I've only had my hands on this game for about thirty minutes so the post that kicks this thread off is gonna basically start and stop at the subject line: this game insists that you play along from the word go in a way the previous trilogy often refused to. Aside from the handful of two-one-one single life story fights, last generation's MKs were pretty content to let casual players with a hint of ingenuity fumble their way through the story and arcade modes on Medium difficulty as though it were insisting you see what happens next. Canonical story beat or hypothetical character triumph, non-competitive MK hasn't really stood up for itself in a long time. As a definitively non-competitive fighting game player without local rivals to scrum with since the heyday of SFIV: AE, I'd wager that felt like a significant chuck of the "we've got a narrative, but also skull deformation tech" pitch that makes MK unique among fighters.
SF VI's World Tour, as hilarious and wonderful as it is, does hit a point where you've either built the right fighter, gotten the right amount of good or, in my case, found some moves you like but can't quite deploy appropriately and increasingly rely on healing items and damage buffs to progress, which distorts any misguided comparisons to the Yakuza franchise into unfortunate reminders that items are equally if not more important than mastery.
I've already said more than I thought I'd say, but the deal is this: even the Novice Towers think you know what you're doing. On Medium difficulty, I died on the second story mode fight. If I hadn't literally hit credits on MK11 Aftermath for the first time right before launch MK1, I might attribute this idea to rust. But unless there's some very subtle systematic shift I've yet to grasp here (which seems unlikely, given the only time I knew what MK11's meters were meant for was whenever Jeff would explain them to someone else) this game isn't afraid to show off its combo strings, demand that you quickly assess your matchup and engage with its balance.
Again, if I hadn't literally just plowed through the MK11 DLC and found its Medium difficulty pretty acquiescent until the AI insisted otherwise I'd probably not have hurried to write a quick thought about it that once again ballooned into a full idea. It feels silly I let that happen considering I'm literally in the first chapter of the story mode anyway. From where I'm sitting though, plowing through 4 hours of MK11 DLC years after being familiar with the base game and immediately finding this game to not be fucking around...it felt significant enough to comment on.
In large part because, honestly...this game might be flagrantly incredible. Maybe.
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