Is Mortal Kombat 11 Good?

Updated:

02 Sep 2023

Is Mortal Kombat 11 Good?

Mortal Kombat! I suspect at least some of you remember the song from the cheesy 90’s movie when you hear that. But of course, it's much more famous as one of the biggest fighting game series in the world, and a new entry is out very soon. So now feels like a good time to revisit the previous entry in Mortal Kombat 11 and see where the series left off. I should note I’m not an expert at fighting games, but that shouldn’t be an issue since most players won’t have that level of skill. So with that, let us kontinue (I promise to keep the k jokes to a minimum).

10. Graphics

Witness Johnny Cage doing… whatever he’s doing here

As a cross-gen game released around first on last gen before being ported over to current consoles, MK11 doesn’t look quite as good as it could. The previous consoles, not to mention the Switch, hold it back a tad visually.

But despite this, it still looks quite impressive. And with a crisp frame rate most of the time, this game does not disappoint visually.

9. Music

Fight scenes to jam to

As for music, it's really what you’d expect. Mostly faster-paced battle music, but the existence of the story means there are some slower pieces of music. As I always say, music is subjective, so it's hard to give a conclusive take here and why I’m leaving the music linked as I’ve been doing. For me, it gets the job done but not too much more, but others might like it quite a bit.

Mortal Kombat 11 Original Game SoundTrack

8. Fun Factor

Scorpion wins, Fatality

For the time I played it, I had quite a good time with MK11. I haven’t played a ton of the series in general, just dabbled over the years, so longtime fans may have grievances I don’t. But my perspective should show that newcomers or casual fans should have a good time here. And the Fatalies are finally a bit easier to pull off, that’s definitely a plus.

7. Replayability

Collecting…. something

It's a fighting game, so it goes without saying there’s a lot of replay value here. Provided you have people to play with of course, but games being online makes that a lot easier.

And even ignoring the competitive aspect, the story and more arcadey single-player modes give a lot to do if that’s something you’re interested in. Some of these are alright, while others exist for some reason. Looking at you Krypt, a mode I barely dabbled in after finding it was largely an open area to roam and open chests to unlock various cosmetics. It's kind of cool I guess, but why those aren’t just unlocked by playing the game I have no idea.

6. Story

A scene that will definitely make sense when you play the story

Yep, there’s a decent-sized story mode here, and it's actually not bad. I won’t go into details since it's not super long and does technically continue from the story of the previous two games. This does mean you’ll want some idea of what happened in those, but it's not hard to catch up on if you didn’t play them.

As for the story on offer here, it's not bad and well, if you saw the trailer for the upcoming Mortal Kombat 1, you may remember it mentioning the game being set in a new world. That is established here in this game’s story. We never see more than brief glimpses of it, but still. MK11 is the last of the old world before it is reset. For people interested in the world and lore of Mortal Kombat, this story is essential. Even if you just watch the cutscenes.

5. Difficulty

It just felt right to put Shao Kahn here

This one is very hard to evaluate properly, as skill with fighting games can vary wildly. I would expect those who are great at the genre to have little difficulty, while others may struggle at points. This is in regards to AI opponents of course, as playing against other people is something you definitely cannot predict. So in short, it depends. Not the most definitive I know, but fighting games be like that…. and yes, the story does have some cheesy bosses. They always do.

4. Characters

Can you spot the crossovers? Totally not the obvious ones in the back, noooo…..

There’s probably some MK classics missing, but for the most part? The roster here is probably the best of the MKs I’ve played. You have the classics who never go anywhere, you have the kids who are growing into characters of their own, and even some of the older favorites are back. And some new ones…. I think, there’s like eight of these games I haven’t played.

And the crossover characters… yep, Mortal Kombat has been good at this for a while. I played Ultimate, so I’m not sure which of these were originally DLC. But on offer, we have Rambo, Robocop, Spawn, The Joker, and The Terminator. That has to be one of the best cameo lineups in a fighting game, and they all fit in very well. Full points here.

3. Updates and DLC

It's a fighting game, of course it has DLC

Remember that story? It got a five-chapter expansion (main was twelve chapters) called Aftermath. This name isn’t entirely accurate given what happens here, but it's still more story to play that features DLC characters, which is nice considering they feel like shallow inclusions in a lot of fighting games. And its ending offers more setup for the upcoming new game, so another thing to keep in mind.

Aside from this, the new content was about what you’d expect. Patches, some characters, costumes, all that stuff. Now you can easily obtain the Ultimate version of the game with everything packed in, so what was DLC and wasn’t doesn’t matter a lot anymore. But yes it had quite a bit.

2. World

The very purple realm of Outworld

The world(s) of Mortal Kombat are a lot, and I won’t admit to knowing all the complicated lore. Earthrealm, which is simply Earth, and Outworld, the home of Shao Kahn and his forces, are always the main places. But there are quite a few others with harder explanations. But to put it simply? They are all dark and hard to live in places. Because it is Mortal Kombat.

For Mortal Kombat is a dark world to live in, whichever realm it is. The tournaments forced upon the world by its rulers kill even if you aren’t in them, and for those who are it's a painful end. And then in this game particularly they just had to introduce time travel, so some people could die again. What fun!

1. Gameplay

The most famous matchup of Mortal Kombat, because of course

It's only fitting to end a discussion of a fighting game addressing the actual gameplay. Having played MK9 and 10 before this, from my experience this felt the most polished in terms of pure gameplay. The combat was fast, smooth, and extremely crisp. And since I was playing on PS5, the whole experience utilized the controller’s haptics, which I have to say is the way to go if you can.

And that about covers it. MK11 is a solid fighting game with no real weaknesses as far as I can tell, but again, a pro in the fighting scene may disagree, I don’t have a way of knowing there. But for myself and likely most people interested in trying out a fighting game, it does the job pretty well. Now GET OVER HERE!

Score: 9/10