Mortal Kombat: Deception

"How Can Other Fighting Games Even Try To Compete?"

It's been a long time since I've bought a Mortal Kombat game; in fact, it would have been a decade this November, Mortal Kombat II was the last one I bought; mostly because fighting games have ceased to be original. So what'd you do, buy one or two the best fighting games, in my case I chose Street Fighter II: Turbo and Mortal Kombat II, and leave it at that. Even when Deadly Alliance was released, why should I spend my hard-earned money on a fighting game when there are so many other games to play?

That sentiment changed, however, when I heard about Mortal Kombat: Deception, and besides the fact that it was supposed to be an amazing, revolutionary, game, there was another reason that I knew I wanted it: the original Arcade Mortal Kombat was featured in the Special Edition version. To anyone who's played both the Super Nintendo and Arcade versions of the game, you'll know that there's a big difference between the two; I didn't want to pass up the chance to rekindle my love of the original game that I had played so often years before. So I bought Deception, and I soon found out that my sixty dollars were not wasted, that the game was indeed everything that I'd heard about.

From what I've seen, Deception is sequel to Deadly Alliance, although I haven't played the previous game. Deception begins with an introduction where Shang Tsung and Quan Chi are battling Raiden, their only obstacle between them and victory. Even though Raiden fights valiantly, he is eventually beaten; leaving the two to celebrate their victory, although it's short lived. The two sorcerers begin to suspect each other of having foul intentions, and they soon break out in a fight. After the battle, only Quan Chi is left standing, but suddenly Onaga, the legendary Dragon King, crashes the party and begins to advance on Quan Chi, who tries to fend off the demon. Just when all seems hopeless, both Shang Tsung and Raiden regain conciseness and set aside their differences to join Quan Chi in his struggle. But even their combined powers can't stop Onaga, and Raiden sets off a massive explosion in hopes that it will cease the Dragon Kings attack, but his efforts were in vain; Onaga is still alive while the three are killed in the blast.

Now, of course, it sinks into the regular Mortal Kombat theme: [Insert character] has to stop the Dragon King because [Insert reason for entering the tournament].

Similar to the plot, which is much more interesting than I was expecting it to be, Mortal Kombat is top notch in the visual aspect. All of the characters are unique and appealing, and the backgrounds are nothing short of amazing. Each character moves smoothing with every action and can adapt to what's going on, as well as classic fighters like Scorpion, Kabal, and Baraka having a nostalgic look to them. The backgrounds are all unique and detailed, there's always something interesting to look at, and often there are different areas within each one. For example, one level takes place on a tropical paradise that can quickly change into a thunderstorm with serpents ready to strike at any moment. In a different area, you're placed on a ship that has bodies swinging back and forth from the ceiling. As you fight, you can interact with the surroundings and use the bodies to your advantage. In yet another level, you're placed atop a high temple, and with a well aimed kick you can send your opponent flying over the side to tumble down a countless number of stories until they land on a lower level with a sickening crunch.

Unfortunately, if there's one area of the game that doesn't excel, the sounds and voice acting would have to it. But don't combine “sounds” with “music”; I liked the soundtrack, the tunes all seem to fit the area, and even the techno-esque songs do an above average job of complementing the levels. The soundtrack section in the bonus area is definitely worth listening to.

Other that, however, the rest of the sounds are sub-par. The voice acting is just boring and rarely does it ever match up with the character's mouth. There's absolutely no variety, it almost sounds like there was one guy that did every character, and it becomes annoying no too long into Konquest mode. And besides the voices, the sound effects during the actual fighting sequences are pathetic; it sounds like the developers took a sound clip of gorillas and used that, and the woman just scream. In fact, the only character that doesn't sound like a type of primate is Liu Kang, but his high pitched kung fu talk can get annoying after a few minutes as well.

But none of that is important when compared to the gameplay in Deception; the sheer amount of variety is astounding, with each of the twenty-four character having two fighting styles and a weapon, along with dozens of different combinations to perform; even if most characters share moves like the classic uppercut, a sweep, and some form of throw. Each character also has a set of special moves: Sub Zero still has his freeze, Scorpion his harpoon, and Liu Kang the bicycle kick, but don't expect to get very far if that's all you use. To anyone who hasn't played combination-based fighting games like Deadly Alliance, it might be hard to learn to use the combos instead of the specials moves that would usually ensure a win in the previous games. There's also a Combo Breaker move that can be used by pressing block and another button as an opponent is performing a combination move on you; you can stop him and fend him off, although he won't take any damage from your counter-attack.

One of the best parts about Deception, however, are the levels. Each one is divided into a number of separate areas that you can gain access to, usually by hitting your opponent off of a bride, through a wall, or out of a window. Not only that, but you can also hit your opponents into death traps, areas that will instantly win you the round in an expectantly gruesome fashion.

And finally, what Mortal Kombat review would be complete without dedicating a paragraph to the fatalities? The fatalities have returned in all of their glory, and it's hard not to crack a smile while thinking of how much the developers must have had while coming up with different ways to kill someone; I did notice that most of them involved ripping, cutting, or blowing up the opponent's head, which got a little boring after seeing the same thing reused two or three times in a row. And surprisingly, there's a new feature in the fatalities: if you or your opponent is beaten, they can die honorably by performing hara-kiri, better known as suicide. Sure, it's not a major addition and it isn't really needed, but it's pretty amusing to watch.

Simply put, this is what a fighting game is all about; the variety and smooth gameplay makes the Arcade style combat in the game nearly flawless.

