This game’s onboarding is absolute ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. It has years and years of ultra-competitive 2D fighting-game mechanics layered on top of character variations that alter each fighter’s moveset, yet it assumes you already know everything there is to know about tournament fighters.
It asks you to figure all of this out by putting you through a training gauntlet of unexplained button combinations. It gives you little indication of how close or far away you should be, how quickly the buttons need to be pressed, whether the move is a dial-a-combo string, or whether you are supposed to press each button progressively as the strikes connect in sequence.
Why didn’t they implement two training modes? The first could remain as it is now, aimed at players with years of institutional fighting-game knowledge. The second could be a genuinely beginner-oriented mode for people who are not absolute joystick savants.
It could operate like a “Simon Says” version of the tutorial: first show the move being performed by the game’s AI, with precisely timed button graphics appearing onscreen, and then ask the player to reproduce it. It could demonstrate the required range, cadence and type of input instead of expecting the player to reverse-engineer the combat engine from a line of button icons. The fact that this was not implemented is beyond me.
The game also begins with a quick-time event appearing without warning during what anyone would reasonably assume was a non-interactive cutscene. It then immediately dumps you into a fight, assuming you know everything—and, if you don’t, apparently assuming you played the godawful training tutorial beforehand.
Good grief. I can see why the tournament scene sings the praises of this game, but seriously: with Mortal Kombat returning to broader public attention, it would probably be wise to patch in a more forgiving tutorial for old heads who know nothing about today’s labyrinthine tournament fighters.
Older Mortal Kombat games could certainly be complex, but they were built to be understood through play without layer upon layer of opaque mechanics. If they weren’t, nobody would have kept feeding quarters into an incredibly esoteric, hieroglyphics-deciphering adventure-fighting game.
At this point, I may as well be playing Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing.
Play Mortal Kombat 11 instead.... Because, I tried it out after playing this steaming pile of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, and it fixes EVERYTHING I am complaining about in this review perfectly... I had no idea that literally every gripe I have with this game was already fixed, and I cannot believe they never patched in a better tutorial into this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, this game is trying to be something it isn't, which is Streetfighter, or Tekken.....
If you want visceral, bloody well paced combat arcade fighting, that doesnt have to be frame perfect to properly connect, just pay 11, and thank me later.
