Whew, I finally (at about 3AM last night, yawn) completed the Challenge Tower... I had been trying to stretch it out as best I could, as I wasn’t quite ready to be “done” with the SP game here, but once I got into the final 20 or 30 challenges (there are 300 in total) they started to become so wonderfully insanely difficult that I couldn’t resist attacking them anymore.

There are of course going to be some “spoilers” in this, so read at your own risk please. I’ll do another warning on the reward for completing the tower  later, so you are clear to read my musings without spoiling that final reveal (wink, wink) if you like…

For starters, I just want to mention how incredibly bad-ass the entire experience was. I waited to start this mode until I had already completed the story and unlocked everything (else), and I was pretty much expecting this to just be a goofy chore like the SF4 challenges. Well boy, was I ever wrong on that…

I’m not sure at this point which I enjoyed more, the tower or the story mode, and while parts of it were certainly difficult, I thoroughly enjoyed playing through it and was overjoyed at some of the included content that I was not expecting.

First I want to mention some of the great stuff they crammed in there that could be a welcome addition to (on-Disk)DLC at some point. You would have thought this mode would just be Kombat Kodes and junk, but it was far from it, there was all kinds of content in there that never rears its head in the regular Ladder or MP modes.

The coolest stuff that comes to mind was all the additional playable characters. The most obvious one that I’m sure will end up as DLC was Goro. I was expecting after that to play as Shao Kahn and Kintaro as well, but that did not happen… Fortunately, there was a bunch of other additions as well.

Cyber Reptile. This was just an alternate costume (as opposed to Cyber SubZero), and I couldn’t say offhand if it was merely a palette swap of another cyborg, but it was still damn cool. I’d be happy to see that as an alternate for him.

The Director (Johnny Cage story line). Heh, this one was pretty silly, but it was a nice addition regardless. He wasn’t a fully fleshed out character, but they could have pretty easily added some of Cages moves to his roster and made him playable, but somehow I doubt that will happen.

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Zombies! Heh, anyone that knows me would understand immediately that I got a HUGE kick out of the zombie content in here as I am a rabid fan of anything undead. The Zombie versions of the regular characters were great, and while there is a Kombat kode you can enter in to activate this “mode”, I’d personally love to see that be a selectable “costume” for each character so I could enjoy it in the other modes besides Versus. On top of the zombie “costumes” for the regular fighters, there are also playable zombies as well. There wasn’t much to them and they didn’t have a full move set or anything, so they couldn’t be a “real” character, but I liked getting the chance to control them in the tower.

Other Alternate costumes in the tower included a MK1 fight between Sub-Zero and Scorpion, which should further enflame people that they may have to pay for those costumes going forward. I have heard some rumors that those costumes become unlocked by completing the “master” requirements for each character, but that remains to be seen. Obviously it would seem odd to do that since those things were pre-order bonuses (I personally got Scorpion), but I have also read a quote from Ed Boon that people were going to be sorry if they bought those codes off of Ebay. Whether he just meant that they would be cheap DLC versus the premium prices they are going for on Ebay is still in question, but it could go either way really.

I’m sure there was some other stuff that I’m blanking out on now, but regardless, the point is, it was a blast and just chock full of nutty content.

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Now, on to some tips if anyone cares to read them, as I’ve heard quite a bit of rumblings on the forums about how insanely hard some of these challenges were.

I don’t have the game in front of me, so I’m not going to give actual numbers for most of these, but that should be pretty easy to figure out if you’re stuck on one. I’m sure I’m overlooking some hard ones here as well, but these are the ones that stand out in my mind as being the biggest challenge (or should be to some.)

Oh, the single biggest thing to understand (which I wish I had realized last night), is that the sliding scale of the difficulty only takes effect if you get a failure. As in, if you retry mid-fight, or for that matter at any point before the failure notice has come and gone and the retry option shows itself on its own time, the difficulty will NOT ramp down accordingly. I wish I had known that prior to this morning, because I worked on the final challenge for hours, and I think I only saw the actual failure notice show to completion once. Oh well, live and learn… I’m not 100% sure what they do to lessen the difficulty, but I’ve definitely noticed it take effect. I believe the AI gets a bit less combo-heavy, and I even read today that you get more health back in-between fights.

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Ok, getting into some specifics.

Tilting-stage battles. This doesn’t seem so bad in the lower tiers, but once you get up towards the top they get increasingly difficult as the AI ramps up. The only piece of advice I can really give on these is to play extremely offensively. It seems to me that the longer you stretch out a fight the harder it becomes due to the AI regaining health so quickly. I noticed that if I just kept on them and just peppered them with combos I could keep them from regaining health. These challenges didn’t really pose all that much trouble for me, but there was one towards the end that had me swearing at the TV.

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Test Your Might. Now, I’m a pretty good at doing “finger-seizures” after gaming for this long, and even I started to go a little nutty on some of the upper tiers of these. That is, until I realized something that changed the entire playing field and made them all a cakewalk. That incredibly important piece of information is very simple, but infinitely powerful. When the timer runs out, the character will drop their fist on their own, WITHOUT you needing to hit the shoulder button. This changes the whole game because you can then position your hand properly without needing to keep a finger on those shoulders. I realized a long time ago that the best way to do these type of spastic button hits is to rest the controller on my leg, put one finger on each button (the 4 face buttons in this case), and just alternate between them. I can max out that meter in about 2 seconds doing this, and painlessly keep it at the top for quite a while. The trick here is to wait until the timer reaches the 3 or less before you start the frantic pressing. On the last tier of this, I believe I waited for it to hit 2. Then just wail on the four buttons and wait for the timer to stop. Easy as punch and pie.

