Đánh giá the mortal kombat xl năm 2024

So, Mortal Kombat X‘s full-fat gameplay was a real joy. Packed full of content and brimming with humour and gore in equal measure -well, probably more gore than humour to be honest – the game ended up being the best fighting game I had played in years, taking a thoroughly high production values approach to the gameplay of the early games in the series.

Set on a strictly 2D plane but with fully 3D graphics (a’la Street Fighter 4), the gameplay feels like classic Mortal Kombat fare. It’s faster and fancier than most fighting games and has lots of fun little aspects to the gameplay such as the brutal X-Ray moves which can turn a fight for you and background interactions that also make things a little more interesting. Each character also has three fighting styles with different special moves and of course you’ve got all the fatalities and brutalities you can eat.

The only downside to Mortal Kombat X was that a lot of extra content was locked behind some expensive DLC paywalls. It’s one thing getting extra campaigns via DLC but when it is just characters and skins, it all feels a bit of a rip off to me. Especially when desirable characters like Goro are going to cost you a few quid on top of the full asking price of the game.

Mortal Kombat XL gives you the original game plus all of the DLC. When compared to the embarrassingly anaemic Street Fighter V, seeing a game that is so absolutely stuffed with content is great. Aside from all the early DLC content (with characters like Goro, Jason Vorhees and Predator), you also get the second season pass pack which adds some very interesting characters.

Xenomorph – the alien from er… Alien makes an appearance. This time clearly a facehugger has mouthbummed one of Baraka’s mates because the xeno has inherited Baraka’s move set. Hard to master, this is an interesting character to play as. It also lets you settle that AvP argument once and for all.

Leatherface – as expected, this masked nutcase is all about the chainsaw. He’s clunky but tons of fun to play as and his chainsaw certainly ups ante for you gorehounds.

Bo Rai Cho – this fighting pisshead makes his return to the series and brings back his drunken master style of kung fu along with plenty of farting and puking.

Triborg – actually four characters in one, Triborg’s three selectable styles (and a fourth hidden behind a quick button combo) are individual characters based on the robot ninjas from the series. Cyrax, Sektor, Cyber Smoke and Cyber Sub-Zero. These share a fatality move set unfortunately but it’s still a nice way to add some extra characters to the game.

This takes the roster of selectable characters up to a ridiculous amount and with a host of on and off-line modes, as well as a heap of fatalities to play around with, there’s so much to see and do here. On top of that, you also have the now-standard Krypt (which unlocks extra… er kontent…. such as skins and fatalities over time). Having it all on the disc, rather than via downloads, is also a bit of a bonus. The trophy list is shared with Mortal Kombat X though.

Admittedly, if you’re a frame-counting, Sanwa stick owning tournament guy then you’ll be sticking to Street Fighter as ever. But if you’re a normal player who wants a bit of a story and lots and lots of accessible action, this is your best bet. At least until a proper Tekken hits the PS4.

With its fantastic graphics, over the top presentation and impressive roster, Mortal Kombat XL is a truly excellent fighting game. It’ll last you a while (longevity can be an issue with fighting games) at least until you’ve seen and done everything and it is straight up a lot of fun. It may not be as vigourously tweaked for balance like other games but equally we’re not expecting to see five different versions of it. Mortal Kombat XL is the definitive version of one of the best fighting games of this generation and is well worth a look.

Mortal Kombat XL

Summary

The best Mortal Kombat game to date bundled with all that DLC? XL is the complete package. It offers a ton of single player content and great competitive mode options too.

Right off the bat, I notice that when compared to Injustice 2, Mortal Kombat XL has a similarly satisfying combat aesthetic. Again, I really have to appreciate the sound design for these games. Every hit has a strong audio pulse behind it, adding a nice “umph” to the attacks on display. This soundscape especially important, since the visuals contain more blood and viscera than the superhero game does. The sounds of chunky human bits are important. While people may know the franchise for its extreme gore, NetherRealm reminds players that quality fighting is the main draw.

Each fighter has a jab, a hook, a front kick, and a back kick (or whatever equivalent exists for their design) that can be modified using the directional buttons. They also have a grab attack (L1 or X + square), and a second special attack (Triangle + Circle) which usually follows others combos. Lastly, the fighters have special moves activated by pressing a specific sequence of directional and attack buttons. Special attacks can get a power boost by using the Meter that fills up after dealing or taking damage. One Meter bar enhances an attack, but all three bars activates the X-ray attack, a brutal cinematic that deals heavy damage and breaks enemy bones.

The toughest part about any new fighting game is getting used to the new controls. In Mortal Kombat XL, the fourth attack button allows for a greater range of combos, sequences of buttons the players press for more powerful attack streams. Like the Injustice games, combos are necessary for success, since button mashing only lets you move at about one hit per second (i.e. too slow). So only being able to tag six combos on screen, and not being able to tag any in the story mode at all, was a big bummer. Once I wrapped my head around the memorization demands, I appreciated the variety.

Blocking was also different from most fighting games, in that you hold the R2 button instead of just the back button (R2 + down for a low block). This led to some embarrassing wallops as I attempted to unlearn that habit. Thankfully, NetherRealm appears to have anticipated the learning experience I went through, because pressing R2 while getting hit activates a combo breaker. It lets players spend a Meter bar to interrupt an enemy combo and regain their footing. This breaker feels like the perfect addition for gamers who realize halfway through an ass beating that block is a different button.

As for the game modes, there are multiplayer and single player options. The multiplayer modes have a Two Player section for couch co-op. Two friends can play a straightforward fight, or you can play a match with modifiers. The modifiers are stage conditions that add ostensibly fresh, but mostly just annoying, changes to the fight. These can include saw blades on the floor, lasers from the sky, magnetic bursts that pin you to the ground, skulls that slow the character and much more. Many other modes in Mortal Kombat XL feature modifiers, and they are more often aggravating than not.

