphasise just how close to victory or defeat your chosen fighter is.

Graphically, Mortal Kombat X is the best looking game in the entire series with excellent particle effects, character models, stunning scenery and destructible environments, while the gore and violence of the x-ray, brutality and fatality moves are depicted explicitly with a range of superb graphical effects.

The presentation of the game is solid with a great user interface across various menus such as the main, one player menu, two player menu, online menu, faction, krypt menu, extras, options and gameplay menus with support for navigation via the left analogue stick, directional pad and face buttons, although it does not include support for navigation via the touch pad and the right analogue stick. The background of the menus is quite cinematic as steam rises from the mouth of a dragon statue as the flames upon candles flicker in the wind as a storm of thunder, heavy rain and wind batters the surroundings, while a profile image is displayed of the enemy fighter prior to each fight.

The voice-over cast delivers excellent performances which really bring something extra to the unique personality of every character heard throughout the story mode and prior, during and after battles in every game mode. Troy Baker voices Shinnok, Erron Black and Fujin, having previously voiced Jack Mitchell in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Delsin Rowe in Infamous: Second Son and Infamous: First Light, Joel in The Last of Us, Booker DeWitt in BioShock: Infinite and many Batman related projects such as the animated television series and videogames. Ashly Burch voices Cassie Cage who has previously voiced Chloe Price in Life is Strange and Tiny Tina in Borderlands 2, alongside Kelly Hu voicing D’Vorah, Sindel and Frost having previously starred as Chen Pei Pei in Martial Law, The Sorceress in The Scorpion King and Pearl in The Vampire Diaries with Carl Weathers who voices the alternative version of Jax having previously starred in such iconic roles as Apollo Creed in the Rocky films and Dillon in The Predator, alongside a full cast of superb talent.

The sound effects consist of punches, kicks, grappling and a variety of moves as they are aimed, blocked or landed with environmental destruction when a fighter has an object thrown at them or is thrown through an object, the crunching impacts of brutality and fatality moves and the screams of pain when such a dangerous and damaging move has been performed on an opponent, while the music ranges from atmospheric to tribal and even extends as far as rock. The lack of DualShock 4 speaker implementation is surprising as it could have produced the sound effects of the punches, kicks and fighting moves, alongside the environmental destruction and crunching blows of brutality and fatality moves.

The trophy list includes 61 trophies with 54 bronze, 5 silver, 1 gold and 1 platinum trophy. The easiest trophies to earn include the Time Out bronze trophy for winning a match by inflicting the most damage when time expires; the Statistical Advantage bronze trophy for viewing your Kombat Kard; the Terrifying Encounter bronze trophy for confronting a beast within the Krypt; the Hit the Dojo bronze trophy for entering the practice mode; the It’s a Gusher bronze trophy for spilling 1,000 pints of blood; the Back It Up bronze trophy for equipping a new background image in your Kombat Kard; the Real Icon bronze trophy for equipping a new icon in your Kombat Kard; the So Bored bronze trophy for equipping a new border in your Kombat Kard; the Jumping Bean bronze trophy for jumping 30 times in a match; and the Luck be a Lady bronze trophy for completing 7 Test Your Luck matches.

There are online trophies which can be earned naturally by playing online multiplayer matches such as the A Kontender bronze trophy for completing a Tower Battle; the Return Kustomer bronze trophy for playing 100 complete online matches; and the Unstoppable bronze trophy for playing 200 complete online matches, although there are hard online trophies such as the Juggernaut silver trophy for winning 5 Tower Battles and the Dropping Fools bronze trophy for reaching a 10 complete game win streak in ranked 1 vs. 1 matches. The hardest trophies have to be the Faction Champion silver trophy for reaching level 50 in any faction and the No Loyalty gold trophy for reaching level 50 in all factions. It is estimated that depending upon skill and a good trophy guide to provide some helpful tips that it would take between 40 to 60 hours to platinum the trophy list.

There are five difficulty levels including very easy, easy, medium, hard and very hard with the major differences between each of the levels being a significantly increased amount of aggression when attacking an enemy, an enhanced effectiveness when blocking enemy attacks and increased movement, therefore increasing the chances of the A.I. controlled fighter landing an attack on an enemy, while reducing the chances of the human controlled fighter landing an attack on the A.I. controlled fighter.

