Board 8 > Mortal Kombat 1 Review Zone

(+) Yeah! (+)

Looks like the embargo lifted while I was asleep OOPS

Mortal Kombat is back with its 12th mainline installment where in MK11 Liu Kang took over for Raiden as the God of Earthrealm, defeated Kronika and Shang Tsung to become the new keeper of time and reset the timeline and rebuilt it in his image. Based on the trailers I've seen so far though it looks like he might be just as bad as at his job as Raiden was because look at all these bad guys that are around to mess things up. A lot of characters now have new origin stories and some have completey different movesets from how they used to be. There is also an MvC1 style assist system where you pick a character based on the original MK universe and can call them in during fights to help with attacks. Also as you would expect a bunch of wacky game modes are here including MK's take on Mario Party XD

Not a ton of reviews yet because the game actually isn't out for everyone for another 6 days and the online isn't fully available yet, but the pay extra to have it a few days early edition is out tomorrow so we have a handful of reviews out. So far it's averaging a 86% through 9 reviews which is pretty much in line with how these games have reviewed. The base versions of 9 through 11 were a bit lower though. It was the Komplete editions that ended up with higher scores than this.

Gaming-Age - Grade A
Overall, Mortal Kombat 1 is a polished, beautiful work of art that is a remarkably innovative entry into the long running franchise. You can feel the love and care that went into recrafting existing characters in a way I never knew I would love.

Press Start - 9.5/10
Mortal Kombat 1 is a joyful reinvention of a series that is continually hitting its stride. A strong and varied roster is bolstered by an ingenious Kameo system that offers up a great degree of player flexibility unlike anything else. While it's a bit off an odd choice to not have crossplay at launch and the approach to gear is bound to be divisive, Mortal Kombat 1 feels like the most complete Mortal Kombat experience so far. And perhaps even one of the best fighting games I've ever played.

CG Magazine - 9/10
Mortal Kombat 1 is an excellent entry point for new comers and returning fans. It outshines every previous Mortal Kombat in almost every way, with intuitive controls and interesting modes. NetherRealm cranks the gore up to 11 and I cant wait to see what else they have in store for us.

VideoGamer - 9/10
NetherRealm builds on its strengths, sticking to familiar combos and over-the-top violence. The campaign offers more of the explosive setpieces and lethal duels youve come to expect. Invasion mode is a part of that strategy, one that might pay off handsomely if it receives live service-like updates with new gear. The franchise has also made some inroads in greeting newcomers while catering to older fans with its Kameo system. Its a complete package, especially for Mortal Kombat fans. But it lacks the extra oomph of the Drive Gauge system and ambitious World Tour mode that Street Fighter 6 brought in this year.

VG247 - 4/5 Stars
Mortal Kombat 1 is a generally positive step in a new direction. I find myself frustrated with Liu Kang's decision to allow live service DNA to creep into his new universe, and I long for some of the features left behind (like the Krypt). Mortal Kombat 1 sets the stage for a new era of MK that you can't help but get pumped up for. NetherRealm, like the characters in its ultraviolent universe, is staring right into the face of a brave new world and locking eyes with the future. Keeping those eyes in its head, though, may remain a challenge.

Screen Rant - 3.5/5 Stars
As someone's first Mortal Kombat game, Mortal Kombat 1 is a perfectly adequate but not ideal place to start (that would still be Mortal Kombat 2011). For returning players who just want to see their favorite characters again, or for anyone itching to hear Johnny Cage come up with great jokes like "Reminds me of a terrible B-movie I was in called The Flesh Pits," while walking around a room that looks just like the old MK level The Flesh Pits, this game will be a must-buy. If you were hoping to see The Great Kung Lao of myth, however, or an entirely new cast of characters, Mortal Kombat 1 isn't essential, and brings very few truly new ideas to the table.