Bubbles being the only exception; these are fun

The online features are expansive. Players can form a lobby, fight other players (with or without the modifiers described before), or battle team versus team. You can roleplay a cheerleader in King of the Hill mode, or you engage in competitive Tower battles: two players fight a series of kombatants, and the one with the highest score at the end wins. I want to focus, however, on the Leaderboards. This is the list with the names, ranks, and records of every person in this game who is better than you are (i.e. many names, ranks, and records). For me, online play in aspirational and a bit scary.

That is why I spend my time in the single player modes. After getting through tutorial and training, I head over to a Tower. There are Traditional Towers, pitting players against ten random fighters. At the end, the player gets a score and a reward based on their performance. Test Your Luck Towers pit players against seven fighters, but now the maps have modifiers on them, with “Luck” alluding to the arena nonsense you have to deal with. Test Your Might Towers are karate-chopping exercises that involve button mashing, like a mini-game that gets its own pedestal. Lastly, there is an Endless Tower (fight until you drop) and Survivor Tower (health carries to the next match, until you drop).

Towers and the single fight mode are usually my jam. If I have a long day, or if I do not feel like sitting down to play an expansive RPG, I can just drop into a few quick matches and have my fix. I might even do something for my faction: the team I signed up for at the beginning of the game. You complete Faction events (grinding a Tower) to earn War Points until a Faction wins. These remind me of the teams in Pokémon Go: Valor, Mystic and Instinct. There is little appreciable difference between them, yet our compulsion to hate the out-group makes the rivalry feel worthwhile. At least you get some Koins at the end of the week.

The other important single player mode is the story. This is not a throwaway distraction, nor is it just a really badly constructed movie (hello Guilty Gear Xrd Revelator). I can tell that NetherRealm tries to give players solid, character driven stories. My favorite are the newer characters. Cassie Cage, Jacqui Briggs, Takeda, and Kun Jin all have a strong group dynamic, working to live up to their masters, some of whom are their parents. Ferra/Torr, and Erron Black are menacing villains, while D’Vorah is downright unsettling. Mortal Kombat XL even gave the series its first openly gay character. Cool!

However, these new faces take a backseat for the complex Mortal Kombat lore, a web of motivations, loyalties, power structures, deities, and vengeance. One of the old gods Shinnok used a tournament as a way to distract from his true plan to wage a war on Earthrealm and consume its energy. I am not sure how people felt knowing that the Mortal Kombat (2011) story was just a senseless distraction, but I doubt there was any scandal. While I just found the whole thing confusing, everyone on screen was passionate about their nonsense, so I just enjoyed the ride. Except for Scorpion. He knows why.

What actually bothers me is the quick time events during the cut scenes. Granted, I do not hate the QTE on principal, but I object to them in Mortal Kombat XL because they are useless. I know the goal is to test my reaction time during heated battles, so why not just let me fight the character with the one-on-one combat this game already has? The answer is that scenes must transition between maps, and the button prompts keep my attention. The only problem is that I never needed to press them. I could miss every QTE and suffer no consequences. There was no game over, and damage did not carry over to the match. They served no function other than to prolong the campaign.

Now, the big Mortal Kombat attraction is the Fatalities. With the exception of the gross characters like D’Vorah or Reptile, most of these are funny. Over the top gory finishers are just a good laugh after a while. The unique violent finisher for Mortal Kombat XL, however, is the Brutality. If your character meets a few specific requirements during the match and kills their opponent with the right move, then the last strike lands with an extra bloody burst. I found these to be slightly more rewarding, since they reward finesse during the match.

Regardless of which finishing blow you prefer, the characters have few to begin with. There may be one of two Fatalities and Brutalities to start, but the rest come from the Krypt. This is a graveyard players navigate using grid-based movement (e.g. Legend of Grimrock or Heroes from the Monkey Tavern). The tombstones in this graveyard all contain a random prize accessed by spending Koins, which players earn through high Tower scores, in-fight challenges, and Faction rewards. Prizes include new Fatalities, new Brutalities, concept art, costumes, Kutsie avatars, or even more Koins.

While having to earn my characters looks and abilities motivated me to play more matches, I would have preferred to unlock more things for the fighters I played most often. I feel rewarded when the work I put in yields usable rewards. The way tombs currently work, I am now sitting on moves and costumes for characters I rarely use. This should motivate me to try a new fighter, but much of the genre is about practicing and perfecting your favorite handful. The “Jack of all Trades, Master of None” tends not to be better than the “Master of One” when it comes to fighting games.

Or, if you do not want to bother with any of that, you can just spend $19.99 to unlock all of the Krypt items in one fell swoop. I will not judge how other people spend their money, but this felt like a great way to undermine what I enjoyed about Mortal Kombat XL and Injustice 2. Maybe purists of the genre just enjoy the matches, but I value a sense of progression in my games. Getting all of the Krypt prizes by paying for them really hollows out the endgame. The other Add-Ons are no huge deal, but I am glad that I got my hands on the complete version. It lets me ignore the fact that DLC content is blatantly advertised in the start menu.

For people looking for a great fighting game, you will find one in Mortal Kombat XL. NetherRealm have a superb handle on how to craft satisfying combat mechanics, and this title is another strong offering. I have my issues with the awkward story, the less-than-compelling upgrade system, and the borderline self-defeating monetization, but they do not totally hamper an otherwise great experience. Players looking for quality fighting can still find it in the Mortal Kombat franchise. I look forward to punching someone new in the next go-around. Maybe Paxton Fettel or Harry Potter.