4/5 ★ – MechaniChris's review of Mortal Kombat 1.

God I missed Mortal Kombat. I’m a die hard fan of this series so I was already in the pocket for this. I’m pleased to say that it pretty much met my expectations. It’s a little crazy to me that they decided to reboot the timeline again just 3 games after the last time they did it. Personally if I was going to reset the timeline, I would have set this game BEFORE any of the other games. Set it hundreds of years in the past, during the age of the Great Kung Lao and show us a bit of MK history we’ve heard about but never seen before. That way you could still have a few familiar favorites (most Outworld characters were alive back then and obviously Liu Kang in the Raiden role), but you could also fill the roster with a bunch of new characters in a way that makes sense. I dunno, I think that woulda been fun! But obviously they didn’t do that. Instead they handled the reset in a familiar way, but nonetheless clever. I’ll be talking story spoilers from this point on so steer clear if you’re not interested. So Liu Kang makes a few key changes in his role as time keeper, but then gives up his power for fear that it would make him insane. This honestly solves a lot of concerns I had with this premise, namely that if a good guy is dictating all events, why would he allow any evil to exist at all. So I like that rather than lord over all time, he instead stripped certain troublemakers of power. That’s cool! I like it! Then we have who I very much feared to be Kronika arrive and undo most of his work. It was at this point I feared a bit that the previous game made no difference at all, but the twist that BOTH endings of the DLC were canon was as surprising as it was satisfying. There was a brief moment that I thought we would get Onaga back, and I really hope we do some day, but this story made so much sense as a sequel to 11, even if it feels like like a reset as a result. Honestly I enjoyed the story entirely, even if I have a few gripes which I guess I should mention. For starters, the dialogue is really bad. Everyone explains everything in a painful expository diatribe. It feels like reading a 1960s Marvel comic, though that’s charming in its own way. Second, some of the performances, namely Nitara, are horrible. Not sure how they even allowed that. And third, I’m a bit concerned about how certain characters were treated, or rather NOT treated in this timeline. I find the new Sub-zero/Scorpion dynamic interesting in theory, but what does that mean for Hanzo? Does he exist? Did he die? Apparently Kuai Liang marries Shirai, so he’s just living Hanzo’s life. Where is Hanzo??? The same could be asked of Sonya. Clearly she exists as a kameo, but what is her role in this new universe? Did Liu Kang hate women? He chose 4 dudes as his champions. Sonya was there from the beginning, why wouldn’t he pick her? I hope these problems are addressed as the series continues cause as it stands, it’s weird to ignore them. That said, as much as these crucial characters are ignored, I am happy to see some characters I worried I would never see again. I always like the 3D era and characters like Reiko and Ashra were always very interesting to me. Seeing them realized in the new era had been so much fun, even if I wish we had some new fighters to go with them. I guess that’s the problem with this series. After a while, it’s hard to serve ALL the characters in their series while still adding more to the roster. I do hope there’s some unannounced DLC characters remaining, but I think I’ll have to wait for MK13 before I see NEW fighters. Most of this review has been about the story, but that’s really most of what I care about. I’ve been playing the Invasion mode and having fun unlocking new skins, but the story is what separates Mortal Kombat from the other fighting franchises. For a series I love as much as this, I’d love to give 5 or even 4.5 stars to a new entry, but I don’t think story alone can carry that. I think eventually, we’ll need a modern MK: Armageddon for it to warrant full marks. A modern game with every fighter in the series PLUS new ones? God what a dream. For now, I can only hope they allow us to fuse our own characters like we say in the chapter 15. John Kahner for life.