IGN - Unscored
I still need more time with Mortal Kombat 1 before I'll feel comfortable rendering a verdict, mostly to play the full suite of online modes and get some more time playing the game against people rather than bots, but so far, the Kameo system and smart changes to the fighting make MK1 feel fresh and exciting, the story mode is predictably great, even if Invasions seems like more of a grind than I'm willing to put myself through to unlock the best cosmetic items.

VGC - 10/10
Its a game that manages to build on everything that came before it, while at the same time presenting it in a way that will appeal to lapsed fans of the series the ones who still have the ABACABB blood code from the Mega Drive / Genesis original imprinted on their brain but wouldnt know Kotal Kahn if he tore their spine out.

It offers a deeply satisfying combat system sorry, kombat system that rewards both skillful play and button-bashing, its one of the best-looking fighting games weve ever seen and its got so much content urgh, kontent that players will be occupied for along time before the Season structure is even taken into account.

That initial Street Fighter vs Mortal Kombat rivalry from 1993 will always go down as one of the most iconic face-offs in video game history. But 30 years later, fans of both can now make a serious claim that in 2023 they each received the best game in their respective series.

Mortal Kombat 1 is the best Mortal Kombat game to date. It looks stunning, has a brilliant Story mode, its new Invasions mode will keep solo players busy and, above all else, it's an absolute joy to play. Thoroughly essential for die-hards, lapsed fans and newkomers.

Played through 25% of the story mode and were just at the point where everyone is going as planned to the rails beginning to come off.

Although I'm sure some people were immediately triggered by Kronika in the opening cutscene already meddling with this timeline

Up to an 87% now and more reviews!

TheSixthAxis 8/10
Mortal Kombat 1 serves as a love letter to fans of this thirty-one-year-old franchise and as a pseudo-reboot it also has potential appeal to newcomers alike. There's still room to grow and I'm sure it will just keep getting better, but Mortal Kombat 1 is already definitely worth your time.

Attack of the Fanboy 4.5/5 Stars
While the lack of ambition in the games narrative and the inability to play as certain characters keep the game from achieving true greatness, Mortal Kombat 1 is still a top-tier fighting game. The depth of the games combat provides less-experienced players with enough skills to succeed while rewarding those willing to take the time and effort to learn the systems intricacies, and the sheer number of unlockable accessories ensures that you have a reason to keep playing. Mortal Kombat 1 may not land every punch it throws, but it does manage to chart a bold new course for the franchise.

Wccftech 8.5/10
Mortal Kombat 1 is one of the franchises most bloody-entertaining entries to date, offering up refined action, smartly revamped fighters, and a story mode that delivers a surprisingly-coherent plot and plenty of blockbuster thrills. A lack of compelling modes and meaningful character customization does hurt, but Mortal Kombat 1 should be a heart-ripping hit with fans even if the overall package is slightly anemic.

I played some yesterday. I mostly spent time on the tutorial and toying around with a few characters I was interested in.

I got through a few chapters of the story mode. Man, they have overloaded it with movies. You're just sitting there watching for what feels like 5+ minutes at a time on the regular. Also a weird choice to have certain characters be in multiple fights without the majority of their moves available too.

So far the story is fine though. It's definitely more ambitious and thoughtful than previous outings. Plenty of world building I appreciate as well as actual legitimate story beats for characters. They feel a lot more layered now.

Hoping to get through a lot more of it tonight!

It's fun. I got no complaints other than the weekly mission system being entirely glitched right now. Oh, and some command list errors like wrong inputs and typos.

4 out of 5 from us

So youre telling me its a Mortal Kombat game?

Somehow I had the most fun playing Baraka in the story mode so far.

I don't understand anything about Mortal Kombat anymore.

that's the chapter I last played and I did find him to be very fun too

I do have to maintain it's really impressive how much they've really improved their storytelling here. The characters feel more like characters. I like the dynamics between all of them.

Johnny Cage's movie references are becoming a bit much though.

And while I like seeing origins for some things, something like "Why is Quan Chi's skin pure white" was not among them and an odd thing to show off. Lol

Finished story mode.