But that's not all, for there's also a section called Konquest, in which you take on the role of Shujinko, a young boy who's commanded by a spirit sent from the Elder Gods to find artifacts that, if they were to fall into the hands of evil, could destroy the world. In truth, the game is nothing more than a large, complicated training session, when you meet a character they'll teach you his or her fighting style, but it was interesting to play through nonetheless. As Shujinko travels through Earthrealm, the Netherrealm, and Outworld, he encounters a number of classic characters and completes missions for them, which leads to meetings with other playable characters that can teach you their fighting style.

And throughout the story, Shujinko ages; going from his teens to becoming an old man, which I thought was amusing, although the ways he aged where usually awkward: Being trapped in time-altering sand pit, getting arrested and awaiting trial for twenty years, or training with someone for a decade or so. The worst part is that a lot of times you in the middle of doing something, and none of the NPCs ever comment on the fact that it's been years since last seeing you, yet their appearance never changes and forgetting about a promise you made a half of a century ago doesn't seem to bother them. I did like the ending, however, although it was too predictable; after playing about halfway through, I realized that the developers wouldn't end a story so simple, and in turn would try to add a surprise ending. If it didn't tie into the main game's story, I'd say it's pointless, but since it does I'm just going to say that it was mediocre, but not quite disappointing; although I've heard a lot of hardcore Mortal Kombat fans complain that the story contradicts ideas from the previous games. I thought it was pretty minor stuff, plot fillers like Sub Zero being the leader of the Lin Kuei, but he doesn't do that until some later Mortal Kombat game. Or something like that, I wouldn't know.

Finally, there's one part of Konquest mode that I absolutely hate with a passion, and it's would be the side missions; specifically the ones that involve fighting. Since the developers knew that once you got better at controlling the characters, you'd be able to kick anyone's ass without a problem, they decided to add exceedingly unfair fighting conditions. The example that jumps out at me the most happened while I was exploring the Netherrealm; I came to a long bridge that led to three fighters: Kobra, Kabal, and Kira. While fighting Kabal, the screen would randomly turn off and go black, leaving you to perform attacks or block and hope for the best. After winning the fight, I took on Kira, and found that during the fight, my character was bleeding to death, which meant that his life slowly drained away on top of any damage I received from Kira. Needless to say, it was a major pain in the ass, but after a half-hour I finally defeated her. My self-esteem at its peek for the hour, I ran right up to Kobra and punched him in the face, bringing me into combat with him. Not seeing Kobra turn invisible, having a message appear telling me I can only defeat him using throw attacks, or seeing myself spew blood, I figured that the developers decided to give me a break at let me fight him normally. I soon found out that I was mistaken, however, when Kobra managed to perform a three-kick combination that took away my entire life bar. Shocked, I replayed the fight, hoping that I had missed something. Again, after draining his life meter by three quarters, he performed a two-kick combination that killed me instantly, and not only that, but he had done enough damage to take another quarter of a life meter away.

Now, I usually don't like to use the word “Impossible” too often, but I quickly became convinced that the developers had played a trick on me, adding an undefeatable character just to see how long I would continue playing. It took two days, just over two hours, but I finally managed to beat Kobra. I happily ran over to receive my reward, something so amazing that my hours a toil would not have been wasted, only to find that the reward was a thousand coins, which I could have easily found around the realms had I not been swearing at the television for the past hour.

But Konquest serves an even greater purpose in Deception, because throughout the game you can collect different colored coins that can be used in the Kyrpt to unlock character biographies, original art, videos, alternate costumes, and even new characters, although most of the character coffins are only unlocked when you find the specific key to the specific coffin, which, again, are found in Konquest mode. And don't think that the job will be easy, a lot of the keys are hidden pretty well and some only appear if you're at the location at the right hour or day.

Besides Konquest and all of the extras, there's still more to do in Deception; two new games, Puzzle Kombat and Chess Kombat, make their debut. Puzzle Kombat is a sort of Dr. Mario/Super Puzzle Fighter game in which you take different colored blocks and sort them together. However, the only way to get rid of the blocks is by taking a colored Dragon emblem and putting it into contact with the same colored blocks. When that happens, any blocks of the same color that are chained together from the Dragon emblem will disappear from your area and be sent to your opponents. After doing this enough times, your fight-meter will fill and you'll be able to perform a special attack. When either you or your opponent fills up their area, they lose and you use a fatality on them before proceeding to the next level.

Chess Kombat is just as interesting, you create a team by taking characters and making them chess pieces: pawns, rooks, king, et cetera. From here the game plays similar to chess, except when two pieces land on the same square, the two characters face off in combat; the winner receiving the square. However, whatever amount of damage you receive during the fight stays with you, which can leave a character near death while surrounded by an army of opposing pieces.

And, depending on whether or not you bought the Premium Pack or not, Deception has even more features on the second disk. Although some of it is behind the scenes stuff, the main reason I shelled out the extra ten dollars was for, as mentioned in the beginning, the arcade port of the original Mortal Kombat. The game plays as smoothly as I remember it; anyone who's based their opinions on the Super Nintendo version is missing out, there's a clear reason why the game became a series.

Fighting games, as of recent, have become fairly linear; they just aren't unique enough to spend fifty dollars on. And then a game like Mortal Kombat: Deception is released, and it's everything you need to make a fighting game worthwhile: amazing gameplay, tons of hidden and classic characters, plenty of extras, bonuses and secrets, and wrapped up in incredible music and graphics. Even if you don't care about finding any of the extras, playing as the hidden characters are plenty enough of an incentive to play through Konquest and search the realms. Even if Scorpion and Sub Zero, two of my favorite characters in the series, are playable from the start, there are a surprising amount of other fun characters to play, Noob Sabot and Smoke being two of the most notable. This is definitely something that's at least worth renting, but with everything in the game, it's pretty hard to pass up a deal like this; Mortal Kombat: Deception is easily one of the best fighting games for the Playstation 2.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/18/04