by Jayden Leggett, Editor

As the old saying goes, better late than never. Since way back in 2011, it seems the whole world has been enjoying the gory pleasure that is the reboot of Mortal Kombat. Well, everywhere bar Australia, that is. Because until recently, the game was refused classification down under due to its extreme violence and gore and our illogical lack of an R18+ rating at the time for videogames. Thankfully, that all changed yesterday with the official Australian release of Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition.

If you are anything like me, chances are that you probably lost interest in the Mortal Kombat series quite a while ago. It just felt like with each new release, too many changes were being made that made the series fell less like Mortal Kombat. 3D play fields that allowed for sidestepping. Various different fighting and weapon styles for each character, requiring even more combos and special moves to be learnt and memorised. Hell, even the run button way back in Mortal Kombat III (if memory serves) made things too tricky for my liking!

In a move of sheer genius, this reboot returns the series to its origins, resulting in one hell of an excellent fighting game. Fighting strictly takes place across a 2D plane, and the running and style switching button functions of previous entries in the series has been removed. Also, while quite extensive, there aren’t a million different combos to learn, meaning that players will often be using the classic uppercuts, leg sweeps and special moves from the good ol’ arcade days.

Watching Sonya fire off a wrist blast or Liu Kang perform his iconic flying bicycle kick brings back fond nostalgic memories. Yes, even Johnny Cage’s nut punch is still there, complete with all of its cringe and giggle producing results. In addition to these classic moves, a few new features have been added to the fighting system which truly do enhance and add to the whole experience in a very positive way.

Successfully pulling off special moves and so on fills your special meter, which is the fuel for your enhanced moves, combo breakers and X-Ray attacks. Enhanced moves are essentially a more powerful version of the various special moves (e.g. Johnny Cage will now through two forceballs instead of one). Combo breakers do exactly as they say – hitting forward and R2 will interrupt an opponents onslaught with a counter attack. Finally, there are the X-Ray moves. By now I am sure many of you have experienced the awesome Super Moves from Injustice: Gods Among Us. The X-Ray moves in Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition work in a similar way, but are far more visceral and violent. Activating one of these bad boys executes an attack that shows an internal view of the damage you have inflicted on your opponent (think of some of the scenes from Fight Club and you will be on the right track). Baraka’s blades penetrate an opponent’s eye socket, and various other characters perform kicks, punches and neck twists that result in their enemy’s bones being brutally smashed. It’s the sort of stuff that would otherwise make you cringe, but since it’s a videogame the result is more of a “Hell yeah, I wanna see more!”

Keeping in form with the previous Mortal Kombat games, the reboot features a whole swag of different play modes. My first point of call was Story mode. Beginning in a possible future with all of the recognisable characters laying dead and mutilated, the story flashes back to the present with Raiden becoming aware that the tournament his disciples are about to enter in to could have dire consequences on the fate of Earthrealm. Thus plays out a tale in which Raiden recruits an army of heroes to fight for the future of the Earth against Shao Kahn’s evil forces of Outworld.

Beginning with Johnny Cage, as the story progresses the player takes control of different characters along the way. This was somewhat of a double-edged sword. I loved learning the origins of each of these classic fighters that we have all come to know and love, but I found constantly having to pause each battle to check out a new fighter’s move list to be somewhat of a learning curve (and extremely taxing to my horribly bad memory). Luckily the story is very engaging, and the gameplay addictive, meaning there were many, many occasions where after having my ass handed to me I would be saying “just one more fight, I know I can beat them this time”. This especially occurred during the many two-on-one fights that seemed to be implemented purely just to try my patience.

Let it be said now, this game is hard. While I managed to get through Injustice without too much trouble, I constantly found myself on the receiving end of an ass-kicking during my time with Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition. If I thought fighting a tag-team combo of two enemies at once was a challenge, boy did I receive a shock to the system when I discovered that fighting Shao Kahn was just as hard as it was back on the Super NES, complete with cheap boss tactics such as attacks that leave you stunned, a health meter that can take a hell of a lot of punishment and attacks that will kill you in three hits or less. Even so, I just couldn’t walk away from Story mode for very long.

Of course there is your standard tournament fight mode. Much like the arcade and old school console versions, this is a straight forward ladder match where you fight your way to the top. I noticed in this play mode that battle damage was a lot more prevalent (with characters being covered in blood and sporting exposed flesh and so on). And of course, winning a bout presents you the opportunity to perform a fatality. God how I have missed these. Raiden uses lightning to blast off his opponents limbs, Liu Kang punches straight through his adversary’s chest, while Kano simply rips the head off his enemy and thrusts it back in to his chest. Awesome stuff.

Naturally there are a wealth of other game modes like local multiplayer (fight your mates from inside the comfort of your own house), online multiplayer (fight random people around the world from inside the comfort of your own house), Challenge Tower (a stack of short rounds featuring various challenges like “don’t take any damage” or “perform this combo” etc) and the Krypt (where kurrency earned during the game can be spent on bonus costumes and the like). However, the whole point of this “Komplete” edition is arguably the extra characters that come included with it.

First up we have Skarlet. This chick really loves blood, bathing herself in the claret of her enemies after a fatality. Then there is Kenshi, heaps of fun to play with due to his telekinetic moves that project an astral version of himself against his hapless opponent. The water-loving Rain is also included. However, special mentions should be made to the two big guns present (at least for the PlayStation 3 release): the God of War, Kratos, and the king of nightmares himself, Freddy Kreuger.

I especially loved playing as both Kratos and Freddy. Many of Kratos’ moves are based on his own games: Zeus’ Rage features a quicktime button press to unleash additional damage, and many of his combos are exact replicas of his fighting combos from his own series. Freddy Kreuger, while seeming like an odd entry, feels right at home within the Mortal Kombat universe, using his bladed gloves and surreal abilities to stab and impale his foes.

Simply put, if you are a fighting game fan and haven’t yet purchased Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition, the time is now. It’s combat system is a perfect ode to the fighting games of old, and its huge host of game modes will ensure you are left with plenty of things to occupy yourself with for hours upon hours. Just as I had thought that I had completely given up on the fighting genre, Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition has slappd me with an unbeatable kombo that has left me wounded, crying, but hungry for another taste of the pain.

Rating:
ComicsOnline gives Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition 4.5 out of 5 long plummets into a spike pit.

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