So far, we’ve only been able to catch a glimpse of a small slice of Mortal Kombat 1, but it looks promising anyway.
Many people were surprised that NetherRealm Studios will not continue with the previous pattern, that is, after Mortal Kombat 11 in 2019, it will not make the third part of Injustice, but it will offer us another MK game. Another twist is that the title of the upcoming episode won’t be Mortal Kombat 12 or something similar, but simply Mortal Kombat 1 – much to Google’s chagrin. In light of the additional events of Mortal Kombat 11 and Aftermath, the semi-soft reboot is entirely justified, after all, Liu Kang, who has now advanced to become the God of Fire, is starting an entirely new timeline. In this continuity, he is the foremost protector of Earth, and Raiden, who previously held this position, is merely a human field.
There’s still some time left until the game’s release, after all, Mortal Kombat 1 won’t arrive on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch until September 19, but Warner Bros. And the local distributor, this is thanks to Cenega Hungary, we already had the opportunity to try the new Mortal, to be exact, we were able to participate in the online stress test over the weekend.
Cameo is no joke
It cannot be stressed enough that we only saw a very small slice of the game, where we can choose from only four wrestlers (Sub-Zero, Kitana, Liu Kang, and Kenshi), and we can select three Kameo fighters (Kano, Sonya Blade, and Jax). ) them before their matches. It would be a shame to be afraid when you hear the new term, based on what has been said so far, the appearance of the Kameo characters will be one of the biggest novelties in the new part, although this function has been completely misinterpreted by a few people and a wrong weight in the big picture. It’s not at all about the fact that classic tag team wrestling can be suppressed with Kameo characters, and we’re not going to “switch” fighters. Imagine them the same way as if in the towers of Mortal Kombat 11, we were able to put a character on our side as an extra skill, jump into the match at the moment of tactical importance, for one quick exchange of blows, and then move on. Something like this should be expected here too, we can summon Kameo fighters with a button, but by pressing the appropriate directional buttons we have an effect on exactly what tricks they display.
Many critical voices can be heard regarding the fact that all this is too little, that the Kameo system does not add much to the gameplay, and that it practically makes no sense at all. Well, after the testing period, this seems like a really powerful system, but you need to know what it’s for: Kameo fighters are skills that can be triggered practically instantly, and they’re effective when you combine them into your own combos or when you want to disrupt an opponent’s combination with them. The latter is very important if only because the crushing combos will be much tougher than in the previous parts.
How is it different from Episode 11?
However, it was quite strange that although many people expected faster and more energetic gameplay from Mortal Kombat 11 based on the first gameplay videos, during testing it felt like Mortal Kombat 1 slowed down even more. This is not necessarily a problem, it is a matter of taste which type solution one prefers.
Amplify has changed: Mortal Kombat 11’s solution has been dropped, we no longer have two separate units of offensive and defensive indicators, and the new amplification bar split into three sections is shared this time around. It will be worth paying attention to the fact that the only way to get out of the combos is to completely burn all three units. Also an important change is that the block button, R2/RT, can be used to trigger an amplification that powers special moves (this used to be the default on the R1/RB button, now we can use this to summon Kameo fighters). Fortunately, the Fatal Blow system hasn’t been touched too much, you can expect the same thing as before: once in a match, if your character’s health drops seriously, you can launch a brutal (and amazingly brutal) attack. This attack mode has a shield, meaning it absorbs enemy attacks that might be caught while firing.
Video quizzes, explanation, interesting facts, discussions, live stream, walkthroughs, and previews with Hungarian subtitles.
Another interesting change is that the interactive elements that were previously scattered on the tracks seem to be completely gone, and you can’t pick up an object and attack an opponent, or take momentum from a column. It is not entirely clear why it cannot be included in the new gameplay, because, as you can see from the previously mentioned details, the Mortal Kombat recipe has not been radically changed. It could also be a reason for some scratching, why all executions have to be so simple, and their summons have been toned down endlessly – we kind of hope that’s just because of the online stress test, and that they’ll complicate a bit in the final version.
In the beta, we could not only try offline towers, but also online matches. At first glance, the connection proved to be stable, and we didn’t encounter any serious technical problems.
A release in September isn’t agonizingly far away, those curious about whether Mortal Kombat 1 could offer more or something different than Episode 11 in 2019 will have to wait until now. It sure looks great, the animation is amazing, and the transition from the character selection screen to the actual match is handled beautifully. The beta couldn’t show much new stuff, but it doesn’t seem like an impossible hope that NetherRealm will pull some more surprises until September.
