Mortal Kombat XL Review
Mortal Kombat XL is Netherrealm Studios update to their smash hit Mortal Kombat X which was released last year.
XL offers several new features over the vanilla X version.
It includes a brand new stage named The Pit.
The Pit has been featured in many previous MK games and in all has offered a gruesome way yo kill your enemies, by throwing them off the narrow bridge, and onto some bloody spikes at the bottom.
The Pit in MK XL is no different. However its general appearance is more a kin to the Pit II featured in Mortal Kombat II, than it is to the original Pit found in the first Mortal Kombat.
The XL update also brings with it 2 more Stage Fatalities for existing stages. The Kove, and The Refugee Kamp. The Kove now lets you uppercut your opponent into the water and see them sink to the bottom getting pulled down by a large tentacle.
The Refugee Kamp has you uppercut your opponent into the air, where several commandos quickly shoot at the opponent turning him or her into a bloody mass.
Beyond these extras, come several adjustments and balancing to the fighters and their combos and damage output. For instance, Kung Jin's easiest combo: 1 1 1 D B 3 now does 1% less damage overall. So his flashy 1 meter, 38% combo now only does 37%.
Also it seems the timing for some moves has been changed, as I've been getting the Bo Flame more often now instead of Bo Swing or enhanced Bo Swing when trying to chain from 1 1 1 into Bo Swing. Either I'm pressing 1, one too many times or something changed with the timing.
Bo' Rai Cho, Triborg(Tetra-Borg), Alien Xenomorph, and Leather Face From Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Though these characters have to actually be purchased separately to be able to be chosen directly, you can get a feel for them without buying them by playing through certain Living towers.
I got the Tarkatan Purge Living Tower, which auto selects the Alien and you actually play as him through the tower. Its selected Variation changes as you go along the tower letting you experience most of him before buying. It actually did a pretty good job, since I'm now pretty convinced I'd like to buy him while initially I was not really drawn to him.
The other character I find most interesting is Triborg. Bringing back the player acclaimed Cyborgs: Cyrax, Sektor, Smoke, and yes Cyber Sub Zero. Each cyborg is a variation of the overall character. With Cyber Sub-Zero being slightly hidden, since you need to select him via the hidden variation option and pressing 2 while hidden.
It offers a bit more than your standard fighter, and while $4.99 is still a little steep, it is a little less egregious than $4.99 for Bo' Rai Cho for instance. I thin a general price of $3.99 per character would work better.
While I did end up picking up Kombat Pack 1 when it went on sale for $9.99 right before this update got released, I don't think I'll be doing the same next time. Jason and Predator were much better characters than Bo and Leather Face are right now.
With that said, Netherrealms in my view got it right with their update, as opposed to what Capcom ever did with their SSFIV updates. Charging for the update for those that own the previous release is low class.
Giving owners a free update with some new stages, and stage fatalities, and then letting them choose what characters to buy is a much better experience, than having to dish out $15 or $20 from the get go to get everything.
You can totally go and get a cheap copy of MKX right now, and get a free update to XL, and a menu of a total of 9 extra characters to choose from, with some decently priced packs as well.
All in all a pretty good Update.
MK X & XL are a much better deal than SFV is currently being on PS4.
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