Mortal Kombat: Deception

"The Mortal Kombat game you've probably been waiting for since Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3."

I've missed out on a large lot of Mortal Kombat over the years, and possibly for good reason. By Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, the series was obviously about to undergo a huge downfall. The first 3 Mortal Kombats, the Mortal Kombat movie, as well as UMK3, proved to be great fun, but after that, the novelty wore off. Mortal Kombat 4's integrity was heavily debated, it scored high with few fans, but low with most of the neutrality. It got even worse with two very unpopular spinoffs by the names of Mythologies: Sub-Zero, and Special Forces. The second movie was a dud in the box office, and the series as a whole was waning. Things didn't get any better with the horrible Mortal Kombat Advance release for Game Boy Advance, either. A year later, however, Midway attempted to pick up the pieces of the horrid past several years with the release of Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. With a new (and highly better than MK4's) fighting engine, an addition of fighting stances, and a bit more emphasis on story continuation to go along with all the bloodshed and fatalities, Mortal Kombat seemed to have made a new name for itself amongst a new generation of gamers, and amongst more heavily favored fighting games (Soul Calibur 2, Virtua Fighter 4, and Dead Or Alive 3). In late 2004, Midway tried to continue it's newfound humble success with Mortal Kombat: Deception. The first Mortal Kombat game I've played in the longest time. Let's see how it went, shall we?

Story (5): To start things off, I hate the story in MK: Deception. I can respect the attempt to make story a much bigger aspect to the series, and I commend Konquest in being able to, for the most part, envelope us into the Mortal Kombat world to further show us that story. What I despise, however, is the "new generation" that we'll undoubtedly be seeing in MK games to come, and how their stories mesh with the old generation. Bo Rai Cho, Shujinko, Ashrah, while they're all a refreshing getaway from the characters we've seen in nearly EVERY game up till now (Jax, Sonya, Kano, Reptile), they just bring about that new-school feel that some people find hard to take a liking to, and one of those people is me. But my biggest concern with this game, is Shujinko, and how his story of deception is suddenly blended in with the rest of the storylines, new AND old. In addition, they try to bring about all these realms we've never known about into a new kind of Mortal Kombat universe. So apparently, this Shujinko guy, who we've never even heard of up until now, apparently had goings-on with every character in every Mortal Kombat, but we only now know him, and his lifelong quest to collect Kamidogus (artifacts of power over every realm when grouped together and with Shinnok's amulet in possession), while everyone else had participated in the last 5 Mortal Kombat tournaments. While it seems like an interesting attempt to continue the story from Deadly Alliance to Deception, it's hard for me to accept. Stories have to continue, but I can't say I really care for the direction that it's taking.

What the story does continue from, though, is the reincarnation of the Dragon King, Onaga, through Reptile. Onaga was once the original emperor of Outworld, before Shao Khan poisoned him before he was able to carry out a plan for immortality. That plan being that he would keep one last dragon egg handy, so the blood of an infant dragon could give him eternal life. Even in death, the egg was still pertinent to his reincarnation, for when Reptile was guarding it, the egg cracked, and his life force went into Reptile, therefore resurrecting him. The beginning of Deception starts off with the final moments from Deadly Alliance, when Raiden was trying to take on both Shang Tsung and Quan Chi, in possession of Shinnok's amulet, which had the power to raise Onaga's undead army. After Raiden's defeat, Shang Tsung and Quan Chi fought over their lust of power until Onaga stepped into the room. In an unsuccessful attempt to destroy him, Raiden created a blast, which sent him back to Orderrealm, and killed Shang Tsung and Quan Chi, while not doing a thing to Onaga. The narrator, Shujinko, admits that Onaga's rise to power was brought upon by him being fooled by Onaga. The backdrop for the story now taking place in Mortal Kombat: Deception. An interesting story, no doubt, but it's hard to see it shoving itself into the way of the story we've all known about.