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Stryker VS Shao Kahn X 3. This one scared the Bazeesus out of me until I realized how insanely simple it is. If it had been many of the other characters it would have been VERY painful, but they actually gave you the easiest guy in the game to do this with thankfully. Shao Kahn (and for that matter Goro and Kintaro) have very strict AI responses in how they deal with projectile based attacks. In the case of Shao Kahn, he will throw one of his two projectiles at you as long as you are not within grabbing range. This is his death knell when dealing with anyone, but particularly characters with multi-projectile attacks such as Kitana or Stryker.  It’s very simple; get as far away from him as you can and spam Stryker’s gun attack. He will often block the first bullet, but since you shoot two, he will almost always get hit by the second one. Alternate this with the enhanced version whenever you can, and he will drop like a sack of potatoes in no time. I would bet a million dollars that if given a couple of tries I could get a (triple) flawless victory in this battle with this tactic.

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#300 – Goro, Kintaro, Milieena, Shao Kahn.

This one had me pulling my damn hair out for several hours, but it is actually possible. The first time I beat Mileena I jumped off the couch with jubilation, only to be in a state of shock and awe when Shao Kahn walked out afterward. I don’t find Shao Kahn to be all that hard to beat really, but after that insane endurance match I simply didn’t have the health to deal with him. This one is all going to come down to character selection, so thankfully, they give you the option. You simply need to take someone who has a great projectile/long range attack and a good ground based combo. I’ve done it with both Kitana and Kung Lao, and I’m sure there are multiple others.

The single hardest part of this fight is dealing with the uber-Mileena; the three “boss” characters are a cake-walk.A general theory to understand on this fight is that it seems to add more powerups to the enemy the longer the fight goes on, so (if its not your normal strategy anyway,) try to be as offensive and quick as you possibly can.

Winning with Kitana: Goro is not as simple to defeat as Kintaro, but he will drop easily enough. The basic strategy with him is to pepper him with her fan at long range, and jump in for a good combo whenever he misses one of his attacks or does his taunting. I don’t really have a combo to suggest here, as I changed it up quite a bit, but throwing a couple of punches into a fan lift, into a jump kick fanX2 is a good one and it pushes him far enough away to continue your projectile game. A good rule of thumb here is that if he gets your health below 3/4, give it up.

Next is Kintaro, who is the easiest of the bunch. When the fight starts, jump backwards and do an air fan to his head, when you hit the ground, toss her standard fans. (NEVER use the enhanced against him) The rest is very simple; just spam him with fans until he does his jumping smash. When you see him go into the air, wait a second, then jump backwards and kick in the air. The timing is VERY loose/forgiving, and you can kick him out of it virtually every damn time. Just rinse and repeat; he typically doesn’t even hit me to be honest. Again, if your health is much below 3/4 after him, I’d give it up.

Next is the hardest part, Mileena. She is lightning fast, does insanely long combo strings every time she hits you, and will kick the ever loving hell out of you if you attempt to jump at her. The basic strategy here is to just turtle her until she gets close, then unleash on her. Do NOT jump at her, ever; just block and wait for her to come to you. I did find that whatever reaction she tries to do against Mitana’s D-F-K attack (the one where she does like a spinning three hit combo with her fans) doesn’t seem to get off fast enough for her, so you can pummel her easily enough by simply spamming that move. She seems pretty susceptible to fan attacks as well, provided you are far enough away, and I finally beat her by alternating between these two methods until I built up an Xray and finished her off.

Finally is Shao Kahn, which is almost as easy to defeat with Kitana as he is with Stryker. You are going to need a little health here, as he will surprise me every once and a while, but if you have 1/2 a bar going in you’re in pretty good shape. It’s fairly close to the way you beat him with Stryker that I mentioned above, you just spam him with fans. The difference here is that Kitana’s fans don’t come out as fast and furious as Stryker's bullets, so you do actually have to pay attention to what he is doing and react accordingly. It’s still fairly simple though; just get at a good distance, start tossing fans and react to his one of two responses. He will either throw his spear or his hammer. If he throws his spear, you can often times catch him with your fan before he gets it out of his hand, and just continue the abuse, but if it does leave his hands, just jump backwards over it or duck under it and go back to tossing. When he does the hammer toss, immediately stop whatever you are doing and wait for it to come close, then jump backwards over it (do not block it), and go back to tossing fans. Rinse and repeat until he’s dead. It will take you a couple of tries to get the timing down, but once you have it, he’s a cake walk.

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I’m sure there are some other fights I’m blanking out on now, but those were the ones that I remember the best right now. If anyone has any questions on how to beat any other ones, please do ask and I’ll add them to the mix.

Final spoiler warning on what you gain by completing the tower....

I’m sure this information is available all over the place, but I have intentionally kept blinders on to all secret content so I could experience it myself, and I was pretty dang amused by this. When you finish the tower you get the “Best Alternate Costume Ever” trophy, and unlock the third costume for Mileena, which I believe is called like the “flesh-pits” suit or something.  (Image below) It is basically just her, naked, with a thin bandage going across her nipples and wrapped around her lady parts. Heh, watching her do her little mammary-groping shimmy in this outfit is pretty damn funny, especially since her face is exposed and she looks like a damn demon. I’ve seen some people pissed off that this was the final prize, and really, I can’t say as I get that. It’s a third unlock-able costume that I would think most teen or repressed boys would be fawning over. I mean hell, I've seen people do this type of stuff with skin editors on PC games for years…

In any event, I had a blast playing through this mode and I loved the rewards and trophies it gave me. As I’ve said before, this IS the fan’s Mortal Kombat, and they really did everything they could do to make this game a winner. I bow before you Ed Boon.