The twist towards the end kind of takes the wind out of my sails. It's honestly kind of baffling they went in that direction and proved everything they said prior to the game about the story as a lie.

Any intrigue and delicate care they put into the characters was immediately cast aside so they could just awe and wow you with some cheeky BS that quite literally has nothing to do with the universe they set up at all.

It's a bit fun at the final chapter, but I would have vastly preferred anything else instead, because I was quite loving the new universe they set up and everything.

But I started Invasions mode and that's been pretty fun so far. Repping the main man Havik for it. Getting brutalities that are oddly difficult to pull off in this game now.

Oh, and there's this issue too which explains why doing the trials are so difficult. I swear I was doing the inputs right and in a tight enough window and it just wasn't working, so it's good to get confirmation something is really wrong.

Maximillion is also saying there's problems with inputs when integrating Kameos in combos.

Kind of inexcusable. Really disappointing.

https://twitter.com/EGPWonderChef/status/1703364816587673800?t=2Sz87tU23C8gEd9EKrEKGQ&s=19

Even worse is the Switch version for $70 is just completely fucking hideous. Rain's water abilities are just murky and impossible to see. The facial expressions are broken so everyone has a dead expression on their face at all times with their eyes wide. And then just nothing seems to be looking right on it. It's really bad. Disgraceful they released it in that shape.

I'm not really getting anything out of Invasions at this point. Feels like busywork.

Between that and control issues, it does seem like early access. So we'll see how much gets patched on day 1 proper. Pretty good otherwise, but yeah.

Characters for DLC pack 2 have already been leaked by datamined information. lol

An Aftermath-like story teased in the mid-credits scene is also confirmed too. About half the length of the original story.

Another issue regarding inputs is that a lot of Brutalities just aren't working right.

I've tried to do Havik's first one and it just won't work, and a ton of people are reporting they aren't working across the board.

What the hell?

Early Access. It's okay because it's in $110 Early Access.

I will say this is my favourite version of ShangTsung in the series

I enjoy playing as him and he has some of the best facial expressions ever

Input update:

https://twitter.com/EGPWonderChef/status/1703606350138536325?t=gg8Pw5TBPvKAMk-yWHXOgg&s=19

Supposedly turning off the input shortcut option may help with this but... what the fuck.

oh yeah I turned off input shortcuts as soon as I started the game

Someone at NRS did say that they're working on the Kameo issue at least, so that's something.

Lol a ton of the dialogue for the new Aftermath story has already been datamined.

And then because they had to record all of the celebrity voice actors in one go, their voice lines are in the files for intros with the Kombat Pack 2/3 characters. They don't outright say who they are, but it makes it pretty clear with context of the lines. Some of them are pretty exciting! Some of them are less exciting!

just reached the part of the story where Nitara first appears

not good, Megan! Maybe not Rousey bad in terms of delivery, but a worse mismatch between voice and character. Scary, other wordly vampire lady that just sounds like a normal American woman.

Ronda Rousey Sonya was a thousand times better than Megan Fox Nitara. Rousey at least tried to fit into the rest of the cast.

WarThaNemesis2 posted...

Ronda Rousey Sonya was a thousand times better than Megan Fox Nitara. Rousey at least tried to fit into the rest of the cast.

Megan is in no way good as Nitara's VA. But she is also no way as bad as Ronda Lousey. She was the absolute worst.

They're both pretty bad, but Rousey was definitely worse.

I wonder if the likely reception has anything to do with Nitara having probably the fewest lines in the story of any playable character or if that's just a coincidence.

At least 90% of the time you're just hearing Cristina Vee anyway.

Rousey's performance was wooden. Fox just didn't sound even mildly threatening. But also had barely any lines to evaluate her by, yeah.

Im not sure Rousey tried to do anything, shes just sort of Sonyaesque by default. Her performance was so flat.

Megan is at least sort of emotive, but comically mismatched to the character. Like she could probably do a passable Cassie performance, but shes not selling Nitara at all.