Music and Sound (7): Dan Forden and the few others now working on the music for the game have done a great job capturing the feel of most arenas, and fights in their music, and they're not afraid to tell you. While in the soundtrack section of the in-game extras menu, you can listen to the soundtrack, isolated, with the composer's notes talking about what they did to try and create the feel for an arena or fight, what instruments they attempted to use, and it's quite nice to note that, but then there are a few notes where the composer seems to just arrogantly pat themselves on the back for a job well done on music, a couple examples of which I thought weren't very good tracks to begin with. Once again, Dan Forden is the man. The game even comes with remixed versions of old favorites, including the very old and timeless Courtyard music from the very first Mortal Kombat, then there's the Dead Pool, and the Portal stage. Music is also a part of the nostalgic trip that Ed Boon wanted you to go through when playing this game. The sounds are also nice, except for spoken parts. On occasion, you'll come across a line that doesn't finish quickly enough, so the next line after it zooms up right after words, not leaving time for an appropriate break in speech, which is very awkward. This also happens in awkward finishes to games where the announcer will say your character wins, but leaving no time for the short dramatic pause, when he immediately says "flawless victory" or "fatality" or "hara-kiri". There's a good range of voices in the game, but many anonymous characters in the different realms of Konquest WILL sound the same, the only true uniqueness comes from the main characters' voices themselves. Every move in this game can leave as much as a dull "thud" to indescribable sounds you could only translate to "that sounds like it had to hurt". It makes the battles seems just that much more believable, in terms of lively sounds.

Graphics (9): Graphics are also an impressively done part of the game this time around. Many arenas look stunning, and the characters as well look amazing. Not amazing as in "it looks so lifelike!", but amazing in that it does such a great job putting so much detail into their costumes, and really giving the characters a personality of their own. The most impressive look by far is Ermac (who coincidentally also is tied for first for my favorite characters to use, with Noob-Smoke), who has dropped the whole "still-looking like a palette-swapped Sub-Zero" look, and instead has been wrapped and draped up in red garbs of his own, in addition to green eyes to complete the look that only a personality of warrior souls fused together could embody. Some costumes get a little too raunchy, they could've definitely toned down the look of Mileena's alternate costume, unless she plans to join a "sexist Tarkatan-human hybrid" competition. In addition to all that, the blood spills out again for this addition to the series, as every punch, kick, and swipe of a weapon leaves an opponent's area gushing out blood to drip and dry up on the ground. The way it runs seems a tad unrealistic, but all the more feeling in the battle is what it's there for.

Gameplay (8): The game has 24 characters, many of them are past favorites that we haven't seen in a long time, and they all come with 2 fighting stances per character, that's 48 stances to get the hang of (that's not even counting the weapon stances and special moves for each character, which, excluding the weaponless Noob-Smoke, still leaves 95 individual things you ought to figure out). It's easy enough, since most of them have the same combinations, especially for special moves. You can learn all of these stances more thoroughly in the Konquest mode, by being trained by all the characters in this game's roster.

Speaking of Konquest mode, I better explain it to you first, since you very well may consider it the meat to the actual fighting's potatoes. Konquest mode (though started in Deadly Alliance) shifts through the life of Shujinko, from his youth, all the way up to his old age. Shujinko's out on a quest to retrieve the 6 Kamidogu for an elder god, Damashi. The Kamidogu are artifacts that, when brought together (with Shinnok's amulet), allows the bearer control to all the realms, and Damashi wants to see them all safely put back into the elder gods' possession, and not littering the realms, where it could quite possibly get into the wrong hands. In addition to this, you fulfill missions for everybody from strangers in every realm, to many characters in the Mortal Kombat universe, when you fulfill them, you're rewarded with Koins, a currency that you can use in the Krypt, which is full of extras you can look at from the main menu. In addition to missions, you also get to look for all sorts of chests, which contain varying amounts of Koins, and even keys to certain special locked koffins in the Krypt. Many characters from the series will even challenge you in a quick Mortal Kombat battle, always yielding you Koins when you win, and very rarely, some extra keys for those locked-up koffins. All this aside, however, you're trying to guide Shujinko through his lifelong quest, his trials, tribulations, and constant training, which all comes to a climactic end which shows you why this game is called Deception.

