I own all the mainline MK games, but this is the one I keep coming back to the most. There's just something really striking about the Xbox 360 graphics that actually makes this game more colorful than the grittier looking ones that came after it, which is something that doesn't sound like it would mix well with Mortal Kombat, but somehow it does.
This game gets two very important things way more right than the other games that came after it ever did, and that's the character roster and stage selection. Starting with the characters; EVERY critical MK character you'd ever want to have is here (except Cyborg Smoke, but there's a reason for that). It's a full roster that would satisfy any true MK fan. The MK games that come after this one tend to omit core characters in favor of guest characters, but that is not an issue in this game. They're all here. From a fan service perspective, having all of the most requested MK characters in one game is huge, and something only seen in two other games before it (MK Trilogy and MK Armageddon).
As for the stage selection, this game easily does this the best out of any other MK game ever made. Some of the most iconic stages are recreated in full glory; The Courtyard, The Living Forest, The Dead Pool, The Pit II, The Bottom of the Pit, Goro's Lair, The Street, The Subway, The Bell Tower. There's so many iconic stages, all recreated and even with new stage fatalities (the Living Forest one is pretty great). This game doesn't limit itself to only recreated stages from the first three games either. It also includes it's own unique stages. They really went above and beyond with stage selection in this game, and it adds so much to the staying power of this game. I always felt like MKX and MK11 suffered in this department, but they couldn't have gotten it more right in MK9.
This game's gore effects are unmatched to this very day. As you fight, pieces of your fighters face, arms, legs and body will rip off. As fights progress, you'll reveal body tissue, exposed pieces of skull and bone, ripped flesh dangling off of faces. By the end of each fight, the participating combatants will actually look like they were in a Mortal Kombat battle, which is something that future games don't even do anymore. Some of the character gore that sticks out in my mind the most is how Smoke loses one of his eyelids, leaving one eye freakishly wide open, and another is how Scorpions mask starts falling apart, revealing his skeleton head underneath as the fight goes on. The gore system in this Mortal Kombat is absolute top shelf chef's kiss, and I don't know why they never returned to making future games with this same level of detail.
This game also includes a crypt filled with so many unlockables that unlocking them all is basically its own mission, which has become rather standard in most newer MK games, but worth noting that it isn't missing from here. There's a story mode with full voice acted cut scenes, a ladder mode that even includes tag team matches, and a mission mode that throws out the game's own rules and flips a lot of it on its head. This is one of the most feature packed Mortal Kombat games in franchise history. It really is such a huge shame that this got delisted just because of a single guest character.
So basically, this MK game is every fan's dream game. I will admit, the gameplay is sharper in future games, but that's just the natural progression of gameplay evolution, and it's not bad here at all. It does have tag team gameplay, which is amazing and rare to this day, and you could even play online against other players with a friend this way. Four player tag team Mortal Kombat was a thing you could actually do when this game's online was alive.
I don't think I've ever looked at a fighting game and considered it as a candidate for a remake, but MK9 is a huge exception. It just has too much going for it, and I would love to see NetherRealm PROPERLY remake this game (with Batman as one of the guest fighters), but unfortunately, I know all too well from MK1 that they would just charge full price for the base game, then have the balls to nickle and dime their audience by overloading the start screen with microtransaction FOMO nonesense. In my opinion, if i'm paying full retail price for a game, those kinds of items should be free. If they want to have a microtransaction store, fine, but make the game free to play. Charging full price for the full game, then implementing an aggressive time limited microtransaction store for some of the most desirable content that fans want most is just scummy. I already paid. Anyway, side rant over, this game was made during an era where these scum tactics were basically non existent, which is another reason why MK9 is so great.
