Actual 3D combat has arrived to the MK series, but the first step was not an easy one.
Oh, Mortal Kombat...getting into the 3D era was not as easy for the series as some fans seem to think. It's true that the graphics in this game are a big step up from MK4 and MK Gold. What's also true is that the roster has some improvements, although a major risk was taken with the deaths of Liu Kang and Shao Kahn. However, the most important part is the gameplay. Is it fun? Well...kinda.
This game did improve on the somewhat shallow kombat of the previous entry of the series. The problem is that this game commits what some fans would consider a sin. Whenever you press down and high punch, you used to throw an uppercut. That had been the case since the first Mortal Kombat game. That's not how it works in this game anymore. Similarly, pressing back and low kick won't always lead to a sweeping kick, back and high kick won't always throw a roundhouse, etc.
I can easily see some developer thinking that this was a good idea, branding it as Mortal Kombat getting with the times. In practice, though, this just leads to the bothersome experience of checking the move list of every character and having to experiment until you get the hang of what's convenient. If each character had one martial art and one weapon, that'd be one thing. That's not the case here - characters have 2 martial arts, and a weapon they use. It's a bit much to take in, compared to what MK4 offered. A proper balance was struck with Mortal Kombat 2011, but until then, the series had something of a tough time getting the core gameplay to be fun.
Now, I'm not saying I didn't have fun with this. On the contrary, once I got the hang of what works with the characters I like, I was able to enjoy myself. Getting to that point can be tougher for other players. Plus, I mentioned MK 2011 - that game and its sequels got the fighting done so well that this PS2 era of Mortal Kombat aged like milk, in comparison. This one, in particular, suffers from some balancing issues. Some characters can impale their opponents, making them bleed to an eventual death. Others don't have this ability, and you can imagine how that can be a major disadvantage.
My recommendation to anyone curious is to keep things simple. Learn just what is needed (pop-ups like uppercuts, basic combos, sweeping moves, special moves, fatalities) from each character you like.
Speaking of characters - it has to be said that some of the new ones are absolute duds. Mavado, in particular, struck me as very lame. With a very limited amount of special moves, and his name that's very close to "malvado" ("evil" in spanish), I just can't see this dude having many fans. He looks like someone on the development team watched Matrix and wondered how they could get Neo into Mortal Kombat. Drahmin is also a particularly poor character. Who wants to play as masked Meat with flies buzzing around him? His fighting styles leave him with few options to attack, and it just feels like he should have been a sub-boss instead of a playable character. I don't have the same hate for Hsu Hao that Ed Boon does, but I feel something worse - apathy. When you don't even care to hate a character, that's bad. Bo' Rai Cho is another character where the name throws him into laughable territory to spanish speakers ("borracho" = "drunk") - the story of how the development team landed on that name is even sillier.
Are there any positives on the roster? Of course. Kenshi is a heroic version of Ermac, gameplay-wise, and I was always a fan of his. I found the lore behind Li Mei to be nice, but she unfortunately doesn't get happy endings here or in Mortal Kombat Deception. In fact, her ending in this game is downright depressing. Shang Tsung and Quan Chi are badasses, Kitana is still one of my favorite characters, and Kung Lao...well, his alternate costume is cool. Raiden has one of his better designs in the entire series here, Scorpion and Sub-Zero are still good, although seeing an old Sub-Zero without a mask can be somewhat off-putting to some. Reptile, though? Yikes, this has to be his worst look. I actually liked Nitara, and was sad to see her getting thrown out so quickly after this game. Frost wasn't the worst idea, but maybe giving her a name other than just "Frost" could have gone a long way. Also, giving her different special moves or not giving her a tragic ending could have helped. Kano and Cyrax definitely feel like they got upgraded in this era of Mortal Kombat.
The typical Arcade mode is here, and there are no more towers from MK3 or MK4, which is a bit of a letdown. You go through opponents and eventually reach Moloch, a rather generic sub-boss when you consider the history of the series. Goro had gotten an upgrade in MK4, and it would have been neat to see Kintaro here, but nope, they went with Moloch. It's not like he even has a noteworthy move set. The final boss is either Shang Tsung or Quan Chi, which is understandable given where the story of this game went, but also a little lazy. In hindsight, Midway should have had Onaga ready to go for Deadly Alliance. Either that, or maybe they shouldn't have killed off Shao Kahn. Decisions, decisions.
I should give credit where it's due - the stages are mostly great for the time. I just feel like something is missing regarding the soundtrack. Some of the songs feel like plain martial arts music, and frankly, most of them didn't stick with me like the soundtracks of earlier Mortal Kombat games. They could have also used some stage fatalities, but that was added in the sequel to this game.
That's ultimately what I keep running into with Deadly Alliance. Nearly every time I try to praise it, there's always the "but..." - even when I'm enjoying the kombat, there are some issues. This time, the AI isn't quite the problem, but in higher difficulties, I feel like you have to look for an opening that the AI leaves for you. If you try to be aggressive and attack first, you're likely not winning unless you stay at lower difficulty settings. You can also hit invisible walls in some stages, and that can get really annoying when the AI is hitting long combos on you. Yes, the invisible walls can hurt you, try to stay away from the edges of the stages.
To unlock characters, you'll have to collect some koins. You do this by winning fights or by going through the Konquest mode under your profile. The Konquest is just a way to make you practice with each character, it's honestly mediocre and kind of a stretch to call that a Konquest. You can use your koins at the krypt, but there's so much to get at the krypt. Honestly, it's not worth the time to unlock everything there. This is why I recommend downloading a save with everything unlocked, and making use of that.
If I could use an analogy, this game is like watching a beginner trying to drive a manual car. There's going to be some stalling, there's going to be some issues with changing gears at the right time, and all sorts of little details like that are going to be apparent. Midway's the driver in that analogy, and this game was most certainly a learning experience for them. It's not a bad Mortal Kombat game, but it is far, FAR from the best.