So is there a "day 1" patch today?

omg these chapter 15 opponents

Stung Lao
Actual Female Subzero
Cyber Smoke
John Kahner
Red Dragon
Lizard Queen
Janet Cage
Quan Li
Shock Priestess

and all the other characters you didn't get to fight like Ninja Mime,Thunder God Kung Lao, Sonya with Kano's laser eye and more

I'll have to replay the chapter with a different character for a trophy so I'll see if it changes your opponents at all, but I'm guessing not. Still this is the most entertaining final chapter of one of these games they've done just super goofy. Felt like a real celebration of everything MK, especially the PS2 era of games.

^
The opponents are definitely randomized

Sorry, I don't go here, but I am just fascinated that this game has apparently already dropped to a $40 deal in some places. Did something happen with this thing?

Hoping the day 1 patch at least fixes the daily/weekly counter.

It's not working for anyone. You can do a bunch of uppercuts and the counter will go from 2/50 to 3/50 to 1/50 after each match. It's actually absurd and just impossible to do these. The weeklies are particularly important because you get a skin for completing them.

That said, despite all the issues, I'm still enjoying it.

I dont think anything happened (except with the fucked up Switch version). Where did you see that?

$40 is the price of the first DLC pack, maybe thats what you saw?

MoogleKupo141 posted...

I dont think anything happened (except with the fucked up Switch version). Where did you see that?

$40 is the price of the first DLC pack, maybe thats what you saw?

I think LTM is talking about the QVC thing Wario64 posted but thats a general coupon thats given to new accounts and can be applied to any game thats been released

Ah, OK, so it's just some special promotion and not specifically an MK1 thing.

Carry on!

Anyway was considering this but then decided SF6 is probably enough for whatever fighting game fix I have and theyll probably do a discounted bundle a little while from now so decided to wait

I've just watched the story mode online ever since MK9 and I've been pretty content with that

I just don't have the time to invest in a fighter anymore unfortunately

I'll still play every fighting game out there, but I almost never invest time in one to actually get good at them. As long as I can get all the trophies I'm happy with that.

Leonhart4 posted...

I've just watched the story mode online ever since MK9 and I've been pretty content with that

I just don't have the time to invest in a fighter anymore unfortunately

Same. Watched all 4 hours of MK1 over the past few days and enjoyed it. Ridiculous as always, but fun

Aecioo posted...

Same. Watched all 4 hours of MK1 over the past few days and enjoyed it. Ridiculous as always, but fun

my favorite thing is that it somehow managed the impossible and made every ending in MK11 canon

Oh, I'm reminded of something cool too.

In a rare move, everyone's Arcade/Tower ending seems to be a canon epilogue to the story. So they're all worth checking out!

$20 Unlock Kameos (done by player level progression)
$8 Unlock Havik (done by finishing story mode)
$8 Unlock Shang Tsung (pre-order bonus)

Yo. They're just trying to squeeze money out of tournament organizers at this point. Lol

LeonhartFour posted...

my favorite thing is that it somehow managed the impossible and made every ending in MK11 canon

Yeah I enjoyed this, even if the final chapter seemed pretty lackluster compared to the last game.

allthe different versions and their names made me laugh though

https://twitter.com/GigaBoots/status/1704199633939886457?s=20

up to chapter 11 now

man these faces look so good. the production value on these cutscenes is really wild.

its really funny to me that Darrius keeps popping up but he doesnt get a single line of dialogue I dont think they even address who he is at all? Like if I didnt already know who he was, would I know who he was?

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

$20 Unlock Kameos (done by player level progression)
$8 Unlock Havik (done by finishing story mode)
$8 Unlock Shang Tsung (pre-order bonus)

Yo. They're just trying to squeeze money out of tournament organizers at this point. Lol

8 dollars for Shang Tsung?! The guy was complete before the day 1 patch!

NRS always has a pre-order bonus you have to buy if you didn't pre-order.

In the past I feel like the pre-order character wasn't available to even purchase until way later but I could be wrong.

https://twitter.com/IGN/status/1704435503905354094

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