The local multiplayer comprises of four game modes including Player vs. Player, Test Your Luck, Kustom Kombat and Test Your Might game modes, although the local multiplayer surprisingly lacks all of the team focused game modes from the online multiplayer such as Team Battle, King of the Hill and Tower Battle. Player vs. Player is a two player take on the single fight mode from single player as the players choose their characters and fight in an environment of their choice, while Test Your Luck in any environment with anywhere from one to seven random gameplay modifiers as is the case with the single player mode. Kustom Kombat builds upon Test Your Luck by allowing two players to battle it out in any environment after having each player select anywhere from nought to two gameplay modifiers with the availability for the player who chose it, just the opponent or both players to be able to utilise each individual gameplay modifier. Test Your Might is completely different to anything else contained within the local multiplayer offering as both players attempt to match the on-screen quick-time events in order to break through an object such as pine boards or bricks within the ten second time limit, although if either player fails to succeed; their character will be subject to horrific torturous punishments such as having numerous arrows fired at them, a hook lifting the fighter away, electrocution or a plague eroding the skin off the fighter’s face which which certainly provides further motivation to progress rather than seeing such torture inflicted upon the chosen fighter.

The performance during online multiplayer is phenomenal as the graphical detail, audio and frame rate are just as excellent as those found in the single player and local multiplayer components and actually more expansive, although the only criticism would be that the online multiplayer is actually region locked, therefore resulting in a European player not being able to play online against a player from America, Canada, Japan or such regions. The online multiplayer features comprises of Rooms, Versus, Team Battle, King of the Hill and Tower Battle with Rooms providing a matchmaking area for players to chat and easily find an online multiplayer match, while Versus allows for a Player vs. Player or a Test Your Luck fight with the option to visit a practice area for both players to practice their moves on each other. Team Battle allows for players to join or create a team for three v three or five v five combat to compete against a team of opposing players to participate in a faction match with members of the chosen faction against an opposing team, while a ranked match counts towards the Ranked Team Battle leaderboard, a player match which is unranked against an opposing team or a private match which is unranked against teams assembled of friends. King of the Hill sees players attempting to win successive matches against multiple opponents and comes in two variants in which health is reset after every match during Klassic, while health carries through from match to match within the Survivor variation with Tower Battle offers unranked player or private matches in which a player match will be pitting random players against each other, while private matches pair friends together.

The online leaderboards focus on global scores and friend scores with each leaderboard containing each player’s name (PSN ID); rank; games; wins; losses; streak; score and the chosen character with the positioning of each player based upon the selected sorting of the rank or the amount of games played, wins or losses, streak of consecutive wins, accumulated score or even the chosen character in ascending or descending order throughout the Ranked Player v Player, Ranked Team Battle, Player vs. Player, Player Team Battle, King of the Hill Klassic, King of the Hill Survivor and Tower Battle.

The replayability of Mortal Kombat X originates from the unpredictability of the results in the fights against A.I. opponents across five difficulty levels throughout the single player game modes, while the local multiplayer and online multiplayer game modes are made even more unpredictable based upon if the player competing against has levelled up, unlocked and learned a greater range of x-ray, brutality and fatality moves to improve their performance more than the opposing player, alongside competitive online leaderboards for every game mode.

Overall, Mortal Kombat X delivers everything a fighting game should such as varied environments to stage epic fights and a huge roster of characters with their own personalities, fighting styles and specific fighting moves, x-rays, brutality and fatality moves to really keep the combat and gameplay fresh, while a plethora of single player, local multiplayer and online multiplayer game modes elevates everything to another level, therefore Mortal Kombat X is perfect for fans of the long running series and the fighting genre alike which certainly makes it highly recommendable.

Jason Bonnar

Analysis

• Title: Mortal Kombat X
• Developer: NeatherRealm Studios
• Publisher: Warner Bros. Games
• System: PS4
• Format: Retail/PSN Download
• Cross-Buy: No
• Cross-Play: No
• Players: 1-2 (Local Multiplayer)/2-10 (Online Multiplayer)/Online Leaderboards
• Hard Drive Space Required: 37.23GB (Version 1.03)