Cut Your Teeth

Part 6 of a Mortal Kombat Retrospective

Deadly Alliance had been received well and though it was met with contempt and enthusiasm from polarized fans, who both criticized and praised its deviation from its original form, its sequel Mortal Kombat: Deception was released for the Playstation 2 and XBox two years later.

Deception picked up at the end of Deadly Alliance. As announced in the introductory movie, Shang Tsung and Quan Chi had successfully defeated Raiden's champions, killing Sonya, Jax, Kung Lao, Johnny Cage, and Kitana, and after an arduous battle, the two toppled Raiden as well. They immediately turned on each other, and Quan Chi bested Shang Tsung, only to be interrupted by the resurrected Dragon King - Onaga - who had been reborn in Reptile's body. Recognizing a much more powerful foe, Shang Tsung and Raiden rose to battle Onaga together, but when it was clear even their combined might was not enough, Raiden detonated his godlike essence, killing all three of them. But even this seemed to have no effect. Onaga then gathered an army and set out to destroy the universe.

Deception is, in my opinion, one of the most innovative titles in the series. Most of the staple hero characters were dead, allowing the game to include characters who had only appeared in one or two previous games. The only returning characters had designs that were incredibly reimagined: Raiden had been reborn as a dark and vengeful deity, Scorpion had become the champion of the Elder Gods, Sub-Zero had found ancient dragon armour that amplified his abilities, and Liu Kang had been reanimated as a zombie. Among other returning characters were Mileena, Baraka, Kabal, Nightwolf, Ermac, Sindel, Jade, Tanya, Bo'Rai Cho, Kenshi, Li Mei, and tag-team fighters Noob Saibot and Smoke. Filling out the cast were several new fighters, demon-hunting Ashrah, Black Dragon recruits Kira and Kobra, Havik from the realm of Chaos, Hotaru from Seido the realm of Order, Seidan rebel Darrius, and Seidan assassin Dairou. The game's protagonist was new character Shujinko.

The plot of Deception was laid out in a revamped Konquest mode, where players took control of Shujinko, and followed him from a young age to his elder years as he traversed the realms, learning combat techniques from other fighters, and collected the Kamidogu at the behest of a mysterious being called Damashi. Konquest allowed some extra weight to the new characters in the game, particularly Ashrah, Hotaru, and Onaga himself. Damashi was revealed to be a puppet of Onaga who had tricked Shujinko into collecting the Kamidogu. With the Kamidogu, Onaga could merge all existence in all realms into a single entity known as the One Being, effectively ending the universe. Character biographies were told in the first-person, each character relating their own reasons for kombat, and the endings were narrated either by Shujinko or Raiden. The story also made more serious Deadly Alliance veterans Li Mei and Bo'Rai Cho, who had previously been something of throwaway one-shot characters. Though many of the new characters were well done, some served as simply representatives of the newly revealed realms. Specifically, Darrius and Dairou held little weight to the plotline, and their somewhat generic appearances and inexplicable movesets led to them being approached with indifference. Hotaru threatened to have the same problems, but I thought his single-minded resolve and vendetta with Kenshi and Sub-Zero put him more organically into the world. The game was also an important milestone in the plot as it revealed that Noob Saibot was in fact the original Sub-Zero reborn in the Netherealm after his death in the first Mortal Kombat.

The fighting engine was an elaboration on the one from Deadly Alliance. Each character had two unarmed fighting styles and one weapon, but the addition of combo-breakers allowed fighters to interrupt long string combos, avoiding infinite juggles that plagued the previous game. It also added a somewhat useless status bar, letting players know when their foes were vulnerable. There was considerably more environmental interaction, with multi-tier arenas, unique weapons that could be picked up, and death-traps, which were effectively stage fatalities that could be used at any point during the fight and end the round. Each character had two Fatalities as well as a Hara-Kiri which they could initiate after being defeated, causing their character to commit suicide. The team-up of Noob and Smoke was also a unique game mechanic, switching characters as one would normally switch stances. Noob-Smoke served as the sub-boss before Onaga, and as they could strike from both sides in rapid succession, were a difficult enemy. The game was also the first in the series to feature an online mode, which was in 2004 still not common amongst fighting games.

"Though Test Your Might" and "Test Your Sight" were removed, new modes of play were added including "Chess Kombat," which was a lot like Archon; and "Puzzle Kombat," a competitive Tetris-like game. The game received a port to Gamecube the following year, which added exclusive fighters Goro and Shao Kahn. Unfortunately the justification for their return (as both characters were killed before Deadly Alliance) was that they had faked their deaths, which was kind of lame when their deaths were such big deals. Additionally, it made Goro evil again. That, and the lack of online play, led to the Gamecube port being less well-received than the other versions.

Nevertheless, Deception was Midway's fastest-selling game, and received more praise from critics than any game in the series since Mortal Kombat II. Midway, still in the throes of financial distress, was quick to capitalize, and soon announced a new adventure game, Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks to be released the following year. Set in the time of Mortal Kombat II, the game allowed players to take control of Liu Kang and Kung Lao as they ventured into the Outworld and attempted to defeat Shao Kahn. Shaolin Monks received generally favourable reviews. The gameplay was solid and as gruesome as one would expect from Mortal Kombat, and the boss fights with iconic characters were fun and occasionally pretty intense. Though the story suffered from poor dialogue and a somewhat juvenile relationship between Liu Kang and Kung Lao, it appeased fans who enjoyed revisiting the most popular game of the series.