Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks

"Midway – Singing a Different Tune"

Any Mortal Kombat fan and their grandma know the classic battle cry, “MOR-TAL KOM-BAAAAT!!”, immediately preceding the pulse-pounding techno tune that spawned from the original title. When I think of a phrase to summarize my experience with Shaolin Monks thus far, I hear that guy, in my head, once again screaming four syllables in a rhythmic war chant. Except this time… he's yelling:

“RENT THIS GAME FIRST!!!”

Oh, the woes of the Mortal Kombat series. It started out with a bang, became a worldwide craze, teetered off into quasi-obscurity with a few questionable titles, and only recently began clambering its way back up the ladder of success. Metaphorically speaking, I feel Midway tried to ‘widen' this ‘ladder' by filtering all of the MK goodness into a standard brawler. Instead of shooting back to the top with another great fighter, they and Paradox took a very gutsy move by segueing into the realm of multi-directional button-mashing. (Seeing as how MK7 is still rumored to be in the works, we fighting junkies can breathe a sigh of relief…) Using every ounce of concept art and game detail from the first few (insanely classic) MK titles, an entire 3-D world was fused together for Shaolin Monks, allowing the gamer to live through some of the drama involved in the tournament, and not simply its key fights.

For any true Mortal Kombat fan, Shaolin Monks does contain an element of pure delight; to be able to sit front-row, and watch the stories of these fabled characters being told from a completely different perspective, is indeed a great nostalgic treat. The overall effect the game brings, as I've read in other reviews and now agree with, is pretty much going to depend on how deep-rooted any one particular gamer is in the series. Even a weekend-warrior slugfest aficionado will find their fair share of gripes while still being entertained, whereas the die-hard will probably be inclined to look past the bugs, and glitches, and stiff AI, and the sometimes-obtuse camera angles, and revel in the fact that they are playing an actual, decent, honest-to-goodness MK action-adventure game. It's about time!

If you're expecting me to rate the storyline of MK:SM, I apologize. I've rarely ever paid attention to the plot in an action-adventure title, let alone a fighter, so I am by no means steeped in MK lore. Give me an RPG, and I'm paying attention – anything else, and all I want is some action. To be honest, Mortal Kombat was never much about ‘storyline' to me, anyway. I was sold on the ‘multiple martial arts, shooting fireballs, ripping the heads off of people' idea… anything beyond that, has always just been more icing I'd never touch on a cake I had pretty much already consumed.

The graphics, at least on the XBOX version, are pretty good, with above-average, fluid character animations. The arenas from the original titles spring to life, and I felt held very true to the overall ambiance and style of the series. These environments are nicely detailed, and highly interactive, with plenty of places to hurl an enemy to their messy (and often hilarious) death. (Unfortunately, that's also a problem when you've almost bested a foe, and inadvertently send them into a hazard – killing them, but also bringing your shot at gaining experience points for the fight to nil.) I've heard some people complain about the main characters not having enough face detail, or whatever, but compared to some of the other issues you're likely to come across, *heh*, a low-detail character model probably won't be the biggest thing to get under your skin.

I found the controls to be right on par – easy to manage, simple to learn, and very fun to execute! The idea behind SM's fighting engine, is that each new attack in a combo is capable of being launched in a different direction. This leads to the thrill of using your favorite fighter (and their individual skills) to ward off multiple attacks from many different enemies at once. Also lending a hand to good fun is the intuitive jumping system, through which many more mid-air attacks and combos can be executed. As far as good, old-fashioned blood and gore goes, the mid-battle fatalities, multalities and brutalities keep in tradition with the game, and are fairly simple to pull off. There's also a bit of strategy involved with where and when you execute the multalities and brutalities… but the last time I tried giving hints and tips in a review, it was rejected, so I'd better keep that stuff to myself. ;)

Another great feature of Shaolin Monks is its ko-op mode. True, there's nothing like pulling off a 100+ hit combo while flying solo, but there's also something heartwarming and magical about two friends keeping a flailing demon airborne by volleying them with an obscene number of attacks. The only thing about ko-op that bothered me, (aside from the occasional shifty camera angle, and the fact that some secrets are only unlocked with 2 players) was when combat would break off, and spread to opposite sides of the screen. It's best to keep your characters close together, and watch each others' backs – otherwise, you'll both be pressed up against the edges of the screen, battling an off-screen attacker who you only sporadically see the arm or foot of.

Now I'll touch on the few things that keep this game from being really great, in my opinion. First off, glitches and bugs… OH MY. Not that the title is littered with them, but if you pay attention and look, you'll definitely find them. In my first three hours of play, I had:
-a cut scene with no sound (co-op)
-died instantly by somehow teleporting behind a wall (KL), where I shouldn't have been able to, and falling into “MK space”… fortunately nobody heard me scream
-fallen off a ledge, and landed behind a save point, where my character became stuck for a good three minutes until I was knocked free by an enemy
-beaten a mini-boss by doing absolutely nothing more than chucking skulls at him

Thankfully, these things combined don't completely detract from the enjoyment of the game. There's also a general lack of direction when it comes to completing your next task in the game. Sometimes, I think if I didn't listen to and watch the cut-scenes intently (which I hate to do, as mentioned), I really wouldn't know where to go next. And, even after paying attention to the plot, I have ended up being completely stuck in an area, not knowing what to do – a situation, I might add, that numerous people on several different internet boards have had the same problem with. That's not really a bug or a glitch… just a poor effort of directing the player as to what should be done next. I believe many titles as of late have successfully initiated a player-direction / task-assigning system that doesn't make it feel like your hand is being held. Shaolin Monks could have used just a little more of this. Every once in a while, your character (or Raiden) will make an in-game quote offering help, like “Hmm, I think I should go here”, or “Use your enemies to your advantage”. Without your speech volume turned all the way up, though, these can be a little hard to make out, especially when enemies start attacking as soon as the talking begins.

In summation, (and this is coming from an avid MK fan), I have to give Shaolin Monks the equivalent of a C. Sure, maybe when I finally unlock the arcade port of MK2, that opinion will change. The replay value of this title seems mediocre, at best, but is bumped up to average when you factor in all of the ko-op action. The bugs aren't as widespread as they could have been, but unfortunately the game glitches out just often enough to earn some shouted profanities. The little things, like whichever character you're not playing as, suddenly showing up during the cut scenes in a single player game, are just more quirks you'll be shaking your head at.

In no way a “flawless victory” by Midway, but a sufficient delve into the platforming brawler for the series; Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks might be just enough to make anybody that knows who John Tobias is buy the game, while everyone else should rent cautiously.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/28/05