Some of the tasks even come with a bit of dialogue, some of which gets pretty silly, such as one that has Mileena trying to give a teddy bear as a gift, or another that has Shang Tsung and Shao Kahn fighting over a gurgling baby that sits in the background as you battle. 3) Mileena – She has some crazy fast attacks; you’ll want to block and be aware of her quickness and try to find openings. But when left with no options I proved to myself anything is possible if you try.

If you don’t want to mess around with chat rooms, the standard ranked and unranked options are also present. Timing those juggles just right are both pretty key. Online, the game plays mostly how it plays offline, provided the network conditions are just right. Both regular and tag battles can be played online, and a new mode called King of the Hill rounds things out pretty nicely. Some are simple changes, like tag battles where the tagged out partner recovers health, or fights that must be finished with a fatality in order to be completed, or endurance battles that have you outnumbered. I also made sure to keep his knives as blue lightsabers like they were in the original MK1 and 3. I prefer sci-fi and fantasy elements over too much realism and Kano’s one character that I think benefits from more tech in his arsenal. The variety of Konsumables–which have abilities that range from letting you call in another character to perform an assist attack, rain missiles down from the sky, or simply replenish your health–can give you extra tools to help keep a handle on the situation.

The extra character and stage are nice, and Kratos has a pretty cool ending, but it probably isn’t a make-or-break addition unless you’re a huge fan of the God of War series. Following the good work seen in Injustice 2, Mortal Kombat 11 features a comprehensive series of fantastic practical tutorials, with everything from teaching you basic attacks to more advanced lessons on managing the ebb and flow of a match, strategies on how to change or maintain the dynamic of a fight (like dealing with corners or projectile spam), and how to approach building your own combos. The subplots within the series contribute little to the story fleshed out in the series of video games, bringing in popular fighters where available (Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Kitana and Quan Chi) while creating paper cutout supplementary villains (Qali, Mika, Master Cho and Kreeya). This is MK’s take on the “quarter match” or “endless battle” mode, allowing up to eight players to join a room and spectate fights while they wait for their turn to take on the current winner.

While it goes out of its way to recall some of the fighting mechanics popularized by MKII and MK3, the game doesn’t play like some total throwback, either. But some of them get way crazier, like one where instead of using normal attacks, each button press launches one of your limbs at your enemy. Like past games, most of the concept art isn’t really worth dwelling on for very long, so versus screen “kombat kodes,” costumes, and fatality instructions are the most important things to get out of the krypt. Those second outfits, methods to perform the second fatalities, and loads of concept art and music are unlocked via the “krypt,” which behaves much as it has in past MK games. Shadow Kung Jin: Unlocked in the Krypt, in the Gallery of Shadows area (-1, 4), OR by beating Klassic Tower as him. Win 30 total matches in the Klassic King of the Hill.