Mortal Kombat 1

There's a lot to be said here. First, let me just note something for you to keep in mind during this read. That is: I bought this game at full price on launch day but hadn't picked it up until after 3 years. Because of this, I missed the disaster that was the launch, the bugs (especially the player 1 advantage bug) the balancing issues, etc. Many players speculate that this was a rushed game due to the fact that during development, this was originally an Injustice game, until they decided to switch gears. After 3 years has this improved? Tremendously. 100% No. For example, I can run the in-game benchmark and hit a solid 60 FPS with no sweat every single time (at max settings, with Nvidia DLAA enabled). However while watching my FPS counter during single player, I've seen my FPS dip to as low as 54 for a split second. Considering the hardware I have, this shouldn't occur, and that goes a long with every other modern title. Is that enough to break the pace of the game and cause a brief stutter or freeze? No. It also happens very minimally, though it shouldn't happen at all. Other than than that, the game maintains a solid 60 FPS. A positive I'll say here about performance is that while playing online, wifi players are nowhere near the pain in the ass they were in MK11 and MKX. The freezing in those scenarios, while it didn't happen ALL the time, seems to have vastly diminished in MK1. At least this has been my case with many hours clocked online. Whatever they improved with the already good netcode, really has worked wonders here. I'll also note that two players can connect, both with poor pings (in the red) but because both players are wired, it poses no problem in the match. This seemed to be the case for MK11 as well. Bravo. Moving on, I will acknowledge the main complaint about this game. The story. Complete trash. Yes, it's visually stunning, and well put together, but the end result is simply sub par. I found a lot of this had to do with the character retconning. Huge mistake. I don't think this has sat right with fans. I've been a fan of this game since the beginning and to mess with character origins especially going as far as deciding to make Scorpion and Sub-Zero brothers, was not only bold, but utterly silly. The entirety of doing this to so many characters in this game has left a bad taste of my mouth. Let's face it: The Mortal Kombat story has become and has been very convoluted for quite sometime. For a "soft reboot" they could have really fixed things, but instead, in my opinion, it was a disaster. Additionally, an expansion was later released entitled Khaos Reigns, which offered DLC characters and a story continuation. The asking price was a premium price of $50. That is quite significant for an expansion. It was lackluster, and with that price point it obviously flopped, hence the parent company of NetherRealm, Warner Bros, telling them to pull the plug on all future support for the game. This is short lived support for a fighting game sadly. People give NetherRealm a lot of grief about some of their decisions. I can't defend the egregious story writing here, but a lot of times it's Warner Bros telling them to end support for their titles. NetherRealm has wanted to support their previous titles for longer and they were constantly shut down by their superiors . Continuing on, we'll take a look at what this game offers. Like what I mentioned above, this was also a disappointment. The complete package here is nowhere near as robust as MK11 was, with it's excellent third party krypt, amazing cosmetic customization, and much more. There are still cosmetic things to unlock in this game, but it's nowhere as vast. Mortal Kombat 1 is bare bones compared to MK11. This didn't sit right with fans, which makes complete sense. Instead of a full on Krypt, what we get here is a very uninspired "Invasions Mode" which is a board game style mode where you can unlock skins and in-game currency. There is also a "shrine" to spend currency on to achieve skins and gear, which was clearly their lackluster alternative to the Krypt. The game was also promised crossplay and that wasn't available at launch either, but did come eventually. These complaints from fans are completely valid. Another thing that seems to be up in the air with fan opinion is the Kameo system. Was the Kameo system a lazy attempt at a similar kustom variation system from MK11? I find that very plausible. Would I have preferred a built upon and improved kustom variation system from MK11 instead? Yes. However, like I stated earlier in the review, the game has had 3 years of time for improvements and adjustments. I have to honestly say I don't mind the Kameo system. I can understand why others may not like it. They either agree with me that they prefer the kustom variations from the previous game, or they don't really feel this is a true 1 vs 1 fighting game. Regardless, there's still a lot experimentation and combo creating potential here and I've had fun experimenting with it. Additionally, the matches are significantly faster paced compared to the previous game, which some complained about. I personally, had no issue with the pacing of MK11. The gameplay feels very good here. It just simply feels good to play like all of NetherRealm's previous releases. Visually, the game is a joy to look at. No complaints in that department. I personally, miss the days where Mortal Kombat was dark and atmospheric. With that being said, Mortal Kombat 1 looks superb, especially if you're able to crank the settings and take advantage of the NVIDIA DLAA technology. In closing, If you're able to disregard the complete garbage story, and you're only in this for the down and dirty matches, and mainly aim to play online rather than unlock the modest amount of single player content compared to MK11, then this is still a very solid NetherRealm title. Is it their best? Surely not, but in terms of gameplay quality, they haven't missed their target once. 8.2/10