Breakaway

I will 100% @ you later

In the interview going to try to mention various things so I look the most informed possible on their recent games but truthfully I fell off of gaming and especially netherrealm recently.

Street Fighter IV my s***, V was aight, Guilty Gear I am getting into. I am reading the patch notes to get a better Idea. If I get it would be 9 month QA testing contract likely on Injustice 3

Mortal Kombat (2011) and Mortal Kombat X give the player the freedom and options to play characters in unique ways, letting creativity flow which allows for more depth and different play styles. Mortal Kombat 11 gets rid of these tools, for a more streamlined approach, which in turn makes the game a lot more “cookie cutter” and formulaic. The end result is a game that’s very shallow and dull.

1. MK11 capitalizes on the variation system from MKX, and the customizable abilities from Injustice 2. Every character has a set list of special moves they can choose for a variation now, which in theory, allows for much more creativity than ever before. Like I said though, “in theory” because these variations have strong limitations that de-incentivize any creative play. There’s only 3 slots for these specials and the ratio of how many slots a moves takes up in a variation was never reconsidered, not even when Aftermath or Ultimate released. This has allowed characters that were strong enough to take advantage of this system (Cetrion) to stay strong throughout the games lifespan and characters who needed the extra push (Kitana) never grow. There’s no fun/uniqueness to be had if the character your playing was only realistically playable with 2 moves. This isn’t even me mentioning “banned moves” and the worse scenario when custom variations were not allowed in
Kombat League.

2. Armored moves and Armor break was an issue for a bit. They introduced Armor Break moves with Spawn, and eventually the gave them to the rest of the cast. However, these moves weren’t balanced across the roster. Some of the armor breaking properties were put on moves that were on a characters base moveset, while others were placed on a special move that was tied to the variation system. This created a new issue of risking a genuinely good combo starter for an armor break move while the character you were facing…was allowed both. This never made any sense.

3. Breakaway was much different from breaker in MK9 and MKX. Instead of returning the game to neutral, it would punish the player in advantage (playing the game and doing combos). There’s some debate about this, especially in MKX’s case (resetting to neutral against Mileena was a nightmare) but the overall consensus is that anyone who is doing good and playing well doesn’t deserve to get slapped on the wrist. The meter system played into this as well, as breakaway wasn’t shared with enhancing or meterburning specials anymore. Separating offense and defensive options once again streamlined things again, and removed the risk/reward factor previous Netherrealm games already established. It didn’t help that both meters weren’t affected by how bad/good the player was doing, as it increased on a timer anyway, almost like a mobile game. This made playing and watching the game very…slow.

4. Fatal Blows are the one comeback mechanic that many can agree on to never return. This mechanic has zero consequence of missing, because if a player did, just like the meter system, it’s based on quick timer. Yes it’s only available at 30% and you can’t use it again for the rest of the match if it hits, but for how much damage it does, how “fake” punishable most of them are, and how they are armored, it’s a headache to deal with and pushes all fun out the window.
5. The Krypt is really cool to walk around, and still the best “Extras” menu fighting games have to offer, but in terms of unlocking everything and having to grind so many pointless hours to get gear (which you might or may not get, since it’s randomized),it’s a chore to do. Grabbing augments just isn’t fun at all.
6. I’ve said for years that MK’s story is really dumb and not great as everyone says it is, and 11 proves that even further. Won’t really get into spoilers I guess, but it is even more disappointing then X’s.

7. The roster also is the weakest in the trilogy. Which sucks because the characters they picked aren’t bad, but since the game is the way it’s designed, most of them just aren’t fun. I know this is the most opinion thing I’ve said, but most of these characters play this games boing, one-note rules so much, or lose everything about them that made them unique in the first place. Skarlet is a good example, as her whole kit was completely changed to just show off the new blood engine they made for the game. This isn’t the first time a fighting dev changed a character to show off tech (Gill in Street Fighter III), but to erase her completely an not even have moves to customize her as her MK9 self? (Maybe this is just nitpicking, but I don’t care anymore lmao). The one character in the game that actually feels like they have that ability to let customization and strategic gameplay flow is Fujin, which yeah, he’s a DLC character.

8. There’s a lot I can say about Kombat League, but the primary focus is this. There is no real way, to determine what makes someone a “good” player with the way the ranking system works. You can play like an absolute caveman against someone, and work not even as half as hard as someone who is playing “intentionally” if that makes sense. This is less of an MK11 thing and more so a genre thing though, so I won’t stress too hard on it. But something that’s cool about Street Fighter is how it measure how good your defense is etc. It’s not perfect but it’s step in the right direction.

There’s definitely more I wanna say, but this already long as hell and is all I could think of the top of my head. Long story short, game sucks

@ShintaroKago

If you manage to land the Injustice 3 Q&A position, the only request i have is to somehow mention bringing back Enchantress in every report

Until then, see you at the next Netherrealm s***show

You say the game sucks but how many hours have you played...prolly a lot?

Lack of combo variations. People use the same 2-3 combos for every character.

200ish hours, which isn’t great but it’s also across 3 years, from playing it off and on again so idk.

I crack jokes on Netherrealm a lot, but they are pushing a lot of cool stuff and stuff that should be mandatory that other devs don’t do. Like the importance of single player content.

Gave this game too many chances

Untrusting, but I like to remain optimistic as much as possible. We’ll see

Always online was one of the dumbest decisions they made for mk11. Especially regarding the switch version. Also the weakest MK dlc ever

Damn i loved mk11 but im not deep into game mechanics like that

Completely forgot about the always online s***

Going into the Krypt and then not being able to collect rewards because you disconnected was the worst

Hope the next MK looks more darker and grittier.

The last three mortal kombat games have been good to great but the only thing I don't like is the glossy look sometimes.

Yeah I’m ready for injustice 3

Hoping they dont do MK vs DC

I do not miss playing kombat league and when I look back at it, the only thing that had me coming back was new DLC characters.

I will never forgive netherrealm for not dropping one last kombat pack, but onto new things i suppose.

Hope it all goes well bruh bruh

Still can’t believe they caved in on bringing Mileena back, Jesus Christ

There was a comment I saw from back then that read “George Floyd would’ve wanted Mileena”