Next up, is this Krypt I've been telling you about. It's a plot of 400 koffins, all of them unlockable by either Koins or keys. They can hold something incredibly substantial, like an unlockable character, to things you really wouldn't give half a crap about at all, like photos of the design team, or pre-production movies and bloopers from Mythologies: Sub-Zero. It's a very long process to get all 400 koffins unlocked, but when you do, you will have unlocked a lot of what makes the game even better than it already is. Things like alternate costumes, character biographies, new arenas to fight in, and the such. When you've finally unlocked all 400 koffins, it's a feat you'll be proud of yourself for doing, and one you wouldn't dare yourself to do again in the near future.

Aside from Konquest mode, there's also Puzzle Kombat, a minigame that steals from Puzzle Fighter 2, which probably steals from another puzzle game. No matter, it's simply a distraction from all the fighting, as you attempt to break up color-coded squares and fill up your opponent's screen before he does the same to you. The arenas and characters, in Puzzle Fighter style, are all childishly made up, but still have the brutality of stage fatalities, because when you've beaten your character, the stage fatality takes place. There are a few unlockable Puzzle Kombat arenas and characters, of course, in the Krypt.

Another distraction from the game itself is another minigame, Chess Kombat. It's obviously Chess, only Kombat style. It's not totally true to the game of chess, though, the game's got it's own sinister twists involved. Such twists as trap areas, health-boosting bonus squares, pieces with different characteristics along with their different methods of moving across the board, and even themed boards, like the Dead Pool. It, along with Puzzle Kombat, are good for wasting time away from the main game, and earning you more of those much-needed Koins.

Next up is the game itself, the newest incarnation of Mortal Kombat. You don't get to choose how many battles you can play in, like in Mortal Kombat 3 and 4, which is really depressing, because you only get about 9 battles in total, nothing like ripping through most of the roster, then going to the boss. There are so many aspects of the main game that you have to keep an eye of attention on, because the arenas have so much going for them, you've got to keep them in check. There are many arenas once you unlock them all, and keeping with Ed Boon's nostalgia factor, many old favorite arenas also return. One big aspect to deal with are stage fatalities, or areas that you're able to break through, which are indicated by red and yellow strips, respectively, across the arena you're playing in. They may not even have a yellow or red stripe, you may knock your opponent through something and not even know it was breakable, that element of surprise you find every now and then is very enjoyable. Aside from that, you, of course, make use of your weapons, special moves, combos, guarding, and attacks to put the lid on your opponent, before they put the lid on you. Also, at the end of your battles, if you win, you still get the pleasure of performing a Fatality, to make sure they really get the business end of your battling skill. However, in another surprising twist, kombatants in this game would rather keep their dignity, and will brutally kill themselves before they give you a chance to do it, ala Hara-Kiris. All of this is bundled up into a fun, and of course, violent package that really brings the game's shine back from the grimy days of Mortal Kombat 4.

Replayability (7): There's 24 characters in the main game. That's 24 endings, 24 new ways to experience the game. That's not even taking into account the 12 characters in Puzzle Kombat, as well as the numerable combinations you can make for Chess Kombat. However, Konquest is a one-time deal. You can only play through it once, and it's so long-winded, you wouldn't even want to play it through twice. Once you've unlocked everything, however, all that's left is playing on your own, or playing with a friend. It may be good for a few hours of entertainment alone or with a group, and the nostalgia of old characters, remixed old music, and old arenas, may keep you coming back for another morsel every now and then.

Overall (7): This is an incredible entry into the new generation of Mortal Kombat games, and when I say new generation, I mean new generation. Many new faces are here, many of them aren't likeable, but you still have old favorites of every sort to keep the nostalgia up. Like some horrible cliche, Mortal Kombat has arisen from it's loathable 1998-2002 era, and has started something that might actually get some fans back into the mix.

Rent? Buy?: Being a Greatest Hits game now, any Mortal Kombat fan should get it, and see if maybe they can't try to get back into the new, revamped universe of Mortal Kombat. To the uninitiated, even chump cash is alright. It's only $20, at least, and there's enough to do in the game, so you won't feel like you traded a bill for nothing. The game is a-ok, good to go, I very much recommend it.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/12/06