While the Mortal Kombat series has always been a next level fighting game from the beginning of the series, NetherRealm Studios truly outdid themselves with Mortal Kombat 11. From creating an interesting story line, for once, and giving us a large roster of players to choose from, this is hands down the best of its series.

Story

With a vision of a history and world that doesn’t include Raiden, Kronika sets out to restart history to the beginning and put the evil forces on top. Learning of her plans, the many allies of Raiden and others on the side of good set out to stop Kronika from completing her plan. It is up to them to make sure that history doesn’t change in ways that would corrupt the realms.

Gameplay

Starting off the with the story mode section of the game, you will find yourself mainly watching a CGI style movie that will flow into a fight once the sequence is reached. You can skip the cutscenes if you want, but I don’t recommend it as the story is interesting and the transitions in and out of the fights are very smooth. You will find yourself using multiple different heroes throughout the story mode forcing you to try out the different character options they offer in the roster.

Once you are done with the story mode, you will have enough koins to make your trip into the Krypt worthwhile. Here is where you can open up random chests to get a miscellaneous set of rewards. There are a few different currencies used to open specific chests, but once a chest was opened then it stayed open. The rewards ranged from costumes to fatalities to concept art. There is also a forge inside of the Krypt that you can put various collected items in and get pay outs for. The recipes for these are also within the various chests laying around.

The next area to check out is the different tower options. If you go through the Klassic Tower mode, the character that you use will unlock their own special ending that features what they will do once they have the power of the hourglass. The other option is the Towers of Time. This mode will prove the most challenging, but also the most rewarding. There is a bit of a grind when it comes to unlocking different costumes for your fighter of choice, but fighting through these towers will turn you into a very threatening fighter once you reach the online mode.

The Towers of Time section has a few time limited towers that change every so often and a section that has a different list of towers that can be opened by choosing a player, paying a one-time Koin fee at 25,000 and then opened. This is where the true rewards can be unlocked for your fighter, but beware: the difficulty is intense here.

Last section to mention is the player-verse-player mode. If you are doing a local battle, or using Share Play on Playstation 4, then you will be able to use any character from the roster that the owner of the game has. If you want to use a customized character, however, then make sure you let the second player go in to customized themselves as the first player edits do not roll over.

As for playing Online, there are a bunch of different game modes. The one I see becoming the most popular is King of the Hill as it allows the winner of the previous fight to remain to fight the next player in the line-up. There is even a training mode if you are low enough on the list where you can work on your moves if you aren’t interested in watching the current fights unfold. The lag is nonexistent and barely comes into effect which makes the fights fair over 95% of the time.

Graphics and Sounds

The amount of detail that went into every aspect of this game, from the menus to the story mode, is phenomenal. Every cut scene, be it pre-fight, fatality, or the story mode, looked like part of a CGI movie. The sound effects and music were as fitting as the graphics were to this game. Bringing out both the atmosphere and realism of striking blows, it was able to pull you into the environment.

Replayability

As a game with an online mode and thriving community, there will always been skill progression for players to grow. Using the different Tower modes to unlock more customization’s and cutscenes, all while earning koins to use in the Krypt, give players more than enough reason to return to Mortal Kombat 11 time and time again.

What Could Be Better

It would have been nice is they had the tag battle (2v2) mode available since it is something they have in previous titles. Mortal Kombat 9 was a memorable game for being able to team up with a friend instead of constantly having to go up against them. It is better when it comes to players with larger skill gaps against from their friends.

The grind to unlock more characters should have the option to change the difficulty. I don’t see a problem with making players earn the extra costumes, but to lock them behind such difficult opponents could be fixed. If somebody wants to get different outfits for their favorite character, their skill level should not be what gives them the opportunity or lock them out from the possibility.

Konclusion

Mortal Kombat 11 is hands down the best in its series! NetherRealm have gone above and beyond to make sure they brought us the best version that they could offer. There are only a couple things that need some work, which can easily be patched later on, but otherwise the game is pretty flawless. Get your combat gear at the ready, study that move list, memorize those fatalities, and step into the brutal battleground for a mixture of entertainment and skill grinding!