Mortal Combat X Xbox One

Mortal Kombat X upholds the series' legacy, which is evident in the story mode and the return of a dozen classic characters. Once again, the focus is on the battle between realms, elder gods, and humanity. The introduction of a few new faces on the side of Earthrealm, the good guys, freshens things up, although not as much as you would hope. The inclusion of the offspring of legacy characters, like Johnny Cage and Sonya Blade's daughter, Cassie, may prove to be intriguing for die-hard fans of Mortal Kombat's lore, but with the exception of Takashi Takeda (Kenshi's son) and Kung Jin (the younger cousin of Kung Lao), most of them are too similar to their relatives and ultimately fail to stand out in a meaningful way.

There are also a handful of new bad guys, though "fresh" may not be the best word to describe their grotesque visages. Characters such as the insect like D'vorah and the gunslinger Erron Black inject new personalities into the series' aging roster and introduce new fighting styles. D'vorah strikes with spider-like arms that spring from her back, Erron Black uses firearms, and the fighting duo called Ferra Torr is comprised of a little girl who commands a hulking brute from atop his back. The new characters on each side of the battle fit into their respective factions, but it's the bad guys that are most notable, largely because they are original creations, rather than derivations from pre-existing characters.

Even if you don't care about the made-for-fans story, it's hard not to appreciate the new fighting engine, which is the smoothest the series has ever seen. It's not a sea change from the last game, but you quickly appreciate that combos are more fluid and that animations are more nuanced. The meter you charge by taking hits and doling out special moves returns from the last game, allowing you to power-up special attacks, break enemy combos, and perform an x-ray attack, which reveals the insides of one opponent while the attacker breaks them into pieces in slow motion, accompanied by excruciating moans of pain. The introduction of a stamina bar limits your ability to spam dashing maneuvers, which makes it more difficult for you to rely on spacing alone to win a fight. Likewise, the interactive elements in each stage, which allow you to pummel your opponent with a background item, or escape a corner by leaping off of a large object, can only be used if you have enough stamina. This particular meter recharges on its own, but it takes long enough--relative to the pace of a heated battle--to make it an important consideration during high-level matches.

Mortal Kombat X also marks the introduction of factions, or teams, that compete on a worldwide scale. Joining a faction is the first thing you do after booting up the game, and as you fight in the game's various modes, you earn points for your faction and level up. Eventually you hit milestones that open up faction kills, which are essentially simpler versions of fatalities. Every week, a faction is chosen as the winner and its members earn a reward in the form of a faction kill or a cosmetic item. Once in a while, an invasion occurs and factions compete to fight a character with extreme rules, and the more you play, the more you contribute to the team's efforts. The faction system isn't the sort of feature that will grip your attention, but invasions are nice because they make you feel like you're contributing to a concentrated effort, rather than the long-winded score chase of the weekly faction war.

Mortal Kombat X's lesser elements exist outside the most important part of the game: the fighting. A great roster with a wide range of diverse fighting styles and variations gives you plenty to play around with, and the new fighting mechanics add the right amount of depth to nudge Mortal Kombat X ever higher on the list of respectable fighting games. There's also the gruesome creativity, which is entertaining for its absurdity but shocking for its emphasis on acute torture. Although you can't escape it, Mortal Kombat X's violence doesn't come at the cost of great gameplay design; it's either your punishment for failure, or your reward for mastering the art of kombat.