Mortal Kombat: Armageddon

"Thinking of buying MKA? Read on..."

Every since the moment I heard of this game I have been giddy with anticipation of it.

I was a Massive fan of Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance and Mortal Kombat Deception, each game was extremely fun, and I really enjoyed the stories, the new fighting system and the universe that was expanded upon.

Mortal Kombat Armageddon (referred to as MKA from here on out), was sort of a Mortal Kombat fans dream come true. 64 playable characters, and a expanded Konquest mode.

Only a couple of things really kept me from giving this game a 9 or even a 10, although for straight out FUN, I would give this game a 10. It does have a couple of flaws though.

Graphics: 9
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Graphics for this game are very nice (I have the PS2 version). The characters and stages look great, they are alot like MKDeception, if you are familiar with that game, except more polished. Blaze looks amazing. Konquest mode has huge graphics improvements, and the stage lighting and special effects are done very nicely. I really look forward to seeing the next generation of Mortal Kombat, on the PS3 and XBOX2.

Gameplay: 6 (Due to standard of Deception)
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I would have given this higher, and do not let the 6 fool you, the gameplay is fun, and a blast to play. My problem with the gameplay, is one of the most awesome things about the 2 earlier versions was having 3 fighting styles and nice style branching combos that went through all 3 styles.

So part of the 7 is that, I feel the gameplay took a hit since Deception. It seems to me that either Midway ran out of styles, or the current generation systems just did not have the space for 3 styles for 64 people.

Another thing that also annoyed me, was that some characters, such as Quan Chi and Chameleon, had very nice and somewhat lengthy combos, and others had only a 3-4 button combo. The kicker though is that the characters with many small combos, can do very large damage, since their 3 hit combos hit for as much as a 8 hit for another character, and combine a air combo, and you can push 50% combos with 5-6 hits. It just really seems that, not alot of time was spent to balance each character. Another good example is Noob, who has super small combos but can do a 50-60% kombo with a few hits. I really miss some of the huge combos from Deception, on characters like Jade, Raiden, Ashrah, etc etc. So far I have beat the game with 32 characters, and it varies per character.

The Style cutdown from 3 to 2 or even 1 in some instances, was a real letdown. If this game had had 3 styles for most characters and the long style branching combos, I would have given the gameplay a 10.

I kinda figure that the systems either could not handle 3 per, or Midway got lazy. Either way, it seems they through in air kombat to sort of make up for this.

Air Kombat:

Speaking of the new air Kombat, it does have a nice feeling to it. It is very fun popping your enemy up, and slapping them around in the air.

BUT, one huge letdown, and some people may even like this, is that the air Kombat is basically the same for every single character. After you learn 1-2 characters air kombat combos, well you have learned all 60+'s.

Another thing that griped me about air Kombat, was there was no long combos that started on the ground in a hand-tohand style, and branched through the air. I really think they could have added some nice 11-13 hit combos this way.

Most of the air Combos start with a 1-3 hit ground combo, and then leaping and doing another 3 hit combo.

Don't get me wrong, the air Kombat is very fun, but could have been better.

Over all, the fighting system is more user friendly, and a watered down version of Deception for the most part. It is much easier to learn characters now, but to people like myself, part of the fun was learning 14 hit , 3 style branching combos from Deception.

Extras: 6

Konquest mode is very much improved and is sort of a mini final fight game now in 3d. I did enjoy the overall story of Konquest in Deception more, although Deception was based on a actual story, where Armegeddon is more about slapping a descent story together for 64 people.

Motor Kombat, was pretty boring to me, although I played it on a low difficulty, against only the CP. I could see it being a tad more fun playing against my friends or online. Cant even light a candle to the pure fun of Puzzle Kombat from Deception though.

The new Krypt well, it sucks. Very few descent movies, good things like the bio cards with dev interviews are on the premium edition (which btw is well worth spending 10 more dollars for all the bio cards, very fun to watch). Also in the Krypt now, everything is labeled, so there is no element of suprise to what you are buying. Pretty much the only worthwhile things to unlock are the 2nd costumes and a few older stages. they did make one nice change though, there is only one version of Koins now, instead of 6.

UMK3 was a nice edition, although, it is very dated now.

Kreate a Fighter: 9

Very neat system to make your own Mortal Kombat character. Tons of options, most of which you purchase with koins. It really helps to spend a few hours playing through Konquest to get the elder God armour pieces, and tons of koins to buy everything. All in all very nice being able to make your own moves and combos for your character.

Kreate a Fatality: 5 (gets old fast)

I consider this another letdown, especially after the novelty of the new fatality system wears off. Midway either got lazy, and didnt want to create fatalities for 64 people, or they ran out of space, and gave us the new fatality system.

Although it is fun to slap your opponent with 10 different things, it is the same for every character, there on hundreds of combinations you can do, but in the end, the enders which actually give your kredit there is only like 10 of them.

Personally, I think Kreate a Fatality would have ROCKED, if it was a option, and they had taken the time to make normal fatalities for each character.

One of the things that gave Mortal Kombat characters personalities in past games was their individual fatalities, think Scorpians skull burn, and Sub-zero's spine rip! Having everyone able to do everything was a let down for me.

This should have been a option fatality mode, much like Friendships, or animalities. It honestly kinda reminds me of the old brutalities except you input all the commands now.

One nice thing is that you actually gets koins, 50 per fatality part, but you have to do a ender to recieve kredit. At the moment I can pull of a 9 hit fatality, and get 450 extra koins per death (although like I said before the krypt kinda sucks so meh.)

It is very fun though performing fatalities on boss characters now though.

I think the Kreate a fatality system should have been a added feature, or even a system that let you design your own fatalities.

Fun Factor : a huge 10!
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Have no doubt that even though I have my gripes about this game it is FUN. 64 playable characters = win.

One really nice thing, is they did a very nice job integrating the boss characters such as Goro. They look great, flow very well, are powerfull, but not overpowered.

Overall: 8 or even a 9-10 if you havent played Deception
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Had Midway made individual fatalities for each character, had the Kreate a fatalitiy as a added feature, and left 3 styles per characters, and added air kombat, this would be the greatest fighting game of all time. it is still a amazing game, and it is just so sweet to have 64 characters, and be able to play as the old bosses like Kintaro.

If you enjoy the Mortal Kombat series at all, this is a must buy game. if you loved Deadly Alliance and Deception, you will love this game. Although it does have its flaws it still kicks much ass.

I would give this game a solid BUY without a doubt, now excuse me, time to go beat the game with another 30 characters :-)

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/13/06